This is the eight article in a series on how to start a company in 2020. See the previous article, Secure Intellectual Property. “In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad […]
A lot has been written about entrepreneurs and what makes them successful. A lot has been written about startups and why so many of them fail. Less has been written about entrepreneurial communities and what it takes to create a thriving startup ecosystem. I’d like to bridge these topics and share with you five very important drivers of entrepreneurial success, […]
Everything was going great, we were crushing it. After three years of hard work and sacrifice, our product took off like a rocket ship. Orders were pouring in. Retailers lined up to stock the product. OEM’s wanted to bundle it. And VC’s were knocking. A publicly-traded software company invited us to their headquarters in Silicon Valley to discuss their interest […]
Referrals are the life blood of many businesses. This is especially true in professional services. Ask any attorney, accountant, consultant, real estate agent, or other professional, and they will confirm that the majority of their new business comes from referrals. This is also true of most employers. Ask any HR pro where they source most of their new employees and […]
Why would you start a business when you could buy one, or at least many of the core components you will need, at a lower cost than starting from scratch? You wouldn’t, but most entrepreneurs still do. If at all possible, you shouldn’t start a business from scratch…you should buy one. This is also true of growing a business. It […]
The wonderful thing about startups is that they are constantly innovating. The team is hard wired to see new and better ways of doing just about everything. And that’s also the bad thing about startups. This propensity to build vs. buy – to invent, create, develop and engineer – often leads to a promising new product or business unit. More […]
In a world of consumerism and sameness, where just about everything is a commodity and plentiful, there is only one sure-fire strategy for selling yourself or your product: scarcity. It’s an easy strategy to comprehend, but a difficult one to implement. Scarcity is at the root of economics. It creates desire and, subsequently, demand. When someone or something is scarce…when […]
This is the fifth in a series of articles on what it means to be a Five Star Startup. In my first article, I explained the five dimensions that most startups are evaluated on. In my second article, I described the first dimension, what it means to have a Five Star PRODUCT. In my third article, I described the second […]
