Uncle Saul

Need straight-talking advice from a serial entrepreneur? Ask Uncle Saul and the answer may be posted here.


Last week’s question:
Dear Uncle Saul, How far should I go with developing my new business before seeking to raise venture capital?
- Brian

Answer:
Go as far as you can! By bootstrapping your business during the early stages you will attain a far greater valuation enabling you to raise more money while giving less equity away. For more advice about VCs read "Brian Epstein is Not John Lennon, and Neither is Your VC."
- Uncle Saul



Blogroll

Strategic Planning

The Book – How Rookies and Startups Can Maintain Their Unfair Advantage

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Late in the 1936 baseball season, a 17-year old Iowa farm boy struck out 15 St. Louis Browns in his first Major League game. Shortly thereafter, Bob Feller went on to strike out 17 Philadelphia Athletics, an unprecedented feat for anyone, let alone a youth with no professional sports experience.
How could such a young, inexperienced […]

Tom and Huck

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act 5 scene 1
In Mark Twain’s masterpieces, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn“, Huck is portrayed as a ‘fool’, whereas Tom is considered ‘wise’. In actuality, Tom’s actions are […]

Beware The Consultant

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Once you obtain funding, it will be worse than hitting the Lottery. Instead of hearing from your long lost third-cousin, you will be inundated with an avalanche of ‘congratulatory’ emails, calls and letters from people who want to relieve you of the burden of your hard-earned equity round. Many such ‘congratulations’ will come from consultants.
An […]

Nature or Nurture?

Friday, September 7th, 2007

For lack of more productive things to do, many scientists, psychologists and sociologists enjoy arguing over which has a greater impact on an individual’s chances for success: their innate abilities (“Nature”) or their environment (“Nurture”).
With each passing decade, the pendulum swings back and forth among the intelligentsia as to which factor has the greatest impact, […]

Small Ideas, Big Benefits

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

When viewed from The Fringe, the world is like a cash booth from a bad 1950’s TV game show. Just like in the game show booth, in the real world, you can count on various exogenous factors to generate some proverbial wind that will swirl the cash around and force you to work a bit […]

Hold em or Fold em

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

According to that sage voice of reason, Walter Matthau, “[Poker] exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.” I most whole heartedly agree.

Monopoly

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

Along with Dr. Suess’ “Green Eggs and Ham” and Marcia Brown’s “Stone Soup”, the seemingly innocuous board game “Monopoly” has played a pivotal role in the United States’ rise as an economic superpower.