Best venture capital books according to redditors

We found 365 Reddit comments discussing the best venture capital books. We ranked the 62 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Venture Capital:

u/peaksy · 91 pointsr/AskReddit

Some of the things I was told:

  • "You have a great Idea, but there is just no way to be profitable at it."
  • "Its never going to work, give up and just get a real job" -dad
  • "You are too inexperienced to be successful in this field"

    What I learned - "There is a reason advice is free: because, it is usually crap" - Micheal Cain

    Take yourself seriously. If you are doing things by the hour, charge no less than 50-100.00/hr. If you work for less, the customer is going to think your a joke, because they know what the market rate of professional services cost. You only have to work one hour at 100.00/hr to make the same dollar you would make in 4 hours and 25.00/hr.

    Read this book: - The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

    It is exactly about what you are doing and will give you some unique business ideas and help you not to be afraid of totally screwing up and starting over.

    Lessons Learned the Hard way:

  • Taxes: I went to school and got a BBA, when I started my business the tax issue was huge and I tried to do it on my own for 2 years, only to get audited on the third year, ended up owing 25,000.00 extra dollars. I kept perfect books, but honestly had no idea what tax law for my particular market was. Lesson: Rely on a CPA or other professional consultant that specializes in Tax for your payroll, corporate and sales tax for the first few years. Once you get it down and can understand it, you can hire and train someone in-house to do most of the work.

    -Partners: Be careful with partners. It was once said, "you can tell the quality of a man by the company he keeps" Going into business with someone who has had multiple marriages is dangerous proceed with caution, Going into business with someone who has had affairs - no fly. A lot about a persons professional performance can be foretold from the quality of their personal life. Men and women of integrity are the foundation of a new company, if the foundation is sand, the storm will wash it a way. Lesson: Choose good partners. If you share any of the ownership or leadership, make sure they are trustworthy. Not that just you trust them, but they are generally a trustworthy person.


    For the most part, just get out there, fail, fail, fail, and learn. Keep track of your many failures so when you achieve success you will not get bloated and forget where you came from.
u/seamore555 · 90 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Stop. Building the app is one of the last things. The biggest mistake people make is that they build something no one wants.

Validate your idea. Try to get strangers interested (NOT friends and family).

To add to this, check out the book Running Lean. If you're serious, it gives you a great step by step process.

u/luxstyle · 39 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I like the lean canvas and lean start up theories.

Here is lean canvas
http://leanstack.com/

It's a more streamlined model of the traditional business model canvas.

And here is an excellent book about implementing lean startup
http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410501116&sr=8-1&keywords=running+lean

The original book for this is The Lean Startup
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lean+startup&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Alean+startup&ajr=2

If you haven't done a business before, I'd recommend you check out all of these resources. In addition to helping you plan and create your business model, it also gives fantastic advice on starting out. Including how to make sure you are actually creating a product someone wants, finding your customers, getting the product out there sooner than later and other great notes.

Also keep in mind that you can spend weeks and months on a business plan and it will most likely blow up as soon as you implement it. Nothing wrong with that, but the point is to make a plan that's "good enough" and then go out there and test your theory.

Good luck!

u/quirt · 28 pointsr/Android

> My advice is to make sure your Android app is solving a pain-point. This seemed to work well for me.

This is true for any startup. /u/jug6ernaut: read The Lean Startup for a more complete explanation.

The most important thing about your startup is NOT the product (whether it be an Android app or a new type of organic hummus). What really matters is the problem that your target customer base is currently having, whether they really have that big of a problem, and whether you're solving it.

u/alexandr202 · 27 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I learn a ton from reading books by people much smarter than I am. There are some stellar books I start with.

Starting a business
Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

Start a business
Lean Startup

Investing and Stock Market
Gone Fishing Portfolio

Life Hacks and Lifestyle Business
4 Hour Work Week

u/harryputtar · 24 pointsr/Entrepreneur

There is no one book. What you are looking for is perspectives.

My suggestion, first up: Start with The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

It is a great book for people who are currently employed, and are struggling to understand why business owners think the way they think. Also, it introduces some basic lean thinking concepts (Theory of Constraints) that are very useful regardless of whether you are trying to be an entrepreneur or not. If you plan to hire people, this should be required reading for all of them. Remember, the book was written in the last century, some culture shock is expected.

Next: I would highly recommend reading The Lean Startup. It's a bit dated now, and newer refinements are available, but every other book kind of builds upon this book.

Now you should be able to relate to whether your business idea is sound or not. Next you want to understand, how other people became successful, for this, you need to read Nir Eyal's Hooked. The book is an eye opener for how various online businesses keep making us coming back for more.

Now you are close to building your product, but maybe you need to understand if you are onto something worth selling or not? The Lean Startup will tell you to do a Smokescreen MVP or a Concierge MVP. An even better approach is defined in Sprint. This approach allows you to test business assumptions in a highly structured manner.

After all of this, hopefully, you will someday reach a stage, where you will need to go and pitch your idea to investors. Get Backed teaches you to put together a presentation for investors, and how to handle the presentation.

At the end of all of this, you might be feeling very optimistic about life and stuff, but to keep yourself grounded, read up on Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things. It is one of the most humbling books you could ever read, and once in a lifetime kind of a book that is as profound as the Chicken Soup books.

u/zipadyduda · 21 pointsr/smallbusiness

Recommended reading

Here is my suggested reading list for anyone who ever wants to be a small business owner. I like audiobooks but you can get some of these in print also.

Entrepreneur Mindset

There are several books that talk about the entrepreneur mindset. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” was one of the first that I had encountered. “Four Hour Work Week” is a popular one among young adults and lazy millennials now. But I think this one below sums it up in a relatively fast and easy way. To me there is nothing wrong in this book, but in my opinion it’s a little incomplete and inaccurate and won’t work for some people. It doesn’t say how to switch lanes, or say that you can be in two lanes at the same time. Still, it should be required reading for anyone remotely interested in business. It’s at the top of my list because the correct mindset is required before anyone can think about actually doing business.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-the-Code-to-Wealth-and-Live-Rich-for-a-Lifetime-Audiobook/B0143BEDUO


Business and Marketing

These two combined are basically an MBA in a box and then some. They are long audiobooks that go over the lessons of an MBA program, and the first one also covers a lot of life hacking and mind hacking theories such as how to stay motivated etc. Some of this stuff is very interesting, some if it is boring to slog through. But knowing what is in here will have you well versed to communicate about business at a high level. I have listened to both several times, I keep coming back because it’s a lot and I can’t learn it all at once.

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8


The E Myth series basically describes how many entrepreneurs fail to implement systems in their business. It has a couple other important business concepts and is geared mainly for beginning entrepreneurs or those who have not yet studied a lot about business at a high level.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE

Mike Michalowicz, Solid principles, Some are regurgitations of Seth Godin and E-Myth, but some are original and insightful. Not very efficient in delivery of material, but I would highly recommend.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur-Audiobook/B00FKCI3I4

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Audiobook/B008CHN41K

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Profit-First-Audiobook/B06X15WX5B

In the world of marketing, Seth Godin is well known as a forward thinker. He has a new perspective of thinking about marketing in the internet age.
Seth Godin Startup School. This is a series of 15 short podcasts, maybe 15 to 20 minutes long each. It’s a good cliff notes version of a lot of his other books.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-godins-startup-school/id566985370

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Purple-Cow-Audiobook/B002V0QOJS

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Audiobook/B002V1NIMI

Gary Vaynerchuk is well known in online entrepreneur forums, especially with a younger audience. He is interesting to listen to and talks at a basic level mostly about social media marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FC0AoARnMLvgFgESJe4_Ngs

This is a link about fashion, but it could just as easily be about restaurants or any other business. As you read it, substitute the product for your product or widgets and it makes sense.

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

It’s probably not necessary to read this whole book, but it’s widely referenced and it’s important to understand the theory. This guy basically coined the phrase “Lean Startup” to describe businesses that start small and apply the scientific method to determine which direction to grow. Not to be confused with LEAN Manufacturing methodology made famous by Toyota, but follows similar principles.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898


There are a lot of great posts in reddit. There are a lot of crappy ones too. But worth trolling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/ (yes it’s spelled wrong)

For example, this post basically has a step by step guide to start a small business.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5lfy6n/4_years_ago_i_wrote_a_case_study_on_reddit_on_my/

Other links
21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders

https://www.cbinsights.com/research/bezos-amazon-shareholder-letters/#2000


E Commerce, Design, Online Marketing
This guy has a very interesting perspective on display tactics.

https://www.nickkolenda.com/

A good source for tactics. Also offers one of the better wordpress themes

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

These guys offer great information and insight in their podcast.

https://ecomcrew.com/episode-1-welcome-to-the-ecom-crew-podcast/

Landing Page Optimization
Important for all businesses even offline, for example with restaurants these principles could help for menu design or digital signage, for other businesses this knowledge can help with advertising layouts etc.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-brand-strategies-uniquely-position-your-ecommerce-above-bhardwaj

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-landing-page-design-tips

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/

https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do

https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/

This book discusses apps, especially networking apps like Uber.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Platform-Revolution-Audiobook/B01DDX7MJ2

Also

http://andrewchen.co/marketplace-startups-best-essays/

A good page of links

http://www.themissionmarketer.com/digital-marketing-resources/


For Restaurants

http://www.restaurantowner.com

Very valuable stuff here. Business plan templates, etc. $30 a month for a subscription but well worth it if you are starting or running a restaurant.

https://www.restaurantmastering.com

http://www.typsy.com

Not worth the paid membership yet, but it's growing. And you can get a free trial for like a week and binge watch everything.

Dealing with delivery aggregators

https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/comments/76sd1i/uber_eats_what_percentage_you_paying_em_anyone/

Edit: spacing

u/Squagem · 17 pointsr/smallbusiness

> What's the next step after I've got the idea?

For solopreneurs with very little technical knowledge like you, I highly recommend the following:

  1. Distill the problem that you're solving down to the simplest possible level (Hint: Even after you've done this you can likely still distill it further).
  2. Get a Mailchimp mailing list up and running.
  3. Head over to a tool like Clickfunnels, LeadPages, or Squarespace, and create a very simple landing page using one of their templates. Also, consider using OptinMonster or something if you really want to aggressively push for emails.
  4. Build out a really simple landing page for your product that clearly illustrates the value you are offering in very simple words. The CTA should be "sign up for the beta" - you're just looking to get an email address.
  5. Get this site in front of your ideal target customers (you might need to spend some time figuring out who that is). Here, you can use Reddit, Adwords, Facebook ads, Twitter, LinkedIn ads, whatever makes sense for your business. I highly recommend the book Traction for this part as it's clearly the hardest part.
  6. Once you have ~50 signups, start with live Q&A sessions, or simple surveys to further understand the painpoints of the community.
  7. Once you get to the point that people are literally saying "take my money, where is the product!?!?", THEN AND ONLY THEN should you reach out to a developer with a very clear MVP in mind, and have them build it out for you (expect somewhere around $10K for this).
  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you get bought by Google.

    *

    This is very hard, but the most important takeaway is this:
    just do something**. Action is always more important than thinking about action, just don't spend a fortune on developers until you have...

  • A very clear idea of what the problem you're solving is; and
  • That idea has been validated by real people who would give you real money if you made the product.

    That's it. Have fun!

    P.S: I'm currently doing this with a mobile app for the rock climbing community, so comment below if you have any more questions on any specific tactics.

    P.P.S: I'm in no way affiliated with any of the above tools, I just use them on a regular basis and find them a pleasure to use.
u/yLSxTKOYYm · 16 pointsr/cscareerquestions

I'm a big fan of the book about the Theranos debacle, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. It's a great case study on messiah complexes, bad leadership, and organizational dysfunction.

u/alucardus · 16 pointsr/Entrepreneur

First if there is enough potential profit in your idea you can always hire engineers, programmers etc. So keep that in mind and start keeping a list of every idea you have, I keep one in my phone that is gigantic now. Stop limiting your self to just what you can do and it will really open up your mind.

I would recommend the $!00 startup, it is full of case studies on what others have done. After reading this book it seemed like I just started thinking in an entrepenuerial way about almost everything and ideas came like a waterfall. I now have more solid ideas than I can possibly ever pursue, and get new ones daily.

Another great one is Lean startup. It has the most practical advice I've encountered on how to test and then go forward with an idea. After this book I was able to mentally test ideas and see profit or failure in them much easier. This book is also invaluable for once you actually start something.


http://www.amazon.com/The-100-Startup-Reinvent-Living/dp/0307951529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373772742&sr=8-1&keywords=%24100+startup


http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373773392&sr=1-1&keywords=lean+startup

u/chance-- · 15 pointsr/Entrepreneur

^(This reply got kinda long, sorry)

> in an ideal world, yeah 50-50 is best, but I thought about it.

50/50 has it's own host of issues. What happens when you need cash? What if one of you wants to make a critical decision but the other objects?

Assuming your bootstrapping the startup, you're going to need money and that likely means one or both of you will need to invest. Do you do it at even levels? Let's say you launch and there's enough interest that you need the dev to start pulling more hours. Does he still need to contribute the same as you?

When it comes to decisions, it's natural to assume that you and your partner could work your way through any disagreement. While that may be true, you'll never really know until it matters. It's easy for a person's priorities to shift after going through the grueling process of launching a startup.

> Where I would come in the picture is at the very end when we launch our project and I would deal with sales/marketing, as these our my strengths and not my friends'.

No. Go read (or re-read) The Lean Startup. If you're wearing the hat as the business guy, then there is so much that you will need to do even before you should consider bothering your friend with this.

Before you approach anyone, you should have already verified your idea through surveys, conversations with potential customers, and any other relevant market research. You should have all of that in an easily digestible document or presentation.

While you're doing the research, you should have, at minimum, a splash page that gives a brief overview of the idea, perhaps an explainer video, and most importantly, a way to capture user interest. Those future leads should be considered metrics on your past tests.

Basically, you want to have everything ready as if you're pitching to a n angel or VC investor. The reason for this is simple: you are pitching to an investor. The only difference is that instead of trading money for capital they're trading sweat, blood, tears, a healthy social life, and a lot of sleep. A fringe benefit of pitching to your potential partners this way is that you'll get great experience pitching in a lot less stressful situation.

Once you get someone to partner up, there's still a lot that you will need to do while your co-founder is coding away. You'll need to continue on with the market research. If you're using the "minimal viable product" approach, you should be the one ultimately responsible for navigating pivots and releases.

You should also be cultivating a pre-release userbase. This means kicking out regular newsletters to anyone that subscribes to your landing page, building rapport with relevant bloggers and reports, and chasing potential leads.

