by tomnora | May 1, 2012 | Angel Investor, Business Development, CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Launch, Revenue Growth, Scalability, startup, startup CEO, venture
This is great! Congrats to Mr. Dao for stepping up to this. Thx @lieslchang for forwarding. I was at that same pitch fest. This is what I call “Harvesting Youth”.
I think MVP is usually MVBS. There are so many things wrong with the current climate. I’ve written about this many times in my blog, often being called a spoil-sport. Many “mentors” are teaching young entrepreneurs the wrong things, in order to cherry pick them for their own projects. They’re being taught to recite stupid sayings like “Killing It” and “Pivot” and “Seed Round” when they’re doing none of those.
A $50K seed round? $25K?
As someone in the startup world for over 20 years it’s sad to watch what the word startup has become, sunk to. A startup is inventing, it’s UNIQUE technology, UNIQUE idea, UNIQUE deployment. A shoe store is not a startup. A startup is something to be nurtured, built, caressed, enhanced.
For the L.A. vs. Silicon Valley comparison, these mini-launches aren’t helping L.A.s reputation. There are some incredible companies growing in L.A., but way too many fake startups.
The other crazy thing going on? Now everyone says “I’m gonna learn to code”. Ridiculous.
@tomnora
The dirty secret behind the incubator boom
by tomnora | Apr 18, 2012 | Angel Investor, Business Development, CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Revenue Growth, Scalability, startup, startup CEO, Tom Nora, venture
Southern California is going to reach the tipping point. A year ago I wasn’t so sure but now it’s getting crazy. Craig Page @CraigDPage hosted a party 2 weeks ago in Santa Monica that celebrated 500 startups in the SM/Venice ecosystem known as Silicon Beach these days, and he may not be far off.
Then last week there was a Venice Town Hall where you could see that locals are in awe of the influx of startups in their (my) little town by the beach. They’re calling it a Venissaince.
Orange County is growing some amazing companies like @signnow who is attracting Tier 1 VC funding @vkhosla.
Coworking spaces, Incubators, etc. Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Diego, Downtown L.A., on and on. C++ meetups where 100 people show up. Jason Nazar @jasonnazar meetings where 400 people show up! Jason Calacanis @jason Startup interview show @TWIstartups with some of the top startup people in the world, who seem to visit L.A. a lot these days. Google has 500 people here now and is building bike paths in Venice. Startup USC. Startup UCLA. Factual! SpaceX.
I love it. I guess it could happen, So Cal could surpass Silicon Valley some day. Never thought I’d say that. My home town.
Oh well…. 5000 could easily happen. @tomnora
by tomnora | Mar 26, 2012 | CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Launch, Scalability, startup, startup CEO, Tom Nora, venture
“Even in the quietest moments, I wish I knew what I had to do” – Supertramp
[This is about the loneliness of the CEO in a startup. A real startup, that has employees and funding and a going operation.]
It’s late on a Sunday night and you’re sitting alone preparing for the week ahead. It will include travel, employee issues, hiring, firing, product design, cash burn, a new facility, the next funding round and some client and partner visits. You have a great team for your little startup, in management and elsewhere. You have a few “startup whisperers” who advise you from afar, your parents are very supportive. Your spouse shows incredible patience and listens to your war stories every day. It’s not that you don’t love this, you do.
But in the end it’s all down to you. No matter how many people surround you, no matter who great your ecosystem is, being the CEO of a going startup is often a lonely job. By definition, in the final step of making many decisions is you alone making them.
- Others depend on you to do this.
- You have more information than anyone else in the company.
- You get more blame and more accolades for results.
- The outside world looks to you first, wants to talk to you.
- No one is equal to you inside the company you need to maintain your leadership.
So it really is you alone.
How do you improve this situation? Draw from all these resources around you, especially external ones.
- Pick one or 2 board members to get closer to, (pick the right ones).
- Don’t ask for advise or what to do, that will confuse you and they contradict each other over time.
- Find an old college or high school friend who’s disconnected from the business. Or a favorite teacher or professor.
- Pay attention when outside mentors magically appear in your circle; I’ve met some of the best advisors at meetups and coffee shops.
- Read voraciously, not just business or CEO books, but history, biographies. etc.
- Try to mentor a potential replacement even if you’re not looking for that; you’ll learn a lot.
