Two weeks ago I was in Boston, speaking at the Angel Capital Association, surrounded by many hundreds of fellow startup investors. As is usually the case in such gatherings, the most common word in the room was “exit” as that is the obsession of the modern startup investor. My talk included that word as well, but only in contrast, as it’s title was “Investing without...
What sets Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright Brothers apart?
Simon Sinek explains the answer, using one simple diagram, one key word, and from biology. And this theory matches why mission-driven companies find so much more interest than yet-another tech company. It’s all about the Why.
startwithwhy.com
The Verge just posted an article about a new film, “General Magic“, the most important company to come out of Silicon Valley that no one’s ever heard of. That is a startup that brings back old memories en masse, as it was one of the big platforms that my first startup, Nimble, wrote and sold software. For those of you who never heard of it (which should be 99.999% of you), General...
A lot of people reach out to me for advice or to sell me on whatever they are doing. Some of that is fun and interesting, but much of it is in a form that wastes my time and theirs. That waste too often is due to to messages that fail to explain what the sender does and others that use hundreds of words when one sentence would be sufficient. When you are sending a message (via LinkedIn, email...
What if 99% of success is luck? Not just success in startups (which is what I do, teach, and write about), but also success in life? If you are following this blog, you know I’ve been thinking about income inequality, digging into the questions of its root cause, and potential solutions. But what if there is no solution, as it’s true cause is a series of random chances, some good...
The more I work with entrepreneurs, the more I realize how the skills required to succeed as an entrepreneur are not taught in schools. One of those skills is brevity. Specifically, we are are not taught how to edit our thoughts down in size. We are rewarded in school for writing multi-page essays and papers, providing as many details as we can fit into the assigned length. Out in the real...
One of the best parts of Debt: The First 5,000 Years was pointing out the myth that economies always begin with barter (hint: they never have). Similarly, whenever a market starts to heat up, we inevitably hear about the tulip bubble in Holland in the 1630’s. Well… turns out those stories are myths as well. Anne Goldgar has written a book, Tulipmania: Money, Honor and Knowledge in...
Entrepreneurs worry about their product, marketing, sales process, recruiting, finances, and operations, but often don’t think twice about designing their corporate culture. Forget about culture, and successful startups soon turn into The Office and Dilbert. There isn’t yet a The Next Step book on how to design a corporate culture, but I do teach the topic in both my MBA...
All startups are difficult… and they don’t get easier when your startup is in a foreign country… selling a service that no one there has seen before. Few books due the startup journey justice. Bright Lights, No City is one of the rare exceptions, telling the story of Burro in Ghana, a company founded by Whit Alexander, creator of Cranium, as told through the eyes and talented...
Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes is sometimes hard, especially when you are a first-time entrepreneur and you are reaching out to an investor. Here are a few tips to help: 1- Wasting time. If your words make you sound like you’ll be a waste of time, most investors will not even both to reply to you. If your words are in fact wasting time, those words might not even be...
