Tech Startup Toolkit


Book Description

Essential advice for anyone aspiring to start up a technology company, based on decades of business experience. In Tech Startup Toolkit, you’ll discover the good, the bad, and the ugly of succeeding with a tech startup. Author Jothy Rosenberg reveals the insights he’s learned from an entrepreneurial career that’s seen both $100 million sales, dramatic failures, and everything in between. Tech Startup Toolkit gives you concrete, actionable advice on how to: • Succeed as a first-time CEO • Pitch and raise money from various types of investors • Develop a go-to-market strategy • Create a strong positive culture • Understand what makes a VC tick • Write an elevator pitch • Understand investment deal terms • Hone and align teams • Effectively downsize or wind down a company • Position a company to be acquired In Tech Startup Toolkit Jothy tells stories from his incredible career that will give guidance and inspiration to anyone who’s ever thought of creating or running a company. Every personal story teaches a vital lesson for any would-be startup founder, ensuring you avoid the pitfalls that end less-prepared companies. Foreword by Vivjan Myrto. About the technology Why do eight out of ten tech startups fail? Is it inevitable? In Tech Startup Toolkit, nine-time tech startup founder Jothy Rosenberg tells you how to beat the odds. Part memoir and part survival guide, this book delivers battle-tested, unvarnished advice on capital, culture, boards, marketing, and management. About the book Tech Startup Toolkit covers everything a new founder needs to ensure a great idea can become a stable tech company that’s ripe for acquisition. In 31 short anecdotes from Jothy’s extensive experience, you’ll learn how to pitch investors, develop a go-to-market strategy, and build the leadership skills that really matter for a great startup CEO. And since forewarned is forearmed, you’ll also find strategies to handle challenges like funding loss, competition, and unpredictable crises like Covid-19 that break lesser startups. About the reader For prospective founders, early-stage teams, and anyone interested in tech entrepreneurship. About the author Jothy Rosenberg has been an incorrigible entrepreneur since 1988. Formerly the VP of Borland’s developer division, Jothy has founded and run nine technology startups, two of which had $100 million exits. Table of Contents PART 1 1 Scratching the startup itch: How I became an incorrigible entrepreneur 2 What makes you think you are CEO material? 3 A venture-backed turnaround: A dangerous place to be 4 The founding team. Who’s in and who’s not? PART 2 5 Friends and family, angels, venture capital, or strategic? 6 Angels: Your bridge financing solution 7 The art of pitching to institutional investors 8 Investors aren’t your friends 9 Understand the VC business model. Raise money faster 10 Seed: The first priced round 11 Term sheets: An institutional investor wants to invest in you 12 Due Diligence: An exam you must pass PART 3 13 Your business model. The beating heart of your business 14 Getting to a minimum viable product with lighthouse customers 15 Product-Market Fit. Making sure the dogs will eat your dog food 16 Go-to-Market: How to make your business viable and grow 17 A formal business plan in ten steps 18 Burn rate and runway—or where is the edge of that cliff? 19 Achieving cash-flow positive: A startup’s Holy Grail 20 Your startup’s valuation: Up, up, up (hopefully) PART 4 21 Hire slowly—and correctly 22 Beyond foosball: Crafting a positive culture that retains your team 23 Does a startup need both a CEO and COO? 24 Marketing: Too often a startup’s afterthought 25 The right character for sales leader—and when to hire them PART 5 26 Startup boards: The good, (and how to prevent) the bad, and the ugly 27 Board observers: Observe only please 28 Investor communications. They needn’t be cod liver oil 29 Heaven forbid if you must downsize 30 Heaven forbid if you must wind it up 31 Acquisition: Your financial dream come true Appendix




