We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: starting a company is hard work. Growing a startup from scratch is like jumping out of an airplane and trying to make a parachute using a thread and needle as you plummet towards the earth. Needless to say, when it comes to startup growth, there’s a lot that can go wrong – as Sean Sheppard knows firsthand.
“Growth needs to be done in a way that makes it safe for humans to tell you the truth. And that requires humility and a growth mindset.”
As the co-founder of Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund and market Development Accelerator GrowthX, Sean has seen hundreds of companies come through the door. Some of those companies have gone on to big wins – and others have stalled before they even g...
Sometimes the best way to grow our startups is to spend some time doing stuff that has nothing to do with our startups!
It sounds easy to do and yet so many of us have a huge issue with getting outside our own startup bubble.
But what if we knew that time away was the key to actually making our startup grow faster?
Aside from the obvious challenges around things like burnout, being focused exclusively on our startups prevents us from getting some new perspectives that we would have otherwise missed.
Whether it's that passing thought during meditation, that interesting point another Founder made at dinner, or the inspiration we got when we were sitting on a beach staring at the sun — our time away fro...
Many startup founders find themselves taking out their first business loans as they’re working to get their company launched. But, like so many other things in the startup world, it can be really harrowing to approach first time business loans — because you haven’t done it before! So here’s your comprehensive guide to first time business loans, including what to expect, how to prep, where to find them, and how to apply.
Unfortunately, first time business loans can be difficult for startups to procure. That’s because while some funding sources in the startup ecosystem — like VCs and angel investors — are looking to take big risks, traditional financial institutions like banks generally ar...
Like a lot of ambitious young women, Lisa Wang, co-Founder of the female entrepreneur networking group and community SheWorx, didn’t think that her gender was holding her back — until it did. Lisa’s first career was as a US National Champion Hall of Fame gymnast, where she was surrounded by talented, competitive women. This was followed by a short-lived career as an equity research analyst right after college, but chafed in that highly-structured environment. So, like so many talented millennials before her, she turned to tech.
“I realized that the work I was doing in finance was simply not aligned with my values,” Lisa tells Startups.co. “Having creative ownership, autonomy, and making a clear impact that aligned with my personal mission w...
EIN stands for “employee identification number” and it’s the number assigned to your startup for tax purposes. Think of it like your company’s social security number. The EIN is also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number.
The EIN is nine digits in this format: XX-XXXXXXX.
Most businesses do need an EIN — they’re necessary for filing taxes and for payroll. EINs are needed by employers, sole proprietors, corporations, partnerships, non-profit associations, trusts, estates of decedents, government agencies, some individuals, and some business entities. Some businesses are exempt from having an EIN, but may choose to get one anyway as having an EIN can make certain government processes simp...
There's no paycheck in starting companies. It's the finishing part that matters.
I say this because many of us simply love the thrill and idea of starting another startup. There's always this thought — "Boy, if I could just launch this one idea that I can't stop thinking about (while forgoing my existing startup), it'll be amazing!"
Here's where the logic in that breaks down over, and over, and over.
Every single time we start something anew, we reset the clock on how long it will take to make it successful. No matter how good we are, the maturation rate of a company will almost always take 7-10 years — if we're actually successful with it. That's the successful timeline, not the un-success...
A business loan is an amount of money a business borrows from a financial institution, with set requirements for the amount of time it will take to pay back, as well as interest rates.
Businesses get loans in order to help them start or to fund expansion. They’re one of a range of funding options for startups.
There are five main types of business loans that are relevant for startups:
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
A SBA small business loan is a loan that is backed by the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Founded in 1953, the SBA is a fe...
“Stagnancy isn’t good for anything, from standing pools of water to athletic performance to startups serious about growth. Ensure positive outcomes and superior employee performance and avoid team rifts well in advance by staying attuned to changing individual and cultural needs within your workplace.”
–Michael Manning, How to Know When to Shuffle Your Employee Deck
“Every company needs to set its sights on fostering alignment between the best roles for team members as befits the business’s objectives and vision. It all starts with taking some steps toward a more organic way of managing people,” proclaims Michael Manning in her article on why shifting an employee role may allow you to see your team members in a new light.
Easier said than ...
Growing slowly is the fastest way to build a sustainable startup.
From the outset that sounds like a contradiction, right? How could "growing slowly" and scaling possibly be congruent? They are if we take the time to understand that scaling is only possible once we've identified the assumptions in our business that are actually true.
As it happens, most Founders don't realize that "growing slowly" isn't about the long-term growth curve of a startup, it's about the near-term growth curve, the part where we are still trying to figure out exactly how this thing works.
The case for acceleration is that we'll get to where we need to be faster. But that rests on one (often) broken assumption — that we're acc...
Show me a startup that was once hot and I'll show you a Founder that got totally distracted by their own bullshit. As Founders, we're in the business of making dreams come true — particularly our own — so when everyone around is telling us how amazing we are, it's really hard to wake ourselves up and realize none of it is real.
Once hot startups all had a moment when everyone was praising what they did. The reason they are "once-hot startups" is that in the very moment they needed to be the most focused, they went off track believing their own press. It's a challenge that as Founders, if we understand, we can put ourselves in a position to avoid altogether.
When things are going well, we assume we've finally "made...