by tomnora | Aug 1, 2022 | startup CEO
First of all, if you’re a real startup CEO, these hard times aren’t so hard if you look at the right indicators. I’m interacting with startup money people all the time — angels, VCs, superangels, family offices, even some PE these days. There is still a lot of money out there, lots of deals happening. VC is still roaring, with the exception of about 2 months of fear over the NASDAQ and Crypto Crash.
The only thing that ‘s changed is valuations, and those aren’t much different than they were 2019-2021, which is pretty high.
Early stage angel investors like to find little gems before anyone else, they look for the $10 million valuation seed or pre-seed opportunities. That hasn’t change, money hasn’t “dried up”. I get angels asking me still every week for leads one early-early deals. If seed funding is good, follow on from these same investors later should be good also, unless the world falls apart over the next couple of years.
As they always have, investors do want a few things — a very strong level of belief in the founder(s), something new and not just a clone of existing businesses, and high energy from the startup.
I saw a very strong Silicon Valley angel say the other day that, for certain founders, he would give them $1 million without knowing the product or valuation, just betting on the founders he knows will win again and again. That’s the confidence and trust that prevails in the valley — today.
It’s also a testament to the power of the momentum of the current retooling of modern business. This recession can’t stop that.
So, the valuations are lower. Is that fair? Is that VC greed taking advantage of the stock market?? A little bit, but valuations, especially for mis and late stage were they too high and needed a reset. That couldn’t have gone on forever. And they’ll come back. Depending on where your company is, it shouldn’t matter anyway.
There are angels who look for early early deals, try to find $5M to 20M valuations. Those valuations aren’t going down.
But still, you should reassess, check your priorities, tighten things up.
1. What are people doing now because your product doesn’t exist, what is the pain you will solve?
2. What is it that you know about your specific niche that other companies do not?
3. How and when does this make revenue and profits? What is the growth graph?
@tomnora
by tomnora | Feb 23, 2022 | CEO Succession, startup CEO
Here are some quick bullet points for you as a new CEO or if you’re aspiring to become a real CEO.
- Constantly remind yourself and others of the Vision and Top Goals.
- Be a Positive Influence to your team, a Motivator.
- Understand your company’s Finances, very well
- Don’t be afraid of Strong Advisors.
- People’s perception of you will shift with time. Adapt to this.
- Authenticity Matters. Don’t fake it or B.S. people.
- Work on your Self Awareness.
- Take time alone.
Carry this list around on your phone to remind yourself and to snap you out of your day-to-day.
Tom Nora, CEO Confidant
by tomnora | Feb 2, 2022 | startup CEO
excerpt from HACKING THE CORE
From all the topics I just listed, I hope to ingrain one thought in particular into your head: Software is a Metaphor. This will be covered more in book 2 but is also all over this book.
Most product innovations now come from software, which is a bunch of letters and symbols arranged in very specific ways. Manipulation of software, code, and scripts has become one of the most important parts of innovation of most things in this world. Everything runs on software.
Almost any product we use today is driven by software, from our car to our phone to our TV to the local coffee shop, and of course the web is layers and net- works of software packages. Many things you interact with are visual software ele- ments on a screen: animation, art, medical diagrams, and 3D models.
Therefore, this book will often draw from the world of software and software architectures, the web, and general computing to draw parallels about business, in- novation, and logical thinking. Don’t worry, I’ll make these ideas easily accessible.
by tomnora | Apr 28, 2020 | Life Design
Are you looking for a change?
If you’re reading Linkedin on a Saturday. you’re probably thinking about it. One way to start the change is to adjust your speed, even a little bit. Whether up or down, the change flushes out the cache in your brain and gives you new energy.
SLOW IT DOWN
Right now we’re all slowing it down. I think that’s a good thing, breaking the zombie patterns we’ve all been in for so long, slogging our way through life’s daily routines. It’s all been stopped now, for the first time ever in our lives. Amazing.
I’ve had many times in my life when it was a good time to slow down, usually after an intense run of a few years in a growing company. When helping companies to grow faster and grow correctly without blowing up, my pattern is usually a lot of travel, a lot talking, frenetic schedules, pushing as hard as feasible on several parameters.
