As Founders, it’s important to share our knowledge with kids about startups and the entrepreneurial mindset at an early age.
Here are four reasons why:
It will help them stand out in a competitive workforce.
They’ll learn how to chart their own course in life.
They’ll develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
They’ll learn how to be creative and innovative thinkers.
To help kids get a better understanding of startups, we can introduce them to the basics such as:
1. Identifying new opportunities in the market and coming up with viable solutions.
2. Testing those solutions through prototypes and MVPs.
3. Understanding how to pitch their business idea effectively.
4. Learning how to scale their businesses and make them sustainable.
We can als...
In the startup world we’re used to hearing about billion dollar outcomes and massive exits. We’re all living the dream that our startup might be the one that turns into gangster retirement wealth. And, chances are, so are the people we’ve eagerly handed stock options to. We’re all hoping for that massive Powerballesque exit.
Yet, what if I were to suggest that a massive exit isn’t the only life changing outcome? What if I were to suggest that a $250,000 lump sum check might have more life changing impact than anything? Not because it’s more valuable than, say a $10 million check, but because it will likely have more near term impact and more importantly — you might actually get it.
We’re all sort of used to a...
I had a classmate Brian in grade school that would drive teachers crazy by asking them, “Why do we have to learn this?” He wasn’t a troublemaker at all, and I think this is what unnerved the teachers most. Dealing with hell raisers was an expected part of the job, but an ordinary kid questioning how things run? Well, that could bring the whole show crashing down…
With social media, we’ve all turned into Brian, asking aloud, “Why are you showing me this?” But unlike Brian, we have the power to turn away. Stories we don’t care about? Not gonna read ‘em. Sales pitches for goods we’ve never shown any interest in whatsoever? See ya.
So, how do you reach an audience of Brians that can tune out whatever they damn well please?
Quuu is a service tha...
Of all the slides in a pitch deck, the Market Size slide is what potential investors use as a make-or-break decision. Our "Total Addressable Market" (which is often referred to as the "TAM Slide") is how we calculate the market size of our opportunity. Yet how we present the market size slide and how we do market sizing takes a special approach.
The one rate-limiting factor for a startup is the total addressable market. A startup cannot scale to a size that exceeds the number of potential customers it has in an overall market. Therefore, if an investor can easily see that the total market size for our business is $50 million, then they know even if we had zero competition, we could be no more th...
For those of us who attend conferences, workshops and industry events regularly, it becomes easy to spot the different ‘networker’ profiles.
There’s always the ‘straight out of college’ marketing intern who fires out business cards at light-speed and performs the same pitch to every person. The quiet developer who slinks in the background avoiding eye-contact. And the somewhat creepy terminator-esque sales whizz who scans the crowd for his next target, then pounces.
Conferences and B2B networking events offer a great means of extending your network, meeting new clients, hires, partners or investors. But when dealing with experienced Business-to-Business networkers, you need to be prepared to work the room in the right way, and show the bes...
Over the years, I’ve seen two main drivers of change: functional and cultural. Functional change is just as it sounds. Your organization needs to change in order to keep up with the rapid pace of developments — or, more to the point, disruptions.
This year alone, it seems almost every industry is either launching or completing some type of digital strategy. Most strategies focus mainly on improving the experience of the end user. Robo-advisors in financial services, artificial intelligence in consumer goods, and let’s not forget voice-activated shopping from e-commerce giant Amazon.
But in addition to striving to be functional in these shifting sands, many organizations are finding it difficult to recruit and retain talent — which is not mu...
The most expensive time to raise capital is when we're most vulnerable.
This paradox is the heart and soul of where we get leveraged as Founders, particularly when we're giving up valuable equity. What we need to do in those vulnerable moments is step back and ask ourselves "Is this the best possible time to take on dilution or can we find a way forward that costs us less later?"
If we've never built a startup before, we may not even realize how important this question is. For those of us that have, we're hyper-aware of how badly we get beat up in our previous startup by not being more mindful of protecting ourselves when we were most vulnerable.
Our goal then should be identifying our moments of vulnerability and crafting a more viable pat...
Reflecting on building a diverse and inclusive workplace in the tech industry, Michele Perras, Director, Global Ecosystem and Alliances for Pivotal Software, looks back on what she has learned in her 15 years of personal experience as a woman in tech and her time on Pivotal’s Diversity and Inclusion council.
Here are a few things her experience has taught her:
It’s important to recognize that the diversity and inclusion goals you initially address will change and evolve. “It is about making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to excel and communicate in their role, especially over their time at your organization,” she says, noting that the mindset should include more than wo...
“It all comes back to our neanderthal brain craving the structure of a story.”
–Donna Griffit, The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for your Startup Investor Pitch Deck
Feeling self-confident that you could talk about your company to anyone? How ‘bout Grandma or your little niece? Could you hold their interest, make them understand quickly and clearly? Talk about a tough pitch!
The importance of startup storytelling has become a hot topic. Awareness is on the rise. However, most Founders have yet to master the science and art of storytelling. Why is it so hard? What are the key ingredients to winning your audience’s attention? Who does it well?
Special guest Donna Griffit joins Startups Live to share her storytelling expertise and to help Founder’s avo...
Welcome to Phase One of a four-part Splitting Equity Series make sure to read Introduction - Early Startup Equity — Getting it Right before continuing on if you haven’t already.
Phase One - Startup Equity — Avoiding Early Mistakes ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)
Phase Two - How Startup Equity Works
Phase Three - How to Split Equity
Phase Four - Equity Management
We are excited to guide you through your equity-splitting experience. Let's continue!
Before we make a single equity split decision about co-founders or any of our founding teams, please read this section carefully. Nearly every bad decision startup founders make in setting up their equity splits is contained here.
This lesson is a primer on splitting equity among two founders or more and how to have a...