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10 Early Mistakes Startup Founders Should Avoid D9aa1adbb0aeeeb61a9800d1df81c1460d99acecba203b7d0f9d21e61e965e1f

10 People That Will Strangle Your Company

Every organization, no matter how small, has one or more people who are quite simply obnoxious, and they drain energy from everyone and can strangle your company.  Sometimes they are also intellectually brilliant, or closely related to the boss, so there is no easy way out. In fact, they may even be the boss.  So […]
Martin Zwilling
Martin Zwilling , Founder and CEO , Startup Professionals
24 Jan 2012
Valuation. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Angel Investors on Burn Rate and Great Now or Great Later

Here’s an interesting question. It came up Tuesday night in an angel investment meeting: My question is which looks better to investors: A higher burn rate with three great people on the business plan, or a lower burn rate with only two great people on the business plan? Two of the three want salary, not […]
Tim Berry
Tim Berry , Founder , Palo Alto Software
24 Jan 2012
Successful Startup Founders Invest In Their Own Ventures 0742d64fd6a698c3cfa409e71c3cc4e5620a7e7299f434f1380bb4cde9bc488a

Angel Investing: The Real Make-or-Break Issue

We’ll get there, but let’s start here: I don’t believe in “angel portfolio theory,” which applies Wall Street’s favorite myth to the early stage world. According to this approach, the “smart” way to do angel investing is massive diversification, with scores of early stage bets. There are several reasons that this common wisdom is more […]
Bob Rice
Bob Rice , MANAGING PARTNER , Tangent Capital
23 Jan 2012
Nda Non Disclosure Agreement Hero 65add8230e22c1d34aef85cbadfc48484e6ae1225a6c262e9d77f4c2658cd70e

IP & crowdfunding: are 1,000 NDAs better than none?

Angels and venture capitalists will not sign non-disclosure (confidentiality) agreements just to listen to an entrepreneur’s funding presentation, or even to read the entrepreneur’s business plan.  Serial entrepreneurs understand this and write their plans without describing the “secret sauce.”  Investors will eventually want to validate the intellectual property (IP) prior to investing, but not just […]
Bill Payne
Bill Payne , Angel Investor , Frontier Angel Fund
18 Jan 2012
Startup Founders Pitch Toolbox 7569789924beeb0cb16be7cc05e6cd1287ce3efa50402111da2ff0ae0ad4c9db

Pitching is never free.

If you are new to the startup space and Angel investing, you probably don’t realize that some groups of Angel investors charge entrepreneurs a fee to pitch to their groups. This practice has caused a rousing debate among key players, with some calling it a scam, and others defending it as necessary to cover expenses. […]
Martin Zwilling
Martin Zwilling , Founder and CEO , Startup Professionals
18 Jan 2012
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