Don’t be a clone! At least, if you want to get any attention from customers or investors. I frequently run into companies which (deliberately or not) are essentially a clone of another, existing startup out there in the world. It’s often not intentional, but I find frequently I get pitches from companies who are talking [...]
I was on a panel last night with Nate Redmond of Rustic Canyon Ventures, and Alex Maleki of Idealab’s New Venture Group in Pasadena (thanks to Matthew DeBord at KPCC) and one of the audience members asked an interesting question, one that I hear often from MBA students, which is: how you become a venture capitalist? [...]
A few random ideas I have picked up from talking to entrepreneurs over the years (my favorite part of what I do is talking to entrepreneurs and learning what makes them tick). Interestingly enough, you soon realize there many common themes when you talk to the successful entrepreneurs. 1. Execution matters more than ideas. Key [...]
Among one of the biggest issues new entrepreneurs face when trying to raise money, from both angel and venture capital investors, is not doing their research and getting to know their investors before approaching them. In my years tracking the high tech companies getting–and not getting–funding, particularly here in Southern California, I’ve noticed that those [...]
Earlier this month I posted on a few Rules for Personal Networking for Newbies, talking about a few tips for people just getting into used to networking with others. This morning, Mark Suster at GRP Partners (who is on a roll with his startup advice) posted The Right Way to Cancel a Meeting, talking about [...]
Here’s five quick misconceptions I see of new entrepeneurs who I have been running into at technology conferences, which I thought I’d share to hopefully help some of those folks out there avoid lengthy (and often fatal) issues with finding funding for their ventures. Investors fund business plans, all 100 pages. Ummm. There’s still a [...]
Mark Suster has a good piece on why you shouldn’t pitch a VC with how much PR you’ve received lately. I’d add, the same goes for editors and writers, who really don’t care how much coverage you’ve received from other publications, but how interesting your company/products are to their own readers. I think this is [...]
Mark Suster has a good post on Not Drinking The Kool Aid after an event like TechCrunch50 or widespread press coverage, which is well worth the read for entrepreneurs. I had a few additional points to add: 1. Don’t pitch bloggers/journalists/other with your news clippings. Yes, you’re the new popular person in the school hallways, [...]
Investors and advisors in the high tech business are very familiar with the idea of “me too” companies, but I find many entrepreneurs–particularly new ones–all too often fall into the trap of being the next-incremental-improvement-on-a-hot-company. This is pitched as: We’re the “next YouTube” We’re the “next MySpace” We’re the “next Twitter” We’re the “next Facebook” [...]
I’ve noticed a renewed trend nowadays in companies pulling out those traffic numbers (and people asking about them) as a indicator of success of their startup. In fact, at Twiistup, I heard at least one audience member ask a panel “what kind of traffic should I be getting” as an indicator of success of their [...]
Thoughts and commentary from Benjamin F. Kuo, publisher of socalTECH.com.
