2015–2026
1,427 posts
2026 42
October 2026
- When the Anecdotes Don’t Match the Metrics
- Regularly Revisit the Ideal Customer Profile
- Recurring AI Research Bots
- From Two-Week Sprints to Daily Sprints
September 2026
- Three Lessons from the Startup Journey
- Idea Generation Machine
- 2026 Atlanta Inc. 5000 Companies
- The AI-Native System of Record
August 2026
- Building My First AI Team
- Voice Is the New Keyboard
- Stop Writing Prompts. Start Talking.
- Agency and Soft Skills in the AI Era
- Using AI to Find Your Best Prospects
July 2026
- Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution
- The Personal AI Brain
- Why Great Founders Keep Selling
- The Real Return Standard for Most Venture Investors
June 2026
- Right to Win Competitive Positioning
- Combine a National VC with a Regional VC
- Non-Horror Story Lessons from Pitching VCs
- The Backend-Loaded Nature of Startup Value Creation
May 2026
- The Send and Delete Employee Test
- Founders Green in South Downtown Atlanta
- The Hypomanic Edge in Entrepreneurship
- The Entrepreneur’s Shift From Yes to No
- The Multi-Startup Founder Conundrum
April 2026
- The Shift to AI-Enhanced Employees
- Self-Driving Cars and Changing Human Behavior
- The First Five Questions to Ask After a Startup Pitch
March 2026
- The Second Time Around: Why Founders Come Back
- 8 Moats for Sustainable Software Companies
- Product Value vs Product Distribution in the Early Days
- Every Bit of Effort Helps
February 2026
- 15 Angel Investments and All Failures
- O Startup, Where Are Thou VC?
- AI Is a Super Power—Start Treating It Like One
- Seven Reasons SaaS Valuations Are Crumbling in the Age of AI
January 2026
2025 52
December 2025
- The Power of Writing Before You Speak
- Ideas to Professional Slides in 15 Minutes with ChatGPT + Nano Banana
- Use Adjacent Markets to Shape Better Products
- Uncomfortable as an Entrepreneur
November 2025
- Value-First Reimagining of a Market
- Tech Trends at Local Startup Hubs
- Where to Start Evaluating an Angel Investment
- Align Ambition with Startup Idea
- The Power of an Annual User Conference
October 2025
- From Grow, Grow, Grow to Grow, Margin, Burn
- Conversation Questions for Growth Stage Entrepreneurs
- Focus on Building a Great Business, Not an Exit
- Control Your Controllables
September 2025
- When Potential Investors Don’t Like the Market
- Plugging into the Local Startup Community
- Raise Institutional Capital or Make Do Without
- What to Look for in an Entrepreneur
August 2025
- When Competitors Raise Large Rounds
- Customer Value Financing Part 2
- 2025 Inc. 5000 Atlanta
- The Power of Being Around Founders Who Believe
- Entrepreneurship as Permissionless
July 2025
June 2025
- Use Advanced Prompts for More AI Value
- Investor Responsiveness as #1 Value
- Starting Over as an Entrepreneur
- Ask for the Startup Office Tour
May 2025
- Three Quick Questions After Hearing a Founder’s Story
- The Preemptive Funding Offer
- Matching Funding with Entrepreneur Ambitions
- Find the Community Super Connector
- The Power of Transferring Belief
April 2025
- Everything Compounds
- The Rise of AI-Powered Vertical SaaS
- Entrepreneurs Selling Equity in a Financing Round
- Market A or B for a Startup
March 2025
- From Speed Alone to Speed + Quality
- Entrepreneur Updates as Leading Indicator of Success
- Three Personal Use Cases for ChatGPT and Grok
- Unforgettable Tech Magic Moments
- Recruiting on Non-Recruiting Work Trips
February 2025
- Double Revenue With No Additional Employees
- Round-Two Entrepreneurs
- The Entrepreneur’s Passion
- Incredibly Narrow to Start
January 2025
2024 52
December 2024
- 5 Best Practices for Effective Entrepreneur Updates
- When It’s Time to Move on From a Successful Startup
- Daily Check-in Amongst Entrepreneurs
- The Unknown Entrepreneur Arc
November 2024
- Beware of Throwaway Comments as a Founder
- The Quality of Entrepreneur Interactions
- Thiel’s Seven Questions Every Business Must Answer
- In Appreciation of Technological Progress
- Why Atlanta for Startup Investing
October 2024
- Event Attendance Yields and Quality Product Feedback
- Highlight an Employee Failure at the Town Hall
- The Vision is Clear, but the Journey is Unknown
- Conference Connections Via Personalized Post-It Notes
September 2024
- Align Interview Questions with Core Values
- Think Big and Launch Small
- The Gift of Believing in Someone
- The New Conductor Capital
August 2024
- Negative Roadmaps for Startups
- Intown Golf Club’s Origin Story
- Atlanta in the 2024 Inc. 5000
- From Historic Neighborhood to Startup District in Downtown Atlanta
- Why Downtown for the Next Atlanta Tech Village
July 2024
- New Atlanta Tech Village in Downtown Atlanta
- Weekly/Monthly Exec Team Dinners
- Contemplating a Major Business Change
- Think Process First, Goals Second
June 2024
- 5 Favorite General Tips for Founders
- “I” vs “We” When Speaking as a Founder
- Rule of 50 and Venture Funding
- Rule of 50 Weighted 2x for Growth
- Software Consulting to Software Product
May 2024
- Developing a Nascent Segment of the Startup Ecosystem
- Software Recession Continues
- Plug into the Local Startup Community
- 0 to 10 Unaffiliated Customers as 1st Major Milestone
April 2024
- Find a Mentor Who Believes in You
- From Founder-led Sales to a Sales Team
- Investors Focused on Upside or Minimizing Downside
- Startup Founder Survival Guide and SaaS Growth Playbook
March 2024
- Chips on Shoulders Equals Chips in Pockets
- What’s the Big Unlock for a New Venture
- Only One Round of Financing
- When a Competitor Goes Big, Don’t Automatically Go Bigger
- Rise of the Forever Lean Startup
February 2024
- The Startup that Only Hires People that Keep their Full-Time Job
- The Role of Timing in Recruiting Talent
- Investor Reserves Didn’t Go to the Expected Companies
- I Have All the Problems I Want to Have
January 2024
2023 52
December 2023
- The First Serious Acquisition Conversation
- Pleased but not Satisfied
- Relief Valve During Stressful Periods
- Expertise is Plentiful Outside Venture Firms
- Strong Vision to Repel Distractions
November 2023
- Mochary Method Curriculum for Founders
- Software to Iron Man a Job Function
- The 10x Exercise for Entrepreneurs
- SaaS Unicorns Expanding their TAM Through Acquisition
October 2023
- AI’s Efficiency Role in Running Software Companies
- Talented Entrepreneurs Working on the Wrong Idea
- $100M Valuation and No More Funding
- Think About the Growth Curve from Right to Left
September 2023
- In-Market Search for Product-Market Fit
- Dual Threat CEOs that Build and Invest
- Voice Dictation to ChatGPT to Polished Content in 5 Minutes
- Types of Independent Board Members for Startups
- The In-Office Plan Where You Can Live Anywhere
August 2023
- Embrace Startup Failures
- Atlanta Tech Companies on the 2023 Inc. 5000
- Startup Upgrade: Annual Liquidity Programs
- Tech Investing Alongside an Expert
July 2023
- Growing the Local Tech Investor Community
- Think About the Funnel When Helping the Startup Community
- Relationship Building
- Lean Times and Inside Rounds for Startups
- Customer Value Financing Example
June 2023
- Time to Upgrade the Startup’s Functional Areas
- ChatGPT for Brainstorming
- Build a Running List of Interview Questions
- Get Started on an Idea
May 2023
- Side Hustle to Full Hustle
- Many Startups Will Reaccelerate Growth
- Customer Value SaaS Financing
- Sell Hard on the Next Step, not the Final Sale
April 2023
- Green Vegetables of Startupland
- Startup Value Accrues in the Later Years
- VCs Challenged by the Downturn
- Budget Pressures Highlight Mission Critical Software, or Not
- Entrepreneurs Combining on New Startups
March 2023
- Startup Awards Don’t Equal Success
- Impending Cancellation of Thousands of Startup Credit Lines
- Bank Hygiene for Startups
- Fall in Love with the Market, Not the Idea
February 2023
- Ask the Customer to Describe the Value
- Rule of 40 Growth Multiplier
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – An Evergreen Read for Entrepreneurs
- Thinking EBITDA Multiples for SaaS at Scale
January 2023
2022 53
December 2022
- Simple Strategic Plan for 2023
- Misguided Product Features
- Output vs. Outcomes for Startups
