Time and again I have been told how The Art of War by Sun Tzu is a great resource for gaining insights on strategy. I’ve heard it all from how it’s a required reading in many Japanese companies to how Bill Belichick uses it to fill his fingers with Super Bowl rings. So the time came when I finally decided to give it a shot, shortly after I was pleasantly surprised on how many of the 5th century BC strategies actually aligned with modern day business and startups in particular.

Below I have highlighted four passages, which I believe hold timeless business advice for early stage companies. Along with the passages, I have added my contemporary interpretation, modern evidence through research, and real world examples.

On Adaptability

Question: What is one tip you have for keeping your personal and professional life separate?

Don’t Use Your Facebook Profile for Work

“Use a Facebook page to promote your business, and keep your Facebook profile for actual friends and family only. Many people make the mistake of blurring the line and they’re left with the worst of both worlds: They can’t promote on Facebook because they’ll annoy their friends, and they can’t be too personal for fear of coming across as unprofessional with prospects. Separate the two.”

— Laura Roeder
MeetEdgar.com
@lkr

Schedule Your Life, Too

“Reserve personal time in your schedule for activities that allow you to recharge and that add value, such as daily exer...

Note: Last updated: July 26, 2018

What are the best startup tools of 2018? A great startup idea is exciting, but let’s be real — if that’s all you have, you don’t have much. If your startup is going to go from idea to reality to acquisition, you’re going to need a lot of help along the way. And while some of that help will come from humans — like, you know, your team and your investors and your mom when you call her, crying — others will come from startup tools.

Startup tools are tools created to help startups (and yes, traditional businesses) succeed. They’re almost all online, as that’s where we conduct most of our business in Startup Land. They’re also almost always startups themselves — the ecosystem of startups that were created speci...

1. What is seed capital?

The very first money that many enterprises raise — whether they go on to raise more money or not — is seed funding. (Some startups may raise pre-seed funding in order to get them to the point where they can raise a traditional seed round, but not every company does that.)

The name is pretty self explanatory: This is the seed that will (hopefully) grow the company. Seed capital is used to move past the first steps (product development, for example) and to start exploring what the next stages will be (like growth or a pivot).

Seed capital may be raised from family and friends, angel investors, incubators, and venture capital firms that focus on early-stage startups. Angel investors are perhaps the most common type of ...

A business model canvas is a method for determining a company’s business model in a visual, straightforward way. It can be used to develop new business ideas or to sketch out the business model for an existing business. It was developed by Alexander Osterwalder in 2008 and is part of the lean startup methodology.

Every company needs to be able to clearly and concisely outline their business model. Not only does it serve as a guide for moving the company forward, it also helps when approaching investors and partners. However, figuring out a business model can be tricky, especially for first time founders. And that’s where Osterwalder’s business model canvas comes in.

The business model canvas can be printed out in large scale, so that an ent...

A market analysis is an assessment of any given market that includes both qualitative and quantitative research. Conducting a thorough market analysis as a key piece of your business plan ensures that you know everything there is to know about your market.

Coincidentally, it reassures any current or future investors that you know what you’re doing, that you’ve done you’re homework and that you’re the right entrepreneur to address the gap in this particular market.

HOW TO CONDUCT A MARKET ANALYSIS

But — in order to conduct a thorough market analysis — you need to cover a wide range of topics. Before diving into the specifics, remember that at its core, a market analysis is about learning the most you can about your m...

Can a startup apply for a small business loan? Are you sure? Usually when startup founders think about funding, we think about venture capital or accelerator programs. That’s because those funding sources offer potentially big payouts, oftentimes with no obligation to pay back the money if the startup fails.

But, there’s another source of funding that’s more traditional — and potentially riskier: the small business loan.

Small business loans are a more traditional way of getting financing, which means they may be easier for some startups to get than venture capital, which can be a long and arduous process.

They’re a great option for startups that already have some momentum and — even better — some income coming in. That’s because while ven...

Have you settled on a logo for your startup yet? That decision seems like a small one — a quick thing to simply check off the to-do list! — but it’s actually a pretty big undertaking. Startup logos, while often tiny, can make a huge impact on the success or failure of your company. That one tiny little image will be used everywhere — from iPhone tiles to your letterhead to packaging for physical products to swag. With that much real estate, a bad logo can do some serious damage.

But, how do you know what a bad startup logo looks like? Surely logo design is at least a little bit subjective! Perhaps, like the famous Supreme Court justice quote about pornography, you know it when you see it. However, even within the spectrum of subjectivity, t...

A “go to market strategy” outlines how your startup plans to deliver your product to your customer. While similar to a business plan, a go to market strategy is narrower in scope. A business plan covers everything about the business, while go to market strategy zeros in on exactly how your startup will deliver a product or service to your customer.

How to create a “go to market strategy”

Define Your Product

This one might seem painfully obvious, but you have to know what you’re selling before you can sell it. With that in mind, take a little time to clearly define your product before you dive into the rest of your go to market strategy. You need to be able to say exactly what the product is as well as what it does.

G...

If you’ve seen the movie “The Social Network” you remember Dustin Moskovitz as the kid from Jurassic Park who did little more than sit in a corner and code. Like most other things in the movie, that wasn’t exactly true. Or– yunno– true at all.

While still close friends with Mark Zuckerberg, Moskovitz has been gone from day to day management of Facebook since 2008. But we spoke with him just before Facebook’s IPO, which was poised to make him the world’s youngest billionaire.

Moskovitz made the surprising move to leave Facebook pre-IPO to co-found Asana, a company that seeks to make communication and collaboration within companies more seamless. He says telling Zuckerberg he was quitting was one of the hardest things he’s ever do...