A significant portion of my practice focuses on supporting start up entrepreneurs.
Why Start-ups Fail
- Inadequate skills on management team - this is mostly general management skills not technical
- Lack of overall strategy or shifting strategies
- Poor or conflicting buy-in to business goals and strategies
- Poor planning, especially finances
- Do not understand markets and customer requirements
- No customers, just ideas for products or services
- Lack of capital - poor cashflow and cash management
- Inadequate partner/vendor development and management
Typical Work with Start-Ups
- value proposition(s), market definition, money making model
- product/service definition(s) - customer driven and validated
- business plans for equity or loan funding
- financial modeling
- team formation
- partner/supplier strategy
- product development
- focus, priorities, resource management
- human resources- select, develop, prune
- management skills
- especially making meetings work and not just consume time
- delegation
- project and task management
- financial management
My Background
- Co-founder software company
- 12 years business coaching/management consulting to start-ups and small businesses
- Fortune 500 - electronics - Augat Inc.
- VP Marketing
- Plant Manager
- VP Customer Services
- Product Manager
- Engineer
- Consulting lean manufacturing & supply chain business coaching
- Director public-private consulting services to small manufacturers
We focus on the most important steps for a start up business:
- Build a strong sustainable business model that will make money from a specific set of customers through products or services that meet their needs.
- Construct a team and partnerships that can sustain the business.
- Understand the numbers: how much money is required to start and how much money will flow out before positive cashflow brings it back in?
- What is the marketing strategy and sales process to find and land customers – typically this is the hardest step.
My start up business coaching uses strong, interactive, supportive methods that produces real results for you at both the business and personal levels.