- Entrepreneur as Editor and Curator of Ideas
- If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get
November 2022
- Reset the Internal Valuation and Focus on Value Creation from a New Starting Point
- The Calculated Marathon to $10M ARR
- Think Dolphin Strategy for More Measured SaaS Growth
- Why Grow the Startup Community
October 2022
- The Closing Dinner Post Startup Exit
- Make No Little Plans
- 5 Notes from the 10-Year Anniversary of the Pardot Exit
- The Last Round Extension Goal
- SaaS Renewal Rate Reduction with the Economic Downturn
September 2022
- 4 Years to Achieve Material Traction
- Seek Out These 3 Groups of People to Grow and Learn
- Founders Podcast
- The #1 Question to Ask When Looking for a Startup Idea
August 2022
- Paying it Forward
- Atlanta Startups on the 2022 Inc. 5000
- Activating Potential Founders
- Priority Should Have No Plural Form
July 2022
- Illiquid Startup Equity as a Feature
- Notes on Corporate Retreats for Startups
- SingleOps Partners with FTV Capital
- Challenging Life Experience as Entrepreneur Characteristic
- Public Market Multiples and the Impact on Private Market Valuations
June 2022
- Founder as Shock Absorber for the Startup
- Be Single-Minded Long Enough to Get Lucky
- Back to the Rule of 40 for Startups
- Startup Ecosystem Optimism Post Correction
May 2022
- Context is Critical for Startup Advice
- Think About Systems More than Goals
- Startup Success – Good Growth, Gross Margins, CAC Payback, and Burn Multiple
- Today’s Our Best Day and Tomorrow’s Even Better
April 2022
- Catalytic Mechanism to Drive a Desired Outcome
- The Card Game War and One Little Change
- I Have all the Problems I Want
- 6 Business Value Creation Questions in 10 Words
- Entrepreneurs as Probabilistic Thinkers
March 2022
- Search Funds Eyeing SaaS Startups
- 7 Lessons from 15 Years of Angel Investing
- Post Entrepreneurial Exit —Bias Towards Action
- Equity Strategy for Late Co-Founders
February 2022
- I Don’t Know, But Let Me Get Back to You
- More Capital Often Needed for Exit Opportunities
- 7 Recent Entrepreneurial Books
- Go Help an Entrepreneur
January 2022
2021 52
December 2021
- Salesloft Partnered With Vista Equity
- Personal Growth > Startup Growth
- Raising Capital and Exit Expectations 10x
- Srinivasan on Market Research, Wireframing, and Design
November 2021
- Entrepreneur Weekly Update Email Formats
- Customer Obsessed and Competitor Aware
- Optimize for Growth while Adding Gates
- Scale of success? Markets, Markets, Markets
October 2021
- Core Venture Studio Questions
- Favorite Questions to Ask Entrepreneurs
- When the Direction Doesn’t Feel Right, Get the Team Together
- 250 Startup Employees Per Spinoff Startup
- Filter Customer Requests Against the Vision
September 2021
- Growing Into Reset Startup Valuations
- Continued Startup Momentum in Atlanta
- Customer Onboarding Effort and Retention
- Startup Executive Bonus Plans
August 2021
- Startup Equity Expectations: New Car, New House, New Life
- Atlanta Startups on the 2021 Inc. 5000
- Not All Angel Investors Are Motivated by Money
- Startup Success Begets Greater Startup Success
July 2021
- Early Innovation Stack at Pardot
- Triple T: Team, TAM, and Timing
- Atlanta’s Startup Community at a New Peak
- Nurture the Idea Virus
- Search for Product/Market Fit in the 1880s
June 2021
- Feedback is a Gift
- Define the North Star Metric
- Find Potential Investors that Already Work With a Customer
- Superior Startup Idea Characteristics
May 2021
- Private Equity’s Growing Importance in Startup Exits
- On Receiving the First Real Offer from a Potential Acquirer
- Intentionality of Life Choices to Find Great Startup Ideas
- When will the local growth stage capital arrive?
- Narrative Violations as Source of Startup Ideas
April 2021
- MVP Tree as a Critical Entrepreneur Starting Point
- High Velocity Venture Capital
- Plugging Into a New Startup Community
- Seeing is Believing as a Potential Entrepreneur
March 2021
- Start With Customer Delight
- More Capital Results in More Startups
- Complexity of Startup Messaging
- The Hunt for Authentic Demand
February 2021
- Big Markets Continually Create Opportunities
- Startup Valuations in the Time of the Everything Bubble
- Missed the Internet Wave
- Uncomfortably Narrow at Product Launch
January 2021
2020 56
December 2020
- Startup Effort is Insane, So Think Big
- 4 Key Weights for Startup Investing
- Pipedrive and Gainsight Exiting to Private Equity
- Atlanta Startups on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500
November 2020
- Startup Learnings Take Time, So Just Start
- Think RAGS for Startup Team Members
- Startup Lessons from The Perfect Store
- Critical Startup Metrics By Department
October 2020
- Startup Financing in the Age of Capital Abundance
- Rigor Acquisition by Splunk
- Why is a strong startup community important for the local region?
- Running the Product/Market Fit Engine the Superhuman Way
- Everyone Feels Above Average At Angel Investing
September 2020
- Find Your Digital Mentors
- 5 Remote-First Principles from Brex
- Build a Startup Ecosystem Guide
- The Four Ways to Calculate SaaS Churn
August 2020
- Startup State of the Union Slide Deck
- The Great Reset for Startupland
- The Hallway / Zoombomb Values Test
- Start Thinking in Systems, Stop Thinking in Goals
- Rise of the Startup Studios
- Start It Up Georgia Kick-Off
- SaaS Generations 1, 2, and 3
- Ask Investors How They Think About Zeroes
- Build an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem The Startup Community Way
July 2020
- SaaS Valuations as a Rule of 40 Multiple
- The Freedom of Profitability in a Startup
- Atlanta’s Startup Community Brimming With Early Stage Capital
- Start It Up Georgia – Go Time For Entrepreneurs
June 2020
- The Honorable Zombie Startup Trap
- 2021 Will be a Banner Year for Private Equity SaaS Acquisitions
- MarTech Madness and the Secret Staying Power
- 5 Immediate Ways to Support Atlanta’s Black Tech Founders
May 2020
- EO and YPO for Entrepreneur Peer Groups
- Remote Work’s Role in the Future of Work
- 5 Controllable Factors in the Pardot Story
- Quarterly Review Formats for Employees
- 19 Ideas for Workplace Covid-19 Upgrades
April 2020
- The Canada Rule in Startups
- SaaS Valuations Holding Strong
- Strategies in Our Control and Scenarios Outside Our Control
- Digital Simplification in Time of Crisis
March 2020
- Culture Deck in Time of Crisis
- Startup Cash Considerations in Crisis
- Weekly Communication
- Technology Hall of Fame of Georgia
February 2020
- Churn, Churn, Churn
- Authentic Demand’s Role in Startup Success
- When Debt is Better than Equity for SaaS Startups
- 5 Variables for a Quick SaaS Valuation
January 2020
2019 52
December 2019
- Start 2020 With a Simple Strategic Plan
- Happy 7th Birthday to the Atlanta Tech Village
- Rule of 40 and Startups
- Compounding Revenue 20% Per Year
November 2019
- So Many Tries, So Many Entrepreneurial Failures
- Compounding Revenue’s Value in the Future
- The Email Inflection Point in the Product/Market Fit Journey
- Time and Effort are the Greatest Barriers to Entry for New Markets
- The Recurrent Competitor Worry
October 2019
- Belittled for Not Raising Venture Capital
- Disrespecting a Team Member is Never Acceptable
- Limiting Beliefs, Stop Holding Yourself Back
- They Said I Wasn’t Good Enough
September 2019
- Most Startups are Self-Funded
- 24 One-on-One Meetings in a Day
- Podcasts on Startups and Entrepreneurship
- The Entrepreneurial Thrill of Fresh Ideas
August 2019
- Continuous Employee Feedback
- Crisp, Memorable Startup Origin Stories
- Revenue Financing + Traditional Equity Continued
- Revenue Financing + Traditional Equity as the Future of Startup Funding
- When the Increased Startup Burn is Cooling Growth
July 2019
- Focus, Focus, Focus – An Entrepreneur’s Challenge
- More Thoughts on the Next Level for Atlanta’s Startup Community
- Next Level for Atlanta’s Startup Community
- Secondary as a New Primary Investor Capital Deployment
June 2019
- Funding Climate Outside the Money Regions
- Dilution Dance for Each Financing Round
- ‘I’ vs ‘You’ When Giving Advice
- The Struggling Executive Who’s Really a Manager
- Why the Lack of a Strategic Plan?
