Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. The industry has obviously changed enormously in 2022 but in many ways it feels like a “return to normal” that we have seen many times in our industry.

Startup 408

Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

Berkonomics

JULY 7, 2022

Another leadership development bit? Yup. But if you have no time or are impatient, here are the three levels: visionary, strategic and tactical. Skip or stay with me; but think about your balance in your leadership methods either way. The conundrum of competing needs. As a leader, you must worry over issues from mundane to strategic, constantly reordering your priorities to accommodate competing needs.

Metrics 293

Metrics Ideas Conference Email 293

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

The process for retailers and brands to liquidate excess inventory hasn’t changed very much, if at all, and while some retailers were able to build operational infrastructure to service the off-price channels, it continues to be a constant pain point. Brands overproduce more than $500 billion of goods annually, and all of that excess inventory leads to retailers needing to do markdowns, which is what we recently saw both Walmart and Target have to do.

Product 191

Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 2, 2022

Outside of dreams, there is no real business opportunity without risk. Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked.

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Entrepreneur Marketing Customer Custom 153

Advertiser: Aggregage

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

Company

TechCrunch LA

JULY 26, 2022

Holey Grail Donuts started selling its hand-fried, made-to-order taro donuts on Sunday mornings out of a little red burger trailer in Kauai in 2018. Four years and hundreds of long lines later, the truck is still there, but the company is taking on what co-founder Nile Dreiling calls “a stale $40 billion donut industry ” by expanding its presence into brick-and-mortar locations in Los Angeles after raising $9 million in financing.

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Los Angeles Angel Culver City Startup 183

Berkonomics

JULY 28, 2022

Here is a variation of the “tree falls in the forest” question. . In past insights, we’ve looked at leadership skills, ways to enhance effectiveness, and how to develop creative ideas that motivate and propel your organization to greatness. Here is the ultimate question for a leader…. You’ve heard the old saying that you can lead by fear or lead because people want to follow.

Examples 156

Examples Email Organization Ideas 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 15, 2022

You have to be extra tough mentally to start a new business venture. While thinking about it, I realized that it’s really not that different from the toughness required and trained into America’s elite military force of Navy SEALs, who are known to be cool under fire, able to sense danger before it’s too late, and never give up on achieving their objective.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Mentor Training 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2022

Does your business always seem to be trying to catch up with new competitors and changes in the marketplace? One of the things I learned from my years in Silicon Valley is that you must always focus on three steps ahead, as well as on what exists today. For most businesses, that means a culture of thinking outside your comfort zone , and planning change before a crisis hits.

Artificial Inteligence 146

Artificial Inteligence Netflix Resource Customer 146

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2022

Today more than ever, the evidence is clear that business people need to find and communicate a purpose that goes beyond making a profit, in order to ensure customer engagement, as well as your own, and drive results in the marketplace. In my work with entrepreneurs, I have concluded that finding and communicating that purpose is often more important than the solution offered.

Technical Review 143

Technical Review Coach Mentor Customer 143

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2022

I have learned from experience that scaling any business is difficult. You may feel good when that first burst of customers arrives, but don’t assume that “ word of mouth ” and those early adopters will grow your business to match your dreams of success. In these days of global competition via multiple channels, you need continuous marketing to find more customers.

Technical Review 142

Technical Review Social Media Conference Customer 142

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 23, 2022

Throughout my career in small companies and large, I’ve always been appalled by the number of people who have a negative attitude or complain all the time. These people don’t seem to realize that they are hurting themselves, as well as other people’s productivity, and jeopardize the future of the company they are working for. I’ve always thought that I might be overly sensitive, until I saw an article about bad bosses a few years ago by The Business Journals , which claims that many employees sp

Startup 141

Startup Journal Customer Custom 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2022

Isn’t it frustrating to think you finally understand something in business, like marketing with social media, only to realize that the landscape changed while you were looking at other priorities? For example, it used to be that marketing via social media meant banner ads on Facebook, buying search engine results, and sponsoring blog entries, but these don’t suffice anymore.

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Social Media Media Snapchat Platform 140

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2022

In my experience with business leaders, real innovation thinking is rare, compared to the urge to add just one more feature to an existing product, or make a small tweak to an existing business model. I call this linear thinking , and it’s a sure way to be ultimately overrun by your competition. I’m convinced this doesn’t have to happen if you are willing to adopt an innovation mindset.

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Competition Examples Customer Custom 139

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2022

Wouldn’t you like to be one of the lucky people who joined Google and Facebook when these were startups, and now be a multi-millionaire or better? So people ask me “How many shares should I ask for or expect when I join a startup today?” In reality, the number of shares doesn’t mean anything – it’s your percent of the total that you need to negotiate.

