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Category Archives: Hedging against downturns
My hard-earned lessons from negative exits.
In my life as an early-stage investor, I’ve been closely involved with so many businesses, there were bound to be numerous stories of actual and near failures, hopefully from which to learn lessons for all of us as we go … Continue reading
Is your CFO a bookkeeper or a strategist?
Here’s one that most small company founders and CEO’s miss until it may be too late. What is the role of a chief financial officer in growing and protecting the company? How about co-strategist? I recently coached a CFO in … Continue reading
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
Decoding and learning from a business failure
Have you experienced a business failure? Are you currently at risk due to events you cannot control? Not all companies are successful. Your end game could be a failure of the business. In fact, many angel investors or venture capitalists … Continue reading
Do you even know what questions to ask?
Great executives and managers seem to intuitively know what they don’t know. But it is not at all uncommon to not even know what questions to ask. Who would have thought about COVID 19 and public’s panic responses? One week … Continue reading
Let’s talk about your banking relationship
The warning is real You’ve heard the old one – that a banker always seems willing to offer a loan when you don’t need it. For small businesses, there is such truth in that statement that you can trust the … Continue reading
How much do you spend on R&D? Is it enough?
Why do profitable, mature businesses die away? One of the most obvious reasons mature businesses die away – when we look in the rear view mirror – is that they did not spend to renew their product or service when … Continue reading
Have you experienced your “Every Three-Million Dollar Crisis?”
Here is a phenomenon I discovered over time when dealing with many small start-ups in their early revenue period. A very predictable series of rotating crises seemed to befall most every one of these young companies. These became so predictable … Continue reading
So, what if you run out of money?
Money in the bank is like oil in the car. Certainly, you have many ways you are pulled every day, both tactical and strategic. But when money is the issue, your time, energy and focus are drained from other important … Continue reading
Avoid “The tyranny of the new office” syndrome.
[wdm_image_effects effect=”no_effect” animation=”bounce” shape=”no_shape” color=”#000″ social=”” title=”new-office” description=”new-office” id=”3210″ show=”hover” counter=”0″ size=”medium”/] One of the most obvious observations I make with growing company CEO’s is that planning for a new office is done with an optimistic view of the future, … Continue reading