May 2019
- Statute of Limitations on Experience
- Mind the Valuation Gap
- When the Opportunity is Bigger Than Expected
- Challenge the Inertia Around You
April 2019
- Competing Definitions of Product/Market Fit
- Reforecasts and Communication
- The Double Sale
- When the Startup Stalls
March 2019
- Quantifying Local Startup Impact
- Challenges Going the Local Investor Route
- We > I for Entrepreneurs
- Where art thou startup exits?
- Pushing Harder and Pulling Back as an Entrepreneur
February 2019
- Markets or Ideas for Startup Success
- Startup Storytelling, Simple Pitches and 100 Words
- Segment Customers, from Flies to Whales
- Scrappy First, Comfortable Financial Balance Later
January 2019
2018 55
December 2018
- Home, Sweet Home
- Practice Gratitude – Life Comes at You Fast
- What are my strengths?
- Stories of an Entrepreneur’s Resourcefulness
- Growing Endeavor in the Southeast
November 2018
- Frequent, Quality Communication as Success Indicator
- 12 Ideas to Strengthen Culture
- SaaS Enemy #1: Churn
- Start a Startup with Community
October 2018
- So you have a startup idea, what’s next?
- Spend Time Producing Content, Not Just Consuming It
- How Much to Raise When Times are Good
- When Freemium Works as a Business Model
September 2018
- Constant Course Correction on the Entrepreneur Journey
- The Entrepreneur’s Chip on the Shoulder
- Growing the Startup Community
- Characteristics of the Ideal SaaS Startup
- Raising Venture Capital Isn’t Right for Most Entrepreneurs
August 2018
- Develop a Specific Ideal Customer Profile
- Top 10 Atlanta SaaS Startups on the 2018 Inc. 5000
- Growth Connection for Leading CEOs
- Why Product/Market Fit Often Takes Years
July 2018
- 3 Initial Studio Concept Ideas
- Rise of Parallel Entrepreneurs
- How an Employee Stole $50,000 from Pardot
- In Search of Great Startup Ideas
June 2018
- The SaaS Startup Studio
- Planning vs Doing as an Entrepreneur
- When SaaS Valuations Weren’t So Rosy
- 3 Alternative SaaS Funding Strategies
- SaaS Winners and Daily Newspapers in the 1980s
May 2018
- Happy Ears and Sales Contracts
- The Relentlessly Resourceful Entrepreneur
- Implications of Raising Venture Capital
- Tie Opportunities to the Vision
- The Entrepreneur’s Financial Sacrifices
April 2018
- 5 Traits of the Most Successful Entrepreneurs
- Excellent Meetings and Communications Recommendations from Tesla
- Four Pivots Needed – Survive and Then Thrive
- A Failure at Raising Money
March 2018
- Focus on One Solution for One Market
- Signing the First Customer
- Two Routes to Starting Great Startups: Audience Building and Consulting
February 2018
- Founding Team 3H: Hustler, Hacker, and Hipster
- 18 Ideas to Accelerate the City’s Entrepreneurial Trajectory
- The Simply SaaS Forum – Network and Learn from SaaS Pros
- Venture-Backed SaaS Must Have a Fast Path to $100M Revenue
- State of the Cloud 2018
- 25 Principles of Adult Behavior by John Perry Barlow
- How to Help an Entrepreneur
January 2018
2017 231
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
- High End SaaS Valuations Using the 2017 Inc. 5000 Data
- 3,000 Posts, and Time for Something New
- 4 Ideas for Finding Customers
- Attributes of a Successful CEO
- When Customer Expansion Outpaces Churn
- Talkative Tuesdays – Tuesdays as the Meeting Day
- When Angel Investing Isn’t Charity
- Video of the Week: How the blockchain is changing money and business | Don Tapscott
- Entrepreneur Evolution Over Time
- The 7 Words Entrepreneurs Should Use Frequently
- Deliver a Simple Message
- Write Your Equivalent of The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan
- Atlanta Startup Village #49
July 2017
- Entrepreneurs that Can’t Sell
- Feature Death March
- Video of the Week – Zach King: The storyteller in all of us
- SaaS 1,000 for Researching SaaS Startups
- Desired Proof Points to Raise a Seed Round
- Make Something People Want
- 8 Questions for a Product Entrepreneur
- 4 Questions to Ask Before Making an Angel Investment
- Book Review: Angel by Jason Calacanis
- Video of the Week – Rapid Prototyping: Sketching & Paper Prototyping
- Build a Competing Company, Internally
- Recessions and Expensive Software Incumbents
- Top 10 Blog Posts
- Excellent Conversations Don’t Equal Product/Market Fit
- Comparative Advantage, Or Why Entrepreneurs Should Hire an Office Manager
- $136,000 Median SaaS Revenue Per Employee
- Accountability in a Startup
- Quick Notes from Marc Andreessen’s AMA
- 5 Strong Core Values from Godard Abel
- Personal Loans for Founder Stock
- 4 Criteria for a 5-8x Adjusted EBITDA Software Exit
- Find the Fastest Growing Markets
- Video of the Week – Founder’s Dilemmas: Equity Splits
- Run the Annual Expenses Audit and Cut the Waste
- What Uber’s Tipping Feature Teaches Us About Product Functionality
- Must-Have Product Required for Startup Success
- Quarterly Wrap Up
- Founder Equity at IPO, 2017 Edition
- Prematurely Scaling Sales Affects More Than Burn
- Video of the Week: Vinod Khosla – Failure does not matter. Success matters.
- When the Product is the Sales and Marketing
June 2017
- Balancing the Short-Term and Long-Term Product Demands
- The Power of the Webhook
- JavaScript as the Web’s Integration Fabric
- Atlanta Startup Village #48
- Video of the Week: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos on Artificial Intelligence(AI), Cashless Store, and Self-Driving Cars
- API-First SaaS 2.0 Single Page Apps
- The Three Types of SaaS Integrations
- SaaS 2.0 Companies Often Resegment an Existing Market
- Examples of SaaS 2.0 Companies
- Software Contracts in the Age of SaaS 2.0
- Software Contracts and Traditional Business Practices
- Video of the Week: Jeff Bezos 1997 Interview
- Investment Failure as an Angel
- Workflow App or Persistent Background Service for SaaS Success
- Characteristics of Successful SaaS Products
- 4 Types of SaaS Trial Experiences
- In-App On-Boarding, Upgrading, and Downgrading in Next Gen SaaS
- Integrations as Key for Next Generation SaaS Success
- Intercom as the Next Mainstream CRM after Salesforce.com
- Signs of an Last Generation SaaS Product
- Video of the Week: Daniel Kahneman – “Thinking, Fast and Slow” | Talks at Google
- The API Economy
- The Next Generation Competitor to Every Public SaaS Company
- Change the World or Pursue a Cool Idea
- Demonstrating Product Value in the Application
- Weekly Update Email
- Video of the Week: How to Start a Startup (Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz)
- Evaluating New Product Ideas
- What are you solving for?
