It was 2008, pre-crisis. My startup was the world leader in mobile travel apps, and Sequoia were interested. Interested enough to go through successful partner meetings, market due diligence and a green light at a partnership meeting. Then they asked for the Cap Table. A few days later I was…

As a startup CEO, you’re probably looking forward to your next board meeting with a similar level of anticipation that is often reserved for dentist appointments. Who doesn’t like getting naked in front of a committee whose sole power is firing you, and spending 2 hours in what is basically…

…Dedicated to the memory of the late David Ladd, my best and favorite board-member ever. “Today is a great day. I am going to a startup board meeting”… said no one ever. And yet if you are an investor or a founder, this is part of your life, and a…

It was early 2009, and we were seated in a conference room at a Tel Aviv office tower. Leaders from Israel’s cellular carriers and top mobile startups were seated around the table. Bo Ilsoe, a corporate venture capitalist at the world’s #1 cellphone company was giving a strategic briefing (Nokia…

Last week, we had the good fortune of having two Masters of Sales join our meeting to shed some light on best practices in Sales: Pete Kazanjy, Founder & CEO of sales performance analytics co. Atrium, and the author of Founding Sales the startup sales handbook. Alon Zaibert, Founder of…

You are a smart, scrappy entrepreneur. You are hustling, trying to get in front of customers, partners, investors. You are closing your first pilots, your first seed investments, your first distribution partnership. And you are staying organized, right? You probably have a spreadsheet somewhere, or a beautiful Coda shared doc…

If you read The 7 Pilots That Will Crash Your Startup, you know all about the pitfalls of a pilot-driven sales / business development process, and you’ve seen a list of tell-tale signals that a proposed pilot stinks. …

If you’re running a B2B startup with a high priced product (say >$100K Annual Contract Value) then “pilots” / “trials” / “Proof of Concept” are an essential stage in your sales pipeline. If you’re at an early stage and your product is a component in your customers’, signing these PoCs…

You are a brilliant engineer and/or product manager. You saw an opportunity in a market, teamed up with your favorite co-founder(s) and hacked together an MVP. Through personal relationships, endless cold-calling or some elevator pitch at an industry event you managed to land your first customer. Early success led to…