Building a business is risky and expensive, but you can minimize the risk and avoid unnecessary expenses by testing your assumptions early in the process. Businesses often fail because some of the founder’s beliefs turn out to be wrong. This can be caused by wishful thinking or when an idea seems…

People often give the advice to “follow your passion”. Typically, this advice is about personal fulfillment, but passion also provides a gigantic competitive advantage. Before I became an entrepreneur, I was a physicist. I studied physics because it was the path of least resistance. My father was a physics professor…

When you are raising funds for your startup, one of the biggest questions is, How much should I ask for? You can’t get all the funds you will ever need all at once because nobody would give it to you, and at your early stage valuation you would be left…

I love working with founders. Helping them grow their businesses brings me joy. However, there is one question I hear from very early stage founders that is always awkward. “When do I need to quit my day job?”

I lose interest in most of the pitches I see within the first thirty seconds. After that, it is incredibly difficult to get me back on board. This is a common experience with most investors. …

Most growing startups quickly reach a point where they are choked by the founder’s limited time. As humans, we simply don’t scale well…

I recorded the video for this episode in a hotel room while evacuated from my home because of the Kincade fire in Northern California. A few days earlier, when we were experiencing safety power outages and watching the extreme fire conditions, I wondered if I should just skip this episode…

When founders come to me for advice, they are often looking for help with pitching, fundraising, strategy, or security. At some point, they will often ask what one piece of advice I would give them. I always tell them “stay due diligence ready”. This comes from my personal experience of…

People talk about things going viral all the time, usually in connection to some meme or video. Virality is the holy grail of business models. There are three different kinds of virality which might apply to your startup business. The term viral growth comes from epidemiology. If each sick person…