- 2017 Internet Trends
May 2017
- Another Publicly-Traded SaaS Company Going Private
- The Three Critical Monthly Cash Questions
- Customer Success for Company Success
- Second Order SaaS Revenue
- Video of the Week: Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
- Lifestyle Business vs Startup
- The Energy in a Values-Oriented Company
- Daily Active Users in B2B SaaS
- The Best Time to Raise Money
- A Bumpy Ride for the First 10 Customers
- Video of the Week: Blitzscaling 19: Jeff Weiner on Establishing a Plan and Culture for Scaling
- Software 2017
- Assessing Product/Market Fit
- SingleOps Announces $1M Seed Round
- Benefits of Sales Territories in a Startup
- Terminus Raises a $10M Series B
- Startups Should Avoid Sales Territories
- Video of the Week: Eric Schmidt, Alphabet Inc. – Just Say “Yes”
- Feature Rich vs Feature Niche
- Taking a Customer Up the Value Curve
- Professional Services in a Startup
- Fast Growth and a Big Market to Raise Money
- The Stress of a Startup
- Customer Discovery to Understand the Problem
- Video of the Week: The future we’re building — and boring | Elon Musk
- An Emotional Response to the Product
- Common Investor Questions at The Atlanta Tech Village
- Quarterly Simplified One Page Strategic Plan
- The Option Pool Shuffle
- Encouraging Institutional Investors to Buy 10% of the Angel Investor Equity
- $100M ARR or $5M EBITDA Target for Strong Exit Opportunities
April 2017
- Video of the Week: Where good ideas come from | Steven Johnson
- Scaling Culture in a Fast-Growing Startup
- 3 Trends in Marketing Technology
- 4 Quick Ideas on Building a Tech Startup Center
- Due Diligence for an Angel Investment
- Atlanta Startup Village #47
- 4 Year Projections With 100x Growth and 50% Profit Margins
- Video of the Week – Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work
- The Rule of 3 and 10 – Everything Breaks When Tripling in Company Size
- When the Startup is No Longer Owned by the Founders
- Raising Money as Forcing Function to Drive Towards an Exit
- Anatomy of a Successful Venture Deal – PetSmart’s Acquisition of Chewy.com for $3.35 Billion
- Investor Reference Call Questions for Existing Investors
- Interns in Startups
- When the Startup Path is Unclear
- Video of the Week: How To Gain 1000 True Fans – Kevin Kelly on London Real
- Evaluating an Angel Investment
- The Sales Play of the Day
- Acquiring the First 10 Customers
- Continuous Learning
- Seeking Startup Ideas
- Video of the Week: Bootstrapping a Unicorn Outside of Silicon Valley | Ryan Holmes (Hootsuite)
- Build Sales Capacity in Advance
- The Jungle / Dirt Road / Highway of Startups
- Characteristics of Successful Atlanta Entrepreneurs
- Why Entrepreneurs Choose Atlanta
- Why Not More Startup Success Stories
- Beware Edge Case Optimization
- The Slow Startup Movement – Questions
- Upwork the Tedious Tasks
March 2017
- Reduce the 10-Year Vision to a 12-Month Outcome
- Getting Rejected
- The Best Response to an Inbound Acquisition Price Inquiry
- Atlanta Startup Village #45
- Mission-Driven Startups
- Compounding Value Over Time
- Announcing the new Endeavor Atlanta for High-Impact Entrepreneurs
- The Four Recurring Activities to Build a Powerful Marketing Engine
- Example Account-Based Sales and Marketing Program
- People Connect With People First, Companies Second
- Video of the Week: Chip Conley on Measuring What Makes Life Worthwhile
- Valuing a Pre-Revenue Startup
- Drop the Second Product
- Customer Acquisition As the #1 Challenge
- How do you know when it’s time to shut down the startup?
- 5 Ways Raising Venture Capital Changes a Business
- The Slow Startup Movement
- Notes from the Okta S-1 IPO Filing
- 4 More Reasons Against Convertible Notes
- Video of the Week: Snapchat’s three-part business model with CEO Evan Spiegel
- Benefits of Raising Outside Capital
- Benefits of Not Raising Outside Capital
- 5 Recruiting Resources for Entrepreneurs
- Top 3 Hiring Mistakes
- 5 Non-Standard Recruiting Tactics
- 7 Non-Standard Interview Questions
- Chronological In Depth Survey Interviews
- Video of the Week: Patrick Collison on Hiring at Stripe and the Role of a Product-Focused CEO
- The Emotional Journey of Anything Great
- The 10 Year Anniversary of Pardot
- The Science of Enterprise Software Sales
February 2017
- Quantifying Account-Based Engagement Efforts
- Standard Sales vs Account-Based Sales
- Account-Based Sales for More Predictable Revenue
- The Coaching Habit ‒ 7 Questions to Ask
- 7 Daily Items in the Spirit of Tools of Titans
- Quick Notes on Fast-Growing SaaS Startup Intercom
- SalesLoft Rainmaker 2017
- 4 Steps to Finding an Opportunity at an Atlanta Startup
- “Heck yeah!” or “No”
- Video of the Week: Tim Ferris – Tools of Titans
- Notes from the MuleSoft S-1 IPO Filing
- Quick Thoughts on Product Pricing
- Think Gross Margin When Considering Metrics
- The Golden Metric for SaaS – $1 Burned for $1 of Recurring Revenue
- 5 Questions to Ask When Evaluating a Market
- Bessemer’s 2017 State of the Cloud Report
- Video of the Week: Artificial Intelligence – What Everyone Needs to Know
- SaaS Numbers that Actually Matter
- 4 Reasons Startups Need to Stay Lean After the Seed Round
- 12 Key Levers of SaaS Success from David Skok
- 4 Reasons Investors Shouldn’t Do Convertible Notes
- 4 Reasons Why Startup Stock Options are Usually Worthless
- Video of the Week: Artificial Intelligence is the New Electricity
- New Car, New House, or New Life Concept for Employee Equity Value
- 4 Quick Ways to Evaluate a Startup Idea as an Investor
- Evaluating a Startup Based on Cash Burned vs Recurring Revenue
- The Startup Rat Race
- Settling in for the Grind
January 2017
- Atlanta Startup Village #44
- Selling Products Through Resellers
- Video of the Week: Machine Learnings Intros
- Good Product in a Poor Market
- Machine Learning and Marketing Automation
- Machine Learning and the Startup World
- SalesLoft Raises $15M to be the Platform for Sales Engagement
- Startup Sayings
- Challenges with Raising Too Much Money
- The 3 Commands for CEOs According to Warren Buffet
- The Only 3 Things a CEO Does
- 3 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Do
- The Daily Huddle
- Notes from Shoe Dog on the Entrepreneur Behind Nike
- Not All Good Ideas Can be Good Companies
- Startup Funding and Optionality
- Video of the Week: Elon Musk on How to Build the Future
- The Startup Stages in 8 Words
- The Four Startup Stages
- The SaaS Metrics Framework
- The Dilution vs. Growth Rate Trade Off
- The Importance of Markets and Timing
- Measuring SaaS Churn Rates 2.0
- Venture Debt as Safety Net
- The 3-Step Startup Marketing Framework
- Pros and Cons of Being a Solo Founder
- Characteristics to Look for in a Co-Founder
- The High Cost of a Third Co-Founder
- Co-Founder Equity Ideas
- New Year’s Resolutions and SMART Goals
- Values Reflection at the End of Year
2016 364
December 2016
- The TechRise Addition to Atlanta’s Startup Community
- Notes from the AppDynamics S-1 IPO Filing
- Seven Spectrum of Outcomes for AI
- 8 Questions to Ask at an Annual Financial Plan Review
- Final End of the Year Review
- Merry Christmas – Creativity, Inc.
