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In a corporate environment, the focus of a job interview has long been demonstrating your match to the skills and experience outlined in the job description. In my experience with startups, that is still necessary, but not sufficient. Today’s business world has become totally customer driven, so cu Read More

It only takes one person come up with a great startup idea, but in my experience as an investor, it’s a rare entrepreneur who has all the skills and resources to build a business as well as a solution. Yet I meet inventors and startup founders every week who balk at the thought of sharing the found Read More

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe that a great idea alone will assure business success. Experts argue that it’s more important to have a great plan, and personal business acumen. Hardly anyone mentions selling principles. Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwh Read More

In my experience as an advisor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I often encounter the myth that an initial startup requires investors. The reality is that over 80 percent of new businesses will never attract venture capital or Angel funding, according to experts, and there are many good reasons for skipp Read More

As an Angel investor and a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always disappointed to see founders who seem stressed out most of the time, and more annoyed than energized by the abundance of challenges they see in building their startup. The entrepreneurial lifestyle is a tough one under the best Read More

A common request I hear from aspiring entrepreneurs is for an assessment of their latest idea. I don’t even try to assess things at the idea level, since I can’t read minds. I can assess execution plans, if you have any. Yet I believe that business success is more a function of the person than the Read More

Superstars in business are the ones who get things done, not the ones who work the most hours or are always busy. Whether it be in a startup or a large enterprise, everyone can name those few individuals who stand out as unstoppable, and always seem to be in the forefront of results. Yet if you thi Read More

Young entrepreneurs often are so excited by new technology or their latest invention that they forget to translate it into a value proposition that their customers or potential investors can understand and relate to. They become frustrated with investors, senior executives, and even customers who d Read More

Most entrepreneurs I know are so passionate about their new idea that they are surprised when family and friends don’t line up to invest in their new venture. Yet they tend to ignore this problem, and move on quickly to professional investors. They don’t realize that most Angel investors and ventur Read More

Many entrepreneurs are so enamored with their product vision that they believe their own hype, and are convinced that the market for their solution is so huge that no one will ask them for independent market research data. They don’t realize that business projections with no third-party validation Read More