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The Right Way to Not Pay Yourself
Today I received an email asking me to clarify what I wrote last month in Why sweat equity often stinks. The person quoted the sentence in italics below and asked “what does that mean, exactly?” I’m...
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True Story: Why We Turned This Deal Down
This is about a deal my angel group turned down. The software looks excellent. I wanted to use it immediately. There’s urgent and widespread market need. It’s obviously proprietary too. It’s a crowded...
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If They Ask You to Judge a Business Plan Competition, Say Yes
I’ve had the pleasure of judging several dozen real business pitches in the past six weeks. Some were pitches for angel investment at the Willamette Angel Conference, an angel group in Oregon. More to...
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Is Connecting People a Business Model? I Doubt It.
Is connecting people a business model? I don’t think so. Connecting people is what happens when the entrepreneur gets recommended to the investor, or group of investors. It’s an introduction. In some...
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Which is Better? The Whole big Market or the Strategic Niche?
True story: After this particular startup team pitched a couple dozen investors, many of the investors told them their strategy was too narrow and too focused. One comment: “there’s a huge potential...
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Paul Graham Predicting New Opportunities in Angel Investment
In his essay published last month, Startup Investing Trends, Paul Graham (that’s this Paul Graham, Y Combinator co-founder) says “one of the biggest unexploited opportunities in startup investing right...
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Good Advice, Bad Advice, Land Mines on a Path to Heaven
Having just read James Altucher’s Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Starting and Running a Business, I’m fascinated by a collection of bold, very well written, and remarkably unambigious advice, most of it...
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What are good questions to answer for business plans?
This is my answer on Quora to ‘what are good questions to answer in a business plan?’ Congrats on your question. Basing your planning on what questions to answer, as you suggest, is a really good way...
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Startups: A Verbal Wave at Social Media Means Diddly
Startups: Investors expect new marketing. The fundamentals still apply but tools and realities are different now. If you don’t understand the broader implications of social media, content marketing,...
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Up-to-date Investors Want Social Proof from Startups
I just read Social Proof Is the New Currency on the Social Media Today blog. Author Daniel Lay writes: Whether you like Mark Zuckerberg’s mug or not, the social web is here to stay, and businesses...
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