I once had a seasoned VC board member tell me that the nastiest divorce is often cleaner than most partner breakups.

Startups with more than one founder are more likely to succeed than those with only one founder: double the mind share, double the work done, double the domain experience and the ability to bounce ideas off of each other are benefits that are hard to argue with. If having a partner is such a good thing, then why do they often go bad? Continue Reading »

Later stage companies grow in a fairly predictable manner and their future focus areas and activities are also predictable. For instance, the management team at John Deere can probably look out at least a year and make very accurate projections about their likely growth, product mix, key management challenges and deliverables, etc. In contrast, a year in the life of a start-up will be filled with unexpected changes in people, plans, focus areas, etc. Given that start-ups usually have limited cash, it is extremely important to understand what matters in the big picture and, therefore, how to make decisions as time unfolds so that the company is constantly tracking towards a good outcome. When we begin working with a start-up company, we always deploy two tools early on: a DashBoard and a ScoreCard. Continue Reading »