BizSugar.com › User › martinzwilling › Voted

Entrepreneurs are all about firsts, and the most important is you making a great first impression – on investors, customers, new team members, and strategic partners. Poor first impressions can be avoided, but I’m amazed at the number of unnecessary mistakes I see at those critical first introducti Read More

When I heard a friend and business mentor say, “Your startup won’t fail if you don’t quit,” I realized that every entrepreneur should adopt “never give up” as their mantra. Rather than quitting, there are always alternatives, like pivoting the business model or merging with new partners for support Read More

Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). New crowd funding platforms on the Internet, like Kickstarter Read More

The cost of entry for an aspiring entrepreneur has never been lower, and the total wealth of opportunities has never been larger. You can start a new e-Commerce site on the Internet for as little as $100, with cheap smart phone apps, new technology innovations, or tapping the multitude of opportuni Read More

Even when your startup is a one-man show and lots of fun, a “business” needs some discipline and controls to keep it from being defined as a hobby by investors, and assure some financial return. Like it or not, you are now entering the dreaded realm of specifying and documenting “formal business pr Read More

With the uptick in the economy, as an active startup mentor, I’m seeing a new surge of entrepreneurs and startups, with the commensurate scramble for funding. There just aren’t enough Angel investors and VCs to go around. Thus I’m getting more questions on new mechanisms, like crowd funding, and an Read More

Most startups are happy to find any customer, and will hang on for dear life to every one. Only later do they realize that some of these cost more than they are worth, or lead into commitments they can’t sustain, but no business wants to violate the golden rule that every customer needs to be treat Read More

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. More executives, or Read More

Entrepreneurship is more about building a business than inventing a product. It’s more about the quality of the execution, rather than the quality of the idea. Most importantly, it’s more about being a proactive leader who connects to customers and the team deeply, rather than a bright light that s Read More

Many entrepreneurs fantasize about days longer than 24 hours, convinced that their new venture could change the world, if they just had more time. They don’t realize that a more viable solution is to get more done per existing hour, rather than creating more hours. We all know at least one person w Read More