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What’s a good way to establish a solid referral network?

I am asking clients for their dentists’ names and then calling them up one by one. Few dentists are willing to meet me, and I find the process tedious. I am curious to find if there’s another, more efficient way to reach my target clients. I am looking for something other than website SEO.

Humberto Valle, Entrepreneur, answered:

Hello, I’m a marketer and strategist by trade. One of the best in Arizona, where I reside.
I can guarantee you that a fundamental reason is that you are calling and talking more about you instead of them. Do your homework on dental services. Aim for one genuine friendly relationship...

Welcome to Phase Four of a four-part Splitting Equity Series. If you missed it, start your journey here: Introduction - Early Startup Equity — Getting it Right before continuing on if you haven’t already, and go in order from there.

Phase One - Startup Equity - Avoiding Early Mistakes

Phase Two - How Startup Equity Works

Phase Three - How to Split Equity

Phase Four - Part 1 - Equity Management

• Part 2 - Recovering Startup Equity ( ←YOU ARE HERE 😀)

Let's do this!

When it comes to startup equity distribution, giving away a startup's equity is easy. How much equity do we get back? Well, that's a different story altogether!

An "equity clawback" is designed for early-stage startups to essentially reverse an equity grant based on a number of provisions...

In this age of social media, entrepreneurship is at an all-time high. The time for creating a start-up company has never been more optimal, thanks to recent interest in technology and innovation. Profit valuations of successful start-ups have also skyrocketed in response to a rise in venture capital investors. Creating a start-up also celebrates low-cost entry, making it easier than ever to jump in and play a hand at the game of business. As many as 40 start-ups in 2013 were valued at $1 billion or more, according to a NY Times article.

But as effortless as it is to create a start-up business, the real challenge lies in evolving it. Only 1 out of every 10 start-up companies make it to the 5th year. What are the barriers that prevent the suc...

One of the biggest reasons that a startup’s marketing initiative fails is because they aren’t treating potential customers like people. It’s an easy mistake to make.

When you have target KPIs to meet, you need to be thinking in terms of numbers and metrics. But if you start seeing the world merely through the lens of numbers and begin to neglect the human element, your message is unlikely to connect with your target audience.

What’s the solution? Buyer personas.

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on real data and categorized by market segment.

When you envision a composite “person” as you’re creating your marketing content and messaging, you’re more likely to create something that’s relevant and mea...

Rich Aberman and his co-Founder Bill Clerico were making great progress with their payment processing startup, WePay.

The platform – which made it easy for small businesses, organizations and nonprofits to accept credit card payments online – had taken shape over the course of six years. Revenue was growing month-over-month. Customers liked it, the press liked it — and investors had put in a lot of money to keep growing it.

But in 2014, Rich and Bill were getting ready to kill it.

The transition away from direct business

No, it wasn’t the startup equivalent of a suicide pact. They hadn’t given up – quite the opposite. Almost without meaning to, they had landed on an opportunity with the potential to leave the direct business in the dust.

Th...

You’re proud of your startup. From conception to birth, you’ve doted on it. Now, it’s growing and providing tons of data for you to examine. Like a beaming parent, you explore the information eagerly, pleased at your company’s progress. But beware the blind spot all moms and dads face: Your apparent success might not be all that successful.

Entrepreneurs look at facts and figures far differently from investors and board members; consequently, they often overlook or misunderstand the growth metrics at their fingertips. As with anything in life, they must see the company’s data with open and accepting eyes.

Some growth metrics will highlight success; others will cast shadows of doubt. A founder’s job is as much a leader as an interpreter for ...

How could we possibly be "right" as Founders when literally everything we are doing is unknown?

Think about it — we're building a startup that has never existed with a product that's being invented and run by a team that's never worked together delivering to a customer who has never heard of us. Oh, and did I mention as Founders we've probably never done this before?

What about that formula drives certainty?

Separating Founder Mistakes from Failure

Let me start by saying this — there is no possible way, NO possible way, that as startup Founders (especially first-time founders) we could possibly make the right decision over and over in our early-stage startup.

In fact, the only way TO make the right decision is going to be to make tons of mi...

In the weeks leading up to the launch of Startups.com in 2012, I was coming off running 5 startups at the same time, 3 of them venture-funded (high stakes), on top of launching this one. I got married, had a child, lost my grandmother, moved across the country, and had nearly every major life event you could have happen — in less than 12 months.

On this specific day, I was at lunch with my co-workers and something about me just felt "off." I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was feeling dizzy for no reason and my body felt like it wasn't mine. After lunch, I hopped in my car and headed home to rest. While I was on the phone with my wife, driving on the highway, I said, "You know, I don't feel right..." and as soon as I said that — my wor...

What happens when our main customer becomes our investor?

This is fundamentally the rabbit hole that nearly every startup goes down when fundraising. At some point, we start to realize that we're no longer building a startup for the needs of our customers; we're building it for the perceived needs of our next investors.

At any given time, our startup needs vastly more cash than we have, so we're always looking for the shortest path toward filling that gap. The very nature of investor capital is that it comes dramatically before customer capital (revenue), so in most cases, our early "customer," as it relates to cash, is an investor.

So what happens? Our investors become who we're building the company for.

We Optimize for Their Needs First

T...