Let's face it, startups often feel like an all-out sprint to get your product to market before your competitors do. That typically means you are living and breathing your startup around the clock, often putting in long hours. And, you typically can't ever get away from it, even in your limited free time. Your friends want to talk about it, your best thinking is while you are alone in the shower, you get that great idea while at the gym, etc. That is all fine and dandy, until you realize that a s...

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As we read in my previous post about fundraising options for your business, angel investors (not venture capital firms) are the most likely candidates to get your businesses from a piece of paper to a proof of concept. Today, we will tackle how you can find these angel investors across four distinct groups: friends and family; angel investors directly; networks aggregating money from angel investors, and fundraising advisers. Friends and family investors have their distinct pluses and minuses. T

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In last week's post, we talked about key success factors for any startup and determining if you have a good business model. Today, we are going to drill down on one those factors: things to consider when setting up your management team. The key drivers of that are finding employee partners that have: (1) the required skill sets for the job; (2) prior experience with startups; (3) a personality fit with the rest of the team; (4) share (Read Full Article)