Should you co-found a company with your friend? And how do you split the equity?

If you’re talking with cofounders about launching a new business, you’re fundamentally recruiting someone to take the job of partnering with you for the next decade.  I see a lot of founders who do less due diligence than I think ideal before making that long-term commitment. Just knowing one another for a long time is...

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You are leaving money on the table: the secrets of pricing

Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is a “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” A startup CEO should know both. One of the most powerful levers a CEO has to impact profitability is pricing. Typically, a 1% price increase has more than twice the impact on profit of...

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How Venture Capitalists and Government Can Promote Entrepreneurship

I’ve recently met with several universities, nonprofits, and government employees who’ve all asked the same question: how can we promote entrepreneurship?  Just like me, they’re distressed about the poor economy and jobs situation. By contrast, as a venture capitalist, I can report that almost all of our portfolio companies are desperate to hire talent, and...

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What is valuable when so much is free?

(Bill McIntyre via Flickr) Chris Anderson’s new book "Free" has restarted the controversy over pricing of goods, particularly digital goods. This led me to re-read Kevin Kelly’s piece on "Better Than Free". He argues that "When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied." I like his taxonomy of 8...

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Free comics from the Federal Reserve: economics, banking, foreign trade, etc.

My wife and I just ordered some comic books from the Federal Reserve on topics that we think our children should learn about: – banking – monetary policy – currency – barter – checks and electronic payments – and most important to their future (sadly), inflation These comic books are useful educationally, particularly in the...

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T. Boone Pickens Keynote at ACG Intergrowth

I took some notes on T. Boone Pickens’ keynote talk at ACG Intergrowth: Wind is going to be a major source of energy for USA. Oil production is flat. We now produce 85m barrels/day. That’s going to decline going forward at 8 pct. Wind is priced off the margin, which is natural gas. I receive...

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