There are two very special types of startups that you should know about: the Twitter Startup and the Hoverboard Startup. If you’re one of these and don’t know it, you’re going to screw up your pitch. Imagine walking in to hear a startup pitch its goods. The CEO gets on ...
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Shortly after the sale closed, John Cook interviewed me about the experience.  He did a great job of transcribing all of my verbal gems, like “Maybe that is an economic way of looking at it, or something that I am unfamiliar with.” I’m not even sure what that means. It was ...
Hi Mike, I’m one of your customers. We don’t really know each other. We’ve chatted at a few events, you’ve covered some of my antics, but I’m mostly just a guy who reads TechCrunch a lot. I find it’s a pretty good place to see what’s important in the ...
(Note: there are great conversations about this article happening at Geekwire and Hacker News) The question of equity brings out the most fundamental differences, perceptions, and values in an aspiring startup.  In fact the equity question, more than any other, may strangle a young company ...
Check it out at www.sparkbuy.com and see what I’ve been working on for the past 6 months or so. You can also read about it: The New York Times The Wall Street Journal’s All Things D Seattle’s own Geekwire Drop me a line and let me know what you think. (You might want to ...
Startups ply you with ownership in the company, typically in the form of stock options. They will argue that there's tremendous value in those shares, more than you'll get from a big company, but they tend to get all nervous-looking when you ask them how *much* value. So what are they worth?
I just wrote a guest post on what it really means to be a startup company CTO over on my friend Scott Porad’s blog. Read it here. Also… I started a new company, Sparkbuy, which I think I forgot to mention. We’re in stealth mode but launching in just over a week. Follow us ...
Someone’s claiming you’re infringing their patent! You need to figure out how bad the situation is. Or… your boss has asked you to take a look at an old patent you wrote, and see if someone else is infringing it. And you have no recollection whatsoever, because it takes an ...
Modern venture capital is one shining moment of derring-do taking followed by 10 years of risk mitigation. It's sort of like breaking a mirror.
In this envelope, I have your Company Culture. We work hard, but value work/life balance. We’re a team culture and we believe in individual empowerment. We give back to the community, and have strong ethics. We hire only the best people, support diversity, and promote growth and ...