Steve Jobs said once that his model for business was The Beatles: “They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts” (60 Minutes, CBS, 2003). This is also the idea behind Corporate Venturing, great things happen […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #7: Fights Between Founders
Fights Between Founders – founder conflict is very common. Founders, being ambitious people, are almost bound to disagree Paul Graham – Y Combinator Building the founding team, survival and growth are undoubtedly the major challenges faced by entrepreneurs. On one hand it seems quite clear that going solo is not the solution (see my blog […]
Think Three Times Before Investing in Companies Through Crowdfunding
Equity-based crowdfunding, where small investors join forces and buy an ownership stake in young companies, is becoming a big business, with nearly 1.4 billion dollars invested in the United States and Europe in 2015*. Most of these transactions originated in online platforms, and recent regulatory changes are helping to attract more investors to take part […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #5 and #6: Launching too Early… or too Late
If there is one trend that did change the shape of the entrepreneurial ecosystem these last few years it has been the lean start-up movement. The concept is straightforward: It’s the philosophy that you should validate your initial ideas (assumptions) with real-life data before you invest more time and money in your project. The premise […]
Business Angels or Crowdfunding? How About a Crowd of Angels?
We are increasingly consulted whether it would be better for start-ups to assemble financial resources through crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter) or through angel investors, and how to sequence each funding mode (i.e. what should come first). However, an alternative route is to combine both modes by attracting financing through a ‘crowd’ of angels, or ‘equity based […]
