Advisors
At a mentoring session at GROW I was asked about advisors and what entrepreneurs had to keep in mind when forming an advisory board. Here are a few quick tips: You want to focus on few but really engaged advisors – having 2-3 people that can help you on a weekly basis is much more […]
New investment: Mobile loyalty platform RewardLoop
I am very happy to announce a new investment today: RewardLoop is a mobile loyalty platform that enables a merchant of any size to launch and manage a card-less loyalty program for the mobile era. There are a few things that got me very excited about Vancouver-based RewardLoop. First and most importantly, the company founders […]
On innovation in start-ups
One of the most impressive pieces on innovation I recently read was Jeff Bezos‘ answer to a shareholder question at the last annual meeting. The question was: Amazon seems to be executing well lately — is the company taking enough risks? Added the shareholder, “If it’s still Amazon’s philosophy to make bold bets, I would […]
Investor updates
Keeping your investors in the loop about how things are going is one of the most important tasks for a start-up CEO. You want not only avoid surprises but also engage them as much as possible so they can provide timely advice and input into strategic decisions. Here is what I usually recommend as best […]
Pivoting
It is not uncommon for start-ups to pivot their product and / or business model a few times and the right pivot at the right time can determine success or failure of an early-stage company. The Startup Genome project found that “startups that pivot once or twice times raise 2.5x more money, have 3.6x better […]