Our Angel Group Chooses to Invest in Healthy Natural Organic Intimacy Products
By Tim Berry
I fear you’d have to know the quirky nature of Eugene, Oregon, my home town, to understand how well the choice of our local angel investor group matches the area. Some people call Eugene “Berkeley North.” We have to have way more health foods stores, organic foods, and natural products per capita than any national... Read More »
Business Plan Contests Grow Up and Mean Business
By Tim Berry
It’s time to note a major change. Just a few years ago business plan contests were an academic oddity, a dress-up exercise at a few business grad schools. Suddenly, or so it seems, they’re pretty much for real. Some very powerful new businesses are appearing at business plan contests, winning significant money, attracting investors, getting... Read More »
Big Mistake: Huge Unbelievable Sales Numbers
By Tim Berry
Jeffrey Moskovitz added an important comment to my big mistake post from last week: I read an blog yesterday, written by someone I respect, who asserted that investors know and even EXPECT that projected sales and profits will be overstated. Aware of this expectation, the entrepreneur plays the game by inflating the numbers, fully aware... Read More »
Do Investors Make Good Entrepreneurs?
By Tim Berry
Interesting thought: lots of entrepreneurs end up as investors. Few investors end up as entrepreneurs. Does that surprise you? Do investors make good entrepreneurs? Hint: it’s a trick question. This is the gist of what Charlie O’Donnell is saying in Everything I didn’t learn about startups as a VC (…or why VCs don’t make good entrepreneurs)... Read More »
Apples, Oranges, and Making Startups Pay to Pitch.
By Tim Berry
I hate it when people push issues way too far, diluting their points by overextending them. Stretch your generalization net too far and you catch a lot of innocent fish along with the sharks. Do that and you kill your own argument. For a great example of that, Jason Calacanis’ rant against startups having to... Read More »
Interesting Points, But Winning a Business Plan Competition is Still Better Than Losing One
By Tim Berry
This morning I can’t resist writing about Vivek Wadhwa’s Winner’s Curse post on TechCrunch last weekend. Odd combination: it’s interesting, thoughtful, well-written, about a subject near and dear to my heart, and, at least in the title, wrong. In the full title of his fascinating post, he says losing a business school business plan competition... Read More »
Business Plan Contest: You Be the Judge
By Tim Berry
Five very interesting young businesses, five excellent presentations, six judges with questions, and all of it available as online video, where you can watch the whole thing and vote for the winners. What I like best about the Forbes annual $100K Boost Your Business contest is that it is open to everybody. I love being... Read More »
Choosing Between the Plan and the Opportunity
By Tim Berry
Imagine yourself as judging a business plan competition. You read the plan, watch and listen to the pitch, ask questions, and consider the answers. What do you do, in that situation, with a team whose opportunity is in your opinion bigger than it realizes? What about a team whose opportunity is different from what it... Read More »
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