FoundRead

Venture Capital, Angels or Bootstrap?

Greg Linden was one of the key developers behind Amazon’s recommendations system, which recommends books, movies, and other products to Amazon customers based on their purchase history. He subsequently went to Stanford and picked up an MBA, and in January 2004, he launched a startup named… Read More »

If you’re bootstrapping your startup, offshoring your web development is a great way to save money. But it’s also fraught with risk. Working with remote contractors makes it far harder to manage project development and communicate ideas. Taking proper steps to protect yourself is crucial. I’ve been… Read More »

We hear often that speed is a virtue in the startup trade. Mike Cassidy thinks speed is the highest virtue, in fact. (Check out his presentation, Speeding Up All Parts of a Startup, which we found via Venture Hacks earlier this week.) As luck would have it,… Read More »

We’ve written recently about how to preserve your equity when fundraising. This week we spoke with serial entrepreneur Chris Michel, who explained why founders should not be afraid to give additional equity disbursements — out of their personal stakes! — to reward senior staffers. That’s what Michel… Read More »

People talk about “selling” technology products all the time, but they usually mean licensing them. Licensing is actually the most common way that technology companies generate revenue. A “sale” occurs when ownership of the product changes hands completely. A “license” is when some portion… Read More »

Last October, Found|READ lunched with serial entrepreneur and Lookery cofounder Scott Rafer, who gloomily predicted the technology industry was “no more than five months away from the next bust.” Pessimistic, even for the opinionated Rafer, but then he knows a thing or two about successes (MyBlogLog),… Read More »

I recently had dinner with a friend of mine, a physician-turned-businessperson-turned-founder. We were discussing the virtues of transferable skills, and I asked him what management tools he brings to entrepreneurship from his earlier career in medicine. He pondered a bit before confessing that radiology skills don’t,… Read More »

F|R Crib Sheet: The Term Sheet Glossary

I work as an attorney to a lot of company founders, and I know from experience that when the time comes to negotiate a round of funding, entrepreneurs often find themselves at a disadvantage. Much of it has to do with language. There is an array… Read More »

3 Ways to Win the David vs. Googliath Fight

In 1999, half a dozen venture capitalists turned me down for financing because the business plan for my company, BlueTie, put me in direct competition with Microsoft. There simply was no point, they said; between its desktop monopoly, ranks of talent and outsized bank account, Microsoft… Read More »

Why Small Really Is Beautiful

VCs might dismiss small startups as “lifestyle companies,” since with only small investments needed they’re often too small for big VC firms to work with. But for the entrepreneurs themselves, it’s a way to keep control and avoid dilution. And there may be another reason not… Read More »

Email This
  or cancel