Roundtable Recap: April 23 – You Cannot Build Too Many Things in One Startup

During this week’s roundtable, we had a heated argument with one of the entrepreneurs. I told him that he’s doing too many things and it isn’t possible to build a successful startup with so many agendas right at the beginning. Unfortunately, I see this flawed thinking fairly often in entrepreneurs. MarketKrystal As for the pitches, first

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Why Hypergrowth Is Rare for Startups

I have been running the 1Mby1M global virtual accelerator since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years, which is hypergrowth.

How to Validate a Startup Idea Before Writing Any Code

You should not spend 5-7 years of your life on a bogus startup idea. Before you commit invaluable years of your life to an idea, before you write a line of code, you should TEST your idea. How do you do that?

Turning Services into Startup Traction

Bootstrapping a startup to early revenues by providing services is a tried and true methodology that we practice and espouse in 1Mby1M. Why is this set of skills so important? Raising funding for startups in Silicon Valley is a low-probability game. Fewer than 1% who try actually succeed.

Why Stealth Mode Kills More Startups Than It Saves

I want to share with you an observation from running the 1Mby1M program since 2008. Almost 700 free mentoring roundtables with over 300k entrepreneurs. Thousands of case studies of successful entrepreneurs – the who’s who of tech startups – through interview based methodology development. Thousands and thousands of premium member coaching sessions. Some entrepreneurs are

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How You Can Plan for an Early Exit

Did you know that the vast majority of acquisitions happen in the sub $50 million valuation range? The best way to make money off such acquisitions is to build a startup with capital efficiency. If you can bootstrap, great. If not, raise small amounts of money so that you own a large percentage of the

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Positioning Drives Velocity

VCs are salivating over ultralight startups right now. The stigma around solo entrepreneurs will vanish soon. Positioning will remain key to achieving Velocity. And Velocity will continue to drive Fundability. Are you trying to raise money for your startup and getting rejections? It’s worth understanding WHY. VCs are looking for Velocity. Their goal is to

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Bootstrapping in the Age of AI

The Age of AI is also the golden age of Bootstrapping. And it is the golden age of Solo Entrepreneurs. With AI, you can build a lot in an ultralight mode and get VCs salivating. The key is Positioning. Let’s discuss the nuances.