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When you’re figuring out how much a startup CEO's salary should be, there are a lot of factors to consider.

How much can the company afford to pay? What stage are you in? How much runway do you have? If you already have investors, what are their thoughts on the issue? How much do you need to support yourself and your family?

Those are just some of the questions that are probably rolling around in your head, whether you’re trying to figure out your salary as the CEO, you’re trying to figure out your co-founder’s salary as they take on the CEO position, or you’re thinking of bringing in an outside hire. Add on location, marital status, age, savings… and the list goes on and on and on.

So how do you determine what an average startup CEO salary sh...

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: a Founder and a VC walk into an elevator…

In all seriousness, if you’ve spent any time swimming in the startup waters, you’re probably familiar with the idea of the elevator pitch. But in case you missed that day in Founder School, the scenario is this:

Say you got in an elevator, and standing in that elevator was the one person that could make or break your business. You have the length of that elevator ride to convince this person to get on board. And no, the electricity can’t suddenly cut out and leave you with a couple of hours to fill instead of a handful of seconds.

Well — What the @#*! do you say?

There’s a reason the elevator pitch has become such an icon of entrepreneurship. And it’s not be...

Are you in the startup or growth and establishment phase of your business? Odds are you’re already thinking about the importance of location.

Where you’re located might not be a huge concern when you’re the sole member of your “team”. However, once you grow the business past a critical point, you’ll need to attract additional talent and investment.

The temptation to set up shop in an inexpensive city is entirely understandable. On the face of it, it seems the most cost-effective option. After all, startup hubs such as New York, San Francisco, London, and Singapore regularly rank in the top 10 most expensive cities in the world, both for cost of living and cost of doing business. So why not go somewhere cheaper? Or even further afield: to a ...

“The problem here: a) making a business that didn’t give us money early on, and b) not giving up; we kept putting money into the business without knowing we were already dead.”

The special guest of this Startups Live session, Caya, has some great stories to tell. “Started my first business in 2011 (I was 22) and it failed terribly. I ended up with $15K in credit card debt that I just finished paying up last year. The problem here: a) making a business that didn’t give us money early on, and b) not giving up; we kept putting money into the business without knowing we were already dead.”

Well, this may not sound ‘great’, but even this painful experience, which Caya freely shares, comes with silver linings. You might say that he has a knack fo...

It was one of the first gut-check moments where you have to prove to yourself how much you want it.

Corey Egan and his co-Founder Swapnil Bora were feeling pretty good about the direction their company was headed in in summer 2014. ” We had gone through a series of business competitions, we had filed patents, we had built out prototypes,” Corey remembers.

Not only that – when they looked out at the market, Corey says: “We were the first ones we had seen to put anything out there.”

Then one morning, Corey woke up and everything had changed.

“I woke up and I had like ten text messages from folks that I knew saying, ‘Hey Corey, this just launched on Kickstarter today,’ ” Corey remembers. “And it was a crowdfunding campaign for what is now one ...

How Hard is it to Get a Business Loan?

Unfortunately, business loans can be difficult for startups to procure.

That’s because while some funding sources in the startup ecosystem — like VCs and angel investors — are looking to take big risks, traditional financial institutions like banks generally aren’t.

You’re going to need to show that you have perfect personal (and probably business) credit and they might even require that you’re profitable or on track to become profitable. Generally, banks prefer businesses that have a proven track record when they’re handing out loans.

But that doesn’t mean business loans are impossible for startup founders! It’s just something to keep in mind when you’re considering a bank loan as a funding source.

What is Venture Capital?

Venture capital is financing that’s invested in startups and small businesses that are usually high risk, but also have the potential for exponential growth.

The goal of a venture capital investment is a very high return for the venture capital firm, usually in the form of an acquisition of the startup or an IPO.

A venture capital firm is usually run by a handful of partners who have raised a large sum of money from a group of limited partners (LPs) to invest on their behalf. The LPs are typically large institutions, like a State Teachers Retirement System or a university who are using the services of the VC to help generate big returns on their money.

The partners then have a window of 7-10 years with which to mak...

What is company culture?

Despite how obsessed the startup world is with company culture, there’s no singular definition we can all turn to. But there are really two parts to it: Philosophical and practical.

On a philosophical level, company culture is the intangible atmosphere of your company. Some people call it the “personality” or the “glue that holds everyone together” or even the “soul.” It’s as much a feeling — of belonging, of shared purpose, even of similar ways of dress — as it is an aspiration for the entire company to contribute to.

“The truth is that culture – on its own – is not the thing that will bring you success in whatever way you may define it for yourself and your team,” Adii Pienaar, founder of Conversio, says. “Buildin...

What is a business grant?

A business grant is a sum of money given to a business in order to help them further their business. They’re usually distributed by governments, corporations, foundations, or trusts. Unlike many other types of business funding, grants don’t have to be paid back and business owners aren’t required to give up equity in exchange for a grant.

However, most small businesses probably won’t qualify for a small business grant, as they’re tied directly to US government agencies that have specific goals. There are some categories of business that are an except, though, including research and development companies, as well as some high tech companies.

State level grants are also tied to the direct economic or social needs and...

Ask people what makes entrepreneurs successful and you’ll hear a familiar list of adjectives; agile, tenacious, resilient, opportunistic, etc.

What you don’t hear is that often they didn’t know any better.

It Can’t Be Done

I was just rereading Jessica Livingston’s book Founders at Work, and a common thread through the stories reminded me that there is a type of technology innovation that occurs in startups when a founder/team simply doesn’t know what they’re attempting is impossible.

Steve Wozniak at Apple building the Apple II floppy disk controller without ever seeing one. The original Fai...