- Finding a Work/Life Blend
- Thinking About SaaS Run Rates and Renewal Rates for the New Year
- Q4’s Sales Results Inform Next Year’s Budget
- 4 Year Anniversary of the Atlanta Tech Village
- X Orchestration Platform
- Marketing Orchestration Platform
- When Growth Slows
- Video of the Week: Stefanos Zenios – Design Thinking is About Doing
- The Value of Being Top 3 in a Market
- Gaps in Marketing Technology
- Monthly Sales Quotas
- 3 Quick Ways to Value SaaS Startups
- Local, Fast-Growing Million Dollar Revenue SaaS Startups
- Predictive Sales and Marketing Data Sources
- Predictive Sales and Marketing Technologies
- Video of the Week: Marc Andreessen on Change, Constraints, and Curiosity
- Inconsistent Lead Flow from Marketing
- You Can Never Over Invest in Product
- Successful Startups Average At Least One Pivot
- Atlanta Startup Village #43
- Annual User Conference to Catalyze Internal Departments
- The $15 Million SaaS Revenue Plateau
- Video of the Week: How to make hard choices | Ruth Chang
- Most Second Product Initiatives Fail
- Funding Dynamics for Modest Growth SaaS Startups
November 2016
- 2017 Simplified One Page Strategic Plan
- Time for 2017 Budgets
- SaaS Funding Valuations Based on a Forward Multiple
- 3 Reasons Founders Might Not Make Any Money After Raising Venture Capital
- Most Founders that Raise Venture Capital Don’t Make Any Money
- Gratitude
- 3 Quick Ideas When Thinking about SaaS Valuations
- 5 Weekly Action Items for Entrepreneurs
- Impact of a Recession on the Startup World
- Customer Churn is Always Higher in the Early Days
- The Barbell Strategy of Startup Investing
- Investing in Idea and Growth Stage Startups, But Not Seed and Early
- Challenges of a Seed Without a Lead
- It Requires No Talent
- Metrics to Track by Startup Stage
- Quick Notes on ServiceMax’s $915 Million Exit to GE
- 60x Early Stage SaaS Pre-Money Multiple
- No Startup Value Until $1 Million in Recurring Revenue
- Video of the Week: Steve Blank, Evidence-based Entrepreneurship
- Jobs to be Done Framework
- 18 Quick Sales Resources for Startups
- Four Types of Sales Reps
- Getting to “Wow” in the Sales Process
- Sales Team Challenges When Scaling
- Territories vs Wide Open for Sales Teams
- Video of the Week: Make Body Language Your Superpower
- Benchmarking Sales Development Reps
- The Different Meeting Rhythms in Sales
- Analyzing the Sales Opportunity Pipeline
- Mining the Sales Opportunity History for Insights
October 2016
- The Sales Ops Role – Operational Rigor for the Sales Team
- Hire a Sales Assistant First
- The Best Sales Demos are Conversations
- Mapping Out the Sales Stages
- Discovery Calls – A Critical Part of the Sales Process
- Notes from Trenton Truitt’s Presentation on MEDDICC
- MEDDICC Forecasting Methodology
- The Success Plan Google Doc for Sales
- Testing Potential Demand By Being an SDR
- The Case for Not Setting Goals
- SaaS Leaky Bucket
- More Entrepreneurs Need to be Told to not Raise Money
- Customer Cohort Analysis for SaaS
- Faster SaaS Growth Equals Greater Losses
- Gross Margin as Part of Lifetime Customer Value
- SaaS CAC to LTV Metric
- Video of the Week: 8 Traits of Successful People
- The Magic Number for SaaS
- 4 Year Anniversary of the Pardot Acquisition
- Product-First or Movement-First Startup
- What’s the hourly rate for your time?
- 6 Corporate Culture Ideas
- The Perpetual “Access to Capital” Question
- Moving Fast and Slow
- The Intersection of Sports and Technology
- Align Interview Questions with Core Values
- 10 Questions to Ask When Interviewing for a Sales Role
- 10 Questions to Ask When Interviewing With a Startup
- 6 Strategy and Planning Methodologies to Explore
- Spending 50% of a 7-Figure Marketing Budget in 3 Days
- Video of the Week: Google Ventures on Lean Analytics
September 2016
- Pardot Revenue in the First Six Years
- Compounding Growth
- 2016 Venture Atlanta Presenting Companies
- The Importance of Leadership
- CEO and COO Roles in a Startup
- The Importance of Customer Success
- 2016 TechStars Atlanta
- The Startup’s Arch Enemy
- Agile vs. Burndown Software Development
- Quarterly Employee Check-in Process
- Raising Venture Money While Still Keeping Options Open
- 99% of Entrepreneurs Shouldn’t Raise Venture Capital
- 15 Posts Every Seed Stage Entrepreneur Should Read
- 3 Quick Thoughts from Eric Paley on Venture Capital
- Selling Personal Equity During a Financing Round
- Plan for Equity Dilution Over Multiple Rounds
- Simple Product Management Planning Process
- A Feature vs a Product
- Scenario Planning
- Video of the Week: Dan Pink – The puzzle of motivation
- Terminus as #1 Best Place to Work
- Notes from the Coupa S-1 IPO Filing
- No Product Roadmaps
- Quarterly Product Themes
- Recruiting Executives in a Startup
- Tod’s 7 Lessons Learned at BrightRoll
- Video of the Week: Seth Godin on the Difference Between Leadership and Management
- Overestimating the Short Term, Underestimating the Long Term
- Three Ways VCs Value Investments for LPs
- Capabilities in a Startup
August 2016
- Good Progress, But Not Enough to Raise Institutional Money
- Customer Acquisition as the #1 Startup Challenge
- Atlanta Startup Village #40
- The Three Main Functional Categories for B2B SaaS Apps
- Video of the Week: Stanley McChrystal – Leadership is a Choice
- Ask the Start, Stop, and Continue Questions
- How Can I Help a Startup?
- Make Company Name and Product Name the Same
- Notes from The Trade Desk S-1 IPO Filing
- Thinking about Thinking
- Questions to Develop the Ideal Customer Profile
- Video of the Week: Mark Roberge – The Sales Acceleration Formula
- 2 Year Growth of 2 Pre-IPO Atlanta Startups
- Atlanta Companies on the 2016 Inc. 500
- Networking Questions When Looking for the Next Opportunity
- Sales Training
- Ideas for Sports Venue Apps from the Braves App Challenge
- How Much is Enough
- Video of the Week: Patrick Lencioni – The Four Traits of Healthy Teams
- 6 Funding Questions from a First-Time Entrepreneur
- 5 Choice Quotes in From Impossible to Inevitable
- More Accurate Sales Forecasting
- Validating a Startup Idea
- Make a List of Startup Ideas
- Managing with Data
- Startup Review: Teamworks
- 2 Answers to the Valuation Question
- HESaaS: Hardware Enabled SaaS
- Bullish on SaaS Growth
- Annual Recurring Revenue Greater than Cash Burned
- The Y Funnel for Sales and Marketing
July 2016
- Counterpoint on OKRs as Bad for Small Teams in a Startup
- Video of the Week: Jack Ma, Alibaba Group
- TechStars Mentor Manifesto
- Develop Investor Relationships Before Raising Money
- Build the Executive Summary for Fundraising
- Going Deep or Broad with the Product
- Atlanta Startup Village #39
- 27 SaaS Products for the Marketing Department
- 35 SaaS Marketing Products @ 1 Startup
- 4 Reasons to Add an SDR Team
- Hindsight, Insight, and Foresight
- 7 Quick SDR Tips for Startups
- Build a Sales Playbook
- Analyzing Data Over Time
- 4 Team Rapport Building Questions
- Recruiting is Sales
- 6 Ideas for Finding Great People
- 4 Reasons for a Lack of Local Institutional Capital
- Rating the Atlanta Startup Scene
- Transitioning from Free Flowing to Structured Organization
- Building the Talent Pipeline in Advance of a Raise
- Video of the Week: David Skok on the 3 Stages of a Startup
- Platforms and Microservices
- Document the Organizational Process
- Build a Bottom-up Sales Forecast
- The Origin of Fireworks
- User Experience to Get Small Committments Early
- Monthly MEPS Reflection
- Video of the Week: Science of Persuasion
- The Weekend Update Email
June 2016
- Entrepreneurs Need Grit
- A SaaS App for Every Department and Every Business Function
- Atlanta Startup Village #38
- Entrepreneurship as Using Available Resources and Iterating on Feedback
- A Business Focus on Easy
- Video of the Week – Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques
- 4 Ideas for Employee Feedback
- Companies Grow as Fast as the People Grow
- Balancing Quantitative and Qualitative Information
- Challenges from a Poor Initial Target Market
- Founder DNA in a Company
- 8 Sales Lessons for Entrepreneurs
- Video of the Week: What is leadership?
- Stage-Specific Startup Advice
- Takeaways from the Growth Stage Entrepreneur Summit
- The On-Purpose Person
- End of Quarter Review
- 3 Quick Tasks at the Start of the Week
- Where are the Startup Goals?
