Most entrepreneurs in corporate clothing don’t do well with complex sales models, product review boards, rigorous budgeting of finite funds, and managing trade-offs between products. Entrepreneurs are all about the new and never been done – in particular, new markets, products, technologies, and customers. Therefore, talented executives leave the world’s great corporations and bravely take on the quest of creating the next Microsoft, Google, Cisco, or Sun.
Read MoreIt’s late on a Friday afternoon in the summertime, and, as the CEO of a hot startup, you should be feeling pretty good. The key metrics on your monthly dashboard are all glowingly positive. Well known investors call every week wanting to invest in your next round. And yet you are nervous. All of things that used to be easy to do in your business are getting harder, and you don’t know why. The answer is simple: You’re not running a startup. You’re running a Scaleup Company.
Read MoreMost companies view business planning as a necessary evil. Senior executives would rather be building new technology or talking to customers. For early and growth stage companies, the goal of business planning is to obtain funding to start or expand the business. For more mature companies, the main goal is usually to drive either an acquisition by a larger player or faster growth and profitability. In reality, the major goal of business planning is to outline the structure and execution steps to create the best possible business.
Read MoreOn the surface, the job of the Board of Directors appears to be pretty simple. The Board debates and approves the company strategy. It uses full Board meetings, committee meetings related to finance and operations, and monthly reports from management to track things over time. This system works well for many companies; however, if you are a growth company CEO, you should ask yourself one, key question: Are my outside Board Members paying attention?
Read MoreFor entrepreneurs, first meetings with investors really are make-or-break events. By building and delivering a high quality Investor Presentation, you can pave the way for a successful first meeting and an on-going dialog with investors about funding your company. In this post, I’ll show you how to build a winning investor pitch. In Part 2, I’ll lay out the secrets to delivering your pitch – successfully – in person – to people with funds to invest.
Read MoreNewPlan served as the outsourced Head of Strategy at iGov for three and a half years - helping the company make a successful transition from a product Value Added Reseller to a provider of advanced Engineering Services.
Read MoreOf all the investor documents, the Executive Summary provides you with the most freedom to create a winning story. It’s only 1 to 10+ pages long, so why is it so flexible? Because it can be built in short, medium, or long form; you can vary the content and order of the information more than in other documents, and you can concentrate almost entirely on the story rather than the mechanics of how you are going to get things done. In short, it’s your story – distilled and tasty.
Read MoreNewPlan served as the outsourced Head of Strategy for four and a half years - working with the company to formulate a compelling and durable strategy, acheive several fundraising events, recruitment of new management team members, and the eventual sale of the company to IBM in 2013.
Read MoreNewPlan served as Acceller's outsourced head of strategy for seven years as the Company grew revenues by 10x, dramatically expanded its management ranks and employee base, and expanded its customer base to close to 100 percent of the addressable market. Acceller merged with its largest competitor, Bridgevine, in 2013.
Read MoreFirst of all, there is no magic formula for valuation. It's a negotiation based on the characteristics of your market, your company's performance, and the quality of your team. Secondly, not all money is the same. Your company's valuation matters, but it's not the only thing that matters when you look to raise money. The quality of the funding source matters, too.
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