Age is Just a Number When It Comes to Entrepreneurial Success

For years, people have tried to correlate an entrepreneur’s age when they launched their startup, with the ultimate success of that startup. Many studies have been done on the topic, including reports by the Kauffman Foundation, Duke University and the Founder Institute, to name a few. The collective summary of their learnings is: the average entrepreneur is 40 when they launch their startup. People over 55 are twice as likely as people under 35 to launch a high-growth startup. The average age of a successful startup with over $1 million in revenues was 39. Age was less of a driver to entrepreneurial success than previous startup and industry experience.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

The Top 5 Considerations When Trading Equity for Services

Giving up equity in your business, as an alternative to paying cash, often sounds like a great idea to cash starved startups. But, giving up equity in your business is often a very big decision, and can come at a long term price, both financially and operationally. This post will help you figure out when it is appropriate to trade equity for services, and when you should avoid it. As well as, certain potential pitfalls along the way.

Read the rest of this post in Forbes, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #181: Should You Quit Your Full-Time Job Before Launching a Startup

Many entrepreneurs today work on their startups at night, while they are still working their full-time day jobs.  The question is: should entrepreneurs launch businesses with this part-time focus?  The answer is: not typically, but it all depends on your specific situation.

Here is the case for keeping your day job:

• Startups require capital, and your day job can be that source of capital.
• Startups are risky, and having a day job is your "safety net", until you are sure your startup has gained enough traction to feel comfortable quitting your day job.

Here is the case for quitting your day job:

• Startups require focus and a lot of hard work, and working on it part-time is not doing it any justice.
• Startups require speed and an all-out sprint to stay ahead of potential competitors.
• Investors are not interested in backing a "part-time" team
• Prospective employees are not interested in working for a "part-time" CEO 

So, as you can see, there are clear and material pros and cons on this subject.  But, the rationale for quitting your day job outweigh keeping your day job, where you can. 

My recommendation to entrepreneurs is as follows:

• If you can afford to quit your day job, you should.  Anything less than full-time focus is disadvantaging the startup's focus, efficiency, speed, hiring and financeability.
• If you cannot afford to quit your day job, you need to understand you are materially handicapping your odds of success.
• You should only keep your day job in startups where you are not worried about keeping a first-mover advantage, up against current or potential future competitors.
• That all said, if you are risk-averse (which questions whether or not you should even be an entrepreneur in the first place), getting your business to proof-of-concept first, before quitting your day-job, can certainly be an appealing option for you. 

Hopefully, this helps all of you entrepreneurs sitting on the fence on this decision, to make your leap, one way or the other.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Try to Kill Your Startup Before You Start

I had the pleasure of sitting on an investor panel with Joe Dwyer, a partner at Founder Equity Fund and good colleague of mine. He made a very interesting comment – he was counseling the startups in the room to “try to kill your startup!”  My initial reaction was that is rather strange advice to make to a room full of aspiring entrepreneurs trying to successfully get their businesses off the ground. But, as Joe went on to explain, he said “if you have done everything you could have done to kill your startup, and were unsuccessful in doing so, then you are truly on to something that is defensible and worth building.”

Read the rest of this post in The Next Web, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Growth Hacking: Marketing for Startups

The term “growth hacker” was first introduced in a blog post by Sean Ellis in 2010. He summarized a growth hacker as “a person whose true north is growth”, and is disciplined in prioritizing and testing marketing ideas, and religiously analyzing such results to see which tactics worked the best and should be scaled out further. To me, that is a pretty basic premise which be incorporated into most any marketing programs, defined as growth hacking or not. Frankly, if you are not a growth hacker today, you are not being a good marketer period, in today’s tech space. Perhaps the term growth hacker should be renamed Marketer 2.0 to better emphasize its importance for all organizations, startups or otherwise.

Read the rest of this post in Forbes, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at:  @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] George Deeb Discusses How VC's Evaluate Startups with Nick Moran

Red Rocket's George Deeb recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Nick Moran at the Full Rachet to talk about how venture capitalists evaluate startup investments.  This is a must-watch for any entrepreneurs wanting to raise outside capital, to make sure they address the key investor concerns in their presentations.

Here is the video of the the interview:


How Venture Capitalists Evaluate Startups (Nick Moran Interviews George Deeb) from Red Rocket Ventures on Vimeo.

The audio podcast and Full Rachet blog post can be seen at this link.

For future posts, please follow us on Twitter at: @RedRocketVC