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- Please don’t overestimate your audience’s knowledge
- Raising money? Find your champion.
- Have you heard the rule of the thirds?
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- Three Important Issues for Your Business Plan
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Author Archives: Dave Berkus
Create a great product – the three-step dance method
Can you create a product in a vacuum? Creating a new product in a relative vacuum is an exercise in complete trust that you know what’s best for the customer, perhaps even without interaction with such a customer. It’s probably … Continue reading
Posted in Finding your ideal niche, Positioning
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Ready, fire, aim. Really?
You’ve surely heard the variations on this theme. “Ready, fire aim” was popular in the 1990’s, accredited to any of several authors. I used the term to describe my efforts in the artificial intelligence field, experimenting with new devices, the … Continue reading
Can you build a company, not just a product?
Some businesses are built around a single idea. And sometimes that idea is just too small a slice of the big picture to be interesting to investors. There was a recent investor event where I was keynote speaker, on … Continue reading
My dad said: “Never take on a business partner.”
My dad was a smart businessman, even if not formally trained. He occasionally gave me advice that turned out to be more than wise, looking back at subsequent experience and events. His personal teaching event was a typical experience, as … Continue reading
Should you include your sweat equity in a business plan?
Investors love it when entrepreneurs draw little or no money from their startups. It extends the cash available for research and other necessary fixed costs and gives the fragile, young company more “runway” to get to breakeven. What are you … Continue reading
Posted in Ignition! Starting up, Raising money
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What is your biggest error in company planning?
The biggest error in planning may not be spreadsheet calculation error. Or cost estimation. It is most often missed assumptions about the market, the competition, the speed of adoption, or other critical metrics you’ve researched, or selected, or even just … Continue reading
Posted in General
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What’s the most important thing in a young business?
Cash is everything to a new business. How many times do we have to say this? The days of being able to trust that there will be an investor or lender on the other end of a call or email … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Ignition! Starting up
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So, do you have that entrepreneurial DNA?
My immediate family members were entrepreneurs from as far back as I can trace. Dad was a jeweler, then a furniture store owner. Mom wrote books and articles from her college days until she could no longer see the keyboard. … Continue reading
Posted in Ignition! Starting up
2 Comments
Entrepreneurs do not easily retire.
So, you’ve successfully sold your business and have received enough money from the sale to become financially independent, no longer having to work for a living. That is a comfortable place to be, and it is one experienced by more … Continue reading
Posted in General
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Shareholders and founders: The muted thrill of the deal closing.
Now you have worked for months to get this deal to the closing, anticipating the wire transfers to the shareholders that will come any minute. This could change your lifestyle and give you that much needed pause in your life … Continue reading
Posted in General, The liquidity event and beyond
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