Thanks to the Angel Capital Association the so-called “99 investor problem” is sufficiently solved for small seed funds. Specifically, S.2155 was passed by Congress and signed into law, which amongst a series of changes to financial regulations included: (Sec. 504) The bill amends the Investment Company Act of 1940 to exempt from the definition of an “investment company,”...
One of my favorite topics to teach is how to name your startup. Naming can be difficult. Naming can be tricky. You not only need to think up a great name, but you also then need to worry about whether you can own the matching domain name, the Twitter handle, the Facebook page, etc. But even more important than those, you need to worry about what else is in the search results when you Google...
Change happens. Inevitably. Change happens a bit every day, usually without you noticing. Then one day, you look up and the world was not as you remember. This happens in all sorts of areas of life, and this slow series of changes can greatly affect your business in a multitude of ways. The most obvious is when the competition has changed their pricing, or when they’ve added a...
It was 21 years ago that Eric Raymond wrote an essay about a cathedral and a bazaar, explaining to the world why the messy, open, chaotic format of a bazaar would be the better way to develop software vs. the centrally designed and organized form of cathedral building. He was more right than wrong, as even the centralized cathedrals of Google and Amazon are based on and contributors to the Open...
Ray Dalio is the founder, co-Chief Investment Officer and co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. He’s also the author of the #1 NYTimes Bestseller, Principles: Life and Work and has summarized that advice into the following 30 minute video series. (Total running time: 31 minutes) 1. The Call to Adventure 2. Embrace Reality and Deal With It 3. The Five Step...
It’s not just me who appreciates when “timeless things” are not as old as we think. Did you know that the pro/con list is less than 250 years old? That we know who invented it? That it was none other than polymath and U.S. founding father Benjamin Franklin? Beyond learning these bits of trivia, and beyond the lovely feeling of confirmation bias when others point out when we...
Walk around with a hammer, and many things look like nails. Live your life as an entrepreneur (or startup investor) and it seems like entrepreneurs are everywhere.
Just how many entrepreneurs are there? According to the editors at asianentrepreneur.org, just 400 million globally. That is around 5% of the total population. Everywhere… but uncommon.
I have a hypothesis that successful entrepreneurs can perform at least seven varied skills, one of which is Design. Not the narrow definition of Design, as in the ability to draw, but the larger definition, as in the ability to create a whole customer experience, from name and logo through purchase flow and product look, feel, and action. As an entrepreneur who can’t draw, I’m...
I’ve been writing and talking for years about how “California Capitalism” is the wrong answer for 99.9% of all startups. I expect I’ll be talking about this for at least another decade, maybe two, before the investment world comes around to see what they are doing wrong. I don’t blame investors. They are simply stuck in a paradigm, and if you go back and...
Here in 2018, it seems a bit 19th Century to focus solely on writing books. Yes, I also write a blog, and those were not invented until the late 20th Century, but podcasts are one of the 21st Century’s contributions to media, and feels like a medium that is just starting to take off. I’ve thus jumped on the podcasting bandwagon using The Next Step brand from my books as the title and...