If you're bootstrapped (self-funded) and you wait until you release to do any legwork then you've already put yourself in a situation where you're underwater. You'll have bills, your partner will have spent a fair to insane amount of time building the app/SaaS, and absolutely zero positive cashflow. What's more is you won't know that a market really exists or what price you should charge.

u/elsewhereorbust · 15 pointsr/Entrepreneur

OP,
Calm down. Like you say, it was a learning experience and it seems a good one at that.
To everyone else's defence, when you can drop terms like "profit margin," "overhead" and "markup," it doesn't grant you business expertise. Or at the least, it doesn't impress this subreddit.
Instead it makes it sounds like you took a Business 101 class.
More telling was the new phone and business cards. These are, at best, things you need after a first client (proof you have a "business").
But when you started in on Class A shares and Class B non-voting shares, it made me re-read the first paragraph. I'm thinking "Is this guy doing landscaping, or is prep'ing a visit to a VC?"

You've got drive. That's great. And now you have experience -- from one try. Try again. You'll fail again, and that's cool. Especially cool if you try again.
Best to you and whoever you pair up with next. In the meantime, fill in time with a few books like Lean Startup and Rework.

u/parastat · 13 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You inspire me.

Fellow Vancouverite here (19). I see a lot of myself in you (which is why I'm replying) but in the opposite situation: we always lived comfortably. Either way, that drove me to the same motivation and has since I was little; I've always been an entrepreneur, and I bet you will be too.

Here are a few principles I've compiled over the past 10-ish years of my passion for business:

  • Be great to do great. Put an emphasis on developing yourself and your skills (especially communication and leadership, drive and productivity, and the ability to learn quickly). You can consult all the resources you can, but there's nothing like:
  • Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. By that, I mean sign up for and attend things you wouldn't expect yourself to attend; start a project, invest 100% of your time in it, and think big; do the unconventional.
  • Be fucking audacious. Identify goals, make them visible, and break them. Don't let friends, family, relationships get in the way of what you want and when.
  • Surround yourself with people that push you and reframe your perspective every month. I review often and ask: "who is the one person in my social circle that lights a fire under my butt?" Then I spend more time with that person and seek similar people, and re-evaluate. you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
  • A specific one: don't take a bachelor of commerce. That was my mistake. Technically-skilled people are way more valuable because that teaches you how to create; I did 1.5 years in BComm at UBC and discovered that they only teach you how to take instructions.

    You asked for actual resources:

  • Know yourself: Take a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and read up on your type, strengths and weaknesses.
  • Also, find a mentor. A 1-to-1 connection with someone you can go to and ask these awesome questions without hesitation is so much more valuable than a Reddit thread.
  • Entrepreneurship: Though I've never had my own startup, Lean Startup changed the way I think about every one of my life endeavours.
  • Economics: I'm studying Economics @ UBC, and the Economist is one of the best publications - period - regardless of discipline. It gets you thinking about problems. And problems are where entrepreneurs thrive.
  • Creating, building, and seizing opportunities: Do a little "design thinking." By that I mean go to Chinatown and walk around the homeless population -- even ask them questions ("I'd love to hear your life story"). When you immerse yourself in the real world with real problems, you start to find solutions you can't think of in your bedroom. Then, scale up. If you have an industry you want to hit, do the same thing. Immerse yourself, learn stories, and find problems.

    I'm missing so much but I have to go. Hit me up if you ever want to chat and I'd love to help you however I can. People like young, ambitious, driven people. So go start talking to people!
u/Decker108 · 13 pointsr/Python

Creating a unicorn isn't just taking a horse and waving a magic wand over it to have it sprout a horn and a billion USD valuation. It takes willing investors, a market that fits the product, a solution that fits the market and company whose employees (at all levels) know what they're doing. Oh, and also a bit of luck.

See: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

What I mean is, it's quite possible that someone has tried before but lacked one of the above four prerequisites.

u/wp381640 · 13 pointsr/Documentaries

Amazon Link - can't recommend it enough, hard to put down and very well weaved together

Carreyrou owns the story - it's hard to describe just what he was up against. All the big names in SV didn't just love Holmes, they praised her, and then they trashed John and the WSJ for going after her.

It took a lot of courage to go against these people and to pursuit the truth in this story. Not to mention that the owner of the WSJ, Murdoch, was a huge personal investor in Theranos (and to his credit didn't intervene to kill the story when Elizabeth asked him to)

u/beley · 12 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Double Double by Cameron Herald

This is exactly what you asked for - all about growing your business.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

This is a great framework for starting and growing a business using a scientific metrics-based approach. Love this book.

Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook by Dan Shapiro

This is a great book about founding, growing and exiting from a startup or new business. It's got tons of great advice in here about cofounders, legal setup, taking investments, and running the business in a way that facilitates a successful exit.

u/crooning · 10 pointsr/Entrepreneur
  1. You don't need a co-founder. Your age doesn't matter for many markets.

  2. Identify a pain point that a group of people have, and think of a way to solve that problem.

  3. Read this: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

  4. From the article above, it mentions to do things manually. Throw up a free landing page on Squarespace or Wordpress or any other free page hoster. Use Google Docs and Zaiper and WooForms, free tools, to glue your service together. Use free tools from here: https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-a-saas-with-0-fed2341078c8 Make it so your idea just barely works, and it delivers value to your target customer. This is your MVP.

  5. Validate your idea. Hit the pavement. Grind. Look for your customers. Tell them about your solution. Ask if it fixes their problem. Will they pay for it? Why? Why not?

  6. Rinse and repeat until you start getting users, making money and are growing. Don't fall in love with an idea. Start delivering value.

    You don't need a VC. You don't need co-founders. Just get started and do something. Anything. Bootstrap from the ground up. Failure is the best teacher. Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.

    Oh yeah, and read books and blogs on digital marketing while doing all this. Once you get the ball rolling, marketing is what you will want to spend the most time on. This is a classic book on how many startups first successfully marketed their services and got their users: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369
u/scarysaturday · 9 pointsr/marketing

Marketing in a startup? Traction is the clear choice here. It's full of actionable advice that you can apply in a clear and rational manner.

u/numberjack · 9 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Build it, push it, evaluate the feedback, and iterate, iterate, iterate!

If you haven't already, read the Lean Startup. A huge mistake of many entrepreneurs (myself included), is that we get so excited to build our product and make it perfect, we don't stop to gather feedback on whether we should be making it at all.

Bounce your idea around for a while, push a very early, limited, or "rough draft" of your product/service (your MVP) to the market, and see how they respond. Then, you'll know if there's something there to pursue. Otherwise, you waste time and money building a product that nobody will pay you for.

u/waialuawanderer · 8 pointsr/fatFIRE

VC here. Finally created an account to answer your question. Before doing anything, read these two books:

  1. Angel by Jason Calacanis https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Invest-Technology-Startups-Timeless-Investor/dp/0062560700

  2. Venture Deals by Brad Feld https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist-ebook/dp/B01M3UIVW3/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=venture+deals+brad+feld&qid=1563846931&s=gateway&sprefix=venture+dea&sr=8-2

    The first book provides a high level overview of angel investing while the second goes into some of the nitty gritty details.

    From there, if you’re still interested, I’d recommend looking up your regional angel investor network. Pretty easily found on google. Most cities have them (Baltimore Angels, New Dominion Angels, etc...)Ask to come sit in on one or two of their pitch events. Get coffee with the other angels in the room and hear about their experiences.

    If you’re still interested, I’d join the group (all have some nominal fee) but you’ll get practice reps at analyzing companies, access to dealflow, and a good platform to start building a network. Other key takeaways:

  3. Only allocate what you’re willing to lose (10% of NW is a rough estimate for alts depending on how big you are)

  4. You need to be able to make 25+ bets. Often companies have minimum check sizes, so joining a group allows you to pool.

  5. Invest in what you know.

  6. Invest where you can help. (I.e. former F500 CISO angel investing in cyber security startups)
u/bodhi_mind · 8 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You should read Lean Startup if you haven't already. Will probably be a life changer.

u/kingdomart · 8 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Read The Lean Startup it's all about doing a startup for next to no money. Here is a free copy

One of the basic premises they teach. Is to take your idea and make it as simple as possible. For example, if you want to make uber. Go out with a sign and stand next to a bar. Put up a sign that says "I will drive you home, so you don't have to drunk drive $20."

See how many people you get, then ask those people how to make your product better. Probably is a terrible example, but I hope you get the picture. Instead of spending 10,000+ on making an app. You can test your idea without spending any money. You also get the most important resource without spending any money. Feedback from your customers.

u/MarkGoldenson · 8 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Definitely depends on how the startup is structured and how much it has raised. Here's a typical example:

-Two founder startup (one techie, one hustler)

-Raised $1M in seed capital at a $4M post-money valuation (how much the startup is worth after the dollars are invested).

The investors get equity equal to (dollars invested) / (post-money valuation). In this case, the investors would get $1M / $4M = 25% of the company.

-A key question is whether the investors have liquidation preferences that give them their money back or a guaranteed return before the founders get anything.

A 1x liquidation preference - meaning the investors get their money back first - is common.

-If the startup raised $1M at a $4M post-money valuation with a 1x liquidation preference and then sold for $1M, the investors would get all $1M because their preference says they get their investment back first. The founders would get nothing.

If the startup sold for $2M, the investors would get their $1M back and the other $1M would be split among the founders.

(I'm ignoring the case of participating preferred, where investors get their money back AND their percentage of the company from the rest.)

A startup usually has to sell for at least its post-money valuation for the founders to see much return. If the investors have 2x or 3x liquidation preferences, founders and employees will see little return even if the company sells for 2x-3x its last valuation. Some of the billion dollar unicorns are struggling with this.

Thus, if the startup has raised any venture money and only sold for $1M, the founders are unlikely to see much of it. :(

If you're interested in learning more about how venture investments are done, I recommend Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson.

u/eatallthelipsticks · 8 pointsr/RepLadies

Ooh I watch many beauty YouTuber so favourite videos are my most beloved. Wish this could become a monthly thread!

Beauty: This month I've been really enjoying the Em Cosmetics Color Drops Serum Blush. I have the colour Rose Milk and it gives my cheeks a subtle, dewy glow. Tempted to get all the colours now!

Skincare: It's a toss up between The Inkey List Brighten-i Cream and Sunday Riley Tidal Water Cream. Also looking for a new hydrating concealer - what are your faves, ladies? I recently broke up with Tarte Shape Tape. It was just so thick and cakey on me.

Shoes: Have been wearing these TB Dior J'Adior slingbacks and while they're not the most accurate (the shape of the toe box is a bit off), they are really comfy and come in a size 42. Score!

Bag: Kudos to the ladies who shared this Ferragamo purse - it's perfect for running errands in town.

Book: Late to this party but I swallowed Bad Blood by John Carreyrou in two days and am re-reading it! Love juicy corporate scandal stories like these, am waiting to read Million Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope next.

Fashion: Have been living in these GAP cigarette jeans. They're so soft and comfy.

u/TEKSTartist · 8 pointsr/surfing

I'm an artist. Basically... I paint when the surf is flat. I spend a ton of time in the water.

Before art I ran my own small web design firm. Actually, for a semester back in college I considered heading the law route as well. Incredibly happy that I didn't go that direction. All in all I've been working for myself for the past 4 years. I can't imagine going back to a structured 9 to 5. I live walking distance from my favorite break and get in the water damn near every day.

I was always told working for yourself was "too risky", but I encourage you to consider it if you're looking for something that will allow you to hit the water as much as possible. Might be getting carried away here, but the two books that truly helped me take the plunge are Crush It! and (more recently) The Lean Startup.

Happy to answer any other questions on the subject. Hate seeing people waste time doing things they hate.

u/Graphic-Addiction · 7 pointsr/trailers

In a way, she wanted you to be able to prick your finger, and with just one drop of blood, be able to get blood test results for over a hundred different diseases. The problem was you need lots of blood to test for all the things she claimed she could test for and required lots of professional lab equipment, not just a little box. There is a great book about it that goes into great detail and is a fantastic read called Bad Blood

u/Mecha_Hobbit · 7 pointsr/MGTOW
u/Zaphod_B · 7 pointsr/sysadmin

I sort of am on the fence of recommending these books but have you read?

  • Phoenix Project link

  • Art of the Start link

  • The hard Truth link

    Learning how businesses work definitely improves your tech skills. It helps build logic based around what is best for the business, not what is best for IT, or what is best for you. Learning how IT becomes a finely tuned oiled machine for your business is even better.

    I have read some of the books on start ups and business so I can understand where they come from, what they are trying to accomplish as a business.

    The soft skills will come as you work with more and more people. Just always try to walk into a situation as a neutral part, listen, observe, learn and don't be a jerk. The soft skills will develop pretty easily that way
u/alexandrawallace69 · 7 pointsr/redscarepod

Good reading/listening suggestions:

Listen to Chapo Ep 42: Uber for Ubermenshen

Then read or listen to Bad Blood

Then listen to The Dropout podcast

If Holmes was Russian I think the ladies would be positive about her and say she did nothing wrong. But if she was Russian she'd be in jail for life right now lol

Holmes also had a Pakistani daddy 20 years older than her

u/RothLadder · 7 pointsr/financialindependence

The Hard Thing About Hard Things!

By far the best book I've read on this topic.

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205

Perfect as an audiobook IMHO.

u/AmIMorty · 7 pointsr/agile

this this this this this.

Scrum is not for you in this situation, /u/alookaday

Lean Startup is what you need. by Eric Ries.

u/ohai123456789 · 6 pointsr/startups

I recommend:

u/-IntoTheVoid- · 6 pointsr/AskEngineers

Great decision.

Leverage off the shelf products as much as possible. Rough it out, then refine it through iteration. Don't be afraid to hack other commercial products if it saves on development time, and is able to demonstrate functionality.

Shapeways is really good for things like enclosures and prototype parts. It's expensive if you need to print large items, but they print in a variety of materials, and it will result in a professional looking prototype. If ergonomics or mechanical parts are important to the design, buying your own 3D printer might be a worthwhile investment.

While you're working on the prototype, start considering what business strategy you're going to use. I found books like The lean startup helped, and it might change the way you approach the prototyping phase.

u/treelovinhippie · 6 pointsr/Entrepreneur

If you want to build something that scales, something that can change the world, then the best bet is to build something online. It's difficult, but you're only 15 so you've got a lot of flearnings (failed learnings) ahead of you.

Learn to program here, here or here.

Learn about the lean startup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Startup

Read this and this.

Fail fast, fail often.

u/ChronoGawd · 6 pointsr/IAmA

My mentor in San Francisco is always railing me on "LEARN TO CODE." I'm okay at coding, and yeah I guess it would help if I was amazing at it... But there are plenty of start-ups with not coding founders. But they are always tech, or industry specialist founders. Never just a guy with an idea.

