I’ve been reviewing several pitches for capital written by some of my new clients who are Internet entrepreneurs.   These pitches are generally targeting venture capitalists who invest in new Internet companies.  We are working together to expand our capital strategy to reach beyond the venture community in these economic times.
When seeking funding in this broader [...]

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I have been in a series of meetings with early-stage technology companies lately, discussing strategic capital.  These founders and CEOs started developing their technology before the current economic crisis, and have rightly continued their progress.   Some have revenue from a separate side of their business, some don’t. Some have received initial funding from professional sources, [...]

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My friend and colleague, LeeAundra Temescu, is an award-winning executive communications coach.  Her excellence lies not just in her experience training her clients in public speaking, but in her strategy helping them understand their goals, their next choices, and how to achieve them through positioning and presentation in public. She offers us this advice.  Find [...]

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I’ve been out and about lately, speaking at conferences, visiting colleagues, seeing clients in remote places and meeting new contacts and prospects.  The entire range of the economic condition is on view:  employees with secure jobs, consultants with long-term retainers, folks out of work for a long time, consultants struggling to find new gigs, managers [...]

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My close colleague, Gene Siciliano (our “CFO for rent” at www.cfoforrent.com) is an excellent strategist, consultant and speaker.  His website is filled with resources and articles, and you can sign up for his newsletter.  I wanted to share this article with you about his strategies for cost cutting.

It’s a recession, and a really bad one [...]

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Work engagements – jobs, top management positions, consulting gigs – are no longer secure.  As the current recession has shown (again), loyalty to your job does not always mean that the Company’s promises are kept.  Capital commitments from investors not yet in the bank often mean your start-up will be left without the cash.  Newly-recruited [...]

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Recent posts have dealt with entrepreneurs and their consultants planning the endgame of the entrepreneur’s company.  Now let’s consider how consulting practices survive during downturns.
A consulting practice is itself, of course, an entrepreneurial venture. As a service business, it has different market pressures and costs, but other issues remain in common with product businesses.  And [...]

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If you choose to consult deeply and over the long term with small business entrepreneurs from the early stages of their companies, this is the moment when a good consultant must stay the course, and you must stay next to your client through to the end, without expectation of payment of your fees, or even [...]

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Mr. or Ms. Entrepreneur, if you have run out of options and it is time to plan your endgame, now is the time to be calm.

If, to be calm, you must break down and emote, start now.  Be mad, be glad, be sad, say everything that is socially unacceptable to say (privately), blame [...]

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As I had said in October 2008 when the banks began failing, we are in for a long recession and a serious failure rate among small business owners.  I listen to the economists every day and understand that the current (Q2/2009) uptick in the stock market is a “leading” indicator to recovery.  This means it [...]

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