In working with 100+ entrepreneurs at my accelerator, my pre-accelerator, in my MBA class and elsewhere, I constantly see entrepreneurs looking forward into the unknown future, but few looking backward. Not backward into the past, but backward from their ultimate goal. This is most easily explained by stepping back to pre-school, back to the time when you first learned about mazes: In this maze...
In the complicated path from idea to startup, there often come times when a larger-than-normal hurdles get in the way. Not impossible hurdles. Not something outrageous. Just a hurdle that seems difficult, but which can be solved using brute force. Brute force solutions can take a few hours of effort or a few weeks of effort. The commonality is that they are monotonous, time consuming, and...
Another year, another 2,200+ impact investors, foundations, nonprofits, and social entrepreneurs gathered together at SOCAP, the social capital conference, the intersection of of money + meaning. With up to 11 simultaneous sessions over multiple days, plus a dozen scheduled meetings, and two dozen unscheduled, I barely scratched the surface of the event. In this post, I summarize a few of my...
One often misunderstood topic of entrepreneurship is “sustainable competitive advantage“, and specifically, the advantage from a “network effect“. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, iTunes, and many other modern technologies succeeded due to this effect, but the anecdote I like to use is almost 150 years old, the telephone. The anecdote goes this like: One telephone has...
I’ve spent the last few weeks reading applications upon applications. 122 applications for Fledge. Another 56 for Social Venture Partner Seattle’s Fast Pitch. Plus a few dozen more for Seattle Magazine‘s upcoming Impactful Company Awards. All of these in just the past 60 days. Earlier this year were more than a hundred others at five business plan competitions at local...
This weekend I broke ground on book #7 in the series, The Next Step: The Realities of Startup Funding. The key lesson is that for startups, money is time. Or more specifically, money buys your a faster time to market and a potentially faster path to profits. This is not how venture capitalists or Angel investors talk about money. For them, money is fuel. Which, from their perspective, is true...
Today was a typical day. Big pile of email, including two wantrapreneurs looking for feedback on their ideas, stand-up status meeting with the current “fledglings”, a few one-on-ones with those CEOs, a few asks throughout the day from those teams, and a few quick meetings with graduate fledglings and one of my other mentees. Two and a half years into this new career of providing guidance and...
A few years ago, Alexander Osterwalder invented a new way to talk about and visualize business models, creating the Business Model Canvas. This tool has made it far easier for entrepreneurs to understand, iterate and communicate their business models. I’ve taught the Canvas to hundreds of entrepreneurs and business owners, and found it quite useful. However, every time I did so, the...
You have an impactful startup. You are looking for help, and looking for investors. Where do you find the people, programs, and funds to help? The team at Fledge, the “conscious company” accelerator, has published a list of incubators, accelerators, competitions, funds, and crowdfunding sites. This Google Doc is viewable by anyone, and is periodically updated. If you have a impact...
Do startups need lawyers? Absolutely, but not as much as many first-time entrepreneurs think. Lawyers play two important roles for startups. Rules and Risks. 1- Rules. Incorporating your company, taking money from investors, and hiring employees all require compliance with a complex set of laws, codes, and regulations. The key responsibility of a business’ lawyer is to ensure the company...
