TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 26, 2020

The Los Angeles startup community is joining the rest of the world in mourning the death of NBA superstar, entrepreneur and investor Kobe Bryant who was killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., Bryant launched his venture career with partner and serial entrepreneur Jeff Stibel back in 2013, according to Crunchbase.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2022

With the cost of entry at an all-time low, and the odds of success equally low, more and more entrepreneurs are starting multiple companies concurrently. Other prolific entrepreneurs, like Richard Branson and Elon Musk , simply have several startups on the table at any given moment. Many entrepreneurs love investing in other startups.

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Entrepreneur Startup Resource Course 145

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2019

He is regarded by many as the number-one authority on virtual staffing and personal outsourcing, and is himself a successful entrepreneur based in the Philippines. I was impressed with his summary of the top ten outsourcing mistakes made by entrepreneurs, followed by real guidance on how they can and should be avoided.

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Outsource Development Outsource Entrepreneur Summary 121

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2019

As a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, the most common question I get is, “I want to be an entrepreneur -- how do I start?” Many people with great ideas never make it as entrepreneurs, and true entrepreneurs can make a business out of anything. Few entrepreneurs can assimilate and hone a complete plan in their head.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 7, 2020

I recognize that entrepreneurs tend to substitute vision and passion for formal processes, but using no discipline or process in building something new is a sure way to spend money, rather than see any return and build a self-sustaining business. Show that you have a process to hire, fire, and train others as required.

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Entrepreneur Outsource Development Startup Competition 131

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2013

I never lived beyond my means and it’s always a warning sign for me when evaluating companies and entrepreneurs. Note to said entrepreneurs – you’re not missing anything. I came across this kick-starter page from baller-in-training Trevor Owens. I like more understated types. That makes no sense.

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Conference Technical Review Truecar Software Review 398

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2011

The most tempting thing for inexperienced entrepreneurs to do is to attack the press. I was recently talking with an entrepreneur who had just gotten a ton of press around his company for an interview he gave to a journalist. Another entrepreneur contacted me recently because a competitor had attacked his company in the press.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2022

Most entrepreneurs believe they are “different,” but they can’t quite understand how. The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. Dini makes the case that entrepreneurs are hunters, while the rest of us (large majority) are farmers.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2020

Every new entrepreneur has to initiate the right actions to be perceived as a leader in their chosen business domain by their team and by their customers, or the road to success and satisfaction will be lost along the way. No entrepreneur can build a business alone. Constantly strengthening your network of relationships.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Most aspiring entrepreneurs are convinced that the strength of their initial idea somehow defines them as a leader, as well as the success potential of their derivative business. It takes leadership ability, as well as a good idea, to make a successful entrepreneur, and great leaders evolve from key leadership decisions along the way.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2013

The one word the best entrepreneurs never accept. When he was 7-8 my wife used to sit down with him to do homework and train him the importance of getting it done early and well. I’ve been pitched by hundreds of entrepreneurs who never actually asked me whether I would invest. Stay with me. She was a natural leader.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Now, I’m pretty on the record that being an entrepreneur is about being great at The Do. I have written about the need for entrepreneurs to take inventory in themselves before deciding whom to hire as the rest of the team. You keep the trains running on time. I get sucked up in “Do” mode. That’s ok.

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Venture Capital Conference Ideas Entrepreneur 400

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

“One of the things we’re doing as a company is moving into sports-specific training,” says Speck. “We have diverse training plans that fulfill and serve people who are just getting to the gym to people who are college students playing football helping them get to the next level.” per month or $83.99

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Training Social Media Los Angeles Media 199

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2020

The most valuable assets of a new startup are the people on the team, and the most challenging task of the entrepreneur and team leaders is to spend their leadership time and energy productively. Effective team leadership, or leadership inside the box, is really only half the challenge that every entrepreneur faces. Square pegs.

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Entrepreneur Resource Startup Guide 126

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

In case you don’t know – as VCs we have have 2 sets of customers: LPs (limited partners) who invest money in our funds and entrepreneurs (who we in turn give money to and help support them in building businesses we hope will be valuable). Who else is going to tell a VC if he got a bad reference from an entrepreneur or fellow VC?

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Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do. This benefits you, the entrepreneur. It takes options off of the table.

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Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 16, 2013

The six words, which I believe encompass the key characteristics of a successful, serial entrepreneur, are: Fervent, Wily, Selfless, Optimistically Pessimistic and Self-aware. Below each of the six serial entrepreneur attributes (I grouped the related traits identified by Mr. Hall). 14 - 10 points: Entrepreneur in training. <

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Resource Entrepreneur Training Startup 241

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2012

And no life is more of a constant negotiation than that of an entrepreneur. And most of us start with zero training. His lawyerly training has helped him become an excellent negotiator. Like the problem solver I had been trained as in my software development days, I parsed his issue. He openend with his first issue.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Every business wants and needs top performers, but most entrepreneurs and executives assume that if they hire and train the smartest and most experienced people, they will get exceptional performance. Thus paying only for sales volume, when you desire high customer satisfaction, is not productive.

