Tip #4, Crowdsource creative design

June 9, 2010

Almost any company you start will require some level of creative design.  It could be your website logo, web layout, business card design, stationery, or a brochure. In the past, you would need to find a contract creative designer that hopefully would work cheaply.  But today you have some other really good options. Websites have [...]

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Tip #3, Create your legal entity as an LLC

June 8, 2010

If you research how to form a legal entity for your company, you will find many books and sites that will talk about all the options.  You can choose from among a C-Corporation, S-Corporation, LLC, Limited Partnership and more.   While there are plusses and minuses of all the choices, what many books end up recommending [...]

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Tip #2, Learn SEO

June 7, 2010

No matter what business you are starting as an entrepreneur, you will benefit from having a compelling website and making it easy for people to find.  For the latter, you need Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Nobody truly understands how the search engine algorithms work their magic, but there are several smart folks that know a [...]

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Tip #1, Combine onshore and offshore development

June 4, 2010

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is how to best develop your product or website quickly.   To save money when I started Yigdigs, I initially chose an offshore development company. To interview and select an outsourced development team, I leveraged Odesk, which is what I call an “outsourcing facilitation” website. I included Odesk in [...]

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10 Tips for Entrepreneurs

June 3, 2010

Over the next two weeks, I am posting ten tips for entrepreneurs.   These are battle tested, practical, experience-based tips rather than hypothetical or ephemeral.   Comments, alternative viewpoints, and disagreements are welcome!

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Choose the right company brand name, retire rich

May 26, 2010

That’s silly of course.  It’s not that easy.  But many entrepreneurs have a hard time coming up with a company name.  Fortunately there’s a strategic approach that will yield good results. If you choose the name right, you have given yourself a huge leg up on the competition.   And I would argue you write your [...]

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Funding a Company with a Strong Value Proposition, a Guide for VCs

May 20, 2010

In my last post I took the position that venture capitalists need to give more weight to a company’s customer value proposition than the strength of the management team.  Admittedly it can be difficult and time consuming to determine a strong value proposition that real customers will spend real money on.  A value proposition must [...]

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Value Prop vs. Executive Team. A common VC mistake.

May 18, 2010

When a venture capitalist, angel investor, or hedge fund is looking at investing in a company, there are a host of criteria to consider.  Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?  What is the size of the market?  What is the product?  Who will buy it?  What is the exit strategy? Often times, [...]

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How to Strategize

May 11, 2010

The most essential task for an entrepreneur or business strategist is to plan the Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy.   A GTM strategy defined by Larry Friedman is: “A game plan for reaching and serving the right customers, in the right markets, through the right channels, with the right products and the right value proposition.” (Italic emphasis [...]

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Startup Ecosystems

April 9, 2010

If you are a startup entrepreneur, there is nothing more important than figuring out the startup ecosystems that can help you succeed.  I have found there are two categories of ecosystem that are the most important to explore and integrate with. 1) Local startup ecosystem. Your local ecosystem is simply the people that live in [...]

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