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How to Prepare for the Next Wave of Entrepreneurship

Steve Case is the co-founder of America Online, the company that democratized online access. Steve is currently the chairman of the Revolution investment firm and also the Case Foundation. President Obama named him Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. Additionally, Steve has chaired Startup America and Startup Weekend, initiatives to promote entrepreneurship. In short, he’s a [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:08:38-07:00April 5th, 2016|Categories: Books|Tags: , , |35 Comments

How to Launch (And Why Scaling Doesn’t Matter)

In the early days of starting up, the ability to scale is overrated. “Scale,” in case you haven’t heard the term, refers to the concept that there are processes in place that are fast, cheap, and repeatable because there will soon be millions of customers who generate billions of dollars of revenue. [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:08:52-07:00May 4th, 2015|Categories: Books, Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Sales|Tags: , |8 Comments

How to Pick Advisors

Once upon a time there were two engineering PhDs who were clueless about how to start a company. All they knew how to do was code. They were so desperate for money and adult supervision that when an experienced businessperson showed interest and offered to help raise money, they, in their own words, “followed him [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:08:54-07:00April 27th, 2015|Categories: Books, Entrepreneurship|Tags: , |7 Comments

How to Spread the Word When Information Flows Faster Than Clout

In their book, Absolute Value: What Really Influences Customers In The Age of (Nearly) Perfect Information, Emanuel Rosen and Itamar Simonson explain a new approach to planting seeds to build awareness for a new product or service. Their idea is that the gradual adoption, trickle-down approach that started when Moses went to see God is [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:09:00-07:00April 13th, 2015|Categories: Books, Marketing and Sales|Tags: , |3 Comments

How to Be a Demo God

Several times a year a group of executives from startups do a six-minute demo of their products to an audience of venture capitalists, analysts, and journalists. This name of the event is, logically, DEMO. It’s a great occasion—especially if you understand the dance that’s going on: Entrepreneurs acting as if they don’t need venture capital, [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:09:04-07:00March 30th, 2015|Categories: Books|Tags: , , |0 Comments

The Art of Leading

Some aspiring entrepreneurs are already working for a big company. Like external entrepreneurs, they dream of creating innovative products. They, too, must prototype, position, pitch, bootstrap, recruit, fund, partner, sell, and support. The purpose of this minichapter is to explain how to do all this when you’re employed by a large business. [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:09:07-07:00March 23rd, 2015|Categories: Books, Entrepreneurship|Tags: , , |2 Comments

The Art of Keeping Things Simple

Entrepreneurs face hundreds of decisions when they start a company, and there’s often a temptation to optimize each one of them—sometimes by breaking new ground. However, it’s best to focus one’s energy and attention on milestone issues. My experience and expertise is with US companies, but these are generally accepted startup practices: [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:09:09-07:00March 18th, 2015|Categories: Books|Tags: , |2 Comments

The Art of the Pitch

Forget “I think, therefore I am.” For entrepreneurs, the operative phrase is, “I pitch, therefore I am.” Pitching isn’t only for raising money—it’s for reaching agreement, and agreement can yield many good outcomes including sales, partnerships, and new hires. Here are the key elements of a great pitch. […]

The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch

I am evangelizing the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a pitch should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. This rule is applicable for any presentation to reach an agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming [...]

By |2021-10-12T09:52:30-07:00March 5th, 2015|Categories: Books, Entrepreneurship, Pitching and Presenting, Venture Capital|Tags: |46 Comments

The Art of Simple Questions: How Simple Questions Lead to Great Innovations

There is a myth that successful companies begin with grandiose ambitions. The implication is that entrepreneurs should start with megalomaniac goals in order to succeed. To the contrary, my observation is that great companies began by wondering about simple things, and this leads to asking simple questions that beget companies: […]

By |2016-10-24T14:09:17-07:00March 3rd, 2015|Categories: Books, Entrepreneurship, Innovation|Tags: , , |7 Comments

The Art of the Business Model

A good business model forces you to answer two simple questions: “Who has your money in their pockets?” And “How are you going to get it into your pocket?” These questions may lack subtlety, but making money isn’t a subtle process. More elegantly stated, the first question involves identifying your customer and the need that [...]

By |2015-03-18T07:42:53-07:00February 24th, 2015|Categories: Books, Entrepreneurship|Tags: , |7 Comments

The Art of Evangelism

A long time ago I was a revolutionary at Apple. My job title was “software evangelist.” My responsibility was to evangelize Macintosh to software developers. Later my title was “chief evangelist,” and my responsibility was to evangelize Macintosh to anyone who wanted to increase productivity and creativity. […]

By |2016-11-11T07:15:59-08:00April 29th, 2014|Categories: Books|Tags: , , , , |7 Comments
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