Startup 137

Startup Equity Pricing Marketing 137

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2022

Perhaps sparked by the recent pandemic, I’m seeing a new era of the entrepreneur, with startups springing up all around. Based on my own mentoring and investing experience, the best entrepreneurs are pragmatic problem solvers. They have an uncanny ability to find elegant, easy, and fast solutions to pain points in the marketplace, as well as their own challenges.

Startup 135

Startup Mentor Entrepreneur Technical Review 135

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 6, 2022

Getting out of your comfort zone is always a challenge, but more and more evidence indicates that it is necessary for growth and success in your business and career. In my experience as a mentor to entrepreneurs, I find that self-doubt and lack of confidence are the primary constraints people have to overcome to move ahead. The challenge is to recognize your problem and fix it.

Mentor 134

Mentor Slides .Net Writing 134

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2022

A common request I get while mentoring entrepreneurs is for a copy of the startup checklist they need to follow, in order to build a successful new business. I wish it was that easy. The challenge is that every new business needs to be innovative and different, in order to rise above the crowd, bring real change to the world, and give you the satisfaction you seek.

Technology 133

Technology Cloud Computing Social Media Networking 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2022

I know some entrepreneurs with successful businesses, and others who seem to have a great relationship with their family, but I can’t think of many who have both. Some people would argue that these two successes are mutually exclusive, but I’m not convinced. Individually, they both take focus, commitment, and a variety of skills, all the strengths of a good entrepreneur.

Demand 131

Demand Entrepreneur Competition Activity 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2022

By most definitions of the term, an entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business, incorporating innovative changes to existing products, services, business models, and creating new markets. Yet very few achieve that great aspiration of really driving economic, social, and environmental changes on a global scale. What does it take to get to that level?

Examples 131

Examples Entrepreneur Technology Resource 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2022

A perfect storm is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances aggravates an environment drastically. In the entrepreneur world, I feel we are in such a situation now for new startups, with the confluence of business transformations, the explosion of new digital technologies, and the political turmoil around the world.

Startup 128

Startup Coach Training Education 128

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2022

Too many customers have long felt distanced from many successful brands, seeing them as closed and mysterious environments, focused only on profits and killing competitors. They may not have noticed the wave of “open businesses,” spawned by the Internet and social media. These are responding to the demands of this new world for collaboration, trust, and transparency.

Organization 126

Organization Social Media Examples Customer 126

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2022

Real innovation in the business world is still rare. As I’ve said before, everyone talks about innovation, but the majority of new business plans I see still reflect linear thinking – one more social network with more features, another smartphone app for marketing, or one more platform for faster e-commerce. Historic changes and great successes don’t come from linear thinking.

Marketing 125

Marketing Tips Organization Ideas 125

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2022

Some people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. This is a good thing, or the business world would be chaos, with everyone trying to do their own thing. So what about you? How do you know if you should be running your own company, or concentrating on that queue of work that someone else has built for you? I’ve hit this before, but I still hear from too many unhappy entrepreneurs.

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Entrepreneur Satisfaction Organization Ideas 124

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 17, 2022

Your business can’t be all things to all people, and excel at anything. Every entrepreneur and every business needs a strategy to keep them focused. In fact, in this new world of pervasive interactivity, it’s time to rethink even how to develop a strategy. Strategy used to come from the inside looking out, but now it must come from a dialogue and engagement with constituents.

Organization 118

Organization Course Patents Entrepreneur 118

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2022

In my many years of experience in large businesses as well as startups, a key lesson I have learned is that personal leadership is most often the differentiator between success and mediocrity or failure. Building and running a business requires a team of business leaders, not just one creative genius or brilliant technologist. You need to be one of those leaders.

Resource 114

Resource Coach Startup Training 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2022

New entrepreneurs who want to survive, and optimize the growth of their startups, need to think globally, and act locally, from day one. This approach, popularly known as “ glocalization ,” means you have to design and deliver global solutions that have total relevance to every local market in which you operate. Recognizing this is as much about culture as about language, ensures an understanding of regional motivators, cultural taboos and local customs – so that your solutions are ideally desig

Patents 106

Patents Offshore Startup Demand 106

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2022

Every entrepreneur can learn from a mentor, no matter how confident or successful they have been to date. Most people don’t know that billionaire Mark Zuckerberg , for example, gives real credit to the inspiring mentorship of Steve Jobs for Mark’s Facebook success. Yet most entrepreneurs simply don’t know how to work with a mentor. It is not as simple as one person giving the other all the right answers.

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Mentor Develop Development Startup 101