How to Work with Lawyers at a Startup
I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers” written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs). I know that people have an allergy to lawyers out of fear of being screwed. Much of this is unfounded – some is not. If you’re a startup and [...]
How to Present at Big Meetings without Going Down a Rat Hole
I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. Congratulations. You’ve found a VC partner or principal who has invited you to the Monday partners’ meeting. Or on a sales campaign you’ve finally [...]
Inaugural Open Angel Forum Was a Success
Last night I attended the inaugural Open Angel Forum event started by Jason Calacanis, a fellow LA resident. Jason started the Open Angel Forum in response to his frustration that entrepreneurs were being charged by some angel organizations to present at their events. He wrote an excellent blog post on this topic. As a former [...]
Productivity Hacks: Voicemail, Folders & To-Do’s
I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “Deferred Life Plan” and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I would love to say that I’m the productivity guru. Unfortunately my wife reads my blog and she’d log in and add comments to dispel this rumor [...]
What Can You Learn from the 4-Hour Workweek?
A couple of years ago I read the popular book, “The Four Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss. It was recommended to me by my friend, Net Jacobsson, who was trying to do some basic Life Hacking. If you’re not familiar with the term it’s basically trying to help all of us who are deluged with [...]
What Makes an Entrepreneur? Perspiration (6/11)
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks, one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. I then covered Street Smarts, Ability to Pivot, [...]
What Makes an Entrepreneur (5/11) – Inspiration
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks, one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. I then covered Street Smarts, Ability to Pivot [...]
How to (re) Approach People (Advice on the Eve of LeWeb)
Business Etiquette Tips for dealing with VCs and Corporates at Conferences This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. With the LeWeb conference about to start in Paris I thought the timing of this post would be appropriate. Right after Techcrunch50 Michael Arrington wrote this great post on how to interact at business [...]
Is Strategic Money an Oxymoron?
This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round. The topic of ”strategic” investors came up. It felt like Groundhog Day because I have this conversation again and again – literally dozens of times each [...]
Hiring at a Startup? Know Thy Weaknesses
This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. I was reading one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs, VentureHacks, this weekend and noticed that they are running a long piece on how to pick a co-founder. If you’ve read my blog for a while you’ll know that I’m a fan of starting businesses [...]
Save Your Spin for Someone Who Cares
Handling PR with VCs This is part of my series on How to Raise VC but could equally be filed under Startup Advice more generally. I recently got a phone call from an entrepreneur whom I respect and who runs a company that I hope will do great things one day. He had pitched me [...]
What Makes an Entrepreneur? Four Letters: JFDI
This is part of my Startup Advice series. I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In case it’s not obvious it’s a play on the Nike slogan, “Just Do It.”) I believe that being successful as an entrepreneur requires you to get [...]
Don’t Roll out the Red Carpet on the Way out the Door
This is part of my Startup Advice series. Before I started my first company in 1999 I worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). One of the things I noticed was that when really talented people – The “A players” – wanted to quit, the firm would quickly scramble to try and keep that person from [...]
Is it Time for You to Earn or to Learn?
This is part of my Startup Advice series. I often have career discussions with entrepreneurs – both young and more mature – whether they should join company “X” or not. I usually pull the old trick of answering a question with a question. My reply is usually, “is it time for you to earn or [...]
Comments are the New Black
By Mark Suster on December 13, 2009
I’ve been thinking a lot about comments lately. I recently wrote a post about how to get access to people at conferencesand how to connect with people on social networks. These posts encouraged groups of people to provide their thoughts on these topics. As usual we began a dialog with lots of people sharing their [...]
Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged backtype, blogging, commenting, disqus, Entrepreneur Advice, intense debate, networking, Start-up Advice, Startup Advice | 1 Response