I came across this quote online: “Two weeks of coding can save you an hour of planning” and not only laughed, but cried, as the same is even more true over on the business side of startups. If I had a nickel every time one of my entrepreneurs spent months on operations, bashing the company’s proverbial head against the wall trying to fill orders or gain customers, when a few...
This isn’t how I run my businesses, but one mistake most first entrepreneurs make is to not spend any time thinking about the corporate culture of their company. Fail to plan that, and you end up with Dilbert or The Office, with employees who are there for the job, not to build the successful startup. Nike’s Principals Our business is changeWe’re on offense. All the time.Perfect...
The word “poverty” has two different common meanings. First, it is the smallest income level in any given country. E.g. in the United States, over 20% of children live in poverty. Second, is the more global view, with the International Poverty Line set by the World Bank, at just $2.15. The chart above shows the drastic difference in incomes between those two definitions. Do note that...
I wrote a whole book walking entrepreneurs through the process of creating a simple, compelling pitch deck, and I’ve posted a slide-by-slide guide to the standard, 12-15 slide pitch. But there are other frameworks, and here is Sequoia Capitals, as posted by Alex Banks on Twitter. Slide-by-slide Slide 1 This is your first impression. Pick a great name. Spend a little money on a great logo...
It is conference season once again and the world is back to large face-to-face conferences. The one benefit from the pandemic is that the software for conferences is greatly improved, as the conference software companies were forced to re-think the online conference experience. The result is much better, but still far from great. Below is where it is failing and ideas on how the experience can be...
The “Missing Middle” is the funding gap for startups between their initial idea and their first few million dollars of revenues. Imagine the challenge of getting to $1 million in annual revenues without any outside investment. Now imagine that in Africa or LatAm or Southeast Asia. Hundreds of thousands of great companies in those regions, hundreds that get any funding in any given...
The previous posts in this series walk through what a corporation is, how it is structured, and how investors fit in. This post will add what all that looks like in practice. HistoryCorporate Structures Grants, debt, and equityDaily, monthly, … annual management(this post) Daily operations On a day-to-day basis the CEO, other managers, and staff run the business without any interference...
Part 1 of this Primer series talked about the history and limited liability of corporations. Part 2 dove into the corporate hierarchy. This post will dive into investment structures. HistoryCorporate Structures Grants, debt, and equity(this post)Daily, monthly, … annual management Grants All the young companies I meet want to raise money. I do a lot of work in Africa and thus do meet quite...
Part 1 of this Primer series talked about the history and limited liability of corporations. This post will dive into the structure of a corporation. HistoryCorporate Structures (this post)Grants, debt, and equityDaily, monthly, … annual management Shares and shareholders Corporations have owners. For a typical corporation, these are the “shareholders” (sometimes called...
First time entrepreneurs are often the CEO of a corporation, but nonetheless don’t know exactly what a corporation actually is, nor how a corporation works with employees, management, directors, and investors. This series of posts will walk through those details. Not as a lawyer, as I am neither a lawyer nor have ever taken a class at a law school (not counting the one I guest lecture I...
