Entrepreneurship Tips

Here is a short list, but there are many more things which come only from experience and feel interviewing. This is why it is best to have at least 15 years' professional experience before starting a company. Hire the best people you can afford, using stock options to find the ones that really care about the mission and will take submarket salaries to be on the mission. You need 3 key founders: Operator, visionary and sales/marketing head. All with 15 years' experience and long-term commitment. Ideally, willing to put in some cash too. CEO should screen first 100+ employees personally...

It all starts with a strong, documented values statement that is taken very seriously at every stage. This means enforcing it and using it as a basis for reviews, bonuses, and promotions in a visible way. Here are more key component of a process that will work: Training for employees in this and your company's value proposition. Including ethical behavior for long-term, mutual benefit. A win-win relationship with customers, not a transactional one. A culture of customer service. Employees are not allowed to bad mouth customers. That is attitude and can run off the rails if not limited. Use video...

Startups should never, ever, never compete with big companies. They must offer something different. “Differentiated” is the most important word in designing a startup market entry strategy. Look at this diagram and decide how you can adjust your company to be in the top right quadrant. Without that you have no chance of surviving, never mind profiting, because you will compete with companies 100 to 1,000,000 times larger than you with already developed marketing and sales channels and huge budgets.     Only these kinds of companies will attract investors (needed to grow) and top employees because they know the...

I have a free 1-hour course on the skills that must be possessed by the senior team collectively. This can be viewed here: The personality traits that a strong entrepreneur must have include: Tenacity and the ability to ignore naysayers when they have deeper understanding of the problem the company is trying to solve Vision - The ability to see the future trend they are either creating or trying to leverage Intelligence - The critical thinking skills to properly weigh the many factors that are needed for most business decisions Leadership - The ability to convince others to follow them...

A reasonable salary for any CEO or founder is a $100K to $200K today. This depends on their experience and market value which could easily be $500K+. A CEO with ten years in that seat is worth $300K to $500K base salary, but investors want them to have skin in the game and urgency too. Like a salesperson you never pay them enough in base salary to be totally happy, or financially comfortable. Stock value should be the main long-term motivation. At 20% capital gains tax, not 50%+. What is more important is that the base salary is a small...