The Next Step The Next Step walks you step-by-step through the complex process between having an idea and creating a startup, plus adds interviews and other advice from investors, fledglings, and the real world of startups. The Opportunity is Africa The Opportunity is Africa brings you stories from African entrepreneurs and investors, highlighting the many business opportunities that exist...
Five years ago when this blog was new, I posted an Ignite talk about the true purpose of business. Two years ago, I reprised that topic to help break the myth that the (sole) purpose of business is to maximize shareholder value. My podcast is almost a year old, and last week I not only (re)explained the Ignite talk with more words, but then spent the week talking what Apple, Google, Facebook, and...
The 18 most popular posts in 2018: Selling the first telephone A realistic view of the startup “hockey stick” The 140-character (Tweet) pitch Investing without “Exits” The unintuitive Hype Curve (of startup value) Your entrepreneurship skills The art of “cold email” messages SunCulture: drip-irrigation for Kenyan farmers Breaking the paradigm of startup investment Before the chasm… comes the...
Apparently I’ve misunderstood the “Tragedy of the Commons” and so likely have you. This is a great example of a meme that is assumed to be both ancient and obvious, but isn’t. There was an essay entitled “Tragedy of the Commons” written back in 1833, but it was ignored until Garret Hardin published an article in Science in 1968 with the same title. It’s...
Welcome. Letting go Measuring Your Skills 0. Why? Help? 1. Lean 2. Opportunity Size 3. Competition 4. The Business Model Canvas+ 5. The Financial Model 6. The Realities of Funding 7. Startup Marketing 8. Startup Sales 9. Corporate Culture 10. A Great Pitch 11. Story Telling Guest-1. (B) Corporate Forms Guest-2. Branding Guest-3. Success Extra-1. Startup Reality Extra-2. Plan for Failure Extra-3...
1. The Purpose 2. Incubators & Accelerators 3. Conscious Companies 4. Fledge Program 5. A Nexus 6. The Culture 7. Entrepreneurship Education 8. Advice and Mentorship 9. Peer Mentorship 10. Promotion 11. Investor Relations 12. Support Network 13. Weekly Programming 14. On-Stage 15. 10-Week Structure 16. Input and Output 17. Recruitment 18. Selection 19. Invitations 20. Investment 21. Expenses...
Below are all the slides needed for the entrepreneurship class within Fledge. You’ll need to fill in some of the blanks and update the images to make your orientation specific to your city and program. Below that are all the slides from all the online lectures of The Next Step. Below that are slides from the Extras from those lectures plus many other useful mini-lectures. Orientation A1...
Two weeks ago I was in Boston, speaking at the Angel Capital Association, surrounded by many hundreds of fellow startup investors. As is usually the case in such gatherings, the most common word in the room was “exit” as that is the obsession of the modern startup investor. My talk included that word as well, but only in contrast, as it’s title was “Investing without...
Speaking of luck, a few years ago I volunteer to help an organization that hosted the Dalai Lama in Seattle 10 years ago. Two months ago, members of this organization were invited to Dharmashala, India to have an audience, and I was invited along. I write books and blogs. I teach story telling. But no words can describe this experience. Neither do the following videos, but they do demonstrate...
Investing is hard. It’s yet-another topic that isn’t taught in school, and rarely taught by family either. Here in the 21st Century, where a lot of wealth in America is self-made, the newly minted wealthy need help learning how to invest. For startup investing, the biggest challenges for investors are finding investable companies (a.k.a. dealflow) and doing enough due diligence on...
