Starting a company in Abdijan (a yearly destination of mine) is a far cry from doing so in Barcelona (my home city) or San Francisco. It sounds obvious…and it is! I’ve identified four major reasons for this: Talent Talent is unevenly distributed geographically. There are clusters of entrepreneurship and innovation that are more attractive than […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #1 Single Founder
Recently, I posted the infographic below on my LinkedIn profile. It generated thousands of shares and hundreds of comments, which proves there is an interested community who are actively seeking information on the topic. To follow-on on this, my next few posts will go into more detail why those 18 mistakes are so deadly for startups. Mistake #1: Single […]
What You Should Know About the Elevator Pitch
There is a well-known set of rules on how to make a good Elevator Pitch, which mostly focus on four aspects of form and content: Be brief (your audience’s time is limited) Be clear and direct (your son and grandmother should get it) Underline the growth potential and market size (and make it big!) And […]
European Startups: Hiring for growth
When you are involved in the European early-stage ecosystem, it is quite clear that the major issue we are facing is the very low percentage of startups that become scaleups (let alone unicorns… see Graph 1 vs. Graph 2). The reasons are numerous (financing ecosystem, risk adversity of entrepreneurs and investors, market size and/or legal environment, […]
Which is more important – the car or the driver? Ask Fernando Alonso…
The “father of Venture Capital” George Doriot once said: “An A-team with a B-plan …
