Finance
There are a lot of things that go into creating a successful startup. Getting the numbers stuff right is certainly part of it. While this is the stuff that many companies find difficult, the difficulty is not as a result of finance but probably of marketing. A lot of understanding finance depends on understanding your market. This section looks at various factors of the market that go into the world of finance.
The amount of material you could read or watch on finance could fill a library. In fact if you want a library of it see MaRS Entrepreneur’s Toolkit which I conceived, developed and launched in 2008.
Software Industry Benchmarks
If you’re running a business that you hope will be high growth, there are certain key software industry benchmarks you really need to look at when you’re comparing your results to the rest of the industry. We’ve gathered some of those those benchmarks together and presented them here.
Revenue Forecasting
You can look at revenue forecasting as an art or a science. Successful entrepreneurship requires both. There is a bit of both required to be successful. The best approach though is to apply the science before you add the art. The material if you click on this link is devoted to the science of forecasting as I can teach you the science and let you add the art.
Bootstrapping
I have lots of friends who are entrepreneurs and one day I noticed something. Most of my friends who had used bootstrapping to start their businesses and owned them all on their own were doing very well financially.
On the other hand, most of my friends who had obtained venture capital funding were not doing as well financially. I’ve presented 4 rules for bootstrapping in this section.
Why You May Not Want Venture Capital
There’s something about the appeal of venture capital that makes every entrepreneur’s knees turn to jelly. So much money and so easy to get. (Well actually not that easy.) Unfortunately the reality of venture capital is not as good as the dream.
We read a lot about the very few who do very well and we dream of being one of them. So since I love metrics, here are a few that you should understand: