Avoid This Startup Blunder When Pitching Investors

By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker One of the biggest mistakes you can make when pitching to investors is to claim that you have no competitors. As investor Marc Andreesen said in a posting on Quora, “It’s almost always a red flag when someone asserts that they have no competition – from an investor standpoint, [...]

By | March 29th, 2016|

What Is Your Real Market Opportunity? 8 Questions for Startups

  By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker How will you assess the market opportunity for your new business? Success stories like Nike, Apple, and Tesla show that the greatest opportunities lie in industry sectors that are growing and changing. You, too, will benefit from knowing your market, fully understanding the business you are in, and [...]

By | March 22nd, 2016|

Pre-Orders Guarantee Startup Success – 6 Steps

  By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker A pre-order is an informal commitment from customers to purchase your product before it is formally offered to the market. Pre-orders are vital to any new business because they validate your business idea before you launch. Like many entrepreneurs forming B2B startups, I had the advantage of a [...]

By | March 10th, 2016|

5 Movers & Shakers of Entrepreneurship

  Previously Published on LinkedIn By Ed McLaughlin and Wyn Lydecker "The Real McCoys of Entrepreneurship,"  five extraordinary people and entrepreneurs, have paved the way for others to follow their dreams. One entrepreneur comes from the pages of history, and four others are history-in-the-making entrepreneurs that live among us today. Elijah McCoy The Original “Real [...]

By | March 3rd, 2016|