What Happens When Startups Turn from Their Innovation Stage to Operational Excellence?
Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observer in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the […]
What Do Boards Actually Do?
There’s a lot of mystique about what happens at board meetings and a lot of imagined board-room drama. I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. The image of boards and of investors […]
What is the Right Burn Rate for your Startup?
One of the hardest decisions entrepreneurs make when they start a company and raise outside capital is figuring out what an acceptable “burn rate” is. That is, how much should your company be willing to lose in cash every month as you make investments in staff and equipment that funds technology, sales, marketing and management. […]
Should Startups Care About Profitability?
There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. One of them is whether profitability matters. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re […]
Getting Your Head in the Game for Fund Raising
When you run a startup you’re always on borrowed time. You have cash in the bank, a monthly burn rate and a “cash out” date that few in the company truly comprehend. I’ve never met a founder who wasn’t acutely aware of his or her ticking time bomb and the sense that failure and humiliation […]
How MakeSpace Recently Closed $30 million in New Funding
Just over a year ago I wrote about how MakeSpace had raised $17.5 million in capital to build out its operations in 4 cities: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C. I pointed out that the storage market in the US alone is ~$30 billion / year and there is no dominant provider — the […]
PIE’s Third Class, You Better Keep an Eye on These Companies…
There are a number of new startups that have joined the third PIE Class. However there are a few that have stood out to me. The first startup has to do with the IoT. IoT stands for Internet of Things. I’m a MASSIVE fan of what is being done with IoT. Personally I think it […]
Find the data, aggregate the data, make the data useful
I was in New York in March, taking part in GigaOM’s Structure:Data event. As usual on these trips, I spent the day before the event walking around the city, soaking up some air, getting rained on, using coffee to stay awake, and meeting with a number of local companies. Of the companies I met that […]
Startup Scaling | Overcoming 5 Key Operational Challenges
Startup scaling from zero to $100M is 10% strategy and 90% execution. You’d never know that from reading the Web, because the advice you’ll find online is 90% strategy.
B2B Startup Marketing | Blog Your Way to Leads
B2B startup marketing is tough. It used to be that you could polish off a high level message and a slide deck and let the salesperson handle it from there. Today, online marketing is the primary driver of revenue at the typical B2B startup. The new breed of B2B buyer expects your online content to […]
StartupCamp5
StartupCamp5 will be taking place at ITExpo Feb 1-3 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. I’ve attended the past four ITExpo’s and StartupCamps, but won’t be at this one. Feeling a bit wistful as so many people I know are heading that way. ITExpo is a good show – particularly strong for hosted service providers […]
Startup Business Growing Pains | Staying Focused
There are a few good things in life that you can never have too much of, and at a startup business that good thing is growth. However, we all know there is always a price to pay for overindulgence. To my way of thinking, the key to being a glutton is to balance your consumption […]
Don’t Confuse Signifiers and Substance
When it comes to startups, its easy to confuse signifiers and substance. The truth is hard to know, especially with early stage companies. If you don’t have a product or customers, it’s hard to have substance. Yet whether you’re a startup or investor, you’d be wise to focus on substance rather than signifiers. Not because […]
10 Marketing Lessons for Early-Stage Tech Startups
I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. I have adopted the motto “good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgment.“ We need to learn from doing, by trial-and-error. If I can help you avoid some […]
Holy Sh@#! Did You See What That Program Does!!!!!!
Have you ever worked for a startup? A successful startup? Have you ever seen the excitement in a startup meeting, hackathon, or other event were an idea starts to come to fruition! When the users of the startup’s application finally see it and start getting excited? Have you seen when people get so excited because […]