- Video of the Week: Simon Sinek – Why Leaders Eat Last
- Startups Selling to Other Startups
- Saying No is Harder than Saying Yes
- Today’s Business Ideas That Weren’t Possible 10 Years Ago
- Addressing Competitor FUD
- The Most Successful B2B Apps are Must-Haves
- Video of the Week: Making Something People Love
- Sell Less, Minimize Dilution
- The Ideal Team Player
- Two Major SaaS Exits Announced
- 20+ Fundraising Tips from First Round Capital
May 2016
- Leads, Leads, Leads
- Economics of a Software-Focused Private Equity Strategy
- Lack of SaaS Consolidation
- Video of the Week: Jack Dorsey – The 3 Keys to Twitter’s Success
- Notes from Twilio S-1 IPO Filing
- Demonstrate Growth Momentum, Even at Modest Scale
- The 6/10 Law – A Growth Framework
- 7 Takeaways from Mike Maples on the Black Box of VC
- Sales and Marketing as a Percentage of Sales, for Public SaaS Companies
- Video of the Week: Khan Academy – Raising Money for a Startup
- Proximity to Success Inspires Entrepreneurial Confidence
- An Executive vs a Manager
- Micro Apps for Lead Generation
- Startup Launch: PubNation
- Get It, Want It, and Capacity to Do It
- 5 Next Steps After Raising a Series A
- The Definitive List of Weekly Operational Metrics for SaaS Startups
- Video of the Week: Meetings that don’t suck
- 15 Years to Achieve the 5 Year Plan
- Weekly Confidence Rating for OKRs
- You’re a Systems Guy
- The 4 Quadrant Weekly Alignment Doc from Radical Focus
- The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
- Video of the Week: Reid Hoffman at Startup School 2014
- In the Path of Revenue
- Capital Light Startups and Small Funds
- Thoughts on Boston’s New Pillar Fund
- Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results
- Know the Potential Investor’s Desired Returns
- Top 15 Blog Posts
- Debate Between Startup Growth and Founder Dilution
April 2016
- Video of the Week: Guy Kawasaki – The Top 10 Mistakes of Entrepreneurs
- Special Sales Rep Incentive Ideas
- Two Common SaaS Sales Compensation Plans
- Product Engagement and Usage Understanding
- HubSpot Growth: $300,000 to $3,000,000 in ARR in Six Months
- Personal Angel Investing Strategy
- Ask Investors About Their Investment Criteria
- Video of the Week: Start Now, No Funding Needed
- Metrics Spreadsheet for Every SaaS Company
- Atlanta Startup Village #37
- Inside Sales Plus Face-to-Face Events
- Account-Based Marketing for Dummies
- 90% Marketing, 10% Product
- 5 Things for Every SaaS Founder
- Video of the Week: How Airbnb designs for trust | Joe Gebbia
- Product/Market Fit: Entrepreneurship 101
- Top Entrepreneurial Trait: Continuous Learner
- 5 Board Meeting Takeaways
- Find an Entrepreneur Community
- Onboarding New Customers
- 9 Simple Weekly Metrics for Seed Stage SaaS Startups
- Video of the Week: Startup Secrets – Turning Products into Companies
- Sell in Advance of the Roadmap
- Modern BANT Sales Qualification
- Know the Number of Customers for $1 Million in Annual Recurring Revenue
- 12 Lessons from ThoughtWorks
- Economics of a $100 Million Incubator
- SaaS Founder/CEO Equity at Time of IPO
- Video of the Week: Vidyard – Small Empires from The Verge
- 99% of Tech Startups Never Hit $1 Million in Revenue
March 2016
- Annual No NDAs Reminder
- When Things are Hard, More Money Isn’t Always the Solution
- 5 Great Resources for SaaS Entrepreneurs
- Atlanta Startup Village #36
- Why Didn’t Salesforce.com Get Into Marketing Automation Sooner?
- Video of the Week: Dharmesh Shah – Why Company Culture is Crucial
- Entrepreneurs: Rich or Royal
- Quick Math to Determine if Inside Sales Makes Sense
- P.T. Barnum’s 20 Rules for Making Money
- Maintaining a Sense of Urgency at Scale
- Simplified One Page Strategic Plan for Every Team
- Video of the Week: A First Drive in the Google Driverless Car
- Feeling the Energy of the Culture in an Office
- Keep the Message Simple
- The Value of the Early Admin Assistant Hire
- Terminus Raises a $7.5 Million Series A
- 3 Common Term Sheet Terms that Lower the Effective Valuation
- 17 Things Entrepreneurs Need to Know about Fundraising
- Track Metrics Weekly
- Video of the Week: Cruise Automation founder Kyle Vogt
- Traction: Visionary and Integrator Leaders are Required
- Atlanta Tech Village Hits 1,000 Active Members
- The $1 Million Annual Recurring Revenue Milestone
- Measuring the # of Startups that Raise Money at $10M+ Valuations
- 7 Elements of a SaaS Platform Company
- The Trough of Sorrow
- Video of the Week: Gary Vaynerchuk Vistage Keynote
- Build a Management Training Program
- VC Fund Size is Good Indicator of Required Exit Size
- Benefits of Internal Recruiters
- Write an LP Portfolio Summary from the Investor Perspective
February 2016
- Atlanta Startup Village #35
- 5 Ideas for Prospect List Building
- Video of the Week: Maintaining Success for the Long Term – Michael Moritz
- Add 10 – 15% More Dilution to Each Funding Round
- 5 Questions to Determine a Must-Have Product
- 3 Main Reasons Entrepreneurs Succeed
- 5 Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make After Raising a Seed Round
- An Accountability Hack for Teams
- 6 Steps to Build a Culture of Accountability
- Video of the Week: Tools are Bought, Transformations are Sold – Dharmesh Shah
- Moving from General Tools to Prescriptive Solutions
- Reported Startup Valuations are the Post-Money Amount
- The SOP Continuum
- 2 Most Important Lessons Learned as an Entrepreneur
- Performance-Based Equity for Semi-Active Business Partners
- 5 Sales Tips for Seed Stage Startups
- Video of the Week: Godfather of SaaS Jason Lemkin
- SaaS Success in 84 Slides
- 5 Lessons Learned from Appcelerator
- Balance Quantity Metrics with Quality Metrics
- Simplified One Page Strategic Plan as a Starting Point For Conversations
- 5 Favorite Super Bowl 50 Commercials
- Public SaaS Valuations Hit Hard
- Video of the Week: Ben Horowitz Of Andreessen Horowitz On What He Looks For In A Pitch
- SaaS Public Company Valuations Q1 2016
- The Rise of Limited/No Visual Interface App Interaction
- New Product Categories Require Salespeople
- Product Pricing Doesn’t Matter Pre Product/Market Fit
- 2 Metrics Startups Need to Start Tracking
January 2016
- Accelerate the Inevitable
- Video of the Week: Elon Musk at Stanford GSB
- Questions to Ask When Hearing Startup Advice
- Biggest Difference Between Corporate Intrapreneur and Startup Entrepreneur
- Entrepreneurs Almost Always Burn the New Cash in 18 Months
- Atlanta Startup Village #34
- 6 SaaS Product Management Tips
- 3 Core Operating Documents to Complement the Meeting Rhythm
- Video of the Week: Simon Sinek’s Start With Why
- Develop a Meeting Rhythm
- Watching a Startup’s Core Engine Grow
- The Importance of Customer Love
- If You Can Get 10 Happy Customers, You Can Get 100
- Example Simplified One Page Strategic Plan
- Revising the Simplified One Page Strategic Plan
- Announcing Little Broken Robots
- When to Start Tracking Operational Metrics
- Why do West Coast Investors Invest Outside Their Region
- SalesLoft Rainmaker 2016 Conference
- Traction Required for Investment
- MSPOT Strategy Document for Startups
- When Product Adoption is Lite
- Video of the Week: Scott Dorsey on 5 Startup Ideas
- Arriving at the Pardot Acquisition Price
- Smart Money and Dumb Money
- When a Competitor Raises Money
- 2015 Most Popular Posts
- John Maxwell’s Five Levels of Leadership
- Video of the Week: John Maxwell The 5 Levels of Leadership
- Ogilvy on Potential for Rapid Promotion
2015 366
December 2015
- 2015 Year in Review
- Personal Development Plan
- Quiet Mode Before Launching
- Audit Where Time is Spent
- Why No Universal API Middleware
- Magic Moments in Software
- Tech Village 12 Days of Elf
- 10 End of the Year To Do Items for Entrepreneurs
- Accountability Sayings
- Growth Benchmarks for SaaS Startups in the Early Days
- Critical Metrics for SaaS Companies
- 11 Takeaways from the Atlanta Tech Village 3 Year Anniversary
- Must-Have vs Nice-to-Have SaaS Products
- Video of the Week: Product Marketing for Startups
- Buying a Company Just for Lead Generation
- Changing Goal Targets Midway Through the Quarter
- Traction and Traction
- Three Basic Questions to Answer for Every Employee
- The Startup Stages in Blitzscaling
- An Entrepreneur’s Killer Instinct
- Video of the Week: Amazing Amazon Story – Jeff Bezos Speech
- Find an Advisor with Relevant Experience
- Who, What, Why, and When of Accountability
- Weekly Team Update Email
- Applied Analytics with Business Processes + Big Data + Information Rights
- Differing Corporate Cultures and Success
- Video of the Week: Jack Dorsey Interview
- 7 Questions Investors Ask After a Pitch
- Defining the Ideal Customer Profile
- The $5M Number for Growth Stage VCs
