Blogs

That’s what I’ll be doing this afternoon at Harvard. I’ll be talking about my take on startups, including: -The Perfect Startup -The Worst Startup -For Profit or Non-Profit -Should You, Could You Raise Money? -If You Raise Money, When Should You Do It? -If You Raise Money, How Can You Do It? -The Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made It’ll be a

This is from a Quora thread about founders with seed funding make. Josh Fechter was gracious enough to share his own personal story about his mobile job finding app. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-common-mistakes-that-seed-funded-startup-founders-make   HOW WE RECKLESSLY BLEW $500,000 IN FIVE MONTHS We had a Reddit post about our launch go viral resulting in over 10,000 users for our mobile app. The idea: A

I’ll be speaking along with some VCs about startup funding this Saturday here in Los Angeles. Should be a good event. www.n3xtcon.com

It was a typical afternoon in Hollywood. Lunch with Rob Schneider at Xiomara restaurant on Melrose. We were meeting with his inventor, who claimed to have created a revolutionary machine to extract hydrogen from water – electrolysis. He said that he put in X amount of energy, and the machine generated 100X as output. I replied “Well, I’m just a

Going to South by Southwest? I’ll be speaking on two panels related to virtual reality – it’s ability to create empathy, and actually do good. We’ll go beyond the current hypemania and do deep dives into the very real potential for VR to create transformational changes. http://brinkinstitute.org/brinksxsw If you’re going to be there, stop by and say hi! Paul Hynek

Two weeks ago I went to Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson’s private island in the British Virgin Islands. Richard Branson is the entrepreneur’s entrepreneur – running an international Virgin empire with over 400 companies ranging from airlines to financial services to yes – Virgin Galactic. And on Necker Island, over some 40 years, he’s built, well, there’s really no other

So you’ve just started your baby. Your shiny new company. You haven’t yet even done a soft launch, but you’re already getting amazing feedback from various and sundry people. And by various and sundry people, I mean people who don’t have your last name. Then one fine day, you pitch at an Angel event, and someone wants to invest. Trouble

You may have seen in various places on our site that we’ve fallen out of love with the fancy thirty page business plan. If you’re in startup mode, you don’t really have time to write it, and investors simply don’t have time to read it. So it’s largely a waste of everyone’s time. That’s why we provide the free Two

You may have heard these terms bandied about. Startup valuations are hard enough without some jargon to muck up the waters even more. Fortunately, these terms are about as simple as it gets, once you learn the math. Let’s put this in the context of a startupper named Casimir. Casimir has come up with a new Internet router technology that

There are a lot of things that you don’t think of when you finally take the plunge and start your new company. One thing that often sneaks up on entrepreneurs is intellectual property. Are you comfortable with how much you know about patents, trademarks, and copyrights? One of the free bonuses that comes with EZ Numbers is our Guide to

We’ve just created a Free Version of EZ Numbers. You need the paid versions to really understand your business in depth, get a loan, or get an investment. We’ve had a lot of users tell us that until they used EZ, they hadn’t really understood their business. But if you just want to test out a rough business idea, the

You may be aware of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. Passed in 2011, and just going into effect last month on March 16, this law represents a sweeping change in American patent law. From the beginning of patent law in the United States, we have operated under a “first to invent” system. Therefore even if someone else filed a patent

I’ve had people ask me when is the best time to start a new company. -“I better wait until after the election.” -“This sequestrations business – better to see how this all pans out.” -“I heard that crowd funding for startups will be legal soon. That’s the perfect time.” There’s always that “perfect time” around the corner. Past that big

A friend of mine has a new software solution to help hospitals better plan nurse shifts. It works really well, and he’s gotten some nice early adoption. Question: What’s his business? Well, sure, it’s nurse shift software. But I’ll argue that it’s still too early to really know what his business is, as he hasn’t yet been presented with the

In a former life I was Vice President at a company in Japan that among other things taught expensive classes. Very profitable classes. We also put out books on the same subjects. Very good books that showed our philosophy, and that had a very successful track record. I started making plans to showcase the books, and get them into as

Davis Smith is a recent Wharton grad. His latest entrepreneurial venture in Brazil is really cool, so I thought I’d share it here.  It’s a write-up that first appeared in the alumni newsletter that I put out every month. I think you’ll enjoy it. ************* After six incredible years as an entrepreneur, I decided it was time to roll the

Raising money for your startup can be brutally difficult. Do you give up part of your company in the form of equity? You may find that the valuation of your company that an investor will agree to is far lower than you expected, which means that you’ll be giving away a large percentage of your company. Or do you get

Starting a business is no easy business. Fortunately, there are some free resources that every entrepreneur should know about. Most people have heard about the SBA – Small Business Administration, but in my experience, most entrepreneurs don’t know that the SBA, and its sister organization, the SBDC – Small Business Development Center, provide numerous free services to anyone who wants