"Only I can sell my product" Early-stage company growth stalls for many reasons. Many companies falter at the scale stage of development (going from 4-5 customers to 100). Many founder/CEOs tend to blame lack of funding, slow market acceptance and other factors on lack of growth or inability to scale. However, a main [...]
Every entrepreneur wants to be innovative. But most entrepreneurs try to be innovative in their thinking about their product, but not innovative about their business. When it comes to business innovation, most entrepreneurs tend to develop ideas that are not practical, either because the ideas are not achievable or there are simply insufficient resources available to [...]
One of the most critical aspects of the CEO role is to focus on organizational development. That means understanding where the company is headed, what roles need to be filled, how the organization will operate, how organizational effectiveness will be measured and how to best on-board and train new employees. It is a lot to [...]
Many entrepreneurial CEOs are frustrated by sales (or the lack thereof). And, once they hire a sales resource are often frustrated even more by sales, or lack thereof. Often, these entrepreneurial CEOs come from the product side and do not have sales or sales management experience. This makes it even more challenging and more frustrating. [...]
Being the CEO of an organization of any size is a complex and difficult job. It is often more difficult to be the CEO of an earlier stage company where you are still building momentum, than of an established company where there is established momentum. And, it is difficult to know precisely if you are, [...]
Let’s suppose that you were an investor with a small $5.0M to invest instead of an entrepreneur looking for money. And then let’s suppose some entrepreneur approached you and asked you if you would consider investing in his/her business. Interesting turnaround, huh? Now you have the money and are trying to determine where to invest [...]
People often ask me why I write and talk about CEO errors, mistakes and things that go wrong. It is because we all make mistakes, they negatively impact our entrepreneurial ventures, there are consequences and we need to try to prevent them and/or recover from them when they happen. Bad news is simply part of [...]
The CEO job requires (again, requires) some essential administration and the discipline to develop (or have developed) certain base level information to help you run the company and attract customers and investors (and them keep them informed). Having these base level documents is not a nice-to-have, but a must-have for your success. Here is a [...]