- Growth Frameworks and Functions
- Planning for 2016
November 2015
- Notes from the Startup Playbook
- Video of the Week – Instagram Founder Kevin Systrom
- DHH on the Day I Became a Millionaire
- The Thankful Entrepreneur
- 6 Customer Development Questions
- Fewer Series A Rounds than Million Dollar Lottery Winners
- 4 Recommendations for Building a Startup Community
- 8 Metrics Questions to Raise a Series A
- 4 Tips for Recruiting Great Sales Reps
- Video of the Week: How to Build a Startup
- Rise of the Pre-Accelerator Program
- Four Core Energy Needs for High Performance Work
- Customer Discovery as Pre-Selling
- Differentiating Between Innovative and Replicative Businesses
- High and Low Equity Dilution Scenarios
- 7 Quick Tips for Entrepreneurs Starting Out
- Video of the Week: Blitzscaling Session 1 – Household Stage
- Go/No-Go Metrics for Continuing a Startup
- Cockroach Mode for Startups
- Great Variation to Common Questions
- Notes from the Atlassian S-1 IPO Filing
- Working In the Business vs On the Business
- The 10X Rule
- Video of the Week: Salman Khan, Founder of the Khan Academy
- The Huddle Checklist
- The Great Game of Business for Startups
- Defined Exit Strategy or Built to Last
- Founder Value in a $25 Million Exit
- Entrepreneurs as Risk Loving or Risk Averse
- More SMART Goals
October 2015
- Video of the Week: Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone on Luck & Taking Risks
- Employee Goals on the Wall at Lululemon
- A Power Meal Conversation, Reid Hoffman Style
- Customer Acquisition is Harder than Product Development
- Making Less Annually After Selling a Services Business
- 3 Year Anniversary of the Pardot Exit
- Atlanta Tech Village as Meta Company
- Video of the Week: Eric Ries Discusses “The Lean Startup”
- 4 Thoughts on Venture Atlanta 2015
- Angel Capital vs Venture Capital vs Private Equity
- Building a Simply Irresistible Organization
- Revenue Growth vs Logo Growth
- Every Spreadsheet Shared is Another SaaS App
- Inherent Scale to a Business
- Video of the Week: Zappos’ Hsieh on Building a Formidable Brand
- One Downside of Regional Office Recruitment
- Notes from the Square S-1 IPO Filing
- Rigor and Zoompf Unite
- The Best Thing Possible to Help Startup Communities
- Recapitalize or New Entity After a Pivot
- Notes from the Netflix Culture Deck
- Video of Week: Reed Hastings on Netflix
- Impact Builders
- Empire Builder or Lifestyle Builder
- 6 Ways to Improve Executive Summaries After Reviewing 32
- Limited By the Best You’ve Personally Seen
- A Series A VC Roughly Owns 1% Individually
- 3 Reasons Local Investors Don’t Collaborate More
- Video of the Week: Kevin Plank on Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur
- Financial Literacy in Startups
- Inbox Zero and One Page Strategic Plan
September 2015
- Sales and Marketing Drives Successful SaaS Startups
- The Institutional Investor Challenge for Local Venture Funds
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
- The Conundrum for Regional Venture Investors
- Video of the Week: Howard Schultz Talks Business
- The Six Critical Questions for Every Entrepreneur
- How Much Does a Single Cold Call Cost?
- 2015 Venture Atlanta Presenting Companies
- Challenges with Objectives and Key Results
- Objectives and Key Results – OKRs
- Video of the Week: Jack Welch on Creating Candor in the Workplace
- Office Rent as Sign of Startup Spendthrift
- 4 Quick Takeaways from Dreamforce 2015
- 10 Startup Sales Tips from Dreamforce 2015
- Accenture to Acquire Atlanta’s Cloud Sherpas
- 11 Great Ideas from Steve Blank
- Scams Targeting Entrepreneurs
- Atlanta’s Latest Billion Dollar Exit is 24-Year-Old Premiere Global Services
- Video of the Week: Steve Blank – How to Build a Great Company, Step by Step
- Best Places to Work Awards
- High Valuations and the Risk of a Down Round or Layoffs
- Startup Review: Gimme Vending
- Explicitly Prioritizing What’s Important
- 7 Things to Consider Before Raising Institutional Money
- Video of the Week: John Doerr on What It Takes to Be a Remarkable Leader
- The Most Important Equation to Understand the Current Tech Boom
- Build a Three Year Vision Plan
- Side Hustle
- 4 Quick Starting Points for New Angel Investors in Atlanta
- The Power of Recurring Revenue
August 2015
- Making Work Great
- Entrepreneurs Need a Strong Locus of Control
- Video of the Week: TED Conference Richard Branson
- Entrepreneurs with the Killer Instinct
- People, Process, and Technology for New Products
- Comparing SaaS Startup Funding to Revenue
- 16 Startup Metrics for Entrepreneurs to Master
- Revenue-Based Financing for Startups
- Central Non-Profit for Entrepreneurs
- Video of the Week: Patrick Lencioni – The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team
- Raising Angel Money vs. Venture Capital
- 2015 Inc. 500 Software Companies
- 2015 Atlanta Companies on the Inc. 500
- Atlanta Startup Community Panel Takeaways
- Panel Moderator Preparation
- Early SaaS Loans Before Bank Credit Lines
- Video of the Week: Marc Andreessen on Big Breakthrough Ideas and Courageous Entrepreneurs
- A Viewpoint Against Angel Investing
- Second Investment Strategy for a $20 Million Fund
- Investment Strategy for a $20 Million Fund
- More Pro Rata Rights than Ownership Percentage
- Ratio of Deals Reviewed to Investments Made
- Video of the Week: Storyboard of the Lean Startup Introduction
- Staying Connected to the Team as the Company Grows
- Metrics to Raise a Series A
- Most Metrics Don’t Matter at the Beginning
- Generating Ideas for Blog Posts
- Most Popular Blog Posts
- Morning Meetings Only
- More Aggressive Venture Debt Market Opportunity
- Video of the Week – Gary Vaynerchuk USC Entrepreneur Talk 2015
July 2015
- Challenges with the Venture Investment Model
- Accused of Doing Too Much
- Marketing Roadshows
- Hire Sales Reps Ahead of Plan at Scale
- Scholarships at the Atlanta Tech Village
- Entrepreneur Roundtables
- Video of the Week – Peter Thiel on Zero to One
- Start Small and Start Now
- Financial Projections for Startups
- Board Decks Even Without Board Meetings
- Developer Bootcamps
- Putting $1 Million to Work in the Startup Community
- Better Naming Delineation for Seed Stage Startups
- Startup Stages by Revenue
- Presenting the Possible Value of Equity Over Four Years
- The 5x Rule for Salary vs Equity Trade-off
- Customer Success Managers
- Separating a Cash Flow Business from a Venture Backable Startup
- Quantifying Startup Quantity for More Ecosystem Success
- Benefits as a Percentage of Salary
- Video of the Week: Drive – The surprising truth about what motivates us
- Hero and Hassle of the Month
- 3 Main Ways Investors Add Value
- The Power of Getting the Band Back Together
- HR Recruiting and Applicant Tracking Systems
- 26 Lessons Learned from Investing in 26 Startups
- Investing in 100 Startups
- Video of the Week: Randy Pausch Last Lecture
- Generic Market Research Questions
- University-Affiliated Angel Networks
- Solving One Problem Magnifies Another
June 2015
- Tranche Investments in Startups
- What Wasn’t Said in the Response
- SaaS at 3x Revenue – Xactly Follow-up
- Video of the Week: Make Meaning in Your Company
- Talent Recombination in a Startup Community
- Atlanta Tech Village Prioritizing Local Startups
- The Power of Long-Term Compounded Growth
- The Continous Product Management Process
- 24 Months to Get the Startup Going
- Notes from the Xactly S-1 IPO Filing
- Investing in an Entrepreneur and Disliking the Idea
- Scale Needed for Sale
- Entrepreneur by Day, Car Valet by Night
- Atlanta Tech Village as an Accelerant
- Well, There’s Nothing Left to Build
- Startup Review: Rivalry for Sales Coaching Software
- Get on a Plane
- Lessons Learned from Failed Startups
- Economics of a Startup Studio
- High Alpha Studio and Seed
- Use a Daily Process to Achieve Goals
- Demo the Product to the First 1,000 Prospects
- Transparency in a Startup
- No Market for Failed Startup Products
- Notes from the EndoChoice S-1 IPO Filing
- 12 Month Startup Accelerator
- Ask Investors for Help
- Equal Salaries for the First 10 Engineers
- Timing as the Most Important Startup Consideration
- More Outsourced Software Engineering Success Stories
May 2015
- The $250,000 Annual Revenue Run Rate Milestone
- Opportunistic Hiring
- Learn How to Sell
- Startup Review: Terminus
- Startup Pitch Deck Examples and Template
- New Product Idea Generation
- Regular Investor Updates
- Develop an Interview Process Around Culture Fit
- Thoughts on Zombie Startups
- Venture Fund Cash Flow Considerations
- Viewing the Venture World as an LP
- Winning Startup Pitch Competitions
- Challenges with Heavy Startups
- Where Do Entrepreneurs Need Help?
