As an inventor or founder, you spend years envisioning, building, tearing down, rebuilding, then smoothing out the edges of your masterpiece product. You pour blood, sweat, and tears into its creation. And eventually, it comes time to reveal it to the world — to pitch customers, create marketing strategies, to…

As an investor, I’ve sat through countless long-winded, technical pitches. Only after the founder has spent 10 minutes explaining his product, using lots of big words and acronyms, do I get in one of my own. And far too often, that word is, “What?” The reason for my confusion? A…

In the beginning, there was Y Combinator. For those that don’t know, this fabled startup accelerator grew into a household name by investing in mega-successful companies like Airbnb, Quora, and Reddit. From there, other accelerator programs soon sprung up behind it. …

When you look at the numbers, the average venture firm will meet face to face with at least 500 different startups in order to find the 10 they invest in every year. That’s a lot of coffee. …

As a technical leader or founder, we are hard wired to deliver a pitch in a very specific way. …

“If you want someone to take an action, influence with love. If you want someone to stop doing something, influence with fear.” Check out the full story over at Entreprener.com Forget Everything You’ve Heard — Fear Doesn’t Sell

Story is hardwired in the human brain. As humans we developed the need to tell and listen to stories as a way for people to transfer knowledge from one person to another. By listening to the [mis-]adventures of another, we could extract a lesson. …

Business is a world of compromise and negotiation. Everyone comes to the table with their own goals and priorities in mind and, ideally, the final solution is one that offers something of value to everyone involved. Sometimes a negotiation is with your peers where you are working together to create…

High stakes presentations are a necessary part of a successful business whether you are pitching to a group of investors, selling to the CEO, presenting your company to a large crowd, etc. Failure to remain calm, composed, charismatic, and confident can lead to loss of investment or loss of good…