I am pretty well connected, so I asked a friend of a friend to connect me with an owner of a huge marketing agency, that decided to invest in the company and partner with me. I would say though, never asking for money is kinda the best way to get money for 2 reasons:

  1. It lets them come to you and ask you to invest, rather than you convincing them... so if it's a really good idea, then you know. You can never trust friends and family (also, I really don't encourage family funded companies... most the time it's bad).

  2. No one invests (any decent amount of money) out of pity... especially an angel, and it's really hard to ask for money when you have no product, or no revenue, or no experience. So it's best to give the person you end up meeting, a really solid pitch, and play kinda hard to get. I told my investor "we are raising x amount of dollars for investors." That was it, I didn't ask him, I didn't tell him his stake, nothing. I left it open. He ended the meeting with, "I really want to invest, email me." So I did.

    Read, Venture Deals (linked below)... kinda says the same thing, don't sound desperate. But that's my opinion.

    I'm more than happy to sign an NDA, or whatever you want, and give you my honest feedback if you PM me. I have no time to steal other peoples ideas ;)

    http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616
u/artsynudes · 6 pointsr/marketing

For social media you should check out different company blogs. Those are really helpful. I like the Buffer and Hootsuite blogs a lot.

But books are way better than online websites

For marketing you should read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg

Ryan Holiday's Growth Hacker Marketing and Trust Me, I'm Lying are insanely informative and fun to read.

u/romym1 · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Apart from the four steps to the Eppiphany, this is another one: https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172.

Some good tactics to validate early early need.

u/rafaelspecta · 5 pointsr/smallbusiness

If you are going for a internet business or any product-oriented business here a are the best books



BEST ONES

"The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" (Eric Reis) - 2011

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/

"Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works" (Ash Maurya) - 2010

https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172

"Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days" (Jake Knapp - Google Ventures) - 2016

https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1550802301&s=gateway&sr=8-1

​

ALSO GO FOR (these are the ones that started organizing the Startup world)

"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" (Steve Blank) - 2005

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989200507/

"Business Model Generation" (Alexander Osterwalder) - 2008

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/

u/johgo · 5 pointsr/startups

Here are my top three:

  1. Running Lean (http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172)

  2. The Lean Startup (http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898)

  3. The Startup Owner's Manual (http://www.amazon.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step---Step/dp/0984999302)

    You may want to read them in reverse order (3, 2, 1) as Steve Blank influenced Eric Reis who influenced Ash Maurya -- but I really think Running Lean has more practical / applicable insights.
u/blueseasailor · 5 pointsr/booksuggestions

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou is an excellent investigative book on Theranos.

u/sm4k · 5 pointsr/msp

Beyond "one that pays on time and never calls," this isn't really something anyone can answer for you, because what's ideal for me isn't necessarily ideal for you, isn't necessarily ideal for the next guy. It's going to boil down to what vertical you want to work in, what kinds of budgets you want to work with, how many users you guys can handle, etc. I would recommend picking up The Pumpkin Plan (I got my first copy of it from my local library, so check there) and running through the exercises in that book. It will help you identify who you have now that's a great fit and how to use your existing relationship with them to hone your business to appeal to more people just like them.

u/Iamnotpretending · 5 pointsr/startups

Obvious answers for engineers are tech infrastructure --

Web App: AWS/Heroku

iOS: Developer Account

Have you guys run a company/startup before? The best thing you can do is invest in mentorship and advice. Generally accelerators seem to be heavy on pitch building and raising money but light on actual 'how to run a business' advice.

How about 10 hours of legal consultation from a firm in town and basic incorporation fees? Supplement with your local Small Business Administration office for more general business advice.

Some great startup textbooks:

Startup CEO - Matt Blumberg

The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz

Venture Deals - Brad Feld

Do More Faster - David Cohen

u/shaansha · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I love the crap out of books. One of life's greatest joys is learning and books are such an excellent way to do it.

Business books you should read:

  • Zero To One by Peter Thiel - Short, awesome ideas and well written.

  • My Startup Life by Ben Casnocha. Ben's a super sharp guy. Learn from him. He started a company in his teens. He was most recently the personal 'body man' for Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn)

  • The Lean Startup by Eric Reis - Fail fast and fail early. Build something, test, get feedback, and refine.

    Non Business Books (That Are Essential To Business

  • Money Master The Game by Tony Robbins - I am a personal finance Nerd Extraordinaire and I thought Tony Robbins was a joke. Boy was I wrong. Hands down the best personal finance book I've ever read. Period.

  • Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Ever seen Gladiator? This is the REAL Roman Emperor behind Russel Crowe's character. This book was his private diary.

  • Man's Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl - Hands down one of the most profound and moving books ever written. Victor was a psychologist and survived the Nazi training camps

    As a way of background I have newsletter where I share proven case studies of successful entrepreneurs. I outline step by step how they made money and got freedom from their day job. If you’re interested let me know and I can PM you the link to the newsletter or if you have any questions.
u/intertubeluber · 5 pointsr/startups

This post is a succinct but uncredited summary of The lean Start-up by Eric Ries:

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

u/Lavender_poop · 5 pointsr/marketing

I have a few, not all specifically about marketing but related to business, growth, customer experience, etc.

u/FeetSlashBirds · 5 pointsr/gamedesign

This is a common trap for designers ( all designers, not just games/software). When you're making something new you making some several assumptions about what your audience wants to play (or is willing to play), you even make assumptions about who your audience is. You have to validate these assumptions to figure out if you're on the right track.

I would highly recommend this book specifically because it talks about designing ways to validate all of the assumptions you're making about your target audience and the things they want. If you're not careful you can spend months and months working on a product that nobody wants. If nobody wants to play your game then its better for you to figure that our as early in the development cycle as possible. It'll give you a chance to tweak your design or give up and try out your next idea.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377410351&sr=8-1&keywords=the+lean+startup

Don't judge the book based on the title. The ideas can be applied to any project.

u/drtrave · 5 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Your question is very important. Especially for early stage or even first-time founders, who don't have the right support network yet. There are many more resources like Facebook groups, and youtube channels that you can leverage to learn more about entrepreneurship, specific skills, and industries. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific. I'd be more than happy to give you additional pointers.

 

Here is a list of resources that I found very helpful on my journey:

 

Forums
 

Reddit: I was impressed with the quality and depth that you can get by asking meaningful and targeted questions in the right channels such as r/entrepreneur and r/startups.

 

Podcasts
 

All of the podcasts provide a great learning experience through case studies, founder interviews, and startup pitches. Believe me when I say that whatever challenge you're having someone more experience can very likely help you.

 

  1. Jason Calacanis: this week in startups
     

  2. Tim Ferriss: The Tim Ferriss Show
     

  3. James Altucher: The James Altucher Show

     

    Newsletter
     

    Launch Ticker News: One of the best newsletters out there that captures the latest tech and business news sent to your inbox several times per day.

     

    Blogs
     

  4. Andrew Chen
     

  5. Entrepreneurship Unplugged

     

    Books
     

  6. Roger Fisher: Getting to Yes
     

  7. Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People
     

  8. Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational

  9. Eric Ries: [The Lean Startup] (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522354359&sr=8-2&keywords=the+lean+startup)

  10. Noam Wasserman: The Founder's Dilemmas
u/Karpuz12 · 5 pointsr/startups

This should help you with number 1

​

Book: The lean startup

u/zootam · 5 pointsr/cscareerquestions

>but series A would be happening soon and it could be my last job and blah blah

>but now I feel unhappy about the pay, given expensive cost of living etc. and plus my peers are making twice as much.

the people who do this aren't the same people who will reward you with a good equity deal or a sizeable stake of options.

Read this thread

and this book carefully.

Don't get your hopes up on the options, that is a long, long road and long time away from seeing anything, likely a loss too.

IMO don't bother renegotiating for more options.

The safe bet is to get a solid salary, and it sounds like they're treating you like crap. Consider looking for another job.

u/unclethickdick · 5 pointsr/startups

I recommend reading Venture Deals by Brad Feld

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118443616/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_agh9AbVS13D2H

u/apsingh4 · 5 pointsr/venturecapital

A classic venture basics book is Venture Deals by Brad Feld, who previously co-founded Techstars.
https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616

u/chinese8 · 5 pointsr/venturecapital

If I were you, These are some steps I would take to increase my odds of getting a VC job assuming you are new the field and don't have $$ you can afford to easily lose.

A- No experience, little to no money
1- Read at least 5 books about the industry
2- Listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos with VC interviews and teachings
3- Networks with VC
4- Land a job
5- Make money
6- Become a professional VC


Books to read
1- #Breaking Into VC - Bradley Miller
https://www.amazon.com/BreakIntoVC-Investor-Entrepreneur-Professional-Guidebook/dp/1544934343

2Done Deals

3-Essentials of Venture Capital

4- Venture Deals

5- The Business of Venture Capital


Podcasts and radio to listen to
1- Angellist radio
2 - 20 Minutes VC with Harry Stebbings
http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/
3- Bloomberg radio
4- Investors archives series on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVJalJNQWimC2zWrIHR_bSQ

Networking with VC
You can go on VC firms websites, find some VC partners you admire and email or call them to pick their brain.
You could also attend VC meetings or pitc competitions if you have access to.

These first steps will increase your chance of getting a job or at least an internship leading to a job.

In terms of making money, this is a personal decision up to you. VC firms themselves are funded by Limited Partners such as pension funds or school endowments. So they are pretty much investing other people money in most cases.

All these steps apply if you want to be a professional VC in a traditional sense, a job like one would imagine an investor banker on Wall Street or a doctor working in a hospital.


B- If you have the knowledge and the money likeChris Sacca

Depending on your income, you can start right away and become a VC. If you have money, you can invest in any business venture you want and start practicing your craft. You wouldn't necessarily need to join a firm. You can even start your own firm if you're loaded.

In either case you need to have a deal flow (investment opportunities) and be able to do due diligence. VC is a calculated investment not a lottery.
You would also need a great understanding of the ecosystem of business venture including the relationship between VCs, entrepreneurs and the business opportunities/markets.

Go ahead and become a VC, you do need to get permission from anybody. If you're hungry enough figure it out and GO FOR IT.

u/Kemah · 4 pointsr/AskWomen

Been loving the responses so far! My own preferences have been changing, and I've been reading a lot more non-fiction than I used to. It has really opened the doors to a lot of books I would not have considered reading before!

On my reading list:

The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley - this is what I'm almost finished with now. It has been a really insightful read on how little prepared society is for disasters, and the steps we should take to help fix that.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker - I've seen this mentioned on reddit a few times and it's in the same vein as the book I'm currently reading.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - I'm currently working in the startup industry, and have read similar books to this.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - same as the book above. This is currently going around my office right now so I should be reading it soon!

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. - this was recommended to me by a friend when he learned I was reading The Unthinkable and The Gift of Fear. Honestly really looking forward to reading this one!

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society


Books I'd recommend:

Blink by Malcom Gladwell - all about the subconscious mind and the clues we pick up without realizing it. Pretty sure reading this book has helped me out in weird situations.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance - amazing read about how Elon Musk works and the person he is.

The Circle by Dave Eggers - just don't watch the movie :)



u/race_kerfuffle · 4 pointsr/startups

You should read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries before you waste your money.

Edit: Also I have no idea what an app developing calculator is and there's no way it's correct.

u/usernamesospetto · 4 pointsr/italy

Ciao, libero professionista nel giro delle startup da circa 6 anni qui, in ambito marketing digitale. Per esperienza diretta ti dico di diffidare dal 100% delle persone che orbitano attorno al così detto startup show business. Tutti quelli che sono in questa bolla sono dei fuffari con la passione per il raggiro. Stai lontano dai premi, stai lontano dagli aperitivi di networking, stai lontanissimo dai programmi tv e da tutti gli eventi fuffa del settore. Se vedi qualcuno che ti vuole vendere un corso online offendilo, anche pesantemente, lui saprà il perché. Detto questo ti posso consigliare questo:
Leggi. Leggi soprattutto in inglese. Ti dico che un buon punto di partenza è questo post qui. Poi ti consiglio qualche libro su lean startup tipo questo, questo e soprattutto questo. Poi ti servirà qualcosa per il business plan. Su questa materia ho letto solo un libro che parla di casi di studio e non te lo consiglio (una versione di questo qui), ti conviene leggere qualcosa di più accademico prima per capire come sono fatti questi documenti. In più ti servirà qualcosa di tecnico sul settore in cui operi. Ci sono decine di libri per ogni settore, basta cercare.
Fai. Inizia da quello che puoi fare: puoi iniziare da qualche schermata dell'app se il tuo modello di business ne prevede una, dal documento di analisi funzionale, dal business plan, da una demo del prodotto fisico che può essere commercializzata: insomma inizia a fare qualcosa che sia connesso al tuo modello di business. Scarta l'ipotesi sito web con annessa presentazione di qualcosa che non esiste: lo fanno tutti ed è quello che insegnano a fare nei corsi di fuffa. Prima fai qualcosa e poi dopo lo presenti. Questo fatto che le cose prima si fanno e poi si dicono ricordatelo sempre: il settore è pieno di gente che dice "facciamo, implementiamo, vendiamo" e intende "faremo, implementeremo e venderemo".
Costruisci un team. Parla del tuo progetto con qualcuno, inizia a stabilire relazioni. Se hai un profilo tecnico trovati uno che sa vendere, se sai vendere trovati qualcuno che programmi. Se non sai vendere o programmare trovati uno che ha tanti soldi. Ricordati: per fare una startup hai bisogno di un team perché non potrai mai fare tutto da solo. Ricorda: sono le persone che fanno le imprese e la componente umana nei gruppi di lavoro sotto la decina di unità è fondamentale. Non prendere a bordo parenti, non prendere persone tossiche, non prendere amici, non prendere il primo che passa. Una buona idea è partire da colleghi o, ancora meglio, ex colleghi.

​

u/tech-mktg · 4 pointsr/startups

A book I haven't read but is suggested all the time in threads like this is Venture Deals. You might consider picking up a copy and reading it so you'll know more about what the logistics would look like if this individual (or another in the future) does want to make an investment.

u/DennisTo · 4 pointsr/Entrepreneur
  1. Reddit is not a substitute for attorney who can prepare shareholder agreement which would cover your unique situation.

  2. Having partners and shareholders is more serious then marriage. You can't take someone's equity away for non-performance. You may enter decision making paralysis because you can't reach consensus etc. LLC might not work for all cases and you might need C-corp which is more complicated, and so on. Consider whether your website has that much potential to cover for all that administrative burden.

  3. If you can avoid having equity partners - do so at that stage. Structure commercial agreement for services and commission, performance based compensation. Make sure IP is always transferred to your LLC. If this is not enough for your friends - make option plan which are conditionally vested based on performance.

    Giving away equity is easy. Restructuring later when you understand each one true individual contribution is complicated and is a major stress.

    If you believe you're really on to something with your website, spend a weekend reading some book on how corporate law works and find a reasonable corporate attorney to help you structure your shareholder agreement.

    https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616 you may skip all chapters related to VC deals
u/dewayneroyj · 4 pointsr/venturecapital

One of the greatest books on everything VC is Venture Deals .

u/Lipstickvomit · 4 pointsr/humblebundles
u/walnut_gallery · 4 pointsr/userexperience

Do you have an experienced designer/prototyper/PdM on hand? At this stage, you really shouldn't be putting anything down into code. Validation through testing and quick iterations are key. This parable, if it applies to you, may be a good read. Here's his book on running lean that should be invaluable if you don't have an experienced designer on hand. Much of your business model can be recreated manually (cheaply) for validation purposes. I wouldn't write a line of code until the business plan has been validated via the lean canvas approach.

I would nail down your target consumer a bit more than just 18-50yo women. Start thinking about the women who need and will pay a premium for on-demand personal care products. What do their day jobs look like? Salary? Viewpoints? At what point or scenario would they use this product? What is the user persona? My guess, based on past work experience, only, is that your target market is probably something like 25-35yo professional women who make $90k/yr-$250k in major cities like NYC. They likely already have such services as Amazon Prime, Caviar, Uber Eats, and shop at places like Sephora and Bloomingdales.

Instacart is probably a close competitor since they allow users to buy personal care products through CVS and Costco same day. But you'd have to examine your business model of working with contractors to do the shopping or shipping directly from the source.

Best of luck!

Edit: "IT man" lol are you a pill woman?

u/n8dog · 4 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I've been running my own businesses since 2005, first with Inkling and now with Draft.

No matter what you do you'll encounter competition. There will always be someone bigger than you who has more money and who customers already use. How are you going to deal with that? How are you going to out innovate? How are you going to get them to switch?

The best books on this subject that have influenced what I've done are:

  • Something Really New
  • The Pumpkin Plan
  • Blue Ocean Strategy

    These books address how you can look at the current products and processes your potential customers have so you can begin innovating.

    In a nutshell, start looking at process you or your customer is involved with. What steps are in that process? Now how can your product or service combine or eliminate those steps. There is where you're going to find innovation and a way to help people save money or time.

    But, more importantly than these books, start making something this week that will help you. Take one of those ideas and figure out the quickest thing that will possibly help you or your customer. I recommend starting with yourself as the customer. It's so much easier.

    Start with a spreadsheet or Wufoo form if you have to. Once you have the smallest thing that actually makes your life easier, now go try and sell it. Try and sell it to your friends. Email some people. Take out a Facebook/Google ad. Start teaching people on a blog and forming an audience. Get them to try and buy your thing.

    I've been building Ruby on Rails applications for over 7 years. I'm very good with it. But I'll still try and start a new business by taking the smallest step possible. I'll start by selling a manual service before I build stuff, because the process helps me learn so much.

    Before Draft, I was trying to see if I could create a tool to help people collect Beta users better. But instead of selling a tool, I sold a service: "Let me collect Beta users for you." And I sent people to a Wufoo form to pay me and add their info. And I got sales. With those initial customers I figured out what works and doesn't work when trying to get Beta users. And that data led me figure out I didn't want to be in the business after all. And I moved onto another project.

    You need data about your ideas as fast as you can get it, so you don't waste your life on the junk.
u/mikenseer · 4 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Great suggestion!

And to add onto this awesome reading list, here's a book that's full of actionable takeaways: [Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares] (http://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450331991&sr=1-2&keywords=traction+by+gino+wickman)

u/wakeballer39 · 4 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I would highly recommend reading the book Traction by Gabriel Weinberg. It is a very easy read and is basically a manual for launching products. Very tactical and you will learn a lot. Not all of them will be specifically applicable but at some point in your product cycle they will be.

It goes through 19 different possible marketing channels. Targeting blogs, Publicity, Unconventional PR, SEO, Social Ads, Offline Ads, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Viral, Engineering as marketing, Business Dev, Sales, Affiliate Programs, Existing Platforms, Trade Shows, Offline Events, SPeaking engagements and community building.

http://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369

u/gummigulla · 4 pointsr/restaurateur

Check out the book Restaurant success by the numbers. It’s no holy grail but I’ve found some valuable info there. Especially what metrics you should be tracking and estimating success.

Make sure the POS you select doesn’t slow down the service and has numbers/reports readily available.

I second having a relationship with an industry bookkeeper. They can often provide more services beyond bookkeeping and know a lot about the business. If you feel this might be pricy I’d still suggest it to begin with while you and your in laws get up to speed. Then scale down as you become more comfortable.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask around for advice of other owners. If there are local networking events for owners/managers, attend. Use any excuse to meet people in the industry and make connections.

Good luck!

u/s1gmoid · 4 pointsr/dogecoin

That's nice to hear... Anyway, what I'd consider a very relevant reading from a Dogecoin perspective is Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

What has happened with Doge is that it has, so far, failed to make the jump from early adopters to mainstream consumers. Which is a bigger problem than with any other coin, as pretty much the mission statement of Doge is to be a friendly crypto, a "crypto of the masses". So Doge has so far failed its primary mission statement.

Thing with early adopters is that we're forgiving. We use google. We're techies and hackers, and can do hacks. A developer with an early adopter mindset might completely misread the priorities of a mainstream consumer.

I remember asking about the MultiDoge instability here, and an experienced shibe said that MultiDoge shouldn't really be used, and most shibes get by with an online wallet and paper wallets... Well that's nice and all, but that isn't what's written on [dogecoin.com].

And you might say "who cares what is written there", but the fact is, the mainstream consumer cares. The mainstream consumer cares about stuff like missing icons, like being "recommended" a download that doesn't work absolutely seamlessly, like the "About" tab of Core still saying Litecoin (might have been fixed since, been a while since I saw that), etc.

They hear about Doge, think Doge is awesome, go to dogecoin.com, and for reasons such as pointed out above, quickly decide it's either "not ready yet", or "is abandoned", and we lose them for good.

u/BrokerChange · 3 pointsr/digitalnomad

Running Lean: http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172

Consider it book two of the lean startup. Ditches theory and motivation for a step by step plan to launching your business.

VERY actionable.

u/oalbrecht · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You may also be interested in reading Running Lean. That's been the most helpful book to me so far because it has very practical steps for launching a business. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1449305172/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/192-1698409-8370512

u/scribby555 · 3 pointsr/btc

Thank you very much for elaborating. I was hoping that you wouldn't take offense at my question. I'm a heavy cryptocurrency investor and have considered stretching myself relatively thin but fortunately have enough discipline. I am currently reading the book Bad Blood by John Carreyrou which is a great story that has some parallels to what you are describing. At one point, Theranos described themselves as having positive cash flow for x-consecutive months. Which, if one were able to see everything that a major investor would be able to see, they'd know that not a penny of that was from legitimate revenue but was from rounds of investors who believed the crap being "sold" to them. I wish you the best in your financial recovery and your ability to learn from an awful situation.

u/BleepBleepBeep · 3 pointsr/CGPGrey

For the next Cortex book club, I highly recommend John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood about the rise and fall of Theranos.

u/_chili · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You're thinking about it wrong. Go after bigger, better paying clients. If you're not getting better clients year after year, then you're doing something wrong.

Here's a good book on the philosophy: http://www.amazon.com/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Strategy-Remarkable/dp/1591844886.

If you don't want to read the book, which I highly recommend, check out this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk2PYZwLEc4

u/corysama · 3 pointsr/gamedev

AKA: Lean Startup

Great book. Great methodology. Very applicable to gamedev. Would recommend.

u/vendorsi · 3 pointsr/AskMarketing
  • Start with pretty much anything Seth Godin has written. Especially Purple Cow.

  • I'm a big fan of understanding cognitive issues, so Thinking Fast and Slow can help you understand how minds work.

  • to understand what CRM was really intended to be, read The One to One Future

  • Given your interest in digital check out these books on lean methodology: The Lean Startup and Ash Maurya's brilliant compliment, Running Lean

    In general, when it comes to things like SEO, SEM, etc you are better off sticking with blogs and content sites like SEOMoz, Marketing Sherpa, and Danny Sullivan/Search Engine World. By the time a book is written it's usually out of date in these fields.
u/Lawnly · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

One of the best business books I've read about how to methodically test and validate business ideas is "The Lean Startup" by Eric Reis (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation-ebook/dp/B004J4XGN6?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect). His advice is simple but very powerful if used appropriately. But as far as the idea block you're experiencing... don't worry about it! A truly novel and original idea is exceedingly rare. Most successful companies were not the first to think of something, they just did it better than everyone else. Google wasn't the first search engine. Facebook wasn't the first social network. So don't let the fact someone else is already doing it slow you down! Look at it as validation it's a market worth getting into and then figure out what the incumbents are doing wrong : )

u/srbarker15 · 3 pointsr/WeTheFifth

-
Off the top of my mind, specific books they've mentioned that I've enjoyed:
-
-Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens

-

-Open Letters by Vaclav Havel

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-The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1926-1939 by Antony Beevor

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-So You've Been Publically Shamed by Jon Ronson

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-Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe



-

I'll try to remember more and add to it as I can recall them.

EDIT

-Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

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-Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick

-

-Both Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans' accounts of HItler, Germany, and the Third Reich in WWII

-

-Moynihan did a long interview in Vice about Karl Ove Knausgaard, so I would imagine maybe he's a fan

-

-Bad Blood by John Carryrou

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-The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

u/salvadorbriggman · 3 pointsr/startups

Resources:

u/rbathplatinum · 3 pointsr/InteriorDesign

Definitely look into bussiness management books as well. if you are going down this road, there is a chance you will want to start doing it on your own and having proper business skills will help tremendously in securing work, and balancing costs, and making money doing it! I am sure some people on this sub can recommend some great books on this topic as well.

Here are a couple books,

https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5MLrBRClARIsAPG0WGxuwhyo-18J3-xPOVP8bXeTJ4zbGZHkpO4GqIGKlz-WCRxt3aUroqQaApECEALw_wcB&hvadid=229992601126&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000745&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4412519744533501821&hvtargid=aud-748919244907%3Akwd-297504215686&hydadcr=16960_10238137&keywords=business+model+generation&qid=1567691052&s=gateway&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0307887898&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=PEqJa&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=a62e2918-d998-4bbb-8337-35aac776e851&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

https://www.amazon.ca/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_sbs_14_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0984999302&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-You-One-Page-Reinventing/dp/1118156315/ref=pd_sbs_14_4/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1118156315&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H

u/msupr · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

u/YuleTideCamel · 3 pointsr/learnprogramming

For the business side of things go look at /r/Entreprenuer

I've worked in the Silicon Beach startup scene and I know several startup founders. Some of which who built , launched and sold successful companies. Here's the advice I've always heard:

  • Read The Lean Startup. Realize that to be truly profitable you are building a business, not just an app. That's an important distinction. A point emphasized in the book is to not build what you want, but to build what you think people will pay you for. The way to do that is via a series of experiments and building an MVP (minimum viable product), the smallest thing you can do to get feedback.

  • Read the beginners guide to startups

  • If you have an idea, talk to EVERYONE at it. Too many times developers like to hide in a cave and build something thinking if they talk someone will steal it. What you get if you do that is a product only you like without any feedback from the community. Instead talk to people, share the concept, see what they like, what they don't like.

  • Go to as many developer centric events in your area. Including those outside your university. Get to know the local dev scene. Network with people working on startups. Hell go to hackathons and just build something for fun. Being deeply invested in the tech scene in your area will open doors and connections.

    Lastly, do realize that all this is hard work. If your goal is to make money easily, it's actually easier to graduate and spend 1-3 years working as a junior and move up with a "normal" job. Most good programmers with a CS degree and a few years of experience have no problem making a 6 figure salary (depending on location, etc).

    I'm not trying to dissuade you, building the next big app is exciting and can pay off huge. Just saying it's a lot of work and it's not about building an app, to make money you have to build a business.
u/GaryARefuge · 3 pointsr/startups

Awesome, quick read about traction and a method to explore and test different channels in the context of your specific goals

www.TractionBook.com


Great read about being aware that your effort is the one thing you have the most control over and how important having a clear focus and plan is

http://smile.amazon.com/Leave-No-Doubt-Chasing-Dreams/dp/0773544763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453704910&sr=8-1&keywords=leave+no+doubt

Guide to Lean Startup Method

http://smile.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453704944&sr=8-1&keywords=eric+ries

to get things started.

Clear Introduction and Training in Scrum: It's a powerful and extremely versatile workflow to creating and managing any type of project--You could integrate the Lean Method into scrum--most do. Edited to add this one

http://smile.amazon.com/Scrum-Dummies-Mark-C-Layton/dp/111890575X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453778191&sr=8-1&keywords=scrum+for+dummies

u/blood_bender · 3 pointsr/startups

Technical skill has nothing to do with the success of a startup ^(slight ^exaggeration ^but ^still ^mostly ^true.) 99% of startups aren't going to be the unicorn viral apps you hear about (think Snapchat, Instagram) where it grew organically without funding because the app was something magical. Also, seed funding is shockingly "easy" to get, but you need to put effort into pitches, a lot of them, which requires a lot of legwork. I'm sure your friend had to do pitch after pitch after pitch to win a venture contest.

In order for a product to be successful you need someone with a lot of marketing savvy to make it grow natively, and/or someone with a lot of business savvy to be able to pitch to investors (in order to hire someone with marketing savvy). The technology behind it is actually kind of meaningless (as much as I wish that were false -- I say this as a techy who's been in the industry for 7 years). Read Lean Startup, half of the successful startups the author mentions had no technology behind their product before they were validated and funded, including the ones that were technology based!

>I've been working on multiple applications, hoping to get something to fly and take off.

Have you released any of these, or do you find yourself floating from one idea to the other? If the latter, I'd suggest picking one and running all the way with it. This means marketing, growth hacking, physical pitches to individuals or companies, posting it to forums, getting your mom to download your app, whatever! I would say that if you're putting above 75%, hell maybe even 50%, of your effort into building it in place of some of these other things before calling it quits, it's probably not going to work. Worst case scenario, it still fails, but at least you can learn how to do it differently the next time.

That said, I still would focus on graduating at least, but getting a tech job doesn't mean the game is dead yet. I spent the first 7 years of my career at large tech companies saving a ton of money so that I could quit and work on my own ideas for a while without worrying about money. And I learned a lot about real world tech before actually diving into it, so I'm much more efficient than when I had just graduated. Not the path for everyone, but it worked for me.

u/jadanzzy · 3 pointsr/softwaredevelopment

Gotcha. That really sucks, and I mean that in the most meaningful way possible haha.

That type of thinking is the complete opposite of "agile" development, where typically there is a budget, but product owners and devs work together, iteration-by-iteration to determine what needs to change. If an "estimate" is carved in stone, then it's not an estimate anymore, but a fixed-bid project--again, the complete opposite of what developing with agility is supposed to be.

Sounds like a good starting place is learning about lean development and building a minimum viable product, since they're so sensitive about estimate granularity. That manager will have to learn to lead building a very minimum viable product, with as minimally necessary a valuable feature set as possible.

I recommend reading:

u/jrgifford · 3 pointsr/SiliconValleyHBO

Something that I have not personally read (next on the list!) but is on the recommended reading list for a startup incubator I'm involved with is the "Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist" by Brad Feld.

https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616/

u/alreadywon · 3 pointsr/startups

I have never personally accepted equity funding.

It seems like you are new to learning about VC. i'm not an expert, but I do know a bit. Let me try to help clear some things up.

firstly, if you are interested in learning about venture capital and the terms in VC term sheets (the word we use instead of "contract") you MUST read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616

which includes a sample term sheet in the appendix, but more importantly, it explains everything on the term sheet in plain english, and then goes into the economics of VC, negotiating, and more.

you can see sample term sheets here.

http://www.google.com/search?q=sample+venture+capital+term+sheet&client=safari&rls=en&oe=UTF-8&oq=&gs_l=


Term sheets do not spell out when and how a founder leaves a company, or any sort of exit strategy as you defined.

Accepting VC is not an agreement to sell your company. Its an agreement for equity and usually some board seats in exchange for money.

Now, the VC can only get paid in a couple of ways. Either a liquidity event, such as an acquisition or an IPO, or depending on their agreement they can sell their equity back to the company or to other people. (i don't know how common the latter is)
So, the VC expects you to exit in some way, and since accelerators take equity as well, they also only get paid in a liquidity event (or the secondary market, as i explained above as selling equity back to the company or other people).

thats as far as it goes for an "agreement to sell the company".

also companies aren't really ever "finished" being built. Is Ford finished? Facebook? IBM?

u/askglockking · 3 pointsr/startups

I know you mentioned video, but Venture Deals is a great book outlining complexities.

u/silkymike · 3 pointsr/startups

i'm not quite a CFO but i do work in tech / at a startup / in finance. i can give a quick list of stuff I'd recommend to someone making the jump:

  • Kind of a no brainer (and judging from your analysis on #1, this probably won't be an issue) but you should be familiar with the VC/ funding/legal side of things. You can be the most valuable person in the room if you like slicing through a term sheet. i'd recommend Brad Feld's Venture Deals to get your feet wet. From a more macro/ company building level, Bussgangs Mastering the VC Game is a nice, light read.

  • Again, probably why they're hiring you, but strong financial modeling skills are important. Being able to do the historical accounting/ cash analysis and then quickly turn that into a forecast grounded in some business logic is essential. You're going to be making shit up sometimes, but I think everyone is to some degree in early stage tech.

  • I'm not sure the size of this company, but it's probably small and you'll probably end up dealing with/managing a lot of unsexy stuff. Running payroll, administering benefits, getting a 401k set up is all very painful but part of building yourself into a real company that can hire top notch talent. of course you can hire some/most of this stuff out, but it will probably be your problem at the end of day.

  • again, not sure what kind of team you're leading, but dealing with the accounting side. judging on the 2 year timeline, you'll probably be due for your first Audit and have to lead a few 409a valuations. deal with taxes/whatever else comes up.

    i think great CFOs for early stage can run the finance side but also kick in with the Ops stuff and have a good handle on product. You're more of the grease, and your job is to keep things humming and get out of the way to let people build.
u/BroasisMusic · 3 pointsr/Entrepreneur

First, I recommend buying and reading this book if you haven't. It's more geared towards raising funding, but the discussion on the term sheet and earnouts alone is worth it:

http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369064433&sr=1-1&keywords=venture+deals

Second, it really sucks that there's almost no cash in the deal. From what I understand, the company will sell for $Z in total, $X in cash and $Y in earn out tied to staying with the company and meeting performance goals. Obviously it's in the buyers best interest to have $Y be the largest it can, and it's in the sellers best interest to have $X be as large as it can. But from what it seems there's almost no cash in the deal, which would make me wary from the start.

Personally I don't know if I would ever entertain an offer of <30% the offer price is in cash. Obviously the terms of the earn out matter, but I'm assuming this is an asset deal, not a stock deal - in which case you're still saddled with the liability of the original business in the future and the acquiring company gets tax breaks on the larger the 'earnout' portion - both reasons to argue for a larger cash portion.

Have you thought about seeing if there are any other large players interested in buying your company? From my chair the quickest way to a favorable offer would be to pit two competing companies against each other for yours.

u/hamthepiggybank · 3 pointsr/startups

Venture Deals is a great reference.
There is no shortage of discussion on various blogs, Fred Wilson and Mark Suster are two of the best.

For actually drafting up terms...get a lawyer. Preferably one that deals with companies at your stage and investments on a regular basis.

Valuations are market driven, it's the price that you and the investor can agree upon. Convertible notes and SAFEs do not avoid this, read this outstanding post as to why. Active investors are setting your price based on their other options.

u/SimonLeblanc · 2 pointsr/smallbusiness

The Hard Thing About Hard Things -- Ben Horowitz. GREAT as an audiobook.

Traction: Get a grip on your business -- Gino Wickman. Good for unknotting the reasons for constantly stalling out on progress. It's meant for large offices, apparently, but even my little office benefited since the habits are universal.

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph -- Ryan Holiday

u/creameryxbox · 2 pointsr/unitedkingdom

Surely if thats the going rate for CEO's and Whitbread wants to maximise their profits then why not pay him 6.4m?

Sure they may work as hard as a person who gets paid 100x less than them, but since when did hard work equal pay. The reason they get paid so much is due to their wealth of experience coupled with great leadership skills. Go read 'The Hard Thing About Hard Things' and you will quickly realise how hard it is to be a CEO of a large company.

As others have said in this thread, wage is linked with the ease of replacement, CEO's are not easy to replace.

Edit: Link to book http://www.amazon.com/The-Hard-Thing-About-Things/dp/0062273205

u/kwitcherbichen · 2 pointsr/sysadmin

First, congratulations!

It's different work and while it's still technical it's now about people but it can be learned. Find a mentor who is not your boss. Seriously. It's good to have one or more advocates in the organization because there are limits to what "push" vs "pull" can achieve but it's their advice that you need to reduce your mistakes and effectively review them afterward.

I'll add to the book recommendations already here (The Phoenix Project, Team of Teams, Leaders Eat Last) and suggest:

u/davidesquimal · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur
u/kristapsmors · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I agree about the book - http://www.amazon.com/The-Hard-Thing-About-Things/dp/0062273205 - best one I've read about startups.

This one is good as well to improve sales: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/006124189X?pc_redir=1408025460&robot_redir=1

For fun stuff check out http://www.startupvitamins.com - you can get posters, mugs, etc., their "Get Shit Done" mug is the most popular item.

u/CaseyGerald · 2 pointsr/IAmA

Yes. Read 3 books: "The $100 Startup" and "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" and "The Art of the Start." And do what they say.

u/sl1ce_of_l1fe · 2 pointsr/CrappyDesign

yep - the amazon listing

u/organizedfellow · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

u/thekiyote · 2 pointsr/Ripple

Luckily, that isn't going to happen.

Here's a quick primer in startup boards: The board of directors for a company's role is mainly to act as a protection from that sort of thing happening. Typically (with caveats that could fill a book [if you're interested, I recommend this one]) board seats are assigned by the shareholders of the company in proportion to the amount that they hold.

Most CEOs don't even bother creating a board in the earliest days of the company. They get to choose who's on it at will, so who will fight them?

Once they go through their first round of funding, most angel investors worth their salt will demand one or two seats on the board as a part of the deal. But even then, since the CEO still controls all the rest of the seats, and most experienced angels know that companies at this stage have like a 70% fatality rate, they're not all that committed, and it can take a while for them to act.

This is the stage of the company in the Jed days. Eventually they still managed to push him out though, with Chris firmly taking control of the company.

Typically, these struggles are always very murky if you're not in the room where it happens. Though, in this case, it's pretty much a given that's how it went down, from statements by people who were involved.

At this stage, though, Ripple's gone through a number of investment rounds since then, giving up more board seats to the new investors. Now they have 9 board members. I couldn't tell you which of those guys was assigned by which investor (outside the obvious ones), but I can tell you, they won't let a similar event happen, not with the forward momentum Chris and Brad brought to the table.

u/freelandshaw · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

First off... huge kudos to you for trying to validate an idea before running off and developing anything. A few great resources have already been mentioned. I'm sure you are somewhat familiar with these resources and lean startup principles based on your question but I thought I'd point them out just in case.

"Lean Startup" Eric Ries

"Will it Fly" Pat Flynn

So to discuss your question more directly, here's a couple thoughts that come to mind. Keeping in mind it is highly recommended these conversations be in person (or at least over Skype):

1. Local small businesses. I know you mentioned that fact that most restaurants near you are chains. I'm not so sure I totally believe that (although I have no idea where you live). I would venture to guess there are dozens of small restaurants near you. Certainly some bar owners would be good to talk to. Plus even larger chains are franchise owned so you could probably find the franchise owner for the local chain and talk to them.

2. Colleges and universities. Are there any colleges or universities (or maybe high schools) close? Most of them have independently operated cafeterias.

3. Find the right subs and forums. I'm guessing there are some restaurant owners around here but you're probably more likely to find them in forums for restaurant owners. Find some influencers in the restaurant business (bloggers, podcast hosts, etc.). Try to connect with the people that read their information and try to connect with them.

Surely you can find some people to talk to in your area, you may just need some creativity to find them. Good luck!!

u/Bishop341-B · 2 pointsr/startups

Minimum Viable Product: "That version of the product that enables a full turn of the build-measure-learn loop with a minimum amount of effort and the least amount of development time", according to Eric Ries.

u/midnightoillabs · 2 pointsr/marketing

Definitely not.

Have you heard of a minimum viable product (MVP)? The idea is that you be as brutal as you can to put off every feature that isn't absolutely 100% necessary. You don't work on any non-necessary feature until after launch. This achieves two things:

  1. You start collecting users as soon as possible.
  2. You will find that the features you thought were important are different from what the users want.

    If you haven't read The Lean Startup, I highly recommend it. The person who wrote it created the chat program IMVU. He spent months coding the ability to log on from other chat programs because he thought users would demand it. It turned out that users were perfectly happy to log on to a new chat program and he wasted months coding an unnecessary feature.
u/gmarceau · 2 pointsr/compsci

Like you I work at a tech startup. When we were just starting, our business/strategy people asked the question you just asked. They opened a dialog with development team, and found good answers. I attribute our success in large part to that dialog being eager and open-minded, just as you are being right now. So, it's good tidings that you are asking.

For us, the answer came from conversation, but it also came from reading the following books together:

  • The Soul of a new Machine. Pulitzer Prize Winner, 1981. It will teach you the texture of our work and of our love for it, as well as good role models for how to interact with devs.

  • Coders at Work, reflection on the craft of programming Will give you perspective on the depth of our discipline, so you may know to respect our perspective when we tell you what the technology can or cannot do -- even when it is counter-intuitive, as ModernRonin described.

  • Lean Startup It will teach you the means to deal with the difficult task of providing hyper-detailed requirements when the nature of building new software is always that it's new and we don't really know yet what we're building.

  • Agile Samurai Will teach you agile, which ModernRonin also mentioned.

  • Watch this talk by one of the inventor/popularizer of agile, Ken Schwaber Pay particular attention to the issue of code quality over time. You will soon be surrounded by devs who will be responsible for making highly intricate judgement calls balancing the value of releasing a new feature a tad earlier, versus the potentially crippling long-term impact of bad code. Heed Ken Schwaber's warning: your role as a manager is to be an ally in protecting the long-term viability of the code's quality. If you fail -- usually by imposing arbitrary deadlines that can only be met by sacrificing quality -- your company will die.



u/mruck05 · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

You don't need to have a lot of money to start your business. What you need as was already mentioned is the right mindset and a solution to a problem that people are willing to pay for. I love some of these websites and books and recommend giving them a look.

Smart Passive Income

Tropical MBA

The Lean Startup

Tim Ferriss' 4-hour Work Week

The Suitcase Entrepreneur

$100 Startup

u/codepreneur · 2 pointsr/startups

"problem is getting people to visit the website and sign up"

Not sure if you you are having more of the visit problem or sign up problem, so let's address both.

For visitors/traffic, spend $500 or so and put up some Google Adwords. You'll have to make sure your message is extremely targeted so that you only get clicks from your target market.

That will get you some traffic. Then it's time to test your landing page / sign up page. You can measure your conversion to see how many folks sign up for the free trial, and finally measure how many folks continue with a subscription.

That's your funnel. The benefit of using Google Adwords is you don't have to waste lots of time building up all these free channels that you hope will bring you traffic. Just drive traffic through paid advertising. The purpose isn't to do this forever; the purpose is to validate that your offering has value and/or that your marketing (landing page) is driving the right behavior (sign ups).

If you find after getting 1k clicks that only 3 people signed up, then it's time to tweak the landing/marketing pages and/or change the offer. Are you requiring a credit card for free trial? Maybe stop doing that. You'll have to experiment.

It also might be beneficial to spend a few dollars and get a marketing consultant to help you design the landing page.

As far as resources, the bible right now is: http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

u/mikeyouse · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur
u/Ezili · 2 pointsr/userexperience

No single source. Design has been around for a very long time. Modern UX Design comes out of a few different places, and different schools and different companies and studios have their own slightly different approaches. Of the couple I mentioned:

The IDEO and the Stanford D School has been the major driver for something called Design Thinking which is is framework for creative development.
Checkout this: https://dschool.stanford.edu/dgift/
and this: http://designthinkingmovie.com/

Lean Startup is a framework based on work done at Toyota focused on product management but which a lot of UX Design ideas have come out of as well.
Checkout this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898

and this:
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/07/lean-ux-getting-out-of-the-deliverables-business/

u/dutkas · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Couple Suggestions:

  1. Shopify https://www.shopify.com/blog/15153597-5-strategies-to-validate-your-product-ideas

    I love shopify regardless if you do e-commerce or not. Really great content and tons of value highly recommend. The article i linked is but one of many good ones.