I see posts from people in different phases of their career where they advocate one of the above — “You need to speed it up” or “You need to slow it down” or “ Work Harder” or “Work Less”. Or “Here’s how to meditate” or “Drink More Coffee!!”
The truth is that it’s different for everyone based on where they are in their own cycle of life. Almost every time after slowing down for a few months, taking a well need rest for my mind and body, I realize it’s time to speed it back up, get out there more. I’m always surprised and have to psych myself into speeding up again. Moving slower and becoming more present and silt can become intoxicating. But it doesn’t “pay the bills” as they say.
Many years ago, Tim Ferris wrote one of the most popular business books ever, “The Four Hour Work Week”. In it he advocates trimming back the unnecessary busywork thing in life to give yourself more free time. The cover is a drawing of someone lying on a hammock between two palm trees, the iconic vacation lifestyle. With his constant self promotion and social media activity I’m guessing he no longer actually works only fours per week, but I get the point, and was doing many of the things he said for years before his book was published.
I’m famous among my business associates for cutting out any fat from business meetings, conversations, etc. At first it pisses them off, but then a few months or years later they often tell me they “get it”. I don’t believe in business for business’ sake type time wasting meetings.
One hobby/aspiration that helps to slow it down is art. Either making or studying some type of art, especially if it’s non-digital art, will give you a whole different view of your world and compartmentalize work and business. By design many art activities are slow and quiet and contemplative. Pop into a museum in New York or L.A. and everything changes.
So slow it down when you can. Disconnect, meditate, sleep.
SPEED IT UP
Then there are the times when you need to speed it up, move faster, be more productive. After this quarantine is all over, it will take some work for all of us to speed it back up. Our “speed it up” muscles are atrophied a bit.
I enjoy this phase as much as I enjoy slowing it down. Recently I visited a model city of the future, a “smart’ city where they showed us the advances in lifestyle that can increase your productivity through better eating and more exercise, as opposed to drinking Red Bull and working more hours. A smarter way to speed it up. At first I wasn’t sure I agreed but then I kind of got it. Eight hour days at higher productivity instead of twelve hour days with burn out as a result.
Moving faster, steadily increasing your speed, becoming more efficient, being “on” when you need to be. These are all healthy things for your productivity and creativity. many very successful people are called “Manic” types. The manic sessions are where they create, see beyond, and usually bother the people around them. I sometimes get these bursts, try to limit them ,but allow them to take over once in a while. I’m writing this right now because of a creative surge I felt this morning from reading a great article on predictive analytics. I felt that I should not only consume great stories but also try to write something useful, and to do it quickly.
Part of speeding up is to reduce the amount of time spent. Elton John was famous in his early days for spending very little time writing his songs. During the making of the Yellow Brick Road album, h e would receive lyrics for three to five songs every morning from his writing partner Bernie Taupin, then create finished songs within a couple of hours. Many of these songs went on to become his greatest hits.
Slow it down, speed it up. Try being more conscious about doing this and you may find a new rhythm and balance to your life. Enjoy this forced relaxation right now, as we’ll probably never see such a thing again.
tom nora
by tomnora | Jan 28, 2017 | CEO Succession, founder
How do I deal with my partner’s very extreme mood swings, knee jerk reactions and short temper?
tl;dr. Put it into a larger context, agree on a set of guidelines for acceptable behavior and communication.
Extreme emotions are never a good thing in a business setting, especially among partners. There’s an unwritten agreement among a leadership team that no one will go outside certain bounds of anger, mutual respect, and patience.
Usually when this happens there are other issues like lack of trust or perceived unfairness. In a partnership, often one member feels that they are doing more than the other(s), possibly feels incompetent and is trying to hide it, has personal issues or possibly several other problems.
The best thing to do is to lay it all out, talk about it, figure out definitively how to stop it. Don’t let it go on. Honestly discuss what is happening on both sides, and reinforce your desire to work with each other. If that doesn’t work, changes are needed before you damage the business.
How do you know?
I’ve stepped into the CEO role at several companies and have seen the emotional pain it causes founders to let go of the control and lose recognition. The problem usually resolves itself over time with building trust and paying proper attention to it, but not always.
