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In their passion and excitement about a new product or service, entrepreneurs tend to continually narrow the scope of potential competitors, and often claim to have no direct competitors. This raises a big red flag with potential investors, who conclude that no competitors means no market, or you h Read More

Friends tell you what you want to hear. Advisors tell you what you need to hear. When the message is the same from both, you don’t need the advisor anymore. In that sense, you should think of an advisor more like your mentor who has done all he can. You always need the friend Read More

In my experience, inventors and technologists aren’t interested or aren’t very good at building a business, and entrepreneurs aren’t usually good scientists. These people need to find each other, and can jointly make a great team for a new startup. Without the synergy, companies like Apple might ne Read More

Some analysts argue that revenue drives growth, while others say user growth drives revenue. Both have worked.Google reached $1 billion in revenue within five years of incorporation, and now has a market capitalization of over $400 billion. Twitter showed no focus on revenue in the first five years Read More

If you have a software development background like mine, I’m sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. The same applies to manufacturing and almost any process these days. Outsourcing is defined as contracting the work to another company, usually l Read More

Savvy entrepreneurs start testing their ideas on potential customers even before the concept is fully cooked. They have enough confidence in their ability to deliver that they don’t worry about someone stealing the idea to get there first, and they don’t forget to listen carefully to critical feedb Read More

Two heads are better than one, so the first task in many startups is finding a co-founder or two. You need to find the skills or experience you don’t have in business, technology or money. The first question I usually get is what percent of the company or equity is that person worth? Giving a co-fo Read More

People are always asking me for an inside tip on Internet sites that will be “the next big thing.” Those are hard, since someone has to invent something innovative, but I do have some views on other ideas whose time has come and gone. Read More

As an entrepreneur, your personal integrity is critical for getting and keeping the support of investors and team members, and your company’s integrity is critical for getting and keeping customers and vendors. But in a practical sense, what does that really mean? Read More

Most small businesses are trying to forget the recent recession, and get back to “business as usual.” They don’t realize that business as usual is gone forever. With social media and smart phone conversations, real product information spreads at astounding speeds. Entrepreneurs that are not listeni Read More