Consistently I am asked to sign a NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) usually sent to me by entrepreneurs before I review or listen to a new startup offering. Although there is a lot that has already been written about on this subject, I often refuse to sign them outright, and would like to add my thoughts as to why.
Why Non-Disclosure Agreements Don’t Always Work
This article expands a bit the issue of the kinds of relationships there are between investors and founders. How to manage the respective roles as, as either a founder of a startup or as an investor in a venture, is a major issue that needs to be rightly managed in early seed ventures and startups in general in order to achieve success.
Right now I am busy helping to bootstrap a new startup that has a unique idea and niche market aimed for middle-aged women. In this article, I would like to share the process we are going though and how we are in the early stages of forming our team and approaching seed investors.
html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>wireframes and requirements documents in advance. Once you select the right team to develop your html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>Minimum Viable Product, potential investors will come to you." width="600" height="350" srcset="" data-srcset="https://d2haskyseezqzi.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/focus-groups3.jpg 600w, https://d2haskyseezqzi.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/focus-groups3-300x175.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px"/>
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I often have meetings with entrepreneurs who are in the early stages of their ventures and are trying to approach seed investors while, at the same time, cope with their product offering on a narrow budget.
Approaching investors is not an easy process. While finding investors may be easy, the hard part comes when you need to pitch your idea to them. There are many kinds of investors, so there isn’t only one right way to approach an investor, but there are proper ways to pitch your idea and also to anticipate and cope with some of the feedback you might receive.
We’re talking about common mistakes that people make in the early days of a start-up. Here’s the rest of the list, continued from Part 1.
It is very tempting to build the best and most feature rich product, but does this serve your goals or your html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>target audience? No, it does not. You must identify the html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>minimal viable product which will meet the needs of your html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>target audience and remove all unneeded features and functionality of the initial version. Once your launch your product, you will discover the real needs and features needed – some will be as you might have expected but many will be new and come from your html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>target audience needs and reactions. [see also html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>Lean Startup" href="http://jumpstartcto.com/the-lean-start-up/" target="_blank">The html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>Lean Startup]
When starting up a new venture one has to be careful. Since each new venture has its own unique challenges, there are several common mistakes often repeated in the early stages of businesses that you need to watch out for; all of which could negatively affect your business further down the road.
These are some of the more common mistakes that I found commonplace in my experiences of working with startups.
Our goal is to help build working partnerships between entrepreneurs who have ideas for products and those professionals who have the know-how and ability to productize their ideas and bring them to the market.
JumpStartCTO is managed by David Rashty, an entrepreneur and early stage investor. David is the founder of CreativeMinds which focus on WordPress and Magento products and behind a non-profit dedicated to Desert Knowledge Sharing
