Look, we love blog posts as much as the next person. (Maybe even a little bit more.) There’s a lot of knowledge startup founders can find on the internet. But when it comes to real deep dives, you can’t beat a good startup book.

“Imagine your personal network was filled with titans of industry — from marketing mavens to business moguls,” Benjamin Evans, startup founder and lead designer on Airbnb’s Anti-Discrimination team tells Startups.com. “How much easier would it be to level up in business and life if you had the best insights available to you whenever you needed them? Well, I believe that’s the value of books. In my ideal world, I’d have a network filled with my role models — from Seth Godin through to Richard Branson — on hand to hel...

How to Create a Founders Agreement for Your Startup

A founders agreement covers everything from ownership structure to intellectual property rights to which the co-founder can make critical decisions over others. In short — every startup needs a Founders Agreement!

But do We Really NEED a Founders Agreement?

Since co-founders are often very familiar with each other, we can easily jump ahead and forget to formalize anything beyond our basic ownership structure. We snap up titles quickly ("You're the Chief Technology Officer! I'll be the Chief Operating Officer!") among all of the founders and go on our way. We're friends, right? That should be enough... right?

Being Friends doesn't Equal a Founders Agreement

And while all that is certainly true, ...

Leadership is a popular topic these days. To become a true leader, you need a combination of skills and attributes. Some of these are inborn, to be sure. However, you can develop your leadership abilities as well.

Entrepreneurial success stories often tip a hat to the literature that supports busy business owners through the thick of the business building experience so, of course, we wanted to share books with actionable advice that aspiring entrepreneurs will find helpful on their journey to building a successful business.

Business books that have already helped millions of entrepreneurs can guide you along the way to obtaining a sustainable business, and being the best leader you can be. After all, being a great leader takes effort — and a ...

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...

Ninety to ninety-five percent of startups fail within the first five years. A large majority fail within the first 12 to 18 months. The failure of a startup shouldn’t be a big deal. In fact, finding the hard edges is what startups are all about.

Ideas should be pressure tested to find the ones that don’t survive, the ones that do, and most importantly the ones that could scale.

The problems begin when we conflate startup failure with “this is really bad”.

It’s only bad if the founder and team are over-extended, underwater, out of runway, or whatever analogous phrasing you choose. When all of the resources are marshaled in the wrong direction. When nobody stopped to do the critical work over the urgent. When the founders believed the same s...

As Founders, it’s important to share our knowledge with kids about startups and the entrepreneurial mindset at an early age.

Here are four reasons why:

1. It will help them stand out in a competitive workforce.

2. They’ll learn how to chart their own course in life.

3. They’ll develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

4. They’ll learn how to be creative and innovative thinkers.

To help kids get a better understanding of startups, we can introduce them to the basics such as:

1. Identifying new opportunities in the market and coming up with viable solutions.

2. Testing those solutions through prototypes and MVPs.

3. Understanding how to pitch their business idea effectively.

4. Learning how to scale their businesses and make them sustainable.

We can als...

“It all comes back to our neanderthal brain craving the structure of a story.”

–Donna Griffit, The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for your Startup Investor Pitch Deck

Feeling self-confident that you could talk about your company to anyone? How ‘bout Grandma or your little niece? Could you hold their interest, make them understand quickly and clearly? Talk about a tough pitch!

The importance of startup storytelling has become a hot topic. Awareness is on the rise. However, most Founders have yet to master the science and art of storytelling. Why is it so hard? What are the key ingredients to winning your audience’s attention? Who does it well?

Special guest Donna Griffit joins Startups Live to share her storytelling expertise and to help Founder’s avo...

Looking for a business grant for veterans? Here’s the thing: Grants are usually open for a set period of time, after which that money is no longer accessible.

As a result, it wouldn’t actually be possible to list out business grants for veterans, because by the time you read this, they may or may not still be available. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great financing options out there for vets, like a VA small business loan!

First, we’re going to take a look at the federal government’s database for all small business grants. Then, we’re going to look at some government and private loans for veterans and other small business owners, as well as some veteran-specific training programs and resources.

Remember: Just because you don’t se...

When Uber first entered the saturated world of on-demand food delivery, it wasn’t easy. Especially considering how crowded the space already is (consider Seamless, Postmates, Grubhub, and now Amazon). Still, UberEats took off, offering its menus in 120 markets around the world in just three years; it even earned more than Uber’s original ride-sharing platform.

Uber makes it look easy, right? But starting a business or transitioning into an already packed industry can be difficult, regardless of whether the company is a well-known conglomerate or a brand-new startup. To begin, business leaders should learn who their customers are — even before marketing. You’ll never attract an audience if you don’t know who your target is (or what their nee...

The words “successful startup” seem pretty straightforward at first glance. But, what do you picture when you hear them? A unicorn? A world-famous company, like Twitter or Facebook? A small company bootstrapping and grinding through the night, with steady growth? A lifestyle business? A thriving brick-and-mortar shop? A string of failures, followed by the perfect product/market fit?

Like so many things in the startup world, the definition of what a successful startup truly is can be elusive — and frustratingly subjective. While some founders might strive for that billion dollar valuation, others measure their success by how happy their customers are or the biggest impact they’ve made on the world. When we dig past the visions of unicorns da...