Over time, I’ve developed a certain approach to negotiating term sheets with entrepreneurs. The whole “email a term sheet document” back and forth method seemed inefficient to me. And, it put too much focus on redline edits rather than listening to each other. So, I don’t trade paper as a starting point. Here’s what I
Category: Entrepreneurship
Your VC Isn’t Enthusiastic. What to Do?
Sometimes, VCs behave in puzzling ways. Say you’re an entrepreneur, and you’ve made good progress with your company. But, you sense your VC isn’t jumping up and down. My advice? Take that VC out for a coffee or a meal and ask him/her this question: How are we doing relative to other companies in that
Confronting the Past
Everyone has a dark secret, I’m convinced. It’s likely something that happened to us in the past, and a memory which we no longer want to retrieve. But, when a whisper of that moment resurrects, it can bring on sudden and seemingly unexplainable feelings of fear, shame, anger, and self-loathing. One of my favorite parts
An Armenian Grandmother and Persistence
I recently meet with Ara Kouchakdjian. His family’s story is incredible. it’s about grit and courage. So, I asked Ara to write a guest post. Here it is: All of us who work in early stage companies have learned the importance of persistence. For some, we learned it from a sports coach, for others it was a
Finding a CEO Mentor
I had breakfast with one of our CEOs this morning. It’s a great way to talk about the company, and his career progression, in a relaxed environment. One thing he has done is brought on some CEO mentors to the Board. I’m a big fan of bringing “CEO coaches” to a Board, as I think
Why Your B2B Cost Strategy Must ‘Fit’
Your B2B cost strategy must match your B2B revenue model, or your business model won’t click. Let me explain. I wrote in the past about B2B revenue models (here) and the differences between the perpetual licensing and subscription pricing models. The summary is this. If you charge $1 for your software, a licensing model lets you get that