Talent, hard work and luck
“Hard work plus luck is what gets you a jet instead of just a BMW.” (Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan) Start-up success typically boils down to three elements: hard work, talent, and luck. Yet when we dissect the successes and failures of other start-ups, we tend to focus on the hard work and talent of […]
Crowdfunding: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Generally speaking, I’m a huge fan of crowdfunding. I’m an investor in one of the major platforms, Indiegogo. Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are helping fill the financing void for startups that struggle to find traditional financing. For example, I recently wrote about crowdfunding being a viable option for hardware startups who notoriously have a tough time attracting funding […]
How to find funding for your hardware startup while we’re waiting for the hardware revolution
Despite the recent media buzz surrounding the hardware revolution and emerging maker space, the overwhelming majority of hardware startups have a hard time attracting financing today. Hardware requires time, money, and inventory. As a result, most venture capitalists are reluctant to touch hardware projects, opting for the lower costs and smaller risks of software. While […]
When to sell your company
Few decisions can be as life-changing for founders as deciding when to sell a business. Companies get sold for a whole host of reasons: founders break up; money runs out; shareholders force a sale. And in many cases, the financial upside of a sale is just too seducing for the entrepreneurs, particularly for first-time founders. […]
Don’t listen to most of the advice you are getting
Getting good advice is critical for any entrepreneur and fortunately there’s plenty of advice to go around. Unfortunately, not all advice is worth listening to. Angel investor Allen Morgan (@allenmorgan) summed it up in a recent Tweet: “It’s a power law relationship: for entrepreneurs, >90% of the advice worth heeding comes from <10% of the […]