Tag Archives: startups
Branding first starts with your team

Branding first starts with your team

May 17, 2013
in Entrepreneurship

External branding starts with developing a consistent, internal message first. When you think of branding and positioning, remember that your first line of offense and the most important representation of your company comes from your employees.  Make sure you have a succinct, crisp and clear 2-3 sentence pitch on what you do and that everyone [...]

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Camping out and closing deals

Camping out and closing deals

Jan 15, 2013
in Entrepreneurship

I am sure you can see a common thread in many of my recent posts – Sales, Sales, Sales!  I don’t care how great your product is because without an ability to articulate the value proposition succinctly, tell the world about it in a capital efficient manner, and sell the damn thing, you are SOL [...]

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Cutco Knives and startups

Cutco Knives and startups

Sep 28, 2012
in Entrepreneurship

When I worked for Cutco Knives one summer in college selling the world’s finest cutlery, my dream was to sell the Homemaker +8 at every meeting.  It was the Rolls Royce of knife sets and in every sales call I had, I always tried to flog the deluxe set.  Of course, more often than not, I left [...]

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Startups and Intellectual Property (IP)

May 16, 2012
in Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Lately questions about Intellectual Property or IP have been cropping up left and right.  Eliot Durbin (my partner at BOLDstart Ventures) and I had a long discussion this morning in preparation for his panel today about IP and patents.  Last week, we met with a company and when we asked about their core IP, they [...]

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