I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers ” written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ).  If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have. I know that people have an allergy to lawyers out of fear of being screwed.  Much of this is unfounded – some is not. 

This is part of my series on  what makes an entrepreneur successful .  I originally posted it on  VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur :  Tenacity .  I So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders I I then covered  Street Smarts ,  Ability to Pivot ,  Resiliency ,  Inspiration and Perspiration .

This is part of my new series on  what makes an entrepreneur successful .  I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur :  Tenacity .  I When looking for great entrepreneurs for me it’s If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice .  Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company.  Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience.  I know I didn’t.  But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements:

This is part of my ongoing series called “ Start-up Lessons .” I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. BCG, Bain, LEK – they’re all great), a few years at a start-up or a few years somewhere like Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple.  8221; I

This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons” I’m not going to cover in this post the obvious post-show marketing tasks such as following up on all those business cards you grabbed, communicating with all those people who registered at your site and leveraging your new found fame to score venture capital.  I’ll I know you’re thinking that you have your head on straight but I promise you the experience of finding yourself in this maelstrom will leave any first time entrepreneur spinning. Tonight I was reading a good blog post ( here ) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50.  Worth

First, I would say that most entrepreneurs do almost no reference checks or at least do them very informally.  Don’t The one where they HAD BETTER say good things about you because if they don’t then you’re really messed up for not suggesting the right people and calling them in advance to control the process and make sure that they say good things.  Good For some reason most entrepreneurs do.  Don’t This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital . I

I scan it for the most important messages to be sure nothing urgent has popped up. 8221; They taught us to write down questions when they came up and batch them together in point sheets. Of course if I’m not ensconced in deep, thoughtful work then by all means I answer the call. I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “ Deferred Life Plan ” and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I

Let me start by saying I’m a huge business book cynic.  I But Net had told me that he picked up some valuable lessons from the book, so I thought, “WTF? So people diligently put in their hours every year, brag about how little vacation they’ve taken and try to save up for 45 years so that one day in their late 60’s (or in today’s era 70’s) they can do what they’ve always dreamed of.  They A couple of years ago I read the popular book, “The Four Hour Workweek ” by Tim Ferriss.  It It was recommended to me by my friend,

Either way, don’t assume that the entire room is up to speed on your company.  My plan would be to start the presentation at the 50,000 foot view and then dive down to a more granular level once we’re all base-lined.  What started out as an innocuous question asked purely out of interest can become a total time waster if it’s not pertinent to your storyline that you’re trying to convey. I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios.