Growing Archives - Page 7 of 9 - Connecticut Innovations Connecticut Innovations

Keys to Successful Series A Funding

When is your tech company ready for a series A raise? If you have an epic story to tell and you’re deep into your act one milestones, the time could be right. You may be ready for your second act—the turning point of your narrative in which you secure the type and sources of funding to help ensure that your innovation will force a change in the status quo. Like any great legendary tale, you want your solution to be the reason things will be forever better.

To extend the analogy just a bit further, the second act of your entrepreneurial storyline is the point where you as protagonist must demonstrate that you have the requisite strengths to overcome any forces of antagonism that confront you—technology challenges, financial pressures, hiring needs, competition, etc. It’s your time to show potential investors who you are and what you’re capable of.

ATTRACTING INVESTORS

To achieve your fundraising goals, at any stage, you must understand what investors are looking for and deliver on it. For a series A raise in particular, your company should have achieved some key milestones to pave the way—those include momentum, management strength, market size, revenue growth and customer base expansion.

Momentum

By the time you embark on a series A raise, you should have established a foundation of external funding from friends and family, angels, strategic investors or some combination thereof. And you should have used those initial funds, along with your own money, to build out your beta or the first version of your platform. In most cases, entrepreneurs will obtain such seed round funding via convertible notes as opposed to equity. Priced round investors like to see this type of early investor commitment because it proves that there are others besides the founder that believe the idea has merit.

Management Strength

Having a top-notch management team is absolutely crucial. Series A investors are drawn to companies with highly competent leadership. And while it might seem obvious, the “team” by definition should be more than just one person. Often at the seed level the company is a one-person show, which is perfectly acceptable. But after that point it’s important to show that other professionals, especially those with industry track records and previous wins, believe in the company as much as you do and are willing to put their own careers and reputations on the line to join the fold.

Market Size

Venture investors have to believe that there is a large enough market for your business to achieve explosive growth and ultimately an even greater exit at multiples that far surpass the VC’s original investment. If your market is too niche-based, you may want to consider whether it’s truly a VC play. Perhaps your company would be better suited to growing organically and remaining a closely held lifestyle business. If your market is too small, then another option could be to pursue a strategic investor that will fund your build-out and incorporate your product or service into their business.

If you do go the VC route, you’ll be faced with investors focused almost exclusively on large exit/win opportunities. The reality is that VCs are in a very high-risk business—many companies in their portfolios will not make it. So, they need to buy into burgeoning markets that will yield huge wins to offset their downside risk.

Revenue Growth

Your company should already be generating revenue before you seek a series A raise. And the revenue trendline should, of course, be progressing upward—because there is usually a direct correlation between revenue and the beginnings of your pathway to traction. As the company begins to gain revenue momentum, you have started to prove that your solution solves an immediate need in the marketplace and that the opportunity is sufficiently large and scalable.

Customer Base Expansion

For a successful series A raise, investors need to see not just revenue but also an increasing base of customers willing to pay for your product or service. Revenue alone is not enough because it can come from sources other than your core paying customers, or core revenue streams. Similarly, you could have substantial revenue but only from a single customer—this alone won’t do. What VCs want to see is a multitude of customers that have begun to utilize your solution and a strong pipeline of customers progressing through the purchasing process. Perhaps the most important objective of series A funding is to turn your business into a repeatable, sustainable marketing machine.

EMBARKING ON YOUR SERIES A RAISE

Setting the Valuation

When you begin your series A round, it’s a time of several firsts for your company. It’s typically when you land your first institutional investor, your first priced round, and the point when your initial company valuation, and thus the per-share price, is set. At the same time, VC funding impacts your seed investors by triggering their conversion from convertible debtholders to equity shareholders.

There are many valuation methods that can be used, but ultimately it will come down to negotiation between the founder and the VC. The per-share price you establish at this stage is vitally important because it will impact your company valuation over the long term. You want the valuation to be low enough to attract additional and future investors and set the company up for a future exit, while being high enough to keep the management team happy and motivated. There is a balance to be found there. Sometimes founders will agree to a lower valuation to get a better lead investor involved, or in order to get other terms in the term sheet that may be more important to them. You can also offset the dilution by how much capital is raised at each round. It is all a balancing act. Regardless, founders should keep their eye on the goal, which is to get funded and grow their business.

Finding a Lead Investor

Your lead investor is one of the most important players that can help launch your company onto a successful trajectory. The lead will work with you to create a term sheet to fill in the rest of the round and may also take on the responsibility for securing those additional investors. In most cases, the lead investor will also take a seat on your board of directors to impact future company decisions. Because of this pivotal and influential role, it’s important that founders align with the right person to be the lead investor—someone like-minded who also has broad industry expertise and a network of contacts with investors and potential partners. First and foremost, you want a lead investor who will be personally invested in your success and can help accelerate your company growth.

Creating Your Board of Directors

Before a series A raise, many startups begin with a more informal advisory board. But institutional investors will expect a formal board of directors to be put in place with established governance procedures and guidelines. A five-person board will usually be sufficient. This should include two common stockholders, of which one should be the CEO; two preferred stockholders, of which one should be the lead investor; and one independent director, ideally an industry expert who can open doors to an active network of contacts.

Establishing Your Legal Entity Structure

Finally, when you go for your series A raise, investors will want your company to be established as a C corporation. The C corporation is widely considered the best legal entity structure for business owners that anticipate significant growth and seek personal protection from business liabilities and debts. Many startups begin as LLCs because they provide better liability protection than a general partnership and are less costly to maintain than a C corporation. But a C corporation is the preferred structure when it comes to attracting outside investors and shareholders.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Successfully securing series A funding is certainly a major turning point in the evolution of your startup, but it’s not the end of the story. It’s more like the end of the beginning. Before you even think about fundraising, you should be able to show that you have developed a groundbreaking idea with a huge untapped market and a management team that not only can make it happen, but already is doing so, as evidenced by revenue growth, customer base expansion and market traction. In fact, the only thing that should be standing in your way is funding. And if that’s all you need to be successful, you should have no trouble attracting investors.

About the Author

Alison Malloy is director of investments on the Connecticut Innovations Venture Team. You can contact her at Alison.Malloy@ctinnovations.com.

Connecticut Has Become a Prime Location for Innovative Startups

Connecticut has become a prime location for innovative start ups.

If you are not a well-known coastal innovation hub, creating a culture of entrepreneurship and attracting tech investment can be a challenge. However, even for a state like Connecticut—known just 20 years ago as a crime-ridden, economic punchline—becoming a desirable haven of tech innovation is possible. In fact, with the right development of a supportive ecosystem, startup entrepreneurship can breed more of the same. And the engaged participation of local universities, a belief in unicorns, and an allure of high quality of life, innovation hubs can be created beyond giants like New York and Boston. In the end, it’s all about fostering the right conditions—just look at the growth of Connecticut’s rising tech startup scene. It takes a village.

Matthew McCooe’s piece deconstructs the complexities of creating an innovation hub beyond coastal cities know for tech startup success. By outlining what Connecticut has done over the past 20 years, Matthew breaks down the specific ingredients that moved the state from a punchline to an attractive destination for tech startup innovation.

The Age of Digital Commerce Democratization: How Brands and Retailers Will Be Growing Online Business

It certainly does seem like so much commerce today is happening online. From home goods to clothes to food, people are clicking and tapping to get the things they need and want.

In reality, the numbers suggest that e-commerce is still in its infancy. Despite the booming popularity of online retailers like Amazon, Jet and Walmart and the fact that nearly every brand stands up its own online store, e-commerce—or digital commerce—still makes up only around 5–10 percent of overall retail today. Analysts universally project that number to grow exponentially in the years to come, posing both significant opportunities and challenges for retailers and brands eager to capitalize. Those who embrace technology are likely to have the upper hand.

In the early days of e-commerce, disparate technology platforms and incompatible systems made it difficult for brands and retailers to integrate seamlessly. For a brand to have its products sold on a retailer’s online storefront, it might have to invest millions of dollars to acquire and implement the proprietary technology used by that particular retailer. A brand with constrained resources, therefore, might only be able to engage a small number of online retailers.

Today, advances in connected commerce technologies are removing those barriers, making it so much easier for brands to connect to retailer sites and allowing retailers to expand the catalog of products. Technology is allowing back-end systems to seamlessly connect and talk to one another, no matter the legacy systems in place, enabling brands to have their products seen in more places and allowing retailers to ultimately offer more choices to their customers.

Advances in technology have benefits for individual retailers and brands as well.

For brands, the manner in which their products are presented on a retailer’s site is critical and hugely sensitive. In the past, brands were pretty much at the mercy of the retailer who decided where to position the product, which competitive products to group it alongside, etc. If a brand wasn’t happy with how it was presented online, there was little it could really do aside from pulling its product lines altogether and risking a hit to its profits in the process.

With the ability to more easily connect with multiple retailers, brands can be more selective and have greater control over how they are presented and portrayed, moving products from one retailer to the next if they are unsatisfied or if they are simply seeing better results from a particular retail platform.

For retailers, advances in connected commerce technology mean that they can greatly expand the catalog of products available on their sites and enlist a greater number of brand partners who can quickly drop-ship products directly from the brand warehouses. Retailers can also provide more choices to their brand partners with regard to connecting to their back-end systems without having to invest significant dollars to do so.

A report from eMarketer projects that worldwide, e-commerce sales will jump from $1.91 trillion this past year to $4.05 trillion in 2020. Just about any analyst report plucked from the internet suggests the same—digital commerce will continue to grow.

Retail industry players can no longer identify themselves by the products they sell. There are no more clothing brands or home goods retailers. To effectively compete as digital commerce progresses, all need to think of themselves as technology companies. And if they don’t have the internal capabilities to embrace the digital revolution, the time is now to partner with a company that does. By leveraging and investing in the newest digital platforms, systems and technologies, brands and retailers can work more closely in partnership to deliver stronger offerings to consumers and claim a leadership stake as the connected commerce evolution progresses.

Peyman Zamani is chief executive officer at Logicbroker, a digital commerce company that connects fragmented brand and retailer platforms and strengthens the connections that enable digital commerce. The company will be hosting Connected Commerce 17, a one-day summit celebrating the future of digital commerce and exploring the opportunities to scale digital commerce operations to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Top Five Tips for Expediting a Brownfield TIF Project

During the time that I have been with the Connecticut Brownfields Redevelopment Authority (CBRA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Connecticut Innovations, I have coordinated more than $12 million in CBRA financing to support more than $200 million in redevelopment projects across the state – using a financing vehicle known as tax increment financing (TIF). TIF support provided through CBRA is upfront grant funding available to developers to pay for property remediation. The town where the brownfield property is located pledges future taxes on the improved property to pay back CBRA.

The following tips are meant as a real-life playsheet to brownfield redevelopment, an option that many developers and property owners often overlook. I hope these tips will help you better understand and navigate the brownfield redevelopment process as you launch your project.

Get started sooner rather than later. A brownfield redevelopment project can be many years in the making. Therefore, I would recommend that you initiate discussions with state, municipal and other key contacts early on. I am often asked, “How long does a redevelopment project take?” There is no simple or standard answer. The duration of a project, in part, depends on the complexity of the project. Some projects move forward very quickly, and some take an extraordinary amount of time.
Be aware of zoning specs and municipal preferences for development sites. Bear in mind that a redevelopment project plan that may work in one zone may not readily work in another. Here’s an example. An undeveloped, 23-acre brownfield site in North Haven was located in a retail corridor, so it made perfect sense as a site for a new retail development. A retail developer, in fact, did acquire the site and build a shopping plaza: North Haven Commons. Always keep in mind that major changes, such as zoning changes, may be possible but do take time.
Hire an environmental firm with a proven track record. An experienced licensed environmental professional (LEP) should be hired to drive the project and inform and educate developers and municipal representatives about the environmental regulations that apply to the site. The LEP’s firm will serve as the parties’ liaison with the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The bottom line is to choose an environmental firm that is experienced and meets your needs.
Designate a point person for the project. Connecticut Innovations is here to make brownfield redevelopment projects easier. To facilitate our collaboration with you, it is important for you to assign a point person from your core team for the project. This might be the principal of the development firm, the LEP or a project manager. Regardless of who it is, that person becomes the “go-to person” with the authority to make decisions. On our Goodwin College project, for example, the president of the college took a leading role in many aspects of the redevelopment.Once the point person has been designated, there needs to be a direct and open line of communication between all key decision makers, which will also include municipal officials – who are eager to help put brownfield sites back into productive use and back on the tax rolls.
Keep the goal in sight. Brownfield redevelopment projects take a great deal of time and stamina. Among other things, you will have to manage a significant amount of paperwork. If a document or report needs to be produced, take care of it in a timely fashion. Procrastination is not your best friend. Challenges and obstacles will not go away! Keep in mind the worthwhile goal of putting a brownfield property back into productive use.

One item I have not mentioned is financing. As you know, nothing can be done without the proper funding, whether it be local, state, federal and/or private financing. I’d be happy to discuss CBRA’s TIF program or other financing vehicles with you – or any other aspect of undertaking brownfield redevelopment projects. Just give me a call at 860.258.7833.

About the Author
Cynthia Petruzello is vice president, brownfields financing, at Connecticut Innovations. You can contact her at cynthia.petruzello@ctinnovations.com or 860.258.7833.

Link to PDF

Key Elements of Sustainable Companies

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”http://ctinnovations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Content-Detail-News.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]Key Elements of Sustainable Companies

Leaders of three Connecticut companies that have stood the test of time share some of the keys to their success.

Starting a new business comes with its own set of challenges. But once that business is up and running, entrepreneurs face an often more daunting challenge: how to keep the company flourishing over the long term. Leaders of three Connecticut Innovations portfolio companies that have been in business for decades recently shared their reflections on the elements that have contributed to their companies’ staying power.

Be Ready to Change

A factor all three executives point to is the ability to evolve in order to seize opportunity or respond to changes in the environment. “We’ve had to reinvent ourselves countless times,” says David Andrews, founder and chair of Datalytics Technologies LLC. The company, originally called Andrews Consulting Group, reached a milestone this year when it completed its 30th year in business.

Datalytics got its start in 1984 helping smaller companies update their computer systems. A few years later, Andrews and his colleagues got wind of a revolutionary new computer IBM was about to introduce. Seeing opportunity on the horizon, Andrews says, “We transformed ourselves into the world’s leading expert on a computer that didn’t even exist yet.” IBM eventually engaged Andrews to help plan and launch the product, called the AS/400. “We continued to help companies replace their computers,” Andrews says, “but instead of the System/38 we did with the first client, we were helping companies put in AS/400 computers, so the size of the companies we were dealing with got even bigger.” Helping medium to large businesses adopt the AS/400, as well as helping companies avert Y2K disruptions, kept Datalytics busy through the 1990s.

After 2000, though, the AS/400 rush was winding down, and Y2K was history. Datalytics needed to reinvent itself again. “We started experimenting with doing two or three different things with our business,” Andrews says. A new concept called “business intelligence” was starting to sweep the industry. Companies needed to be able to take data from software—such as the J.D. Edwards software Datalytics was expert in—and move it to a separate computer called a data warehouse, where it could be stored and analyzed to extract meaningful information. Sensing a growing demand, Datalytics built a data warehouse that became a supplement to its J.D. Edwards business.

A series of high-level takeovers involving J.D. Edwards, Oracle, Business Objects and SAP resulted in Datalytics’ partnership with leading companies and its emergence as a high-technology software company. Its own product, RapidDecision EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse), is now being used by some of the world’s foremost companies.

“The world of technology is adventure-filled,” says Andrews. “Every business these days needs to rethink and reinvent itself, because the world changes so fast.”

Jerry Long, co-founder and CEO of the nearly 20-year-old PCC Technology Group LLC, also identifies the ability to change as a key requirement for sustainability. Long’s first company, PC Consultants, did well from the late ‘80s and well into the ‘90s by training public employees in the basics of computer usage. By the mid-‘90s, however, most of those who needed training had received it, and young people coming out of college already had computer skills. “The writing was on the wall,” says Long. “We needed to find something else to do.” So, in 1995, Long and partner Joe Singh launched PCC Technology Group. Like Datalytics, PCC was busy with Y2K projects in the late 1990s, but went on to become a provider of business domain expertise and information technology solutions. The company’s services include application outsourcing, e-governance, e-solutions, system integration, strategic planning and contract professional staffing. PCC, Long says, “has evolved tremendously. We’re not doing a lot of things we started out doing. We were able to see the opportunities that were presented to us and do what we needed to do to take advantage of them.”

