One question I seem to be hearing more often from prospective clients lately: “How do I set up a holding company for my startup?” The answer is you don’t. Or, perhaps more precisely, you shouldn’t. A holding company is a company that owns other companies. The classic...
If you were getting a divorce, would you ask your soon-to-be-ex-spouse for a divorce lawyer referral? No, you wouldn’t, because that would be so obviously stupid that no rational person would ever consider such an idea. Your soon-to-be-ex-spouse would be the last...
[This is a parody inspired by Robert Pirsig’s wonderful classic, from the perspective of a man that’s seen a lot of startups come and go, some succeeding and some failing. For the real thing, please go to Amazon and purchase Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.]...
The number one reason that most startups never succeed is that they fail to recognize that the basic laws of business physics also apply to them. Whether as a startup or mature business, sooner or later you have to do a few basic things: You have to get clients or...
Kickstarter alone has led to almost 3 billion dollars of funding to nearly 120,000 projects. Crowdsourcing has become a viable alternative to traditional funding sources, whether the focus is launching a specific project or building a business. The success stories of...
1) Working with the Wrong Kind of Investors There’s a saying in the startup world: “the first money that goes in determines how much money, if any money at all, comes in after.” Regular startup investors are an incestuous lot, and they’re usually a pretty...
