Note: This article is not intended to provide investment advice, rather it reflects my personal style and observations over the past 35 years that I have been studying and practicing investing as an startup angel, VC, real estate and stock market investor. I believe that there is a different investment style for everyone and you […]
Western thought is heavily based on reason and one of the key underpinnings of reason is scientific proof. We therefore all are somewhat slaves to that which is “proven” and this reliance produces a critical weakness in that much of what we considered “proven” is often subsequently proven wrong and much of what we intuitively […]
Knowing your Why doesn’t seem very important when everything is going wonderfully. When life is grand we are usually not asking the deep inconvenient questions, such as: What am I doing with my life and WHY am I doing it? Frankly who cares? Life is awesome, pass the champagne! However, when things get rough in […]
It’s not unusual for entrepreneurs to get ahead of themselves. Entrepreneurs are aggressive and opportunistic, their pace accelerated by their hopes and dreams. Doing things in the wrong order, however, is one of the surest ways of sabotaging your start-up; and doing them in the right J Curve order (Create > Release > Morph > […]
Just like playing golf, investing in public markets is full of paradoxes and to do well at either, you need to often do things that are counter-intuitive. When I look back on my investments over the years, my best ones tended to be ones where had they not worked out, I would have looked like an idiot. Because at the […]
I often hear a founder get very excited about the prospect of a large customer. The implied expectation is that this out-sized customer is going to shower the startup with cash & confer on them the imprimatur of legitimacy. However, when I hear a founder start talking about “the big one” I cringe. I start […]
I discuss MVP’s in my book, The Start-Up J Curve, but I wanted to add some additional color because it’s so critical to get it right. As most people in the startup world are aware, MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. Each of those words are important. Minimum means the least amount of time, money […]
The Power Law has become a widely accepted reality in venture, particularly as it applies to a classic venture portfolio. While it may be an important factor when understanding future or past venture returns, I think it’s a mistake to extend it to all forms of venture, especially angel investing. At the risk of oversimplifying, […]
Today is the official launch date of my book, “The Start-Up J Curve”, so I thought it would be a good day to share something which can greatly benefit most start-ups – and especially those who are looking to raise money. I call it The Start-Up J Curve Perfect Pitch Deck. My venture partner, David […]
Recently the Dollar Shave Club was bought by Unilever for one billion dollars. I know many will think “why didn’t I have that idea?” However, perhaps a more productive thought is “how could I come up with an idea like that?” Well, it may sound far fetched but I actually do believe that you can. […]