A high-quality startup problem is when the company starts to scale but one of the co-founders can’t grow at the same pace as the other. It’s a good problem but a real challenge nonetheless. Here are some thoughts on how I’ve seen it handled well (and not).
One of the secrets of B2B entrepreneurship is that a good enough product with exceptional distribution will win more often than an exceptional product with mediocre distribution.
If you’re pitching investors, one of the easiest ways to improve your deck is swapping out blank interstitial slides, or the dull logo cover slide, with pictures of your product in use or in context.
In 2007, Groupon took in the first million dollars of what would ultimately be $1.4B of venture capital, raised with ambitions of reshaping shopping. For a while, it looked like group buying, social commerce, daily deals, or whatever you call the practice of time-limited sales paired with social pressure was really going to change buying behaviors in a big way. In the space of four years the category exploded:
There’s a lot of good advice on writing investor updates, but one of our portfolio CEOs recently wrote an update that was so good that I thought it could serve as a template for entrepreneurs everywhere. It’s B2B focused and largely positive in tone, but it’s easy enough to copy, paste, and customize for B2C startups or less upbeat news. Just swap out the [bold] content and you can keep your investors in the loop with almost no effort.
Imagine you’ve spent years working on a startup with the hope and a credible plan to build a billion dollar business and along the way get an offer for $100M? You still believe in your vision, but a nine-figure sale would represent a rich premium based on your traction and early revenue growth. Should you take it?