Review: Did you know that China discovered America 70 years before Columbus? If you don’t believe me, read the book “1421” by Gavin Menzies. I just finished reading it and was amazed to learn that China was a maritime superpower in the 15th century, with the world’s largest fleet.
Rating: ★★★
What’s your valuation? The only way to know is to find out the valuation of similar startups. To do this, ask friendly VCs and advisors who have access to lots of deals and know the funding market. You can also reach out to other startup founders. And you can use an investor account to access valuations on Angel.co and similar sites.
Joe Boyle has joined Founders Space as a Mentor. He has been designing and building production infrastructure and product solutions in startups since 1997. After cutting his teeth with real-time process control systems, in 2001 Joe began to specialize in computer security.
With nCircle Network Security, Joe built and deployed several network security solutions including intrusion detection systems, upgrade management systems, and a risk assessment system. In 2009 Joe moved into the hardware security space where he designed and deployed a software management system for Cryptography Research’s anti-counterfeiting solutions, providing a secure key delivery mechanism to manufacturing sites around the world.
Since 2014 Joe has been focusing on Virtual Reality, including creating and deploying the content management system for River Studios.
Don’t try to prove your business model works. Instead try to prove it doesn’t work. Think of everything you can do to show your startup can never become a big business. If you succeed, celebrate and try something new. You just saved yourself a lot of time and money.
Sylvester Kaczmarek is an award-winning entrepreneur and product manager with over 16 years of international, quality-driven IT industry experience.
His expertise in business strategy, operations, and product strategy has brought leadership and financial growth to companies such as Viacom, GREE, Disney, Nickelodeon, BBC, and many more. He has worked with brands such as Marvel, The Godfather, Pacific Rim, Rolling Stone Mag, Prada, and celebrities.
Kaczmarek bootstrapped two successful software companies. Sold one, and took the other one (ComAngle Entertainment) from startup to globally operating award-winning (MOBBYS 2014 and IAMAI Awards 2015) game studio. Improving the world through the use of modern technology has become his primary focus, and he is interested in using artificial intelligence (AI) to solve the world’s biggest problems through a combination of humans and machines working together in integrated intelligence.
Andrew Romans is the co-founder and General Partner of Rubicon Venture Capital, an early stage VC fund with offices in San Francisco and New York City. He is the author of Masters of Corporate Venture Capital and The Entrepreneurial Bible to Venture Capital: Inside Secrets from the Leaders in the Startup Game.
Romans also advises corporates on CVC programs. Founder and President of The Global TeleExchange (The GTX), where he raised $50m from VCs and corporates, built and managed a team of 90. Andrew was also a Managing Partner at Georgetown Venture Partners (GVP), a venture capital focused boutique investment bank in London active in Europe, the US and Israel and Georgetown Angels, a global angel group. General Partner of The Founders Club, focused on secondaries & equity exchange VC funds where Romans recruited 42 VCs from the US, Europe and Israel to the advisory board.
Managing Director of EMEA at VC-backed Sentito Networks (acquired by Verso Technologies). Managed enterprise software sales at VC-backed Motive Communications (NASDAQ IPO) opening new markets in France, Benelux, Scandinavia and Ireland. Opened new markets and acted as country manager for fiber optic cable manufacturing and turn-key project construction company Dura-Line in the UK, Austria, Czech & Slovak Republics, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Andrew is a frequent venture capital guest speaker on TV shows including MSNBC, CNBC and ABC as well as various TV in China and Russia.
Review: Just read “The One Minute Manager” and enjoyed it. It’s a quick, fun read. It gives advice on how to manage employees in one minute sessions. As you’d expect, it’s somewhat idealized and impractical. No one can really be a “one minute” manager. But the core ideas and insights into human psychology are valuable.
Rating: ★★★★
Whenever something doesn’t go right for me, which happens quite often, I ask myself, “Will I even remember this a year from now? And if I do, will I care?” The answer is almost always no. This allows me to let go of all the stress and return to feeling content.
Review: Here’s another mind-blowing book I just read: “A Bridge Too Far” by Cornelius Ryan. If you think of doing a startup as going to war, then this epic WWII history can teach you something about strategy, resilience and the dangers of oversized egos.
Rating: ★★★★★
Review: Just finished reading “Dowager Empress Cixi” by Jung Chang. This amazing book rewrites history, telling the truth about this incredible woman, who led China through difficult times despite intense opposition and at great personal cost.
Rating: ★★★★★
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