ShareVenture Hacks has a good article on how to pick a co-founder. As you may see in another post, the best co-founder in my opinion is nobody. But if you do absolutely need a co-founder, go check out the entry, a few tips from which I’ve included here:
Three co-founders is too many
Think of Wozniak & [...]
ShareThere’s a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which Calvin asks Susie if she’ll give him a nickel for eating a worm. When she quickly says yes, Calvin realizes that he could have gotten more, and asks for a dime. Susie says no. Calvin complains “Man, you’d think that a guy eating a worm could get [...]
ShareLet’s take a quick quiz on copyrights.
Question 1
You write a rhyming recipe book, indicate your copyright with ©, and register it with the Copyright Office. Someone then clearly takes one of your recipes and puts them in their own recipe book.
Has your copyright been infringed?
Answer
No. Copyrights, and patents and trademarks, for that matter, don’t protect [...]
ShareA trademark is one of the most important things any company can own, and yet many people with new businesses know next to nothing about them.
Here’s what I’ve learned for my part, some of it painfully, but thankfully not fatally.
Trademarks are for phrases, names, and logos. The most important thing to trademark is usually your [...]
ShareThere are many good articles about patents, so I just want to address what I think is the biggest misconception I’ve heard from entrepreneurs. It is:
Once I get a patent, nobody else can sell my product.
Would that the world were so simple. A lot of entrepreneurs have unrealistic expectations surrounding patents.
One fine day I was [...]
ShareYou have a hot shot attorney. The kind that can get the major players in your industry on the phone. He/she knows the basic terms of the most recent industry deals, and is a fearless negotiator. Folks aren’t happy to get letters from them on the fancy letterhead with all the partner names. So when [...]
ShareHow many times have you seen (or written!) something like the following:
“Based on our revolutionary technology that offers five times the current industry standard performance at one tenth the average price, we predict that by Year 3, we will capture 20% of the $2 billion worldwide market.”
This is what I call the “If we only [...]
ShareI’ve seen umpteen business plans / prospectuses / PPMS and the like where the Use of Proceeds earmarks a full competitive salary for the entrepreneur(s) and also repays them what they’ve put into the business so far. Ask the entrepreneur about this, and they’ll usually say something along the lines of “I’m taking so much [...]
ShareI’ve been involved in lots of start-ups, and seen many more over the years. From my successful and tragic experiences, I’ve decided that if I can do without three things in particular, I’m off to a good start.
No Partners
If you’ve had a business partnership go south, you know just how bad it can get. Shouting [...]
ShareIn case you haven’t heard the phrase “done deal,” it’s used to mean that an agreement with someone, written or otherwise, is all but signed or shook on. (For now, let’s assume that “signed” also means agreed upon formally when there is no written agreement, as verbal agreements can be binding.) It implies that the [...]
