Beyond Talent
I was in a board meeting with a new portfolio company yesterday and they started the meeting with two slides that they use to start every meeting at the company. The first slide was a simple values slide. The second looked much like the picture below. This list was initially written about athletes but it […]
Full ArticleSeller Beware
Term sheets and letters of intent are non-binding except often for confidentiality clauses and lock-ups. This means the buyer can walk away – for any reason. Remember this and plan accordingly. In a venture capital situation, it is important to understand if you are receiving an early diligence term sheet or a late diligence term […]
Full ArticleUnderstanding Decision Fatigue and the Implications on a Start-up
The New York Times recently republished a very interesting 2011 article “Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue”, which describes academic research into the impact of decision fatigue on the quality of decisions. Click on the link and read it because it may change how and when you make critical decisions. Some of the takeaways include: – […]
Full ArticleCommon CEO Mistake: The Buddy Hire
It is tempting. You are a new CEO and you need to make an impact quickly. You have been successful in the past and there have been people who were on your team previously whom you would love to have with you on this new journey. You don’t know the current team that well and […]
Full ArticleWatson Food for Thought
I am a big fan of Watson and the business model vision that IBM has for allowing other businesses and start-ups to leverage the power of Watson for their own solutions. While Google, Facebook, and other massive data stores seem intent on leveraging their own data for their own use, IBM appears to be taking […]
Full ArticleSalary, Value, and Poaching
We have seen a number of high quality people getting poached or almost poached from different portfolio companies over the last couple months. The labor market for skilled technical and analytic people is tightening and the war for talent seems to be only getting more intense. One area where we have been seeing forward-thinking company […]
Full ArticleStrategy Is About Winning
We have a number of companies that have recently made the shift from proving out product / market fit to focusing on execution. This often happens in the $3-6 million revenue range and in a SaaS business, it happens when growth is sustained at levels well above 50%; the sales engine has shown an ability […]
Full ArticleWorking the Middle of the Pipeline – PeopleLinx: A “Dialer” for Salespeople
I love high velocity sales models – when they work. Books like Predictable Revenue capture the essence of the model. While each company has a different mix of inbound and outbound lead gen efforts and other initiatives, such high velocity models are a highly productive way to sell many SaaS products, and certainly beat classic enterprise sales […]
Full ArticlePhysical Space or No Physical Space – No Question
Start-up with Physical Space or No Physical Space – No Question I was going to call this blog post “To office or Not to Office” – but the term office can be used to mean where the company is located or whether people sit in little private boxes versus open space, so I changed it […]
Full ArticleStart-up Executive Survival Tip – Live Within Your Salary
I hate to say this but if you join a start up, you need to be able to live within your salary. Not salary plus planned bonus. Not salary plus 50% more coming out of savings, justified by the value of future stock options. Live within your salary. Too many executives leave corporate America and […]
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