- Use external consultants – management, executive, legal, recruiters to discuss ideas. Mark Zuckerberg hired an executive coach so he could learn to be a leader. The Google founders surrounded themselves with a dozen moentors and advisors.
I’ve found in my CEO positions that optimizing this thinking process can make the difference between success and failure, usually does. Please reach out to me if you want to discuss any of this with me. I’m @tomnora on twitter.
by tomnora | Feb 16, 2012 | Angel Investor, Business Development, CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Launch, Scalability, startup CEO
http://j.mp/y7qE0u
by tomnora | Dec 26, 2011 | Angel Investor, Business Development, CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Launch, Revenue Growth, Scalability, startup, startup CEO
One of the things I tend to obsess about these days is startups that have little or even no real lifespan. Almost every day I uncover another one, some even with significant funding. In greater Los Angeles, now being called Silicon Beach, this problem seems to be more prevalent than in most areas. So many people make their goals to just b a startup, get it started and look for funding, without much thought about multi-year growth and sustainability, i.e. Scalability.
A common area of neglect in this early stage is people – Scalable People. Startup founders tend to add people that are close to them – friends, coworkers, spouses, family, neighbors, roommates, similar age, etc. These folks are very accessible and trustworthy, not much interviewing required, and often will start working with little or no compensation. It’s good to have some of these. The biggest downside is that eventually you will have to extract or diminish the roles of most (not all) of these people.
I once had an early employee at a startup I took over who was sales, marketing, receptionist and payroll. Early on we were lucky to have her doing all those things, and she received great stock options for being an early employee. But as we grew there was no doubt that we needed to replace her in most areas with a professional team that could scale with the job. Every change we made pissed her off and she fought for her position, which was counter-productive to our growth. She eventually left with some bitterness, but that went away once we went public and she could pay off her mortgage entirely.
You also have to mix it up as early as possible with real professionals that can scale when the company grows- people who “think differently”, have different experiences, drive initiative that none of you have even thought of, and want the company to be much bigger. These days a popular add in Los Angeles is someone from Silicon Valley; it adds a realness to the group and gets investors excited.
I’ve been on all sides of this situation – I’ve been the founder trying to attract the best people, and just as often I’ve come in as the “suit” to a small group of founders and early employees. It’s more work and trickier to splice the 2 groups together than to just use your inner circle, but it’s the only way to grow now and later. Please contact me if you want to discuss your startup. @tomnora
by tomnora | Nov 14, 2011 | Business Development, CEO Succession, early stage, founder, Launch, Revenue Growth, Scalability, startup, startup CEO
Are You a CEO? Is Your Boss a CEO? Are They The Right CEO for Your Company?
There are those who work as the CEO and those that don’t. The trick is in knowing which one you are.
Are you a CEO? Are you the right CEO for your company? This seems like a silly question at first, but one of the most important for a startup foundation team. In most one-person startups by default the founder is CEO; it’s difficult to resist the temptation of the title. But not all founders do this.
If the CEO not the optimal choice but doesn’t want to admit it, beware, your startup could become an exercise in ego instead of a successful growth/job machine. There’s no formula or perfect background for the “perfect” CEO, and there are many degrees of success; in the end the proof is in the pudding. No one would have guessed Gates or Zuck would have been so successful, but they made it happen. Jerry Yang had many of the right ingredients, but somehow can’t make it as Yahoos CEO. Terry Semel was a great studio head but not a tech CEO. Meg Whitman got slammed trying to run for governor but she was and is a great CEO.
I see many non-CEOs trying to be one in my consulting work. This problem has to be fixed early in the life of a company once it becomes “real”. The first momentum a company has must be nutured like water in the desert;
The purpose if creating a startup is to create something that didn’t exist before – something out of nothing, and thereby create wealth, new money that can be distributed within and outside the company. Even in a non-profit this is true. That goal doesn’t work with the wrong leader at the top. How do you know? Usually you’ll feel it, from the people inside and outside the company. I often play “Shadow CEO” for early stage CEOs, which bridges the gap in experience for many leaders who lack experience but have the skillset. The difficulty comes when the current CEO just isn’t right to scale the business but wants to hang in, often for some very good reasons, but still the wrong choice.
It takes courage to remove yourself as a CEO, but I’ve seen and assisted in the process a dozen times to goos results. Please contact me if you know of any of these situations; they (usually) fascinate me.
