Remove Ideas Remove Mentor Remove Writing
article thumbnail

10 Marketing Lessons for Early-Stage Tech Startups

Both Sides of the Table

In the early days you don’t really want 3 extra teams hearing your ideas and gearing up to compete before you feel you’ve got a solid head start. They think that only by being open and testing your ideas in an open marketplace can you be successful. But once a VC has heard your idea he can’t “un-think&# it.

Marketing 380
article thumbnail

6 Steps For Advancing New Venture Ideas Into Results

Startup Professionals Musings

Many aspiring entrepreneurs I mentor can talk at length about their innovative ideas and passions, and ask lots of good questions, but never make much progress in building a real business. In my experience, building a business is much more about getting things done than having great ideas. It’s time to get the help you need.

Ideas 121
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

5 Steps To Get You From Your First Idea To A Business

Startup Professionals Musings

One thing I have learned the hard way in business is that implementing new ideas is usually much more difficult than conceiving the idea in the first place. That’s why I caution my aspiring entrepreneur clients against proclaiming to investors that they are a great “idea” person. For example, I have a friend with a Ph.D.

Ideas 126
article thumbnail

Interview Dan Dato and Bruce Brown, Upstart.LA

socalTECH

Those programs--epitomized by YCombinator in the Bay Area, and TechStars in Boulder, Colorado--attract newly minted entrepreneurs with a mixture of cash and mentoring, and a program which rapidly takes ideas and turns them into viable, executing businesses. Those mentors are not just Bruce and I, although we are full time on this.

Startup 221
article thumbnail

6 Drivers For Aspiring Entrepreneurs To Finish School

Startup Professionals Musings

Most colleges have now added classes in entrepreneurship to include the necessary business focus to technical majors that usually drive innovative ideas. Take advantage of free startup programs and mentors. Every school recognizes the power of “hands-on” work to help you develop your own ideas into a business.

article thumbnail

What Should We Make of Peter Thiel’s “20 Under 20? Education Program?

Both Sides of the Table

Thiel and friends will also agree to mentor these young entrepreneurs. So is this a good idea? Actually, they’ll get even more attention because this selection will put them in an even more exclusive peer group and will introduce them to even more connected mentors. In Poly Sci I learned critical thinking and writing.

Education 322
article thumbnail

Some Reflections on VC Investment Decisions

Both Sides of the Table

I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. This is when founders need you the most – either are coach, mentor, interviewer, work off-loader or honest-mirror-reflection of reality. If an accelerator is writing you they’re also writing 25 other VCs.