Software startups, especially in their early stages, can be rough. As a founder, it’s easy to get lost in a world of opportunity. You could build anything — but you need to build just one thing. When you finally figure out what that one thing is, you know that you’re a million iterations away from that magical product/market fit moment.

“It’s interesting because I think there’s an obligation as an entrepreneur to always have to say that we’re killing it—but the reality is always, always, always very different. In the same day you’re taking over the world, then going bankrupt, then taking over the world, and then going bankrupt again. You’re going back and forth between and that low three or four times a day. It’s quite bizarre. Every positi...

How To Write A Business Plan: A Comprehensive Guide

A comprehensive, step-by-step guide - complete with real examples - on writing business plans with just the right amount of panache to catch an investor's attention and serve as a guiding star for your business.

Introduction to Business Plans

So you've got a killer startup idea. Now you need to write a business plan that is equally killer.

You fire up your computer, open a Google doc, and stare at the blank page for several minutes before it suddenly dawns on you that, Hm…maybe I have no idea how to write a business plan from scratch after all.

Don't let it get you down. After all, why would you know anything about business planning? For that very reason we have 4 amazing business plan samples ...

As entrepreneurs, time is our most valuable asset. Every moment spent on a time sink is a distraction from the strides that we could and should be making with our core businesses.

But here’s the thing. Early-stage entrepreneurs are also notoriously cheap. Often revenue-strapped, we’re pumping as much money as we humanly can into the products and services that we’ve committed ourselves to developing.

At any given time, we walk a line between two things: spending money and doing more ourselves. As many of us will tell you, this is not an easy line to walk. I once burned through $20K on a vendor that I shouldn’t have hired. I also spent 15 hours a week on administrative tasks when I should have been working with an administrative assistant.

O...

Being a founder is hard — and we should be grateful for that.

We don’t feel grateful all the time. At least not when we’re lying awake at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat, staring at the ceiling wondering how we have created so much debt in such a short period of time and then looking over at our spouse who is probably pretending to sleep — pondering the same question.

But, I believe it is the sleepless nights, the awkward conversations at family dinners, the long days without measurable progress and the other thousand things that most people wouldn’t tolerate that makes the solutions we build valuable — and the pursuit worthwhile. We relish the challenge as much as the outcome.

As the holidays quickly approach, perhaps you’re like me and find yours...

It’s hard to think of anything more closely associated with the startup experience than pitching to investors.

Think about it: virtually every hackathon ends in a pitch competition. The promise of pitching to real, live investors is the grand prize at incubators everywhere. There are whole television shows devoted to following people as they pitch their company. Podcasts, too.

And no wonder: when you’re pitching to investors, you’re putting your heart on the line, spilling your guts about why you believe down to your bones that this business needs to happen – and you need to be the one to lead it. It’s not hard to see why that makes for compelling viewing/listening.

But there’s another reason the investor pitch is so iconic: because it’s so...

Getting an angel investor meeting is one of the high points of being a founder. After all, tracking down one of these illusive investors can be a serious hassle. But don’t worry — we’ve got you covered on how to find angel investors, how to get an angel investor meetings, and what to do once you’re in the room.

What is an angel investor?

Angel investors are typically high net worth individuals who invest very early into the formation of a new startup company, usually in exchange for convertible debt or equity. The role of angel investors serves as a critical bridge between the startup financing needs of a company and their larger capital needs later on.

Where do you find angel investors?

If you want to [find angel investors](https://www.sta...

The end of the calendar year is an extremely busy time for most entrepreneurs and business leaders. From the months of October-December, most of us are busy converting new customers, fulfilling last-minute orders, launching special holiday campaigns and offers, and trying to drive as much business as we can before the new year.

In addition, a lot of us spend the last few months of the year evaluating successes and failures, adjusting budgets, and deciding how teams will grow or shrink in the year ahead.

It’s one of the most taxing times of the year for anyone managing a business.

It’s also the time of year when it’s easiest to neglect friendships, personal hobbies, and family life.

When business is booming and you’re quickly approaching...

In the startup world, we like to think of customer experience as this mystical, ineffable thing: a magical alchemy that happens at the intersection of our product and our audience.

And the thing is – it is. When the right product finds the right audience with the right problem at the right time, the result really is magical.

Some people will try to tell you can’t systematize magic. But those people have never been to Hogwarts. Or Startups.co.

To quote the old business idiom, “People make processes. Processes make a business.” Putting a process around your customer journey doesn’t destroy the magic of customer experience – it makes it better. When you systematize your customer experience, you turn customer delight into a process you can rep...

“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...

Running a startup is a ton of work as a solo Founder, so much so that many Founders find themselves at a loss trying to get everything done. For those that are non-technical, this proves to be a challenge, as coding is essential in this day and age, so bringing on a technical co-founder is a must. This is also true for technical Founders missing the mark on the creative front, so it's no surprise that one of the most searched terms on the internet is "finding a cofounder."

It seems like it should be easy — find a co-founder (or more) that aligns with your startup idea, mission, and has the complementary skills to do all the things you don't know how to — but it's not that simple. Finding the right co-founder is a complex combination of effor...