Dave Berkus
Dave Berkus is a noted speaker, author and early stage private equity investor. He is acknowledged as one of the most active angel investors in the country, having made and actively participated in over 87 technology investments during the past decade. He currently manages two angel VC funds (Berkus Technology Ventures, LLC and Kodiak Ventures, L.P.) Dave is past Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest angel networks in the United States. Dave is author of “Basic Berkonomics,” “Berkonomics,” “Advanced Berkonomics,” “Extending the Runway,” and the Small Business Success Collection. Find out more at Berkus.com or contact Dave at dberkus@berkus.com
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It’s Mostly in the Execution
“Everybody’s got a plan—until they are punched in the face,” stated boxer Mike Tyson. My experience personally reviewing over three hundred executive summaries each year, all sent to me unsolicited, seems to bear out the truth in Tyson’s statement.
The 3-Step Dance: Creating a Great Company
Creating a great company in a relative vacuum is an exercise in complete trust that the entrepreneur knows what’s best for the customer. I’ve developed the three step dance in order to help form a repeatable method of how to create a great company from an early idea.
Ready, Aim, Fire. Really?
You’ve surely heard the variations on this theme. “Ready, fire, aim” was popular in the 1990’s, accredited to any of several authors. So why do so many business-book authors stress the opposite behavior?
Build a Company—Not Just a Product
Some businesses are built around a single idea. And sometimes that idea is just too small a slice of the big picture to be interesting to investors.
How to Make a Business Partnership a Success
Business partnerships have their advantages and disadvantages. Taking on a business partner is like a entering into a marriage. Certain guidelines should be taken into consideration along with a path to follow.
Could You Answer These Tough Investor Questions?
In my years of investing, I’ve developed a set of tough questions that are sure to elicit both information and a vibrant dialog—questions not on the usual checklists of angel groups or investors.
Include Your Labor Value in Your Plan
Investors love it when entrepreneurs draw little or no money from their startups. It extends the cash available for research and other necessary fixed costs and gives the fragile, young company more “runway” to get to breakeven.
Accurate Assumptions Lead to Defendable Plans
The biggest error in planning may not be spreadsheet calculation error. Or cost estimation. It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the competition, the speed of adoption, or other critical metrics you’ve researched, or selected, or even just guessed at to create your plan.
Entrepreneurs Dot No Easily Retire
So you’ve successfully sold your business and have received enough money from the sale to become financially independent, no longer having to work for a living.
Project Cash Flow, Not Just Profit, During Start-Up
Business plans that I see often show three to five years of projections, demonstrating profitability at the end of so many months of operation. Most every one of these uses an accrual basis for determining break-even, never attempting to predict the cash impact of major items.