  2. Lean Startup by Eric Ries. http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898

    He talks a lot about Product Market Fit (PMF) and how to get there asap for entrepreneurs. I'd recommend at least checking out some youtube videos about PMF and other variations of the idea as far as validating your idea/approach.

u/ryosua · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

My recommendation is to start by reading The Lean Startup. Then try to validate the idea with preorders. Getting people to pay you before you start developing it is the safest way to validate your idea. The next best thing is to build a list of emails.

u/womplify · 2 pointsr/marketing

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

u/coomberlers · 2 pointsr/startups

I think it sounds like a great idea - but you need to create a better MVP than just a signup page. Something that explains/shows very simply how it would work and what the value is.

I would recommend checking out resources like The Lean Startup and validate, validate, validate.

Good luck!

u/tspike · 2 pointsr/cscareerquestions

Yes, it's certainly possible, but as mentioned, it's difficult. I'd highly recommend looking into the following resources:

Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

Patrick McKenzie's blog -- Kalzumeus Software. Read everything!

The Lean Startup

Also do searches for "micro ISV" and read anything you get your hands on.

u/ThatNat · 2 pointsr/startups

You might find some of these resources helpful to get a sense of some of the moving parts for the "lean" / "customer development" approach:

Steve Blank's free Udemy course: https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245

And his protege Eric Ries' Lean Startup book:
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

And Blanks'
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

A rough, top-level, possible roadmap for a bootstrapped solo product:

  1. Talk with a bunch of potential customers to validate whether the problem you will be solving for is in fact an acute problem.

  2. Validate that your solution is a good one to solve that problem. Again, you can start with customer interviews with a prototype of your product. Validation can also be pre-sales, one pager landing page "coming soon" sign ups and other things.

  3. Product development and customer development happening in tandem. Customer feedback informing the product. Yeah minimum viable product: what's the minimum version of your product that proves your assumption that people will find this valuable?

  4. Participating / building an audience / community around folks who value solving this problem can happen during development too. Some like to do this BEFORE building the product -- and having an audience to pitch different variations of products to.

  5. Get early adopters in the door, helping you improve the product. "Doing things that don't scale" while you are still in learning mode.

  6. Try different experiments to improve A) the product and B) different ways/channels to find customers.

  7. McClure's Pirate Metrics: measuring the customer journey of acquisition, activation, retention, referrals, revenue. At this stage retention is probably #1: am I building a product people are finding valuable enough to stick around and continue to use?

  8. "Product/market fit" means your product and the particular type of people you are helping are a happy fit. Time to make those "things that don't scale" more scalable. Time to hit the gas pedal on the marketing side. More experiments to find growth...
u/prepscholar · 2 pointsr/teenagers

That's awesome. You have skills that are super relevant in today's age and will prepare you to have a big impact in your career.

What will be most meaningful is if you can create something of value to people in a demonstrable way - in your arena the natural idea is an app. Just creating things by itself is impressive, but even more impressive is if people actually find it useful and you can point to something as proof (eg number of downloads, metrics on usage)

So I would encourage you to think: what can I create that will solve a real problem that people will care about? What do I wish I had that doesn't exist yet? Then you go from there.

One of the best books you can read on how to achieve this is [Lean Startup] (http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/), which will give you incredibly useful advice about how to test whether your idea is viable and push you to prototyping faster.

The most important advice I can give you is, don't be afraid of shipping. As a first time creator you will be so scared about getting a bad reception that you spin your wheels adding features or perfecting the app. Resist this temptation - the app will never be as good as you want it to be. Ship early (what Lean Startup says is the "minimum viable product") and get feedback on how you need to improve as fast as you can.

u/bonk_or_boink · 2 pointsr/startups

I am just now reading The Lean Startup. Reading your blog post about the technical stack powering Ginger, I wonder if you aren't making some of the same mistakes the author made when he first got into startups (at least, what the author now feels are mistakes). Namely, putting a lot of quality effort into an entire implementation (plus features) prior to truly gaging customer interest (making sure the product meets a specific need).

If you haven't read the book, do so! Serious respect on all the effort you have clearly put into this so far, best of luck.

u/ProductHelperBot · 2 pointsr/Futurology

Based on your comment, you may be interested in this!
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u/tinear10 · 2 pointsr/bicycling

I give this book to anyone who is starting a business or has an idea - [The Lean Startup] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898)
The book is a must read! It will teach you how to test an idea before you invest a lot of time and money only to learn the idea does not work or there isn't a lot of demand for it.

One idea is to try a Google Adwords campaign for a new idea before it fully exists. Send people to a very simple one-page site where you explain the product. Give them a way to sign up for updates. If no one clicks on your ad then there is either a demand or a targeting problem. If people do click on your ad but don’t sign up for updates then they might not understand what you are going for. This gives you a chance to refine your message too.

The idea is that for less than $100 dollars you can conduct a market test that could save you thousands of dollars and months of your life.

Keep going too! I tried a bunch of stuff before things started to work. Reach out to me if you have any questions. Good luck!

u/tazzy531 · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

As a senior engineer living in Silicon Valley, I get pitched to all the time by people with "an amazing idea" that nobody has thought of that will change the world. Any engineer worth their weight has heard the same thing left and right.

The fundamental problem is that these "idea guys" think a good idea is all that is needed and the only thing getting in their way of a multibillion dollar valuation is some engineer that won't build this one little thing for them.

The problem is this: successful startup are not just about the idea but also the execution. You've probably heard this all the time how idea is worthless, execution is everything. But what I'm talking about is executing on the business and customer development side. Executing on technology is easy, building a successful business is more than just building the app, it's also about building the business side of the company.

If you follow any of the Lean Startup methodologies, the last step of building a startup is building the product. You don't start building anything until you have paying customers. Prior to that, it's all about Minimally Viable Product to prove a concept. A MVP does not need to be an app; there have been very successful startups that started out with paper mocks as MVP and manual processes as MVP. Even Uber's MVP is a fraction of what it ended up being.

So, I won't laugh you out of the room; I am extremely patient with every pitch that I hear. However, if you want me to take you seriously, bring something to the table. Find me 10 customers that have paid or are willing to buy this product that you are going to release. If you cannot find 10 paying customers* to validate your idea, it tells me a number of things:

  1. You don't have what it takes to do customer and product development
  2. You aren't serious about your idea and are just hoping someone does the work and you can gain
  3. You can't sell
  4. Your idea sucks

    So, my advice if you want to be taken seriously, bring something to the table:

  • money (seed money to pay for the work)
  • network (large number of people in the target market that can be leveraged to succeed)
  • product development - the skill of knowing how to validate an idea, customer development, feature prioritization, vision
  • leadership / experience: proven experience in building and leading a cross functional team tech, sales, product, etc
  • sales: ability to sell anything to anyone

    Honestly, as an engineer, the two groups that are hard to find are good product managers and UX designers. As an engineer, I'm looking for someone to complement my skills. I am looking for someone that can hustle, do customer interviews and market analysis of the target market. Tech is easy, finding the product market fit is hard.

    Anyway, I recommend two books if you are serious about building your concept:

  • Lean Startup - the goal of a startup is to identify customers
  • Founders Dilemma - deep dive into decisions that you should think about in building a startup

  • 10 is arbitrary number, use whatever metric you want. Find me xx users that have this problem that you're trying to solve.
u/AfifGhannoum · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Hey!

This is the book I recommend the most on deal structure. Some of it is overkill but it's important to understand the structuring. https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616 People always say "valuation! valuation! valuation!" but the reality is there are several critical terms that could leave you in terrible shape if you dont understand.

I only ever structure preferred NON-PARTICIPATING offerings. Usually as a convertible note, with a flex valuation that's set by the next round.

The critical piece in all of this is to hire EXPERIENCED counsel who have done these, and are lawyers at a sizable firm. That's important because if things go sour, you need a firm that will stand behind their work

u/firstdayback · 2 pointsr/startups

I second the book Hooked by Nir Eyal–it has great insight into building sticky products.

Couple of others off the top of my head:

  • The Startup Life by Brad and Amy Feld - Great if you're building your company and are in some sort of serious relationship.

  • Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson — One of the best books on how to think about fundraising when you're going through it for the first time. Super entrepreneur focused.
u/Biohack · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I recommend Venture Deals by Bred Feld and Jason Mendelson. It walks through in detail the process of getting venture funding, what to watch out for, what matters and what doesn't.

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/books

Barbarians at the Gate:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Barbarians_at_the_Gate.html?id=8rVQ6wKWdaYC

Venture Deals: Be Smarter than your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist (Entrepreneur book, some of the writing done by the CEO of twitter, the other 2 authors are venture capitalists)

http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616

u/CyrusCraft · 2 pointsr/personalfinance

This book has good explanations of the terms in venture deals: http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369064151&sr=8-1

For more abstract analysis, Paul Graham has some good essays: http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html

u/mmmarvin · 2 pointsr/cscareerquestions

A deck is a PowerPoint presentation (generally in PDF format) where you present your startup and the problem you are solving. If you're creating someone new and innovative it may be difficult for others to understand. So in a deck you essentially try to explain everything in a clear and concise way. Sometimes you have a short and long version. The short version you attach to emails while the long version is what you present to VCs during in - person meetings. There are many decks from successful startups available online. Just Google "startup decks." Mint's deck is one of the best I've seen. Very clear and concise.

How finished should something be? I don't know but it should be free of typos, clear and straight to the point. On AngelList you can look at other startups, so look there for examples of what to do.

Once a VC decides to invest in your idea or company, they will send you a term sheet. You'll need to know how to understand it. I recommend reading Venture Deals. Very informative.

u/Phillypede · 2 pointsr/philadelphia
u/ST0NETEAR · 2 pointsr/The_DonaldBookclub

Startups are much more complex than real-estate deals, so you aren't going to find as concise of a book as the Art of the Deal, Zero to One as recommended in another comment is a great one though.

For the ethos of startups I would recommend: Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham
https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp/1449389554

For the nitty gritty of deal making with VCs (I still haven't made it all the way through this one, as it gets very in depth for someone who isn't quite at the point of looking for funding) this seems to be the go-to:
https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1119259754

u/JamesBellefeuille · 2 pointsr/startups

I recommend a book by Brad Feld,

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119259754/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

It would also be wise to read the SAFE primer. As a founder of a semi-successful seed stage startup, I wouldn't use a convertible debt note to raise money.

https://www.ycombinator.com/docs/SAFE_Primer.rtf

Plug: https://www.fastcompany.com/3068575/will-ride-hail-be-free-by-2021-the-startup-ad-platform-vugo-says-yes

u/gordo1223 · 2 pointsr/startups

I find the original Steve Blank and Eric Reis books tough to recommend these days as they tend to ramble and have since spawned much more approachable work since being published. The two below are part of Blank and Reis's official "Lean" series and much better (and easier to implement) than the original works.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Customers/dp/1492023744/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=3HD1KWE1NUKRB

https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172/ref=sr_1_2?crid=30ZKXBRBIBAZO

u/Idontg1veafu · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450372070&sr=1-1&keywords=running+lean I haven't read lean startup, but I read "running lean" from the same series... I have no idea if i should read also "lean startup", but "running" is nuts, I can't believe this book hasn't been mentioned yet...

u/jcyr · 2 pointsr/startups

You might want to check out this book, Mastering the VC Game. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VC-Game-Venture-Start-up/dp/1591843251

It talks about Angels and VC's. It is also pretty timely. There is a bit in there about term sheets, what to watch out for, how to valuate, what angels and vc's are looking for, etc.

u/RycePooding · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

This book gave us so many ways to not only focus on traction, but also how to gain it, where to spend our time (small team, no funding) etc. Really good, quick read.

u/lypur · 2 pointsr/startups

Start figuring out how you'll get sales early! Read "traction" https://www.amazon.ca/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369

u/flysonic10 · 2 pointsr/startups

Check out the book Traction for a good framework to start thinking about your traction strategy.


https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369


YC's Startup School just ended. You can check out some of the tips from their videos.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5OMuEYI4rnNz08BIHxhxdHG


Major takeaway... talk to users.

u/balancedbyus · 2 pointsr/smallbusiness

I think you need to explore other marketing paths. I'm reading this book which I think will really help you out - http://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450751755&sr=8-2&keywords=traction

u/frejjsan · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur
u/seagazer · 2 pointsr/restaurateur

There are some good books about restaurant finances. Two I found very useful are Restaurant Financial Basics and Restaurant Success by the Numbers.

u/dark_window · 2 pointsr/Bitcoin

biy this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9881485088/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1565801583&sr=8-1
pretty easily explained, but its a good base to start with.

u/spyhi · 2 pointsr/photography

In addition actually getting to know how to use your camera and finding your niche, read these:

Best Business Practices for Photographers by John Harrington

The Personal MBA by Josh Kauffman

One thing I'll grant you, kid: You're not a good photographer yet, but at least you seem to recognize that taking sellable photos and running a photo business require two sets of skills, and that you should be developing those skills in parallel if you are serious about creative work as a career. Those two books should get you on the right path for the latter.

Also, don't print a portfolio. You're not good enough yet and you'd be wasting money by doing so. Get a few photos you're proud of (and that have been critiqued well) before dropping real money on marketing materials. The money is better invested in the two books I linked above.

u/fongstein · 2 pointsr/smallbusiness

If you're looking to understand everything at a super high level, I'm currently reading The Personal MBA. There's nothing new about any of the concepts but it's a good foundation for anything you would want to read afterwards.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0046ECJ8M/

Also, this guy posted on reddit a while back with his website featuring business book summaries; I thought they were pretty useful:
http://www.blockshelf.com/

u/issue9mm · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Almost zero businesses can be started with zero dollars upfront investment. That said, start cheap. Don't make 500 iPhone cases, make 1 iPhone case, take a LOT of pictures of it, and see how many people preorder it, then make that many, or cancel the preorder (and return the money!) if it doesn't look like enough orders to be worth your time.

