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Nivi

Advice for entrepreneurs.

Hey, have you heard of Twitter?May 5

Listen man, subscribe to our Twitter already. These brainiacs have:

You’ve been served.

How to close a term sheet quicklyApril 28

How do you quickly turn a signed term sheet into cash in the bank? I’ve seen entrepreneurs do it in one week and I’ve seen them do it in four weeks.

How do you do it as quickly as possible?

1. Complete all business diligence before you sign a term sheet.
2. Set a firm closing date for your lawyers and justify it with something like, “I’m leaving the country on that date.”
3. Have a strong BATNA that keeps the other side moving quickly.

Listen to our podcast below for the details.

Audio: How to close a term sheet quickly (mp3)

Transcript

Nivi: I was talking to a couple of entrepreneurs today about how to expedite the closing process. Closing is when you go from a signed term sheet to money in the bank.

You are taking the signed term sheet, which is really just a letter of intent; it is for the most part non-binding, except for some confidentiality and no shop clauses, and turning it into a set of closing documents and money in the bank.

Closing can take anywhere from one week, to four weeks, to six w

Customer Development, Class 5: IMVUApril 22

Here’s the fifth class of Steve Blank’s customer development course. Make sure you listen to Steve’s story about how he funded IMVU at time 27:50. Steve is a master of using theatre to extract compliance from customers, investors, you-name-it.

This is wonderful material for entrepreneurs. I’ve already taken the class and I still subscribe to the Venture Hacks podcast and listen to the classes on my iPhone.

Administrivia: The sound quality of the lecture improves dramatically after the first few minutes. New students can catch up on Class 1, Class 2, and Classes 3 and 4. The readings for each class are listed in the syllabus. The main text for the class is Steve’s must-read book, Four Steps to the Epiphany.

Audio:

Pitching Hacks at StanfordApril 21

I recently gave a talk on pitching startups to the students in Stanford’s business plan competition.

I recorded the talk with my iPhone and sync’ed it with the slides below. I think the talk came out well — let me know what you think. I discuss a lot of the material from our book, Pitching Hacks.

Thanks to Stanford’s BASES for putting on the event!

Slides: Pitching Hacks at Stanford (pdf)

Audio: Pitching Hacks at Stanford (mp3)

The Startup MBAApril 9

“With knowledge being universally accessible, there will be no excuses for non-performance.”

– Peter Drucker

Steve Blank recently asked me to prepare a list of startup blogs for his customer development class. Here you go Steve.

I read all of these blogs. They all have incredibly useful archives. And they’re all written by people who teach and practice, so the advice is practical.

Must read

Eric Ries – Startup Lessons Learned
Fred Wilson – A VC
Marc Andreessen – pmarca
Paul Graham
37signals – Signal vs. Noise

More to read