Founders – Helge Seetzen

Entrepreneurship , venture capital series

Start-up Fundamentals

A game-changing idea is only one of the ingredients you will need to launch a successful new business. Without the right team and a commitment to ongoing fundraising, your brilliant new venture will flounder. This article is the first of five in a series by a venture capital expert who...

January 6, 2015February 9, 2018

Entrepreneurship

How Success is the Best Brand Builder of All

As an accelerator that focuses on working with university inventors to build great products, and who invests heavily in young talent, the role of a university education is a constant source of internal conversation. As a result, I’ve taken quite an interest in the Thiel Fellowship; Peter Thiel’s idea...

December 17, 2013June 30, 2017

Entrepreneurship

The Student/Entrepreneur Cheat Sheet: Balancing School and Entrepreneurship

I’ve written in the past about the challenges of being an academic and an entrepreneur (here, here, here and here), and it’s one of the more common topics I get asked about. Many students come to me with questions on balance – how do they get their entrepreneur career...

June 6, 2013June 27, 2017

Entrepreneurship

3 Simple Steps for Pitching Your Technology

One of the pitfalls of many tech entrepreneurs is pitching their solution simply and clearly. What is it? What does it do? Is it actually useful? Often, we’ll get stuck either trying to explain it all at once or getting too technical for our audience. We recently had an...

May 30, 2013June 30, 2017

Entrepreneurship

Take your Late Nights Early in the Game

I was reflecting over the holidays about my university days working on grant applications after an email from an inventor about a team grant that “was much less straight forward than hoped.” The second I read the word ‘team’, visions of last minute faxes, conference calls, and strategically timed...

January 2, 2013October 29, 2019

Entrepreneurship , People

Is your Startup Ready for Titles?

In a startup things move constantly, roles change and within a few months people swing from one side of the spectrum to the other depending on their immediate needs. This works well when the team is small and people feel ownership of the whole project. I’ve had multiple roles...

December 11, 2012June 30, 2017

Entrepreneurship

When Co-Founder Asymmetry Works

I recently listed co-founder asymmetry as one of the key failure conditions for startups. While definitely a major cause of startup collapse, there is one scenario where co-founder asymmetry can work well enough: university spin-outs where you have student-professor partnership. Students don’t have the expertise and seniority of their...

October 30, 2012June 30, 2017

Entrepreneurship , People

Why Does Hiring Feel Like Dating?

You are managing a startup. It is growing quickly and you have personally become the entire human resources department. And admit it, you under estimated the time it takes to find the right person who will understand the business vision and fit in with your culture. Are you meeting...

October 23, 2012June 27, 2017

Entrepreneurship , People

The CTO Role Broken Down

The CTO fills a critical role in a technology startup. The title is really broad, and people tend to cling to different aspects of it, but what do you really need your CTO to do in a startup? Here’s a quick breakdown for aspiring Chief Technology (or Technical) Officers....

May 22, 2012July 4, 2017

Entrepreneurship

Perspective on Failure

A few weeks ago towards the end of an engineer’s interview she asked me a very interesting question, “Have you ever failed at anything?” That really got me to thinking. Looking back, if I were to describe my life I would say that I have been extremely fortunate. I...

April 3, 2012July 4, 2017

Tag: Founders