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Tag: #Entrepreneur

Is It Time to Pivot?

Is It Time to Pivot?

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Image by Marcin from Pixabay

Almost all startups pivot at some point. This we know. Since many people consider a new year a new/clean slate as well and a good time to reflect on where you’ve been/where you’re going, we decided it’s a good time to talk about the pivot.

We recently hosted an investor at one of our Online Insights who mentioned a unicorn exit from one of their portfolio companies. We  knew the founder. Very sharp guy who had majorly pivoted not long after said investor’s fund had invested in them. One of the partners had spoken at our Insights not long after the pivot and was livid: this was not what he had invested in.

Well, how often do investors mention that the ‘team’ is one of their top considerations when it comes to deciding to whom to write the check? Just a few short years following the pivot, the company had a serious unicorn exit. The founder also happened to be something of a subject matter expert, rethought the approach, did a major change of direction – and did we mention the company had a serious unicorn exit? Apologies, but we have learned from experience that one of the major always unnamed problems when it comes to why startups fail is that founders don’t listen. Read More...

Venture Winter & Other Storm Warnings

Venture Winter & Other Storm Warnings

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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

It’s that time of year. Holiday season and no matter how many tree lightings there are to see or gift lists to address, before we break out the eggnog, time for a reality check.

We know that ‘get funded’ is on every founder’s holiday wish list. It’s not impossible, but having worked in retail advertising, we will tell you that the holiday catalogs are compiled and put to bed in August.

Which is when you should have started, if you wanted to at least have had a shot at Santa checking that one off his list. Read More...

The Fine Line Between Deck and Dreck

The Fine Line Between Deck and Dreck

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Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

There was an interesting Twitter thread from @thedanigrant, CEO of jam.dev. We suggest you read the entire thread, but she begins, “When you start a startup, so many people tell you to ship fast and ship messy. They tell you: you’ll know you have product market fit when people are willing to jump through hoops to use your broken product. This was great advice in 2013. But not in 2023.”

Grant said that Jam.dev first released a buggy product, and while users might have been willing to put up with bugs in those earlier days of tech, meaning long before 2013, these days, not so much. And MVP is a good way to start – providing that the ‘M’ is sufficiently engaging to users, and case in point is the meteoric rise and cataclysmic disengagement of Meta’s Threads, which we mentioned just last week.

Oh, once the bugs were out, jam.dev relaunched and found its userbase. Read More...

Summer: The Midway Point, Part 1

Summer: The Midway Point, Part 1

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Things have certainly changed in the startup landscape. Investors haven’t completely unplugged for the summer, as they had previously. Their offices might have moved to non-sanctuary cities or they may no longer have offices at all. And investment into female founded companies is down.

Okay, so not everything changes, fair enough.

While none of us have any control over investor behavior, and as someone who is hired to ‘fix’ pitch decks all the time and make introductions to investors where and when appropriate, we can tell you that founders can control their own behavior, and give themselves a leg up, by presenting their offering clearly and concisely and grabbing the attention of investors, provided that they’re truly on to something – some of whom might actually write a check. Read More...

What Founders Can Learn from Drug Dealers

What Founders Can Learn from Drug Dealers

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Disclaimer: we are in no way intimating or outright suggesting that you become purveyors of drugs, legal or otherwise.

We’ve long known that tech can be addictive. When was the last time you left home without your cellphone? Or voluntarily spent a day or more without checking email et al? Read More...