We all want to do right by the people connected to our startup, but when do our sacrifices ever get paid back in kind? Or more specifically, do they?

I recently had a tough heart-to-heart with a fellow Founder where they talked about having to move on personally from the startup. They were burnt out, they had diluted all of their upside in multiple rounds of investment, and they felt "stuck."

They were stuck because they felt that if they left, they would first need to do right by all the people around them — their team, their investors, and their customers. All of these people were incredibly hard to convince to work at their startup, so the idea of "leaving them" seemed like an impossible leap.

My advice was blunt: "Do you really think an...

The competitive analysis section of your market analysis in your business plan is essential. Knowing your competition is as important as knowing your product and your customer. Market gaps tell you where to develop your product and internal weaknesses tell you where you’re vulnerable to losing customers.

A solid competitive analysis is your way of showing that you know exactly where you stand among your fiercest competitors — and that you have a way to out-maneuver them. The best way to think of the argument you’re trying to articulate is:

“Here is where we can gain the most customers (offense) and here’s where we could potentially lose them (defense).”

Your competitive analysis should start with your SWOT Analysis — Strengths, Opportunit...

A few years back I was driving through a windy street of Bel-Air with my wife, looking at houses. If you ever want to feel ridiculously poor, I encourage you to do the same.

During our home tour we drove up beside a house under construction that was so big, we thought it was a hotel. We just kept driving around the perimeter of the house, and it just kept going! Our realtor told us it was the future home of Elon Musk.

A younger version of me would have said "Someday I'm going to have that house!" and believed wholeheartedly that there were some future series of events that would lead to that outcome. It's the blessing and curse of being a Founder I think.

I turned to my wife and said "I can't have that — and that's OK." Let me explain why t...

Paying people with equity is synonymous with startups.

Founders love being able to buy things with Monopoly money and newly granted shareholders dream of a huge windfall someday. And that sounds awesome.

But the problem is that equity isn't like cash — it's far more valuable, yet we tend to spend it like it's free. We later come to learn that equity is not only expensive now, it's way more expensive later as the company grows, and we now hold less of it.

What's so bad about paying with equity?

It's not a bad idea if we value it properly. But that's the problem. Equity, especially in the early days, is often spent with little consideration for it's long term value.

"I'll design your mobile app for 10% of the company" might sound like a dea...

A few months ago I announced that we were going to go to Breckenridge together for a leadership retreat. We were going to sleep in bunk beds and get cozy and REALLY COMFORTABLE with each other. Thirty managers together for 3 days in a Villa in the mountains…. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Here is what I learned:

1. Everyone came.

This pleasantly surprised me, actually. In a team of 30 managers — EVERY SINGLE PERSON showed up. They drove in the snow up the mountain, they took time away from their newborn children, their families, and their other responsibilities.

The fact that everyone “showed up” is I think the most important part and says the most about our team engagement. I love this part the most.

2. Everyone came to “play”.

Figurative...

If you’re going to create a great product that people love — and maybe even pay for — then you have to know your customer. And the best way to get to know your customer? Market research.

Market research is essential for any company, from tiny startups to massive corporations, but you have to do it right for it to work.

SO WHAT DOES GOOD MARKET RESEARCH LOOK LIKE?

What steps are involved? Well, it starts with an organized and thorough market research process.

1. Define Your Goals

The very first step to conducting great market research is defining your goals. What do you want to learn from this research? What questions are you answering? In order to get the most useful information, you’re going to want to develop defined research or a hypot...

John Tabis was doing fine at his old job. More than fine, actually: he was Director of Corporate Brand Development at Disney.

But instead of continuing to rock the cushy corporate life, John teamed up with his friend Juan Pablo (JP) Montufar-Arroyo and launched The Bouqs, an online flower delivery company. Neither of them had very much money so they went to friends and family and pulled together $13,000 to get started.

That was four years ago. Today, they’re working with nearly $20 million in VC money — and John definitely doesn’t miss Disney.

A native Ecuadorian who grew up on a rose farm, JP witnessed firsthand the low prices, slow payment, and rampant waste that plague the traditional flower supply chain. And on the online branding side ...

Nearly every Founder feels woefully behind their friends in life.

As it happens, we picked a particularly shitty profession to ever feel "ahead" of our friends and colleagues. Most of our friends have regular jobs where they actually get paid every week, whereas we spend the entire month wondering if and how we'll get paid at all.

The problem compounds when we start to look at our successful Founder colleagues because the delta in success can be so astronomical so quickly. We start to assume that their successes become a reflection of our failures. But what we're missing in that comparison is how the benchmarks themselves are completely broken.

We Fight Ourselves

It all starts when we try to invent where we should be in life as if our pat...

I going to share the story of the creepiest, least appropriate guerrilla marketing tactic I’ve ever come across. I’m not going to name the startup founder who did it, nor am I going to tell you identifying details about his company. I just want to make sure that no founder trying to get ahead hears a story like this and thinks, “Oh, that’s a great idea!”

No. It is not a great idea. It’s terrible.

Let’s rewind. The other day I came home to a package on my couch. Now, this isn’t a rare occurrence — I order off of Amazon as much as the next Millennial American — but I didn’t recognize the return address. “Weird,” I thought. “What’s this?”

My boyfriend poured me a glass of wine and I absentmindedly ripped the package open while telling him abou...

There are a lot of options when it comes to startup funding. And sometimes those different options can overlap — or at least seem to. That’s the case with private equity and venture capital.

What’s the difference between venture capital and private equity?

The biggest differences, traditionally, between VC and private equity are the stage of the company they invest in and the type of growth they’re looking for. Venture capital tends to go for early stage, higher risk companies with potential for “hockey stick” growth, which is when a company goes from nothing to everything, super fast. Private equity, on the other hand, is interested in companies that have already established themselves, but need more capital in order to thrive.

Another bi...