-
Search this blog
Archives
-
Recent Posts
- Don’t just raise money. Do it on good news!
- The best advice startups will never follow
- If you’re lucky enough: Celebrate your exit!
- VC investors: Don’t be greedy even if you can.
- My hard-earned lessons from negative exits.
- Jeff Bezos asked a question that blew me away!
- Patent litigation can kill the small guy.
- Is there gold in your old intellectual property?
Categories
Author Archives: Dave Berkus
What can go wrong with your business growth?
So, your business has begun to take off. You’ve figured out your channels of distribution, pricing model and how to support your growing list of customers. Don’t be alarmed by this next statement. That’s relatively easy. You can be the … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Protecting the business
Leave a comment
Premature scaling can kill your business.
Here’s a lesson from experience. Venture capitalists sometimes make an error in directing their portfolio company CEOs to push resources to the limit and scale the business to immense size quickly, all to seize market share. The logic in this … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Protecting the business
Leave a comment
Five ways to make and execute a great plan
It is all about execution. Waiting over a year to see results is too long, since your chance of mid-course correction is greatly reduced. To make the point, Harvard’s Robert Kaplan believes that less than 10% of corporate strategies are … Continue reading
How big is your ocean? A lesson in TAM, SAM & SOM
Is this a problem or an opportunity? This insight is like a Hans Christian Anderson parable, but aimed at you and your business… There are big fish and small fish, potential customers, all swimming in the sea that is your … Continue reading
Posted in Finding your ideal niche, Growth!, Positioning
2 Comments
The four rules for motivating your employees with money.
We’ve debated this one forever it seems. Should be overwhelm prospective employees with stock options and perks? Or concentrate our available resources on just plain money as an attraction? Well, here are rules to make money work for you in … Continue reading
The coffee and wine school of innovation.
Here’s one for debate around a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Most innovation occurs when creative people are relaxed and thinking about other things. Coffee, wine, quiet time, showers… How it occurs in large companies… We all … Continue reading
Posted in Finding your ideal niche, Growth!, Positioning
4 Comments
Reward success and failure. Punish only inaction.
Reward failure? That may be a difficult concept for an executive. And there are limits of course. We wouldn’t reward a failure to follow laws, or protect lives, or deliberate endangerment of the company or its people. There are “good” … Continue reading
Have you accidentally created a “power vacuum?”
Here’s a question to help you decide if you’re guilty. How many times have you heard someone say, “Let’s do it now and ask permission later?” Have you done it in front of your cohort? That’s a common practice in … Continue reading
A tale of two CEO’s and the management of pain.
This is the tale of two CEOs, one of them unfortunately….me. It’s a story of how people handle unusual situations when selling to the top – an executive of a prospective customer. And the stories couldn’t be more different. … Continue reading
Posted in Depending upon others, General, Protecting the business
1 Comment
Are you killing innovation in your company?
First, let’s recognize the problem. Here’s one for executives of any company with next generation products in mind. As your business grows more complex and there are more employees to manage and more customers to care for, slowly you will … Continue reading
Posted in Finding your ideal niche, Growth!
1 Comment
