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Waymo will begin testing its autonomous Jaguar I-Paces without a human safety operator in Los Angeles in the next couple of weeks. This is the company’s next step on its path to commercializing robotaxi services in its second California city. To start, only employees will be able to hail rides in the driverless robotaxis. While Waymo has been mapping several LA neighborhoods, including Downtown, Miracle Mile, Koreatown and Westwood, since 2019, the company will start its rider-only testing
When do you sell your company? Obviously, we all want to sell at the top. And there is the problem. How do you know when you are at or near that right point to sell for maximum value? Those of us in the business of calculating (guessing) this mythical peak in value often make the same mistake as our entrepreneurs. We hang on just a little bit longer, expecting continued or accelerating growth and value as in previous periods of the same.
If you really want to start a business your way without a boss or professional investor hovering over you, then just fund it yourself or through friends and family, and grow it organically. It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. According to Investopedia , over 90 percent of successful businesses currently start this way.
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.
Here’s the IRS take on the issue: It is no secret that the IRS carefully looks below the surface for personal use of company assets (including cash) in its corporate income tax audits. This insight addresses more the impact of such behavior upon the actions of employees and others who observe that behavior from a senior manager or owner of a business – and know that they cannot say anything about it without jeopardizing their jobs.
I admit that my dad taught me this when I was just a fifteen–year old kid starting a business and negotiating with suppliers for the first time. But I learned it again and again in my various business lives. Here’s a striking example. The most striking example was the one hundred million–dollar purchase of one of my companies by a New York private equity investor using only five million of its cash.
Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels.
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Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels.
Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. These things outside your control do happen, but based on my years of experience as a startup advisor and angel investor, I still see too many strategies leading to failure that are inside the entrepreneur decision realm.
Every business professional I know, or have met in my consulting role, has given serious thought to the alternative of switching to the entrepreneur lifestyle , pursuing a long-standing dream, and controlling their own destiny. They ask me for a perspective on the pros and cons of that dream, the potential for increased satisfaction , and the probability of their long-term growth and success.
Celebrating that strategic partnership Many of us make it a priority to find and partner with companies that can add to our offering or extend our reach. And we rightly celebrate each such pairing, often with a mutual press release. And sometimes that’s all we end up doing. Call it a “press release partnership.” Or an opportunity missed. Or a relationship not nurtured.
Many experts are certain that successful entrepreneurs are the ones with the most inspiration (passion and dream), while others will assert that it’s about more perspiration (working harder). In my experience, both are always required in heavy doses. There are no “can’t fail” shortcuts or “get rich quick” scenarios. That’s why all those so-called million dollar ideas I hear about as an investor don’t get me excited, and entrepreneurs find that working twenty hours a day often generates nothing m
Every new business quickly realizes that revenue coming in every period on a committed basis is the Holy Grail to survival and growth. Based on traditional research, getting new customers is five to ten times harder than getting additional revenue from existing customers. Thus the subscription model (low fixed monthly payments), has become the norm for new products and services.
As a business consultant, I see many different employee cultures, from exciting and motivational, to dysfunctional and non-productive. Company leaders, as well as front-line team members usually realize when they have a problem, but most have no idea what is possible or how to change the culture. They keep waiting for top management to somehow fix the situation.
We are now solidly in the era of big data , where computers are capturing and processing the details of everything we do with all our interconnected devices in real time. Businesses see this as the Holy Grail for finally being able to predict who, where, and when customers will buy their existing solutions, and what their future solutions must look like to be attractive.
As an experienced business professional and mentor, I find that most successful peers will admit that they love what they do. From all the rest, I often hear the complaints about lack of motivation, boring job assignments, and bad management. My challenge has always been how to get people from the second category into the first. I’m finally convinced that only you can change yourself.
Most aspiring entrepreneurs look to their alma mater, or any university, as a source of classes that can help them, but neglect to think outside the box or take advantage of all the other resources to be found there. The lesson of finding help, connections, and even funding where other people may never look is one that makes all the difference in the entrepreneur lifestyle.
According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup. Even fewer are able to grow the startup into a viable business.
With business teams now getting back together in the workplace after primarily working remotely during the pandemic , it’s an ideal time to implement change and make sure your team is feeling a renewed sense of satisfaction, high engagement, and maximum productivity. These people are your most important assets , and you can’t succeed in business if they are not happy and healthy.
Did you ever wonder why some entrepreneurs always seem to have all the luck and success, while others never seem to catch a break? As an angel investor, I quickly learned that luck has very little to do with it, and I now look for some personal characteristics and leadership styles that separate the potential winners from the losers. These differences are the reason that investors say that they invest in people, rather than ideas.
The era of stable lifetime jobs for business professionals within a single company are gone. Companies are rightsized quickly now as markets change rapidly, and business professionals are quick to jump to new opportunities for growth and survival, with no ties to special benefits or pension plans. Thus smart business professionals are rapidly becoming the new entrepreneurs.
Every business I know has teams, some working collaboratively to great advantage, while others sadly operating as collections of individuals who work alone, often in competition with each other. As a consultant, I often get asked what can be done to improve team relationships and maximize the impact of the whole organization. Most business successes I see required great collaboration.
The last thing a new entrepreneur wants to think about for a new startup is how it will end. Yet one of the first things a potential equity investor asks about is your exit strategy. The answer you give can make or break your ability to get an investment, so you need to have the right answer ready before anyone asks. Here are three important reasons for the question: Good investment paybacks normally require an exit event.
It’s still popular these days for startup founders to operate in stealth mode, meaning no details about the idea or progress are shared with anyone until the big reveal and rollout. The common reason given is that this prevents any competitor from stealing their idea and beating them to market. In my view, this paranoid approach costs them much more than the risk of being open.
The post Press Release: Startup San Diego Announces Incoming Executive Committee Tapping Leaders from Industry, Non-profit & Education appeared first on Startup San Diego.
Throughout my career in business, I have rarely been on a team where every member was equally productive and never annoying. While I considered this situation a “normal” challenge of team collaboration , and part of my responsibility to overcome, I was often amazed at how lack effort, sensitivity, or communication skills would cause the whole team to become dysfunctional.
Most business professionals I know have been conditioned to think of inflation as highly negative, driving up their costs, and reducing customer buying. I see it as an opportunity to find new ways to attract customers , make long-needed changes to improve productivity, and lower your own costs of doing business. We all need a shock from time to time, to get us thinking ahead again.
Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Yet if you are on the other side of the table, there are some other key questions that you need to ask, which will tell you more about the real success prospects for this business.
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