The alternative is to spend big money later on pivots, lost credibility with investors, and delays at rollout trying to build visibility and credibility

Attracting the right customers is the key to success in business, whether you have a startup or you’ve been in business for years.

The simple solution I recommend to inventors is to find a partner who can focus on business and marketing, while you focus on technology. Bill Gates did this with Microsoft, by teaming with Steve Ballmer from Proctor & Gamble, and Steve Jobs, who started Apple, did it in reverse by teaming with Steve Wozniak. Two people with complementary skills are often equal to three.

In reality, it doesn’t take a huge investment of money and time to build a prototype today. If it is hardware, look for one of the ‘makerspaces’ such as ProtoStripes, with all the tools you need to prototype almost anything yourself. Software products and apps can be quickly wire-framed with free tools such as MockFlow, or even Microsoft Powerpoint to lay out the key screens.

With the advent and popularity of crowdfunding platforms, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo, as a winning alternative for funding your new venture, I find that many aspiring entrepreneurs are confused about the need to ever seek a professional angel investor.

By default, anyone who owns a business or manages a team has the title of leader, but in my consulting experience, I find that just having the title doesn’t make most of us a true example of the word.

Every entrepreneur and business leader believes that he or she has the full trust of their team and their customers, and in fact…

In the entrepreneur world, it’s still a popular misconception that the “idea” is everything. Even though investors, like myself…

Based on my own experience as a business professional, employees who are not seriously engaged in the business should be totally obvious to everyone, including the manager or CEO. Yet many managers and executives seem to ignore the situation, or have no idea how to fix it….

Starting a new business is fraught with challenges, and none of us has the bandwidth to kill them all. As an advisor to business owners, and an occasional angel investor, my job is to separate the actual challenges from the common misconceptions that distract…