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I’ll admit, I’ve fallen horrible victim to the entrepreneur’s trap of trying to work on multiple startups at once. During the 2000’s I once had 5 startups that I was running at the same time. I used to think it was a badge of honor, that I could manage so many priorities at the same time.

I learned over time, it’s just a horrible strategy that works for pretty much no one and will likely lead to startup failure.

I get tons of emails from aspiring entrepreneurs that are some version of “Hey Wil, I’m working on these 2-3 startup ideas and trying to figure out which one to pursue. What do you think?”

I’ve answered this question so many times that I figured I may as well just give you the detailed version once and for all.

What is a private investor?

The short answer: A private investor is a person or company that invests their own money into a company, with the goal of helping that company succeed and getting a return on their investment.

The long answer: The field of private investment is more varied than the short answer might make it seem at first. It's important to note that while some types of private investors may be from firms that focus solely on investments — like VC firms and angel investors — they are never from banks (for example, SBA bank loans).

The four main types of private investors

a. Friends and family

Family and Friends are often the first private investors that startups and small businesses turn to. They're a great resource for seed funding a...

You probably know the saying: It costs money to make money. And with 50 percent of new businesses failing within five years — and 70 percent failing within 10 — marketing is more important than ever. Marketing is what fuels business growth, and it’s one of the most important things to consider in a business plan. Without a solid marketing strategy in place, you’ll find that you’ll be spending a lot of time and money on trying to grow your business with little to show for it.

As a new business owner, it would be great to see high-impact results immediately. Without millions of dollars from venture capitalists, though, gaining results can be a long road. However, while there is no magic formula to marketing, there are some easy, high-impact ...

EDITOR’S NOTE

Ah, rejection. The early-stage Founder’s bread and butter.

When you’re building a company from the ground up, you kind of get used to hearing the word “No.”

But Saasmetrics Founder Leo Faria: he didn’t just get used to it. He broadcast it for everyone to see.

A few weeks ago, Leo published a post on Medium that he called “Lessons learned from a startup rejected by 500 Startups, Techstars and Y Combinator.” In the post, Leo digs into his experience applying for the US’s three most prestigious accelerators — and (spoiler alert) getting rejected by each and every one. He even goes as far as to include the actual text of the actual emails he received from each accelerator, and you can just imagine what it must have felt like to se...

I’ve been a digital nomad (or “slow traveler” or “location independent worker” or whichever buzzword you prefer) for over five years now. I quit my life in 2011 after the Great Recession meant there was no way out of my dead end job as a social worker and bought a one-way ticket to Argentina. Since then, I’ve lived in more than 20 countries, worked in coworking spaces, cafes, and on trains, planes, and — yes — automobiles. And everywhere I go, the one thing that people always ask me is “What’s your favorite place you’ve lived?”

My response is immediate: Guatemala. And, to be more specific, the colonial town of Antigua Guatemala.

Four things are important to digital nomads and bootstrapping startups:

1. Reliable wifi.

2. Low cost of living.

When we want to achieve a certain goal or go somewhere, we plan for it. Why? Simply because taking action and not thinking of the consequences that goes along with it produces chaos and a waste of resources such as time, effort, and money.

Why A Startup Business Plan is necessary

For instance, our lives. I’m pretty sure we all have a plan for our own lives. We want to achieve this and that by a certain age. We look forward the next day because we have a plan to fulfil.

Why do we do this? It’s not because we’re bored or nothing better to do but because we value our life. We want it to be meaningful. We don’t just want to survive, we want to live.

And for this same thing, we need to have a startup business plan. We didn’t think of building i...

CHAPTER TWO: Control The Venue

In This Chapter:

-How to control the location, medium and time of meetings
-How to optimize your schedule for each meeting medium
-How to share your “Go-To” preferences

Once you’ve managed to get your arms around the optimal duration for meetings, you can take your scheduling to another level by optimizing the venues.

The typical cadence of a meeting goes something like this:

When you’re working on an early-stage startup, figuring out what your business goals should be — like what you should be achieving and at what stage — is difficult. It’s not like school, where there are clear steps that lead to the next level. Or even like traditional businesses, which have clear business goal templates. No — early-stage startup founders often struggle with the nebulous nature of their business goals.

Lucky for you, there are experts in this who have great advice about what should be achieved — and when — for early stage startups.

Here are seven business goal posts you should be aiming for as you grow your early-stage startup.

Business Goal #1: Minimum Viable Product

TIMELINE: AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Your minimum viable produc...

Have you settled on a logo for your startup yet? That decision seems like a small one — a quick thing to simply check off the to-do list! — but it’s actually a pretty big undertaking. Startup logos, while often tiny, can make a huge impact on the success or failure of your company. That one tiny little image will be used everywhere — from iPhone tiles to your letterhead to packaging for physical products to swag. With that much real estate, a bad logo can do some serious damage.

But, how do you know what a bad startup logo looks like? Surely logo design is at least a little bit subjective! Perhaps, like the famous Supreme Court justice quote about pornography, you know it when you see it. However, even within the spectrum of subjectivity, t...

Of the many, many things that can be extremely confusing for a startup founder, how to assign startup stock options is undoubtedly near the top of the list. Stocks are a whole world unto themselves, complete with new vocabulary, confusing math, and complicated issues to consider.

If you're not already an expert in finance, chances are you're scratching your head and going “Huh?” while simultaneously trying to make it look like you definitely know what you're doing.

But have no fear! This is your very simple, “how to assign startup stock options” 101 primer. I've reached out to startup founders and financial experts to figure out how this all works.

Consider this your first step — and then consider buying some time with a financial expert so yo...