Tim Berry
Tim Berry is co-founder of Have Presence, founder and Chairman of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co-founder of Borland International. He is author of books and software including LivePlan and Business Plan Pro, The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, and Lean Business Planning, published by Motivational Press in 2015. He has a Stanford MBA degree and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. He taught starting a business at the University of Oregon for 11 years.
Latest
Birds of a Feather Fail Together: The Business Case for Diversity
Diversity is good for business. Equal opportunity is not only morally and ethically right, it’s also a better way to run a business. Here are some reasons why, and points to consider. What’s intuitively obvious…
The Lean Business Plan as Dashboard and GPS
What if you own a business, you’re not a startup, and you don’t have to generate a traditional business plan to show to a bank or an investor: would you still want a business plan?…
Business Plan Financials: Cash vs. Accrual Bookkeeping
I hate the buzzwords and general environment related to accounting and financial terms. No wonder business owners shy away from it. “Accrual accounting” sounds like something you do with thumb screws, rack, and chains. But—damn—it…
Standard Business Plan Financials: Important Cash Flow Vocabulary
As I continue with my series on standard business plan financials, I want to look at the basic cash flow. These words put some people off because they sound like accounting and financial analysis. But they’re…
A Simple Cash Flow Spreadsheet Anybody Can Use
If there’s just one formal business skill every business owner should have, it’s understanding and forecasting cash flow. It’s not intuitive because it’s not the same as profits; but it’s vital. We spend cash, not…
You Need to Understand the Business Principle of Displacement
Imagine a bucket of water full to the brim, on a table, right next to a phone and a computer. Now take a brick and drop it into that bucket. Imagine what happens. Water splashes…
10 Reasons Angel Investors Don’t Like Your Plan
Once again, for the eighth year in a row, I’m involved as an angel investor with the Willamette Angel Conference and screening investments. We’ll announce a decision in May, and between now and then, we’re looking…
My Fish Bowl Story of Marketing Mistakes
Here’s a mistake I made that taught me a lot and helped me teach others. The Mistake Many years ago, I took a new product—early business planning software—to its first trade show. We did the standard…
Coming Crisis of Social Metrics
I think we’ve gone too far on marketing and metrics. We used to do most of our marketing blind, essentially guessing whether or not it worked. Now we have analytics to measure almost everything. Where…
How Startups Estimate Market Size
It’s a common question. How do I know market size? Of course what one does for that depends on the type of business. What works for a web app won’t work for a restaurant. The kinds of…