Redesigning Asian Business


Book Description

With much of the Asian Miracle destroyed and much of the Western world's awe for Asian ways of management dissipated, organizations there are changing with such speed that most of our knowledge about them is quickly outdated. Richter takes stock of East Asian management practices, as they are perceived so far, and he discusses the strategies that others propose to help Asian management redesign itself for the future—including a long-term agenda for change based on the cultural heritage of Confucianism. He analyzes the cultural underpinnings of Asian management practices, evaluates the influence of the Asian economic crisis on them, and discusses their potential for guiding Asian firms to a sustainable competitive advantage. He then provides examples of how Asian firms shape up their organizations and describes a short-term agenda to fix the weaknesses in Asian management, at least temporarily. Throughout, Richter avoids talk about strategic management as merely a theory: he adopts a broader definition that includes a value system to guide East Asian firms as they re-emerge and redevelop. The result is a challenging, intensely pragmatic analysis for decision-makers at all levels, in all countries and cultures, and it is a new stone in the foundation of academic research and thought. Richter opens with a discussion of the legacy of Confucianism and its impact on Asian management practices. He then proposes three intrinsic characteristics of Asian management: networks, trust, and collectivism. He gives a history of the Asian economic crisis, highlighting the failures of Asia's economic development and the flaws that appeared in its management practices. The third section of the book evaluates management practices that have emerged since then, and how they are perceived so far. Then, in the concluding section, he presents a new perspective on Asian management, short-term goals (fixing current management weaknesses), and long-term goals (incorporating its long abiding strengths). Throughout, Richter draws on the management theory enunciated by Hofstede and includes examples and case studies of recent developments across the region, and he also includes his own theories as well as those of others. Mr. Richter's book will be a welcome addition to the literature on business and the culture of Asia.




Revolutionary Wealth


Book Description

Starting with the publication of their seminal bestseller, Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi Toffler have given millions of readers new ways to think about personal life in today’s high-speed world with its constantly changing, seemingly random impacts on our businesses, governments, families and daily lives. Now, writing with the same rare grasp and clarity that made their earlier books classics, the Tofflers turn their attention to the revolution in wealth now sweeping the planet. And once again, they provide a penetrating, coherent way to make sense of the seemingly senseless.Revolutionary Wealth is about how tomorrow’s wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But twenty-first-century wealth, according to the Tofflers, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics. Thus they write here about everything from education and child rearing to Hollywood and China, from everyday truth and misconceptions to what they call our “third job”—the unnoticed work we do without pay for some of the biggest corporations in our country. They show the hidden connections between extreme sports, chocolate chip cookies, Linux software and the “surplus complexity” in our lives as society wobbles back and forth between depressing decadence and a hopeful post-decadence. In their earlier work, the Tofflers coined the word “prosumer” for people who consume what they themselves produce. In Revolutionary Wealth they expand the concept to reveal how many of our activities—whether parenting or volunteering, blogging, painting our house, improving our diet, organizing a neighborhood council or even “mashing” music—pump “free lunch” from the “hidden” non-money economy into the money economy that economists track. Prosuming, they forecast, is about to explode and compel radical changes in the way we measure, make and manipulate wealth. Blazing with fresh ideas, Revolutionary Wealth provides readers with powerful new tools for thinking about—and preparing for—their future.




Innovation and Change in Japanese Management


Book Description

'Innovation and Change in Japanese Management' shows which transformation processes and changes can be observed in Japanese companies in reaction to the economic challenges of the past decade. The book presents new research results and investigates the variety of changes that Japanese corporations and managers have experienced in recent years.




The Startup Community Way


Book Description

The Way Forward for Entrepreneurship Around the World We are in the midst of a startup revolution. The growth and proliferation of innovation-driven startup activity is profound, unprecedented, and global in scope. Today, it is understood that communities of support and knowledge-sharing go along with other resources. The importance of collaboration and a long-term commitment has gained wider acceptance. These principles are adopted in many startup communities throughout the world. And yet, much more work is needed. Startup activity is highly concentrated in large cities. Governments and other actors such as large corporations and universities are not collaborating with each other nor with entrepreneurs as well as they could. Too often, these actors try to control activity or impose their view from the top-down, rather than supporting an environment that is led from the bottom-up. We continue to see a disconnect between an entrepreneurial mindset and that of many actors who wish to engage with and support entrepreneurship. There are structural reasons for this, but we can overcome many of these obstacles with appropriate focus and sustained practice. No one tells this story better than Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway. The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem explores what makes startup communities thrive and how to improve collaboration in these rapidly evolving, complex environments. The Startup Community Way is an explanatory guide for startup communities. Rooted in the theory of complex systems, this book establishes the systemic properties of entrepreneurial ecosystems and explains why their complex nature leads people to make predictable mistakes. As complex systems, value creation occurs in startup communities primarily through the interaction of the "parts" - the people, organizations, resources, and conditions involved - not the parts themselves. This continual process of bottom-up interactions unfolds naturally, producing value in novel and unexpected ways. Through these complex, emergent processes, the whole becomes greater and substantially different than what the parts alone could produce. Because of this, participants must take a fundamentally different approach than is common in much of our civic and professional lives. Participants must take a whole-system view, rather than simply trying to optimize their individual part. They must prioritize experimentation and learning over planning and execution. Complex systems are uncertain and unpredictable. They cannot be controlled, only guided and influenced. Each startup community is unique. Replication is enticing but impossible. The race to become "The Next Silicon Valley" is futile - even Silicon Valley couldn't recreate itself. This book: Offers practical advice for entrepreneurs, community builders, government officials, and other stakeholders who want to harness the power of entrepreneurship in their city Describes the core components of startup communities and entrepreneurial ecosystems, as well as an explanation of the differences between these two related, but distinct concepts Advances a new framework for effective startup community building based on the theory of complex systems and insights from systems thinking Includes contributions from leading entrepreneurial voices Is a must-have resource for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, executives, business and community leaders, economic development authorities, policymakers, university officials, and anyone wishing to understand how startup communities work anywhere in the world