- 2015 Mercer University Commencement Address
- SaaS Business Model and Metrics
- More At-Bats for B2C Startups in the Community
- Thiel’s Paradox
- Learning More Now than While in School
- The 27x Rule for Venture Fund Aggregate Investment Exits
- Unicorn Valuations aren’t the Same as Public Market Valuations
- The Value of Skipping a Financing Round
- Product Pricing
- Mentor Worksheet Idea
- LinkedIn to Find a Co-Founder
- Entrepreneurs Drawn to Starting Incubators
- The Scrappy Virtue for Startups
- Net Promoter Score and Customer Referrals
- More Ideas to Help Entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurs are a Little Crazy
- The Power of a Winning Team
April 2015
- One Way Bigger Valuations Help Recruit Talent
- Scaling Culture in a High Growth Startup
- Understanding Investor Pro-Rata Rights
- Bronto and the Big Bootstrap Exit
- Atlanta Startup Village #27
- Angel Liquidity Fund Idea
- Pooled Angel Investor Liquidity Fund Idea
- Uber Burning $750 Million in a Year
- Do VCs Add Value?
- Accounting Rules Will Drive Companies to Look at Shorter-Term Leases
- The Delta Between a Startup’s General Value and the Value to a Strategic Acquirer
- YC Asset Stripping Entrepreneurial Talent
- Investor IRR on Paper to Raise Another Fund
- More Vertical, Niche SaaS Startups
- Sales Resources for Startups
- Notes from the Shopify S-1 IPO Filing
- Coworking as a Business Opportunity
- When to Pitch at Startup Events
- Comparing SaaS Against the 7 Better Business Model Ideas
- 7 Ideas for Better Business Models
- Gestalt Protocol
- The Non-Valley Valuation Discount
- Front-End Only Minimum Viable Product
- Review of the Previous Quarter
- High EQ, High IQ, and Strong Work Ethic
- The Gap Between Selling a Company and Telling the World
- 9 Entrepreneurial Team Member Traits
- More Confidence With Each Customer Count Milestone
- SalesLoft Badge Unlocked: $10M in Fresh Fuel
- Gmail Productivity Tips
March 2015
- What did you do to prepare for this interview?
- Rise of the On-Demand Marketplace
- One New Insight Per Day
- Marketing Technology as Massive Growth Opportunity
- Checklist of Startup Community Ingredients
- Service Providers as Angel Investors
- 360 Degree Review Improvement Question for Job Interviews
- The Tourist (Investors) are in Town
- Want a Meeting? Bring Two Team Members.
- Startup Positioning Template
- The Why Around Job Changes in Interviews
- 5 Quick Presentation Tips for Startup Pitches
- Money and Energy are Separate Considerations
- Deep Pockets and Short Arms
- The Wallet Test
- Entrepreneurs and Calls from VC Associates
- Failure to Attract Talent Starts with the CEO
- Seed Rounds Up 4x But Series A Rounds Flat
- 5 Ideas for Atlanta to be a Top 5 Tech Startup City
- Atlanta in the Top 10 for Startups Funded
- Finding a Startup CEO Role
- Public SaaS Company Valuations Q1 2015
- Rule of 40% for SaaS Companies
- 16 Signs You’re an Entrepreneur
- More Investor Emphasis on a Repeatable Customer Acquisition Process
- Atlanta Tech Village Job Board as #1 Benefit for Startups Hiring
- Time is the Great Equalizer
- When a Product Works but a Business Doesn’t
- More Venture Capital vs More Local Venture Capital
- Evaluating if a Startup Idea is Good
- Asking if a Startup Idea is Good
February 2015
- What if the Atlanta Tech Village were Free?
- B2B Tech Incubator Entrance Requirements
- VC Managing Partner Economics – Round 2
- Venture Firm Managing Partner Economics
- 50 $5k Bets or 5 $50k Bets
- Technical Review in a Company Acquisition
- Legacy Code Base Challenges
- 90 Days of GitHub Commits
- Ideas for Angel Investor Groups in the Startup Community
- Product and Company Name Should be the Same
- Product or Sales Startup CEO
- A Startup’s Product Roadmap
- Regularly Engaging with Business Leaders Outside the Startup Community
- Think IPO Roadshow When Raising a Venture Round
- Before Raising an Angel Round
- Escalating Carried Interest for Venture Investors
- Creating a Competitive Fundraising Process
- Market Clearing Valuation for Entrepreneur’s Raising Money
- Why No Equity Component at the Atlanta Tech Village
- Metrics Consistency in Conversations
- The Push and Pull Between Sales and Engineering
- Quickly Evaluating a Potential SaaS Investment
- Inevitability of Success with Near Initial Traction
- Consulting to Fund Product Development
- Revenue Growth in the Early Startup Years
- Triple, Triple, Double, Double, Double
- Let’s Talk Over Email
- The Law of Large Numbers and Startup Growth
January 2015
- Raising Money vs Growing Organically
- Creating a Great Environment for Software Engineers
- Recruiting Software Engineers
- 731 RSVPs for the Atlanta Startup Village
- Straight from College to Startup CEO
- Employee Turnover in a Startup
- Favorite General Conversation Question
- Rolling into a Crowded Market
- Favorite Question to Ask Entrepreneurs
- Build a Recruiting Pipeline Prior to Financing
- Nice Chairs and Cheap Desks
- Equity Dilution in a Startup
- Sell 20% of the Equity Per Round of Investment
- Discuss the Ideal Exit with Investors
- The Relationship Between Commercial Real Estate and the Media
- Corporate Culture isn’t Defined by Benefits
- Rise of Sales Development
- 4 Resources to Find a Tech Startup Job
- SaaS Funding Relative to Recurring Revenue
- Initial Product-Market Fit
- 3 Atlanta Startup Community Themes
- SaaS Value Creation is Back-Loaded
- Losing Product-Market Fit
- Time for Tactical and Strategic Work
- SaaS Metrics Cheat Sheet
- VCs Outside the Valley Play a Different Game
- Make a Good Decision, Learn from It, and Move Forward
- 3 SaaS Market Types to Consider
- Comparing Two Strategic Directions
- Consulting Services Revenue in SaaS
- Do More Good Stuff in 2015