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Startup Strategies: The Strategic and Financial Significance of Intellectual Property

Building a Startup is Navigating an Obstacle Course

It would be no fun if starting a business was simply plotting a straight line between your idea and success, with no challenges along the way. Zigging and zagging amongst the obstacles is the fun part of being an entrepreneur, and it’s what sets you apart from the average worker who knows exactly what he […]
Martin Zwilling
Martin Zwilling , Founder and CEO , Startup Professionals
9 Dec 2012
Startup Strategies: The Strategic and Financial Significance of Intellectual Property

Users Guide to Startup Advisors

What’s an advisor to a startup deal? Technically, advisor is one of those bucket terms that means anything and everything, depending on context. Those names and faces and backgrounds that turn up in pitches and business plans might be deep and important relationships, somebody with options or equity who is going to be helping for […]
Tim Berry
Tim Berry , Founder , Palo Alto Software
6 Dec 2012
Valuation. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

How much stake (equity) is an idea worth?

It depends on the quality of the idea. I’m a firm believer in Derek Sivers‘ calculus, which goes like this: AWFUL IDEA = -$1 WEAK IDEA = $1 SO-SO IDEA = $5 GOOD IDEA = $10 GREAT IDEA = $15 BRILLIANT IDEA = $20 The real value, of course (as other answers here have noted), comes […]
David S. Rose
David S. Rose , Founder and CEO , GUST INC.
6 Dec 2012
Startups Need Option Plan To Hire Employees A22ae849e242af5b43b604e1ece450ef528cfd82a66946aa35f256c030709f7d

10 Perspective Checks on Your Startup Aspirations

Every entrepreneur needs to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and realistic about their reasons for choosing the startup route. For any entrepreneur, even the best business opportunities, if entered for the wrong reasons, will likely fail. Some of these reasons seem obvious, so forgive me for restating, but I still hear them too […]
Martin Zwilling
Martin Zwilling , Founder and CEO , Startup Professionals
2 Dec 2012
Startup Founders Pitch Toolbox 7569789924beeb0cb16be7cc05e6cd1287ce3efa50402111da2ff0ae0ad4c9db

How do serial entrepreneurs such as Kevin Systrom and Jack Dorsey sustain themselves while working on a project that doesn’t yet generate cash-flow?

Unfortunately there is no magic involved here. In the two specific cases you mentioned, one had made money from his previous startups, and the other had paying jobs at Google and Nextstop. Typically serial entrepreneurs are serial because they have successfully exited from Startup One before beginning Startup Two, and they use the first one […]
David S. Rose
David S. Rose , Founder and CEO , GUST INC.
29 Nov 2012
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