IT Policy and Ethics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications


Book Description

IT policies are set in place to streamline the preparation and development of information communication technologies in a particular setting. IT Policy and Ethics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a comprehensive collection of research on the features of modern organizations in order to advance the understanding of IT standards. This is an essential reference source for researchers, scholars, policymakers, and IT managers as well as organizations interested in carrying out research in IT policies.




Bridging Islands


Book Description

The innovative strength of the world's two largest economies, the United States and Japan, are based on two different forms of industrial and social organization. For the United States, venture companies play a key role in technical and economic progress, while in Japan they have only a minor role. In Bridging Islands, Robert Kneller argues that without vibrant new high technology companies, Japanese industry will decline inexorably. At the same time, if the favorable yet delicate environment in America is undermined, America will face collapse of its innovative and economic strength. Japan has done much to improve its environment for high technology ventures. It has some promising new high technology companies and gradually increasing numbers of entrepreneurial scientists and managers. But they continue to swim against the current. One reason is that large, established companies dominate high technology fields and pursue an autarkic innovation strategy-relying on research in-house or in affiliated companies. Another reason is that these same large companies still have preferential access to university discoveries, largely because of government policies. Thus, high technology ventures are deprived of niches in which to grow, skilled personnel, and their natural customer base. In the field of university-industry relations, steps can still be taken to improve the environment for high technology ventures-steps that would also increase the quality of university science. The American-Japanese innovation dichotomy represents a broader dichotomy between so-called liberal and coordinated market economies. The lessons from these two countries' experiences are applicable to many industrialized countries, and to developing countries shaping their innovation systems. Bridging Islands is an integrated examination of the key role of venture companies in national technical and economic success, with important implications for academics, entrepreneurs, industry and technology managers, and policy-makers.




Knowledge Management 2.0: Organizational Models and Enterprise Strategies


Book Description

In the last few years, knowledge management practices have evolved in organizations. The introduction of Web 2.0 technologies has encouraged new methods of information usage and knowledge sharing, which are frequently used by employees who already rely on these Web 2.0 technologies in their personal lives. Knowledge Management 2.0: Organizational Models and Enterprise Strategies provides an overview of theoretical and empirical research on knowledge management generation in the Web 2.0 age. Research in this book highlights knowledge management evolution with a global focus and investigates the impact knowledge management 2.0 has on business models, enterprise governance and strategies, human resources, and IT design, implementation, and appropriation in organizations.




The Business Reinvention of Japan


Book Description

After two decades of reinvention, Japanese companies are re-emerging as major players in the new digital economy. They have responded to the rise of China and new global competition by moving upstream into critical deep-tech inputs and advanced materials and components. This new "aggregate niche strategy" has made Japan the technology anchor for many global supply chains. Although the end products do not carry a "Japan Inside" label, Japan plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives across many critical industries. This book is an in-depth exploration of current Japanese business strategies that make Japan the world's third-largest economy and an economic leader in Asia. To accomplish their reinvention, Japan's largest companies are building new processes of breakthrough innovation. Central to this book is how they are addressing the necessary changes in organizational design, internal management processes, employment, and corporate governance. Because Japan values social stability and economic equality, this reinvention is happening slowly and methodically, and has gone largely unnoticed by Western observers. Yet, Japan's more balanced model of "caring capitalism" is both competitive and transformative, and more socially responsible than the unbridled growth approach of the United States.