Entrepreneurship Tips

This is sort of like asking, “How do I create a masterpiece of art?”. The answer is so complex it involves years, maybe decades for most, of experience in strategy, product development, intellectual property, operational excellence and more. Creating Sustainable Competitive Advantage, which is the only thing that drives higher exit values, is art. And involves many disciplines. I created a web page titled The Entrepreneur's Journey which lays out the 25+ skills, and arts really, that are required to build a valuable company that can grow rapidly and provide a strong exit for investors here: The Entrepreneur's Journey If you...

Because being a CEO of a startup is the most complex job there is today. People greatly underestimate what it takes to be successful. It takes at least 10 and more likely`5+ years' experience to accumulate the experience needed for a high chance of success. Here is a list of the skills we teach at The CEO & Entrepreneur Boot Camp: 1. Recruiting 2. Management 3. Marketing & Branding 4. Product Development & Innovation 5. Operations, customer services 6. Finance 7. Sales 8. Raising capital 9. Leadership 10. Competitive Intelligence 11. Market Research 12. Vision 13. Competitive Strategy 14. Organizational...

Very rare and almost impossible except in the startup days. Owners need to master other skills like this list to scale a company. Sometimes they help build the first product but usually people with far more talent come in and improve it greatly, as they have 15, 20 or more years experience. Because being a CEO of a startup is the most complex job there is today. People greatly underestimate what it takes to be successful. It takes at least 10 and more likely`5+ years' experience to accumulate the experience needed for a high chance of success. Here is a...

The most important traits of quality leaders are integrity, good management and people skills, the ability to see the future (need or market) and communicate that vision to their team and others. Obviously, some domain/industry expertise in the areas you are executing.  Some may call this “Selling the vision” and that can be to employees, investors, vendors or anyone.  A leader aligns all parties needed to proceed forward, including all stakeholders.  I define leadership as when you do not have to look back because you know people are following you because they want to and believe in accomplishing the mission. Not because...

I created a short video series answering this exact question that you can view for free here called The Entrepreneur’s Journey.  An MVP's goals list should provide all the data to answer that question (example below for AirBnB).  Your first job is creating that list. Long before you start building a product.  The purpose of an MVP is to get real-world customer feedback.  However, you will need to run the financials to balance what the budget can be to build it.  And to market test it too. Technical founders often greatly underestimate the cost and time needed for marketing.  It can...