You’ve got a great idea and domain expertise, but limited money and insufficient technology resources. Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? I’ve seen a range of options for supporting entrepreneurs, which I can rank from least to most involvement in companies by investors: financier VCs, e.g., Correlation Ventures mentor VCs, e.g.,...
[Continue Reading]Should you co-found your company with a software development shop (1 of 2)?
You’ve got an amazing idea. You’ve got everything it takes to bring a start-up from nothing to something that really makes a dent in the universe. … and if you’re like most of today’s startups — you need to get an app in the hands of customers. Once customers love your app and you show...
[Continue Reading]Corporate VC: obligatory or oxymoron?
When I meet with executives from large corporations, they’re often worried. And they should be; the feeding frenzy in the innovation economy is in some cases because startups are eating the lunch of more established companies. To quote a friend, if you’re an executive at an established company, your job is to blow on the ice...
[Continue Reading]18 ways to make your financial model stand out to investors
The median investor looking at your proposal is in her 40s. Her eyes are going, not to mention her brain. I look at a lot of spreadsheets and analytic reports, and way too many are difficult to read and therefore hard to understand. In an effort to make my life easier, I’ve summarized here the...
[Continue Reading]Sales 2.0: why can’t sales be as efficient as online dating?
I’m teaching a class for Founder Institute July 8 on accelerating sales with technology. This has been a passion of mine for well over a decade, ever since I realized how inefficient sales was and how technology could be used to speed up the process. This is a core theme of my book, The Virtual...
[Continue Reading]How enterprise can learn from the innovation economy
One of the core functions of a VC is to identify the next generation of disruptive companies. I presented last month to a Microsoft senior executive offsite on how large corporations can do the same, to inform their investing, M&A, and competitive intelligence. My presentation was based on my research on deal origination best practices...
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