The post in which I offered some suggestions about how a first-time founder might make the fundraising process more efficient and less frustrating raised some follow-up questions that were sent to me via email by a handful of founders who read the post over the weekend. We went back-and-forth over email, but I think it […]
Tag Archives | Persuasion
#NotesOnTactics: Relationship Management Hacks For First-Time Early Stage Tech Startup Founders
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on July 23, 2016 in Entrepreneurship, Funding, How and Why, Innovation, Operations, Pitching, Startups, Venture Capital
Note: I published a post titled “Relationship Management for Your Startup” on January 13, 2014 at Tekedia.com. This post is inspired by that one, and portions of this post are exactly identical to the original. It appears the post at Tekedia is no longer online. This post updates that one, with lessons I have learned […]
Revisiting What I Know About Intangibles & Startups
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on October 26, 2015 in Business Models, Entrepreneurship, Funding, Innovation, Management, Strategy, Technology, Venture Capital
This is the third post in my series of blog posts on economic moats. I have already written about Network Effects and Switching Costs. The remaining three sources of an economic moat are Cost Advantages, Efficient Scale, and Intangibles.1 In writing this post I am trying to consolidate what I have learned about intangibles & […]
How Studying Bankruptcy And Working On Two Turnaround Assignments Prepared Me To Become An Early Stage Venture Capitalist
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on August 1, 2015 in Behavioral Finance, Business Models, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Innovation, Investment Analysis, Key Performance Metrics, Operations, Organizational Behavior, Private Equity, Sales and Marketing, Startups, Strategy, Team Building, Uncategorized, Value Investing, Venture Capital
When I started business school at NYU Stern in the fall of 2005 my plan centered on taking every class in Bankruptcy & Reorganization, and Distressed Investing that I could. I took 3 elective classes in that area; Bankruptcy & Reorganization with Prof. Ed Altman, Case Studies in Bankruptcy & Reorganization with Prof. Max […]
A Note on Startup Business Model Hypotheses
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on March 29, 2015 in Business Models, Customer Development, Entrepreneurship, Funding, How and Why, Innovation, Lean Startup, Long Read, Startups, Venture Capital
One of the observations I have arrived at over the course of meeting founders of early stage startups is that often it is not clear during our conversations if they have spent time examining the hypotheses that underlie the business model for the startup they are building. This post1 is my attempt to outline some […]
Question Everything; My Remarks At FOCUS100 2014
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on October 4, 2014 in Behavioral Finance, Entrepreneurship, Funding, How and Why, Investing, Pitching, Technology, Venture Capital
Background: I gave these remarks at Digital Undivided’s FOCUS100 2014 Conference which was held between October 3rd and October 4th in New York City. A number of investors were invited to explain to the audience how they ought to pitch venture capitalists in order to win funding. Digital Undivided is a social enterprise that develops programs […]
A Note on Viral Marketing – Part I: What is it?
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on November 30, 2013 in Entrepreneurship, How and Why, Innovation, Lab Notes, Sales and Marketing, Startups, Technology
Recently, I have had to immerse myself into studying about viral marketing in order to understand some challenges faced by startups I am studying or assisting as part of my responsibilities at work. This series of posts on Viral Marketing is my attempt to document some of what I have learned.1 The term “Viral Marketing” […]
How an Investor’s Behavioral Traits Might Completely Derail Your Pitch – Part III
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on October 27, 2013 in Behavioral Finance, Long Read, Pitching, Venture Capital
This post continues the discussion about how behavioral psychology might affect the outcome of a meeting at which a startup team is pitching to a potential investor. You can get caught up by reading part I and part II. My goal is to offer some advice on how entrepreneurs pitching to early stage investors might prepare to […]
How an Investor’s Behavioral Traits Might Completely Derail Your Pitch – Part II
This post continues the discussion about how behavioral psychology might affect a pitch. You can get caught up by reading part I. My goal with this series is to offer some advice on how entrepreneurs pitching to early stage investors might prepare to mitigate the problems that might arise due to the behavioral traits of […]
How an Investor’s Behavioral Traits Might Completely Derail Your Pitch – Part I
By Brian Laung Aoaeh on September 7, 2013 in Behavioral Finance, Case Studies, Funding, How To, Long Read, Pitching, Venture Capital
Many startup pitch meetings start out on a promising note, but things fall apart during the conversation between the startup and its prospective investor. Sometimes this could have been prevented if the startup team had studied a little bit of behavioral psychology beforehand.1 Traditional finance theory tries to tell us how investors should behave, if […]