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What if I told you that selling a company for $40 million could net you more money than if you sold it for $200 million?

On its face, it sounds ludicrous, I know! But what's missing in that formula isn't the exit price, but how much of that exit we get to put in our pocket as we raise more rounds of capital.

More importantly, our opportunities to sell for $40m are dramatically more abundant than selling for $200m (or more!). That means every time we raise capital, while it sounds like we're improving our chances of an outcome, we're also reducing our options to find an exit at all.

Real Founder Dilution Numbers

CapShare released a study of 5,000 startup cap tables to determine how much equity Founders have at each stage of a funding round. ...

What happens when our main customer becomes our investor?

This is fundamentally the rabbit hole that nearly every startup goes down when fundraising. At some point, we start to realize that we're no longer building a startup for the needs of our customers; we're building it for the perceived needs of our next investors.

At any given time, our startup needs vastly more cash than we have, so we're always looking for the shortest path toward filling that gap. The very nature of investor capital is that it comes dramatically before customer capital (revenue), so in most cases, our early "customer," as it relates to cash, is an investor.

So what happens? Our investors become who we're building the company for.

We Optimize for Their Needs First

T...

Startup Founders are like top athletes — if we don't keep working that startup muscle daily, we get out of shape fast!

Normally while we're building our startups, that's not a problem — we get all the "exercise" we need in the form of unrelenting stress and anxiety (hey, it's burning calories, right?)

But seriously, being active in our startup keeps us relevant, connected, and engaged in our business worlds. The moment we disconnect, whether it be from a sale, a wind-down, or even just a career change, we start letting that muscle atrophy, and it's very hard to get it back in shape.

We Lose Our Relevance

When we're in the middle of building our startups, one of the things that we can take for granted is how relevant we are at the moment. We...

It doesn't matter if we have a "big opportunity" if it never really accomplishes our personal goals.

Yet it's hard to avoid starting a company without thinking in terms of the market potential or the ultimate outcome. If we run around saying that our new startup could one day be a "$1 million business," we're going to get very few high fives. Yet, if we say we're going to be a "$1 billion business," we'll have people lining up to talk to us. Why is that?

The difference in that balance becomes who benefits from that outcome. At $1 million, it's almost entirely the Founders. At $1 billion, it's investors, staff, and everyone else that's joined in the party. What we need to consider is who we're really building this business for and, as such, ...

There are very few problems at a startup worth actually stressing about — but that doesn't keep us from burning ourselves out about them.

Startups are nothing but problems. Everything about this epic shit show that we've created is a problem. We're building a company that has never existed, in a market we invented, with a team that got here 5 minutes ago. What about that would breed anything but problems?

Even if we can agree that the fire hose of problems will never be turned off, we can at least understand how to treat those problems differently, separating the ones that may end us from the ones that are "just another day at the office." If we can't, we will crush ourselves with stress and anxiety.

Problems vs. Apocalypse

First off, we re...

Startup investors are incredibly useful experts — on investing in startups.

The problem for us Founders is when we start taking their expertise on building startups as gospel, and worse, start pivoting based on their feedback versus our own decisions.

This stems from the fact that as Founders, we don't really have a lot of data points or experience when it comes to the qualifications of investors. We tend to think that since they invest in startups, they must be experts in how startups operate.

Investors are not Fortune Tellers

One of my favorite indulgences is listening to an investor who has been thinking about my business for 60 seconds tell me what the future of my business will be. I will always politely listen (you never know what you...

There are tons of famous Founders who have built world-changing companies in less than 40 hours per week — I just can't name a single one.

I'm not talking about the later stages when a company is already successful. I'm talking about the "garage band years" when it's just the Founder(s) doing every possible job and scraping to get a single paying customer.

The idea is that we can simply put in our 40 hours, work really hard, then turn it all off and live a regular life. Which sounds awesome. So why is it that every time we hear the origin story of a Founder, it's always the same — they worked insane hours for an insane amount of time to get to an incredible outcome?

Time is Money

Let's start with the correlation of hours to our success and...

Tap into the power of startup communities to help you take your ideas and business plans further. These incredible networks offer a wealth of resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities that can be invaluable when starting out on an entrepreneurial venture.

In this blog post, we will look at why these innovative startup ecosystems are so important in America, as well as explore options for international entrepreneurs who want to access these global community support structures too. Finally, early-stage investor input is discussed with tips shared on how best to navigate through the process successfully!

Short Summary

• Startup communities provide powerful resources and connections to help entrepreneurs succeed.

• Explore the vibrant startu...

Businesses need to be able to access capital for growth and stability, which is why understanding the different approaches to raising funds is essential. This blog post provides an in-depth guide on analyzing, comparing, and applying various methods of obtaining funding so that companies have the ample financial resources they require.

Short Summary

• Understanding the importance of capital raising and different methods available to businesses.

• Evaluating pros & cons of equity financing vs debt financing, as well as innovative strategies such as crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, and strategic partnerships.

• Attracting investors by crafting a compelling pitch, building a strong network & demonstrating past successes. Plus preparing for ca...

Founders are generally really bad at asking for help... but why?

We'd think in a business where we need help with literally everything, we'd be amazing at asking for help. Yet time and time again, we go it alone, or at most make a half-hearted attempt to get the guidance we probably need.

I spend most of my day pleading with Founders, "Please, whatever you do, stop guessing! Let me just tell you exactly what you need to do in order to move forward so you can spend your time getting it done versus figuring out how to do it."

Once we finally break that seal, I get countless questions, which is exactly my goal as someone who helps Founders all day. But the same issue keeps coming up "Why are Founders always hesitant to ask for help?"

We're Use...