The Secret to Pitching your Business in 30 seconds

If you can’t tell me in 30 seconds what you do and what you want, then I am not buying, investing or probably even listening any longer (except out of politeness). While serving as an expert reviewer at venture contests I have heard hundreds of entrepreneurs pitch their ideas. Sadly...

What’s Wrong with Positive Thinking?

Whenever I talk so enthusiastically about entrepreneurship, a few people really feel the need to correct me. They say that positive thinking is naïve, oversimplified and at best just a placebo. The serious pessimists love to point out that nothing so simple as positive thinking can be true. (more…)

Off The Beaten Path

Over the last year I have been working on a project funded by the European Investment Bank to help young entrepreneurs in the occupied territories in Palestine. The project has been an amazing learning experience for me. Sometimes you have to move outside your comfort zone and beyond your normal...

Spiderman’s Vulnerability

Whether you are standing onstage in an auditorium speaking to an audience of 1000 or meeting a new client for the very first time, you will not succeed in influencing others unless you are able to connect with them first. Connection is absolutely essential to communication, especially if the message...

5 Key Skills for Successful Serial Entrepreneurs

I just finished leading a 3-day workshop in Toulouse, France for 15 entrepreneurs from the incubators and technology centres of the European Space Agency. Today I have been asking myself questions about what the key skills are that these entrepreneurs will need to develop in order to succeed. Success can...

A Three Minute Course in LEADERSHIP

Whether you are creating a business or creating an amazing life, you can benefit from thinking like an entrepreneur and by taking leadership. Unfortunately, some of the most fundamental assumptions that we make about leadership may be wrong or over-glorified.  A leader is just a lonely nutcase without followers. The...

DARING TO DREAM – The Entrepreneur Mindset

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." — Michelangelo Buonarroti I will never forget the night that it really hit me. I didn’t sleep once during the 6...
iPad Boys & their Toys

iPad Changes the Game for Nerdy Guys

Boys and their iPad Toys A few months ago I was on a weekend cabin trip get-away with a bunch of guys and I noticed something different that happened. Three of the guys brought their iPads and if this had been a trip with the girls along, then there would...

Hunting in the Sales Jungle

If you are running a startup business, then it is likely that you don’t have a lot of money or a lot of time to waste on unnecessary marketing and sales efforts. It’s like being deep in the jungle when you are tired, hungry and only have 1 arrow left....

VCs are from Mars, Entrepreneurs are from Venus

John Gray’s book Men are from Mars has the subtitle ”The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex”.  To some entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists might as well be the opposite sex. Many entrepreneurs don’t really understand them very well. In a good blog post by ex-VC and VentureBeat writer Tom Tzach,...