It continues to amaze me how ANYONE is willing to vote for Donald Trump. Sure, we need to get back to more conservative values (obliterate DEI, quotas and the out of control woke nonsense like pretending transgender people are normal and educating young children that this is okay), fiscal policy and reduce government by maybe 50%, or more at all levels. Do not get me wrong, I am 100% for equality of treatment of people. Just not equal outcomes. It seems our younger generation cannot tell the difference.
Trump is clearly not very bright, is totally unethical, is a prolific criminal and will be going to jail soon too. I doubt anyone ever got indicted for over 100 felonies and got off without a jail sentence. Only corruption in the system would prevent him from getting a long sentence.
How can anyone think voting for him, instead of insisting on better candidates, is a good thing?! It means they are either ignorant of the facts (listed below which are in the news everywhere), dumb or...
Ideas are worthless. And it would be totally legal for them to steal them. Maybe you are confusing patents, copyrights and other intellectual property.
An “idea” has no legal protections. And you can be pretty sure you are not the first one to have any given idea too. And if anyone can steal a single “idea” and replicate your business, it is a very bad business. What you need is lots more including many things like a business model, target market, product/service and hundreds of ideas.
Companies need a team, plan and many protectable ideas. These are protectable intellectual property when kept as trade secrets, patents and copyrights. Almost every company should have some of these and contracts with employees to prevent them from taking them.
Investors do not sign non-competes or non-disclosures because they need to meet too many people.
Frankly, if your “idea” is all you have, you should not be talking to investors as you are...
Here is a short list, but there are many more things which come only from experience and feel interviewing. This is why it is best to have at least 15 years' professional experience before starting a company.
It all starts with a strong, documented values statement that is taken very seriously at every stage. This means enforcing it and using it as a basis for reviews, bonuses, and promotions in a visible way.
Here are more key component of a process that will work:
Startups should never, ever, never compete with big companies. They must offer something different. “Differentiated” is the most important word in designing a startup market entry strategy.
Look at this diagram and decide how you can adjust your company to be in the top right quadrant. Without that you have no chance of surviving, never mind profiting, because you will compete with companies 100 to 1,000,000 times larger than you with already developed marketing and sales channels and huge budgets.
Only these kinds of companies will attract investors (needed to grow) and top employees because they know the stock options can be game changers for their personal wealth.
The personality traits that a strong entrepreneur must have include:
A reasonable salary for any CEO or founder is a $100K to $200K today. This depends on their experience and market value which could easily be $500K+. A CEO with ten years in that seat is worth $300K to $500K base salary, but investors want them to have skin in the game and urgency too.
Like a salesperson you never pay them enough in base salary to be totally happy, or financially comfortable. Stock value should be the main long-term motivation. At 20% capital gains tax, not 50%+.
What is more important is that the base salary is a small fraction of the upside of their equity. Investors want founders 100% focused, not worried about paying their personal bills, or moonlighting to do that.
Building a company is a marathon not a sprint. All the founders need to be committed for a 5 year period. And in any VC level opportunity ought to have at least $10M to $20M upside with reasonable success. With 3 to 5 key players that's a $100M stock option pool. Normally at least 10% of the company,...
Typically, you cannot get outside funding until you have developed some team, plans and an MVP product (minimum viable product or prototype) from serious investors. People are misled by headlines thinking they can raise millions from outside investors with none of these. That only happens if you already made other investors rich, in which case it is likely you would fund your startup’s seed stage yourself to prevent early dilution.
Over 80% of startups fail because the founders underestimate the skills and team required. There are about 40 skills sets needed to build a scalable startup. Usually this requires a team of three people with 15+ years’ experience each to launch successfully. The college graduate that built a $100M startup is a myth propagated by ignorant reporters who fail to look behind the front person and just want headline click bait.
Bootstrapping is done because most need to do that with personal, co-founder and friends and family money to complete...
Here is a short list of others, because there are hundreds:
According to this source, resources needed from the planet will be exceeded by human demand this August. I guess this means more people starve and suffer soon. I find most corporate ESG initiatives to be all PR and no real meat or commitment. What are you doing to reduce the human footprint on the planet?
So many easy things every individual can do. Interestingly, I learned today from a related chart you can see at link below that almond milk uses 40.9% less water than cow's milk. And my doctor recommends it for less cholesterol, too. These easy choices can help.
Same with eating less red meat and more veggies. Better for you, too. ;0)
Two-thirds of the economy is the consumer, and so our choices matter. I started donating to Greenpeace in the 1980s when the Rainbow Warrior sailing ship was covertly bombed by the French gov't (evil), showing total disregard for not just whales, but also the law, people, free speech and the planet as a whole. Forty years later, we...
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