/u/leolani recommended the lean startup method. I really, really think you should check that out. A lot of the questions you're asking here are directly addressed by the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation-ebook/dp/B004J4XGN6/

Basically though, the goal is to figure out the minimum viable way to move forward. What is the minimum it take to validate a concept? What does it take to make a minimal proof of concept after that validation? What is the minimum required to market that proof of concept to get sales? All those questions are answered in the book, and I promise you you'll learn from it.

u/AndyGCook · 2 pointsr/smallbusiness

Ben Horowitz actually just published a book too - The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

The book is full of stories about all the stuff that went wrong and lessons learned while he built his companies.

edit: Misspelled Horowitz

u/Slipping_Tire · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

I'm not an entrepreneur, but I plan on reading:

u/phoenixkiller2 · 2 pointsr/smallbusiness

If you have time I would highly recommend you to read ["Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg & James Mares.] (https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer-ebook/dp/B00TY3ZOMS)

u/brevig · 1 pointr/startups

Ash Maurya wrote Running Lean. Eric Ries (established the "Lean Startup") wrote the forward and the book is part of the "official lean" collection. Also a little interesting background, Eric was a student of Steve Blank, who created the whole "customer development" cycle. Steve is also a professor at Stanford. You can find an article he wrote last year for the Harvard Business Review about the lean startup at http://hbr.org/2013/05/why-the-lean-start-up-changes-everything/

Steve Blank also has many books on this topic, but I'd suggest Running Lean as your first intro. It's a quick and eye-opening read to how to validate your ideas.

Running Lean can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172/

u/bluestoutdev · 1 pointr/ecommerce

Many of these answers give you advice on changing various elements of your website, etc.

IMO it boils down to one thing first: customer research. If you do not know your customer BEFORE you attempt to make sales, all of your work, time, money will be wasted.

The 2 sales in one day that you mentioned, find out as much as you can about these customers. What was their referral channel? Where are they most active socially? At what price point did they purchase?

Ultimately, you need to minimize the money you're throwing at "driving traffic". Do some customer research, then double-down on the channel that has the most potential (based on data) to drive purchases like the 2 you received in one day.

I would encourage you to read [Running Lean] (http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172) and pay attention to the customer development section. Though it's written with a different product in mind, the same development concepts 100% apply to your problem.

It's hard work, but it can be done in a short period of time if you dedicate yourself to it & it will absolutely be worth the effort!

Good luck.

u/bl8nr · 1 pointr/startups

If there was a proven framework to evolve startup ideas everyone would be using it. But there isn't because it depends a great bit on your business and the environment your business is in. A framework for a B2C business may not work so well for a B2B enterprise business. It sounds like you're actively looking for something to build out but don't want to 'waste your time,' so i'll ask, what do you have experience in personally and professionally? Because a lot of the startup founders I've known had some previous experience in the industry they're now trying to do business in, investors like to see this type of experience too.

Be realistic with the fact that you you may be having trouble finding a good opportunity because your have fairly few working years and haven't had much time to identify peoples pain points via personal or professional friends/connections and their contexts. If you think this is a possibility then get out there and be social and network, get to know people and get to know their problems and maybe you could solve one of those problems with a business idea.

also, read. There are books on all these frameworks, buy/rent them. read them.

some to look at
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-OReilly/dp/1449305172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504892840&sr=8-1&keywords=running+lean

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/B005MM7HY8/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504892862&sr=1-2&keywords=lean+books

https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Management-Innovation/dp/1633691780/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504892879&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=inoovators+delimm

u/regreddit · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

The TLDR of /u/GaryARefuge 's comment is my own personal mantra: "Make something someone will pay for". SOOO many would-be entrepreneurs have a 'fantastic idea' that is neat, but no one needs it, is looking for it, or wants it enough to pay for. So, #1: Build an MVP, even if it's just in powerpoint, and be very blunt and straightforward in contacting your target market and asking them if they would pay for your product. This TLDR came from [Running Lean](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449305172/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1449305172&linkCode=as2&tag=regreddit-20&linkId=KQN6MFRDGHTBSZJH">Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series)</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=regreddit-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1449305172) , and is a fantastic to cheaply validate a business model. ONLY after you understand the target market, and possibly even iterate on your 'powerpoint' product version, will you know if your idea is really great enough to actually build and sell.

Now, to specifically answer your question, yes, it's common. You might seek out a technical co-founder to help you (after you validate the business model).

u/jerkenstine · 1 pointr/IdiotsInCars

Haha yes I was joking. I just finished reading Bad Blood the other day, I highly recommend it. I'm not much of a reader but finished it in two days because of how interesting the whole story is.

u/Imanj23 · 1 pointr/smallbusiness

Then it definitely sounds like you should start placing bets. Place a few small bets and start doubling down on what works.

Simple, yet effective business book:
https://www.amazon.com/Pumpkin-Plan-Strategy-Remarkable-Business/dp/1591844886

u/bryanbulte · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki (http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Start-2-0-Battle-Hardened/dp/1591847842)

I like how candid he is. He covers so many aspects of startups and entrepreneurship. Examples include top 10 lies entrepreneurs tell investors, how to set up your pitch deck, and how to attract team members early on.

u/gtgug8 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

If you are really interested in learning to code, go checkout onemonth.com or codeschool.org.

That said, the key to becoming a successful entrepreneur in any new market is finding a problem/or pain point that customers are willing to pay you for. Focus on trying to solve a really big pain point!

Once you find a compelling pain point and have customers who are willing to pre-order, sign a letter of intent, or a purchase order. Take your company vision and start selling that vision and your early traction to people who can build your product.

So much of being successful in this game is being able to 1. solve a real problem, 2. inspire others (sell) to join you.

With regards to your major etc. I'd suggest going to work for a startup for a little while. Even for free as an intern. Find a company that you think has great leadership that you can learn from.

Go work there and hustle your face off. Create as much value as you can. This experience will help you learn what you really want to do and you'll find out what skills you need to build your own company and what skills you need in others.

It will also help you find other oportunities outside of the tech field. There are TONS of opportunities outside of "tech".

My favorite example of this is a company in Santa Barbara that came out of UCSB's life science lab called Apeel Sciences. It is science-based and technical but it's not a software company or app and it is going to literally change world.

There are some pretty big problems out there that need to be solved. Find an area you are passionate about, and go solve something really hard.

Books for you to checkout:

Traction By Justin Mares Great book on marketing

The Entrepreneurs Guide To Customer Development This will give you the low down on market validation, how to search for a problem to solve.


Hope this helps:)

u/youngrichntasteless · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Ah sorry, I had assumed you didn't have customers yet. Check out this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369

What's your target demographic?

One thing that comes to mind is referrals, incentivizing your 73 current users to share with their like-minded colleagues.

u/Sellezely · 1 pointr/marketing

Do read a book named Traction by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares
https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369

u/busymichael · 1 pointr/startups

Followed!

I am 1 year into my journey and am revenue positive. It is the 3rd time I have done this journey. I firmly believe a solid programmer does not need a "business" co-founder. The marketing skills are straightforward to learn and practice.

Check out the book Traction -- it is a great primer on how to build your business.

Well done--- I look forward to updates!

u/rawrhisspurr · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Recently finished a book called Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth, and each chapter is dedicated to the marketing channels in your chart. Your chart is a nice summation of the book's overall goal outline, highly recommend checking Traction out!

u/mankaden · 1 pointr/startups

READ THIS BOOK! Absolutely one of the top 3 best business/startup books ever and focuses on marketing and gaining traction.

https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369

u/sebastmarsh · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Traction by Justin Mares and Gabriel Weinberg --

https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/1591848369

Best book on learning how to do marketing, hands down.

u/simmondz · 1 pointr/marketing

First Round Review: Great collection of articles that someone working in the world of SaaS could enjoy. I'd particularly pay attention to their Search Portal as well. If you're looking for info on marketing, growth, management or even pricing -- they have you covered.

​

SaaStr: It's more dedicated to the management / sales / operations side of SaaS but there's a lot of value to be found here. Jason Lemkin the founder of SaaStr is quite active on Quora as well. I would spend some time reviewing his posts there. The SaaStr podcast is also filled with value.

​

For pure marketing content - I'd recommend: Andrew Chen's blog, Hiten Shah's newsletter/blog, Ross Simmonds, Everyone hates Marketers Podcast, The Drift Blog, Sujan Patels Blog, Foundation Marketing, Reforge, The BuzzSumo blog and Forget The Funnel.

​

If you're interested in data re: pricing - Check out Tom Tunguz / the folks at Price Intelligently.

​

My personal fav for SaaS marketing books is Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares. It breaks down a ton of different growth channels and is quite good for someone just getting started. The book Predictable Revenue is also quite good.

u/Toast-Hunter · 1 pointr/smallbusiness

Restaurant Success by the Numbers

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1607745585/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_1607745585

Running a Restaurant for Dummies

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118027922/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_szX-BbB2D5461

Front of the House

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1941868029/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_qDX-BbSZ4HSJZ

The "For Dummies" series is pretty good if you can look past the title. Every owner wants to run their business better, whether they've been at it for one year or twenty.

u/censorship_notifier · 1 pointr/noncensored_bitcoin

The following comment by Trev_Holland was openly removed.

The original comment can be found(in censored form) at this link:

np.reddit.com/r/ CryptoCurrency/comments/83pgy2/-/dvk7eav?context=4

The original comment's content was as follows:

---

> https://www.amazon.com/Cryptocurrencies-simply-explained-Co-Founder-Decentralization/dp/9881485088/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520828515&sr=1-7&keywords=crypto+currencies

u/israellopez · 1 pointr/smallbusiness

Id give this a read first: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0046ECJ8M/

Then take a crack at making a business model canvas yourself: https://strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas

Then maybe make an honest financial forecast, or if not; make some kind of SMART goals (http://www.hr.virginia.edu/uploads/documents/media/Writing_SMART_Goals.pdf). I need to make a total of X at Y profit in three months, or I need to stop. Something like that.

Always find ways to limit your risk, and talk to an experienced CPA in your country to know how to handle the tax-risk. I know with AUS you need to keep your GST/VATS reporting up to date and very clean. Plus your own super-annuation/tax stuff.

I'm not from AUS, but I do a lot of work for people in that country from the states, and I know a little.

u/getElephantById · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

I don't know if this is still a big deal, but a few years ago it was all about The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (spanish paperback edition) (kindle edition). I work with startups all the time, and the terminology is definitely part of the nomenclature now. I don't usually read these sorts of books, but I read this one and it was fairly reasonable.

u/marathonflorida · 1 pointr/smallbusiness

Thanks! I'll check it out.

Right now the business is going alright. It's been a side hussle and brings in around 3-5k a month, but only leaves me a paycheck of around 750-1,250/month.

Honestly the only thing holding us back is production size and logistics. Thing is I need to buy a bigger local and get it certified, which costs more mullah that I could possibly save in the short term. . .

Here is the book in Amazon for future reference

u/CollEYEder · 1 pointr/androiddev

I agree - seems like a lack of direction is what hinders you, rather than a tech choice. I would recommend reading the following "bibles" of product development

The Lean Startup

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004J4XGN6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

​

Inspired

https://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers-Love/dp/0981690408

​

These books are very accessible and will get you up to speed really quickly.

u/helpinghat · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

This book explains it https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation-ebook/dp/B004J4XGN6/

You can find loads of summaries and blog posts on the internet. The book is very popular.

u/FreeLayerOK · 1 pointr/startups

Here is a good read about the startup environment and the challenges they face. Author is a former exec. Best of luck in the interview!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004J4XGN6/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1569879228&sr=8-3

u/dansmolkin · 1 pointr/humanresources
u/duong_minh_ha · 1 pointr/startups

Ben Horowitz's book "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" addresses lots of these problems and is definitely a great book to read when you are in a leadership position. His comment on firing people is make them understand why they underperformed and refer it to the expectations. Lead the conversation in a way so that they would actually fire themselves. And absolutely do it in a one-on-one meeting. In your case I would build on empathy and discuss everything with him and depart on good terms so he would of course also bring back the company equipment since it's not his (hopefully managed in your contract).

u/Bohr_research · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Congrats & thanks for doing this.

Did you read the hard thing about hard things ? What was the hardest decision you had to make?

u/eignerchris · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I did. I started with Traction (https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer-ebook/dp/B00TY3ZOMS/), been listening to podcasts on e-commerce marketing as of late since I've been commuting a lot.

​

Really, I was just looking to explore the Reddit Ads platform. Making sales would have been great but ultimately I just wanted to learn. Pretty cheap lessons IMO.

​

I haven't read any Robert Greene but I'll take a look. Thanks for the book recommendations!

u/maxtheman · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I highly recommend this book called Traction. It outlines every possible approach to acquiring users.

u/tadmilbourn · 1 pointr/smallbusiness

Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things does a great job of giving real business examples and the mental strain they can cause. While these occurred at tech startups, I think the lessons apply to any business.

u/more_lemons · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

u/NudeTayneMNW · 1 pointr/booksuggestions

I keep hearing the Hard thing About Hard Things is a good read but haven't started it yet:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hard-Thing-About-Things/dp/0062273205

u/SonicSpoon · 1 pointr/consulting

I'd recommend reading The Effective Manager or maybe start with their podcasts to see if you like the advise. Manger Tools While it wasn't mind blowing for me, it was at least a starting point when I was starting from zero. In the book they do get into giving feedback that will produce results and it's been very helpful for me. Concentrate on positive feedback and use it to lead into things you would like to see changed/improved. Don't just hit them with negative feedback all the time. Avoid the shit sandwich though; positive feedback-negative feedback-positive feedback, people catch on to this quick.

One-on-one meetings with your direct reports are crucial. These meetings are not about you, they are about your direct. They allow you to establish a rapport with your direct.

Good how-to books on management are hard to come by. Sometimes you just need to listen/read other content and pull some useful tidbits from it. I just finished The Hard Thing About Hard Things and was able to pull some useful things out of it.

Last but not least, be a human being.

u/maxoliver · 1 pointr/smallbusiness

[The Hard Things About Hard Things] (http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205/) by Ben Horowitz would be a useful book to be sure that the life or reality is often way harder than it is explained in business books. It is a useful reading for business owners in general.

u/tangowhiskeypapa · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

There's a million things most people on this sub could recommend, and really the learning never stops.

Here are some good starting points:

The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz

Zero to One - Peter Thiel

The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman

The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

u/AMAInterrogator · 1 pointr/VenturedCapital

Have your read Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups ?

​

u/shorterthanrich · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

What?! NO. Lean methodology for crying out loud. Read a book. ;)
The Lean Startup. Read it - seriously, don't ignore it like I did.

u/luciddreamr · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I would suggest finding a technical co-founder to partner with. Start with your local community and search for high-tech entrepreneurial events. http://www.meetup.com is a great place to find events.

