BizSugar.com › User › martinzwilling › Submitted

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. If you need funding for Read More

A common challenge faced by every entrepreneur is that they don’t have the bandwidth, interest or skills to do everything that is required to build their startup. Of course, they can outsource part of the work or hire employees, but that approach means more time and money to manage the work, which Read More

As a business advisor, I meet many business professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs who are anxious to be their own boss, or have an innovative idea to start or acquire a new business. I have to tell each of you that starting and growing a new business is a long hard road, but can be very exciting Read More

Being an entrepreneur seems to be one of the most popular lifestyle aspirations these days. According to most definitions, anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur, but most people don’t realize there are many startup types out there, and picking the wrong one can be just as disastrous as be Read More

Most business advisors I know will say that writing a business plan is the first step to starting your own business, but I believe that a better first step is to do a self-analysis of your real drivers, strengths, and assumptions before committing to this lifestyle. As a result, you may tune your p Read More

When an entrepreneur first incorporates a business, they may find themselves the proud owner of 10 million shares of common stock, commonly called founder’s shares. It’s disconcerting for most to realize that these shares are initially worth nothing, and the challenge is to get that value up as qui Read More

As a business consultant and angel investor, I often ask for your own assessment of marketing ROI, or customer acquisition cost (CAC). While I realize that a high level of certainty in these numbers is an elusive goal, the value of doing the work, and benchmarking your business against competitors Read More

Many first-time entrepreneurs find themselves unable to bootstrap their startups, and also unable to find early funding at the venture capital level or even with angel investors. Their only recourse is that first tier of investors, fondly called Friends, Family and Fools. These are the only people Read More

In the last few years I have seen a popular business model emerging which embodies a greater focus on social and environmental responsibility, and a new requirement for trust and sharing, as well as customer and community collaboration. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, Zappos, and Whole Foods are setti Read More

No matter how hard you work as a business leader or entrepreneur, you can’t sustain consistent results without an equally hardworking team, each with a learning mindset. In fact, in my experience as an executive and a mentor to entrepreneurs, sustainable results require a balance between hard work Read More