Questions

As a specific scenario, let's say you're a technical founder who has identified and verified a real problem, built a software solution that meets the requirements, grown the team to a handful of people and now needs to go out and accelerate sales. I've heard from many investors that the expectation is for the CEO to be sales manager #1 and sell themselves, at least until about $1M ARR. What's the best strategy to get up to speed quickly for that CEO?

Hi I am Soner from BEAD. We are getting a lot of requests from companies who would like to be our distribution or reseller at other countries. But all of them want to see a demo account without signing NDA . Would you give out such information before signing a partnership deal

Am a solo founder seeking for angel investment but need to know the advisable equity to allocate to 2 prospective co-founders who will be coming on-board soon. The startup already has paying customers with traction. I built everything from scratch and have been running it for 3 years now.

Hey Mark could you share the spreadsheets you give to your portfolio companies for fundraising?

Its an interesting project and the corporate is commited to fund it up to Series A/B. Salary wise its a big increase, equity wise me as a CEO would not have more than around 10%. Terms are still negotiable. What could be my exit strategy here? Big fan of your snaps, following them together with some fellow founders from all the way in Europe!

I am in Illinois and need to start coming to some of the events as well as get more involved in the startup community.. I own a small web agency and am trying to grow a large residual income to make more time for my startup ideas... I already have a couple great things going! Consumer and Enterprise.. However I was waiting to gain more traction before pitching VC's.. But by listening to your advice having contact with VC's early is recommended.. I am very very new to the fundraising game.. So my main question is.. Can I just call VC's up on the phone? I need to get my feet wet somehow! I have tons of cold calling and sales experience.. Or is it best to wait to get involved with some more people in the startup world? Any advice appreciated! TC