Posts Tagged ‘Startup’
7 Due Diligence Steps Will Validate Any New Venture
In my experience, consummate entrepreneurs tend come up with more startup ideas than they can ever implement, and some of the ideas may not even make business sense. But how does any entrepreneur know which ideas to implement, and which ones are best left behind? After all, most great breakthroughs, like a computer in every…
Read More9 Best Practices for Viral Growth
Every startup company you’ll ever find will always be aiming to reach the same common goal: Growth. But not just any kind of growth, they want solid, constant, fast, and profitable growth. In other words, they are all after viral growth. There is a magic moment in a startup company’s trajectory in which growth rates…
Read More10 Good Reasons Not to Seek Investors for Your Startup
Sure, maybe you need the money. Maybe that’s what your business plan says. But seriously: Do you really want to have investors involved in your dream startup? I’ve said it before: bootstrapping is underrated. I get frequent emails from people asking how they can get investment for their new startup, and I’ve admitted to being a…
Read MoreStartup and Organization Costs
When starting a business, the owners are likely to incur two classes of costs that are not normally encountered in the ongoing operations of the business and should not be included as operating expenses. These are startup expenditures and organization costs. Each of these are specifically defined and receive special tax treatment. Startup expenditures are…
Read MoreStartup Stats: How Your Startup Can Succeed
The perhaps not-so-shocking reality is that nine out of 10 new businesses fail. And yet, this statistic isn’t stopping new business growth. Why? Because even though the odds are against startups, success is attainable—if you have a plan, and know what you’re doing. Having a Plan And by having a plan, we mean more than,…
Read MoreHow to Get a Small Business Startup Loan the Easy Way
There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes like this: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. The same reasoning applies to new business startup loans, but with one big exception: “Now” is often not the “second best time.” Now may be too late. I say this because I’ve…
Read More4 Ways to Prevent Someone from Stealing Your Startup Idea
Steve Blank, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-professor with over two decades of experience, has over the course of his career founded or worked within eight different startups. And in that time, he’s lived through every entrepreneur’s worst nightmare: he had his ideas stolen. Twice. “The first time it happened, it was no big deal,” Blank recounted in a 2009 VentureBeat article.…
Read More7 Reasons for Startups to Maximize Early Visibility
It’s still popular these days for startup founders to operate in stealth mode, meaning no details about the idea or progress are shared with anyone until the big reveal and rollout. The common reason given is that this prevents any competitor from stealing their idea and beating them to market. In my view, this paranoid…
Read More4 Ways to Support Your Small Business with Personal Funds
It’s getting tougher for small businesses to find startup capital. Big banks want nothing to do with unproven upstarts—it’s all about “validation.” Conflicting laws make it difficult to raise money from small investors without forgoing public solicitation—a catch-22 for entrepreneurs without deep personal and professional networks. And any funds that do happen to fall into…
Read MoreSelf-Assessment: Will Your Startup Get Angel Investment?
Is your startup a good candidate for angel investment? If you can’t answer “yes” to the four questions here, then it probably isn’t. Angel investors are as hard to predict as any other group of individuals, all operating in their own self-interest. There are about a quarter of a million angel investors in the U.S.,…
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