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Entrepreneur Coach Satisfaction Resource 120

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Greathouse: Your collective experiences have clearly made bootstrapping a viable option for you, more so than might be the case for a typical, younger entrepreneur who needs more direction, doesn’t have cash discipline, etc. What advice you can offer entrepreneurs validating their new products? I get enough of those from my kids.

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Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

TechCrunch LA

JULY 9, 2019

Founded by serial travel entrepreneur Katelyn O’Shaughnessy, whose last company TripScope was acquired by Travefy, Doctours aims to connect patients with doctors to receive access to quality, affordable healthcare around the world. O’Shaughnessy wrote in an email. Doctours is certainly entering a lucrative market.

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Custom Customer Training Los Angeles 225

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

If you can’t quantify or document your service for repeatability and new employee training, you will kill yourself trying to grow the business. You don’t have enough hours in a day, or trained people, to succeed with lower margins in a services startup. Capture your “secret sauce.” Don’t let your service be viewed as a commodity.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2023

Most of the time, I’m all about providing encouragement and inspiration to entrepreneurs. They need it and they deserve it, because entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of our economy. The question of defensibility is one of the toughest for an entrepreneur to answer. Few people are trained for either, and most depend on their gut.

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Entrepreneur Startup Sample Guide 99

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 8, 2020

Every new entrepreneur who has not spent years in corporate life has the advantage of an unbiased look at business opportunities, but at the same time has the disadvantage of missing critical business experiences that can cost them dearly in their first startup venture. Startups don’t come with formal training courses.

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Training Entrepreneur IBM IBM 144

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. We had a training session from somebody who put up the four-quadrant graph you see above. Most entrepreneurs are.

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Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2021

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe their initial idea and inspiration requires the most important creative thinking. Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the initial idea is the easy part, and it’s the later implementation, and the competitive business marketing that are the real creative challenges.

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Ideas Patents Training Entrepreneur 171

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2021

Young entrepreneurs and startups, in particular, often remain naively unfocused, despite their passion, of what it takes to provide the high-quality service expected. It’s a tough job, and inexperienced entrepreneurs just don’t know where to start, and how to do it. Train and coach continuously.

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Startup Training Custom Customer 154

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2021

Every entrepreneur I know is short on resources, including time, money, and skills. Thus I am morphing the points here, with specific focus on the entrepreneur, who would never think of themselves in the context of automobile manufacturing: Offering too many products and services concurrently. Bottlenecks to team productivity.

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Startup Resource Training Entrepreneur 161

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2020

One of the things I’ve learned in working with aspiring entrepreneurs is that managing and leading a team is a scary venture into the unknown for many people, even if they have worked as a business professional for years. As an entrepreneur, executive, or team member, you are most impacted by the people you gather around you.

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Tips Training Startup Entrepreneur 152

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2021

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. It’s here that entrepreneurs must shift their thinking from tactical and operational, to strategic and managerial. It means not only hiring, but training and measuring performance.

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Startup Organization Training Entrepreneur 171

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. In fact, they need an early focus on developing their moral compass, as well as setting the right ethical tone. Ethics can’t be managed.

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Entrepreneur Software Review Summary Examples 116

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

There was no money train. I was in it for the love of working with entrepreneurs on business problems and marveling at technology they had built. I have often thought that creative endeavors where one has a quick turn-around between idea and realization of one’s work as one of the more fulfilling experiences in life. It was 1991.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2021

Most entrepreneurs expect to face the “normal” challenges of starting a business, which include finding the right opportunity, building and executing a winning plan, and financing their venture. Sometimes entrepreneurs are so set on creating a successful business, they forget to create one that they love to work on every day.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 15, 2020

Young entrepreneurs often are so excited by new technology or their latest invention that they forget to translate it into a value proposition that their customers or potential investors can understand and relate to. Entrepreneurs who make this case effectively will get the decision they want, no matter how esoteric their technology.

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Technology Social Network Training Startup 165

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2022

Most entrepreneurs assume that success is dependent on their product expertise, coupled with some knowledge of how to run a business. Successful entrepreneurs today must practice human-centered leadership to compete and win. Effective entrepreneur leaders focus on getting people needs satisfied early.

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Training Coach Startup Entrepreneur 142

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 11, 2016

In addition to his experience as an angel investor, Kelly served in the US Army as a Military Intelligence Officer and completed Airborne and Ranger training, and graduated from West Point and UCLA. What qualities in those military veterans do you think make a good entrepreneur?

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Capital Startup Invest Training 223

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Kara will now be really involved with what goes on to successfully create and run a firm but while still handling her core duties of funding great entrepreneurs. investing in the brightest and most driven entrepreneurs we have access to and helping guide them as they build amazing companies and industries. I’m only 52!

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