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Elon Musk: “3 Secrets of my Success”
Are you up for a wild ride through the mind of an rock-star entrepreneur? Give Elon Musk a call and ask him to share his secrets to success. I did just that and the 39-year-old billionaire did not...
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Bail, Paddle or Swim: What failed companies do when the ship is sinking
Companies come and go. Thanks to the Great Recession, I happen to know several that are on the way out. All three were stunningly profitable… in 2008. But now, all three are losing money. All three...
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Entrepreneurship: Now Available at Your Local University
I’m thrilled that “entrepreneurship” is now a major you can study in school. In fact, you can get a master’s degree in entrepreneurship. College is a time for focused, intense learning no matter...
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The Internet is Making You Stoopid
While most Americans were surfing funny pet videos on YouTube last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Internet is making us stupid and killing the kind of creativity that entrepreneurs...
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American Jobs Act Has Something For Small Business
President Obama announced his new American Jobs Act and promised it would invigorate small businesses. I’m often skeptical of the impact of any regulation, but this bill has a lot in it for you and me...
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Business Risk: 7 Ways to Get All the Reward With None of the Risk
When you quit your job to start a company, did you think you were invincible? When you sold your first company, did you think you were unstoppable? As a young entrepreneur I actually believed that...
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Credit Card Nightmares: Six Simple Ways to Prevent Employee Credit Card Abuse
As a business owner, you have drive, desire and dreams of something bigger. Sadly, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Fraud Examiners, you probably also have a...
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Making Sure Your Business Can Bounce Back: the Best Ways to Prepare for the...
The business environment is constantly changing. Even the most carefully conceived business plan cannot claim to be bullet proof in a dynamic setting in which there are too many unknown and...
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Negotiating with Angels: When to Rescue a Funding Deal – and When to Walk Away
You’ve been carefully nurturing an equity investor and now he’s threatening to walk away from the deal. Despite an endless number of presentations, term sheets, meetings with partners and expensive...
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DRP*: The Most Important Thing You Aren’t Doing at Work
I’m sitting on the beach today. But last week I was mopping up water. Yep, my office flooded last week. A hot-water heater burst and rain fell from the ceiling for hours. By the time we got the...
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You agreed to WHAT? Know the Unknowable before Signing Away $ Millions
At lunch yesterday, I had the guilty pleasure of hearing “war stories” from a group of lawyers, accountants and bankers. Sometimes lunch with this crowd is yawn-inducing, but these guys were on a tear...
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Are you Financing a Russian Crime Boss?
I recently discovered a number of businesses in the USA that are helping the Russian Mob rip people off. If you sell a product, your company could be one of them. I’m not kidding. HP and Office Max...
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Key Person Insurance: How to pick a policy without getting ripped off
If given the choice, I think most business owners would rather discuss…well…just about anything other than life insurance. Who wants to think about their own death? But if you love your business, care...
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Your Money or Your Wife: The Danger of Mixing of Love and Business
I was 27 and struggling with my first start-up when I met my wife. She seemed like the perfect addition to my growing company. She worked without pay and never complained when the job kept me at the...
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Will Your Company be Bankrupt by 2014? Edward Altman Knows (and so should you)
You may not know Edward Altman, but he knows whether your company will be bankrupt in the next two years. Altman developed a deceptively simple formula that calculates the financial strength of a...
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Who Pays When an Employee Dies: The Cirque Du Soleil Tragedy
For the first time in Cirque Du Soleil’s 29-year history, a performer died last month when she fell during an aerial sequence in the show “KA” in Las Vegas. This wasn’t just a shock for the audience,...
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Missing My Mentor: Bill Manby (1942-2013)
I was privileged to have had Bill Manby as a business partner and mentor during the heady days of the Dot-Com Boom (and bust!) in Silicon Valley. I don’t know how we met — California’s Monterey...
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The CFO who Fired Himself
A funny thing happened to me during the 5th year of my 3rd start-up: I fired myself. The company continued on, but I walked away. Why? I could say that the company could no longer afford a CFO....
View ArticleRocket-Man: Elon Musk’s Secret of the Pivot
I had a rare opportunity to speak with Elon Musk. In case that name is not familiar, you certainly know him by what he has done in the last decade: Musk revolutionized online payments with PayPal,...
View ArticleHow Financially Disciplined is Your Company? 3 Rules for Surviving any Storm
The recession is over, leaving behind a wake of net losses, bad cash flow and bankruptcies among those hardest hit. At the same time, other companies have emerged unscathed. What factors separate...
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