I would also suggest implementing the lean, minimal viable product (MVP) approach created by Eric Ries. The process is an experimentation in order to test your hypothesis with an MVP.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898

Alternatively, you could rent the book from your local library or check out his lean methodology in this interview:

http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/podcast/eric-ries-interview-of-the-lean-start-up-with-john-lee-dumas-of-entrepreneur-on-fire/

If your idea is as great as you think, it should not be difficult finding a technical co-founder who can envision it! Good luck to you!

u/interactionjackson · 1 pointr/startups

It's always good to have a business co-founder just make sure that they are actually interested in your startup . I am a technical guy but I have read a few lean startup books and I don't feel that qualifies me as a business co-founder.

running lean

the lean startup

are my favorite

u/devoNOTbevo · 1 pointr/Reformed

I've been trying to get into Schaeffer. Starting with A Christian Manifesto. I'm also reading a Churchill Biography. I have The Lean Startup checked out from the library. I took Fellowship with God off the shelf, but have yet to dive in. And I'm in the middle of the following: Voyage of the Dawntreader, Les Miserables, and the Meaning of Marriage. I'm also highly interested in jumping into Gordon H Clark but I don't know where to even begin.

u/zsalloum · 1 pointr/gamedev

Actually this is the concept of The Lean Startup from Eric Ries cofounder of IMVU

I am doing just like that. will share my experience if I ever make it :):):)

u/Jaybeann · 1 pointr/wicked_edge

From more of an entrepreneurial view and less of a shaving view, I highly recommend going for a lean startup. Get a very basic minimal product out there and let it morph as the business grows. If you start a business fully planned, then you're moving too slow. I highly recommend acquiring a copy of The Lean Startup and reading it. If you decide not to go with an idea, such as a subscription service, don't completely throw out the idea, but file it with your ideas for future expansion. That's my 2 cents.

u/mikeyninja · 1 pointr/kickstarter

You need to read this

u/politicallyretarded · 1 pointr/Romania

Puteti incepe sa testati ideea. Niste prototipuri rapide (in orice mediu ce face posibil explicarea ideii) si mult feedback de la useri potentiali. Asta o sa va salveze o gramada de timp si bani pe viitor, chiar si un eventual fail.

Poti sa te uiti peste The lean startup , explica procesul de inceput foarte fain, cu exemple foarte de success, cred ca au dropbox, zappos, etc.

Dupa, partea de development e cea mai usoara.

u/Analog_Seekrets · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Have him read the The Lean Startup. This backs (most) of your bullet points.

u/mescalito2 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I love this part "My principle market are people who don't like the idea of drinking energy drinks, but may feel low on energy on occasion" as I felt identify with you product.
I can see the market is crowded so you need to a differentiation to make your product more attractive.
What ideas do you have to show your product in front of consumers eyes balls?
My advice is to build your marketing strategy before spending time in technology. I'm also a CS with management/strategy skills and after many years on this business I came to realized that marketing is key.
I advice you to read The Lean StartUp: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898
Good luck! let me know if u want/need advice, I'll be happy to help ;)

u/OlegLeonov · 1 pointr/startups

from my part I could recommend you The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

u/guancialle · 1 pointr/startups

Here is my list of things you should read/listen before contacting investors. Listen/read every single article/video in every single link because it's suprising how some of the most important knowledge comes from the least expected talk/article

u/J19Z7 · 1 pointr/productivity
  1. Stop what you're doing.
  2. Read this: The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries

    Edit: Oops, didn't mean to post yet. I meant to say once you come up with the idea you want to go for, stop and read the book. I'm an agile development enthusiast and absolutely loved that book. The techniques there are specifically for the kind of situation you're in where you're not quite sure about the idea. Make learning your success metric.
u/swizzler · 1 pointr/tevotarantula

Yeah, I don't think it's ever a good idea to buy a brand-new printer from a Chinese manufacturer or startup. Most these companies live by the rules of The Lean Startup The problem is, that book was written with software in mind. So when they change how an item is manufactured or the parts used from one unit to the next without changing SKUs as we've seen time and time again with 3D printers (especially the TEVO Tarantula) You have no way of knowing if you're getting a unit with a beta feature they aren't sure about yet, a cheaper part they are testing out, etc. And with a new model, you're facing all of these issues at once.

u/PM_ME_BOOBPIX · 1 pointr/CRISPR

> Alright thanks alot man. How much does the average start up cost? Millions? Billions?

It's not a cost, it's an investment!

There's no average of course in the Life Sciences the barrier of entry is high, since... knowledge is expensive, so are labs etc... DO NOT LET ANYTHING DISCOURAGE YOU not even me, it's not my intent.

A couple of good reads for you:

u/amateurcapitalist · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I second all four of these recommendations. Especially the personal MBA for aspiring business owners. I would also add a few more: Profit First, Lean Startup, and Will it fly?

u/htylim · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Glad you like it. I have one more comment that I feel I need to do.

If you'll end up reconsidering this idea try something else but try something.

There is nothing more valuable than one's own experience. And you never really fail if you learn and evolve from each experience.

The best recommendation that I feel I can give you is to try things and learn as fast as you can. And as we are on that subject check The Lean Startup:.

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/

Cheers!

u/tripmepls · 1 pointr/asktrp

Lean Startup is a great book about launching a product or service. Link

u/ReRo27 · 1 pointr/Coffee

I know some people who run a coffee shop already in an identical format. Look up "Daily Grind" business in Ontario, Canada. You can probably reach them on their Facebook page and they may be able to give you some info and inside knowledge on what kind of challenges you should prepare for and how to make it.

3 things you can do right now to get it off the ground faster are as follows:


  1. scope out the competition - go to your local small coffee shops and big brands (Starbucks and McDonalds especially). Don't only try to understand how they do it but what their offerings are, why do people go there, what sides do they have, etc


  2. Prepare a menu that's bigger than just coffee. This is where point 1 will be useful. If you start scoping you'll notice a trend, in all these places they offer more than coffee. cold drinks, smoothies, sandwiches, pastries, etc. When you go to design your menu be sure to add something more than just coffee, be creative and try to make something people want (something to retain your customers and keep them coming back to you). Sandwiches are a good start but don't limit yourself.


    3: Another thing that might work for you should also start reading up on the 'lean start up methodology". It's how companies in silicon valley grow fast and quickly like apple, facebook, Instagram, and Microsoft. The idea is you generate some ideas, and you keep trying them out until one stick, then put your efforts there. The idea behind this is you keep trying out ideas to find out what is most successful and you drop your least successful ones quickly. This way you'll know what works and doesn't quickly and efficiently. Once you find the idea that works, you scale quickly and that's how you make your mark.


    Here's the book on Amazon from the man himself. It's a quick read but it'll probably cut your path to success down and make you more competitive.


    Author: Eric Riles

    "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses"


    link: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898
u/dennisrieves · 1 pointr/startups
  1. Identify how you're going to measure success
  2. Tune your content by setting up experiments (learn startup principles) and learning from the data you gathered in step 1 by measuring
  3. Keep that data on hand for future reference
  4. Track overall metrics while you're doing all this to see what effects your business' bottom line the best
  5. Push yourself through the experimentation loop as quickly as possible. That will be key to learning more quickly than your competitors. And who doesn't like having an edge that your competitors don't?
    I highly suggest reading The Learning Startup ( http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898) by Eric Ries if you haven't yet. It gives amazing insight on how exactly to measure the effectiveness of basically any business action or venture (as long as you've got the right ideas on how to measure it!)
u/ikidoit · 1 pointr/startups

You can do a lot actually! Start working on Customer Development, this book might help you: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Hardcover-version/dp/1449356354. You can research the market and talk to people, no matter how old you are. You'll be amazed how many folks in the business will agree to talk to you about their problems. Another useful book will be https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307887898, it'll show you how to 'fake it till you make it'.

u/Whatitsjk1 · 1 pointr/startups

is it this by chance?

thx for info

u/brikis98 · 1 pointr/startups

The "official" definition (if there can be one for a term that has become so ubiquitous) comes from Eric Ries' book, The Lean Startup:

> An MVP is a version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

A "version of a new product" doesn't have to be a product. The classic example of an MVP that Eric Ries uses is the explainer video Drew Houston created for DropBox before building the actual product. The video worked as an MVP by helping Houston test his assumptions, but I don't think you could say the video itself was a "product."

u/rainaramsay · 1 pointr/HowToLifePodcast

This is basically just a summary of the Lean Startup concept by Eric Ries. You can check out the web forum or find the book

u/Manbeardo · 1 pointr/gamedev

Actions speak louder than words.

One of the rules of games and markets is that what people say they want and what they actually choose to do are very different.

Whenever possible, try to design experiments that let you observe player behavior directly instead of asking them what they thought. There's a lot of options available to you if you start collecting good metrics. Things like:

  • Are some events/actions correlated with players opening the menu and quitting the game?
  • Are some events/actions correlated with the game losing window focus (probably a confused player googling something)?
  • When you introduce a new mechanic, how does it impact the duration of play sessions?

    And then you can get real fancy if your alpha testers are willing to cooperate. Things like recording their gameplay footage and a webcam of their face at the same time, then running it through sentiment analysis to find moments that made them happy/frustrated/confused.

    That said, experimental design is hard and you might not have the time/money to run high-quality experiments. If you must rely on survey data, be sure to read up on survey design so that you can correct for the various psychological effects at play when humans take surveys.

    Edit: a lot of the above philosophy comes from Eric Ries' The Lean Startup. I highly recommend that book.
u/bch8 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I suggest this book. It describes a start up strategy that is particularly applicable for tech startups, and is pretty well known in the tech world.

u/techsin101 · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

I'm in same position as you, and would love to know if you're open to partnering up but to answer the question I've found the following very useful so far.

  • Learning to launch

  • Getting Real

  • 90 days to profit

  • 7 day startup

  • lean startup

    there are more but these are what i've read so far and liked.

    Main points I've learned...

  • Build nothing, or as little as possible. Think of vision, say craigslist, don't build it. Build stairs to it, dig a path to it. Start weekly email letter with website as complementary to save emails. Grow from there.

  • If it's b2b, do selling first, nail down how to approach, who to approach, what to sell, for how much, get 5 people signed up before writing a line of code. Free or not, get people on board.

  • prioritize speed and delivery over all coding standards, security standards, and over everything else.

u/kyletns · 1 pointr/startups

I have no idea what the startup scene is like in Switzerland, but you should definitely find out! The best thing you can do right now is surround yourself with other entrepreneurs, for sure. Are there any events you can go to? Accelerator programs, incubators, or shared office spaces for startups? Even online communities where these people hang out, anything to get talking. If you can find other entrepreneurs, they'll love to talk with you about your idea. You need to get lots of feedback, and (hopefully) find another passionate soul (or two) to join you!

Pro tip: Don't keep your idea secret! Instead of me explaining it to you, just read this great post by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah

Spread your idea, get feedback, find a partner or two, read the lean startup, and go for it! Good luck!

u/CSMastermind · 1 pointr/AskComputerScience

Entrepreneur Reading List


  1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
  2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
  3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
  4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
  5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
  6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
  7. Ikigai
  8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
  9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
  10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
  11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
  12. The Web Startup Success Guide
  13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
  14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
  15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
  16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
  17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
  18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
  19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
  20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
  21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
  22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
  23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
  24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
  25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
  26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
  27. Anything You Want
  28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
  29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
  30. Tao Te Ching
  31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
  32. The Tao of Programming
  33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
  34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List


  35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
  36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
  37. Introduction to Probability
  38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
  39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
  40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
  41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
  42. The Art of Computer Programming
  43. The Little Schemer
  44. The Seasoned Schemer
  45. Data Structures Using C and C++
  46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
  47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
  48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
  49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
  50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
  51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
  52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
  53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
  54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
  55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
  56. Types and Programming Languages
  57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
  58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
  59. Commonsense Reasoning
  60. Using Language
  61. Computer Vision
  62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
  63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

    Video Game Development Reading List


  64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
  66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
  67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
  68. Bit by Bit
u/TurtleFromEntourage · 1 pointr/startups

Do More Faster

The startup bible. Written by the founders of TechStars, one of the biggest startup incubators. Has a great section all about finance, and everything else under the startup sun.

u/GershensonLaw · 1 pointr/startups

A good starting place is Venture Deals. It goes into aspects beyond funding, and is co-written by a lawyer/entrepreneur. I continuously find it useful in my practice and recommend it to my clients.

u/MorrisMustang · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

Venture Deals Book is a fantastic guide for entrepreneurs new to structuring deals for capital raising. Deal making tends to not be vanilla or chocolate, but requires creativity by the entrepreneur to get it done.

u/VanBurenOG · 1 pointr/LawSchool

Where do you plan on working in an ideal world?


VC Law is something you can really teach yourself in terms of understanding Term Sheets, which is primarily what that class covers.

Securities Regulation ties into the most important part of VC Law IMO, and you won't learn a lot of the major stuff in a VC course. IE you may discuss Sarbanes-Oxley and 10b5 in marginal detail, but not much more.



edit: If you're interested in VC Law, I would just check this book out and save a few grand:

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

If you really like this stuff and can take both courses, great. If not, Securities FTW

u/CSBCounsel · 1 pointr/startups

Read this book. Make sure you buy the second edition. Convertible notes weren't in the first edition. https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616

A lot of the content is also on Brad's blog. http://www.feld.com

He explains all of this better than anyone.

u/relihan · 1 pointr/startups

I'd check out:

http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/10/how-convertible-debt-works.html

&

http://startuplawyer.com/category/convertible-notes


One note: Equity financing is a lot more complicated than just buying x% of a company valued at $Y. I'd recommend Brad Feld's Venture Deals book: http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616 ( doesn't talk much about convertible, but its the best book out there I've seen on venture financing ).

u/DrBiometrics · 1 pointr/startups
u/Nowaker · 1 pointr/Entrepreneur

"Venture Deals" by Brad Feld. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119259754/

u/redditrevolution · 0 pointsr/Entrepreneur
u/farquezy · 0 pointsr/Entrepreneur

Kind of unrelated, but I've been around a lot of entrepreneurs and they all swear by this book. Apparently, it's the importance important thing you can read before raising venture capital. No idea. I've never read it since I've never had to raise money. : https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1118443616

​

Also, I really suggest you look at things like Wefunder or Seedinvest. They are basically like Kickstarter but instead most normal people can invest. I think this is a wonderful strategy. Imagine having the collective experiences, word of mouth, and ownership of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who are invested in your success.

u/SunnySam · 0 pointsr/bioinformatics

"So it turned out Theranos was basically a fraud. They claimed to be able to run 240 tests on just a pinprick of blood. Experts were skeptical, and they were right to be. Yet somehow this company managed to keep going for 11 years in spite of having minimal revenue and a largely non-functional "product". Frequently their tests would fail and no results would be returned to patients, but that's probably for the best since the results they did return were highly unreliable and substantially different from existing tests (ie they were wrong).

An excellent book chronicling the whole saga (written by John Carreyrou, same reporter who wrote the above article) is Bad Blood."