David Green, president of Phoenix Soil LLC, is in a very different line of work. The company he started in 1993 treats contaminated soil to transform it into clean fill. Yet the ability to change has kept his company in business twice as long as his original business plan anticipated, and the business is still going strong. The company began when the state introduced regulations requiring the removal of underground storage tanks. Today, Phoenix processes materials excavated during urban redevelopment, housing construction, state transportation projects and more. The company has continually changed the technology it uses in processing materials. “You have to be ahead of the curve with the latest technology,” Green says. “Especially in the environmental field, the latest technology becomes the ‘best available control technology.’ If you don’t have that, you can’t continue to exist.” Green’s company recently moved to a new facility and invested $650,000 in technology advances.

“In business, you have to go to the next level, or you have to go home,” Green says. “You can’t stand still in business, because it’s a constantly moving field.”

Stay Vigilant, Stay Informed

David Green adds that staying ahead of trends in one’s industry is critical to long-term success. “To be sustainable, you have to stay 100 percent on top of what your market is,” Green says. “We have to plan three to five years ahead, have to know what environmental changes are coming and what laws are proposed, so we can expand to get into a market or plan to get out of a market.”

Datalytics’ David Andrews agrees. “One of the biggest challenges in the technology industry is monitoring changes,” Andrews says. “You have to have the ability to look forward and anticipate changes, and frankly, you need the ability to get it right in terms of seeing what’s coming next.” Theories and trends emerge all the time, he says, but not all of them pan out, so it’s important to keep one’s options open. “We survived and thrived because at critical points we bet on more than one horse, trying multiple things in parallel,” Andrews says. When it became clear that one of those “horses,” the software business, was the strongest, Datalytics spun off the others to concentrate on it.

Jerry Long of PCC Technology Group says that he’s constantly engaged in staying ahead of technology innovation. He invests time in talking with key people and staying current with the literature to keep his finger on the pulse of change.

The Right People

A company’s human resource needs often change as the company evolves, and having the right talent at the right time is another key to sustainability. Sometimes the people essential to success stay the same. “Most of my key people have been with me for 20 to 30 years,” says David Green. “These people know the regulations, know how to keep everything proper and legal, and they know because of their experience how to judge what’s happening in our environment.”

Many of the people at Datalytics have also been with the company from the beginning. As the business has changed, however, the company has both recruited new people and parted ways with others. “You have to make every effort to take people from one generation of the company to the next,” says David Andrews, “but you have to realize that there are cases where people just can’t make the transition successfully.”

Sometimes the situation calls for changes at the very top of the organization. “What kills a lot of businesses is that the people who start the business are not always the right people to carry it to the next phase,” Andrews says. Datalytics has been willing to bring senior people from outside into executive positions and dramatically change the roles of existing managers when necessary for the company’s growth. “Most technology businesses that fail do so because they don’t make the transition from the entrepreneurial group to professional managers,” Andrews says. “You have to suppress your egos when you do this.”

Jerry Long says similar changes have been necessary at PCC Technology Group, with the company recruiting some people and separating from others. While such changes can be difficult and complicated, he says, “The most important thing is that the business is the most important thing. We have to do what will make the business succeed.”

The head of the organization may even need to change personally. Long says he has gone from a philosophy of “my way or the highway” to one that recognizes that others’ ideas and suggestions have merit. While he used to guard company information closely, today all financial and other information is shared with all employees. This knowledge, he says, enables them to connect their own jobs to the company’s goals.

Not all of the people critical to sustainability are inside the company. Networking is vital, says David Green. “You have to have a lot of really good friends—banker friends, friends in transportation, in all different areas. There are so many facets you don’t know, and there are experts who can help you. Make a lot of friends.”

Impress the Customer – of Course!

Satisfied customers are, of course, the lifeblood of any business, and they must be a priority. “We’ve done some things imperfectly, but we’ve always made sure the customers we serve are happy in the end,” says David Andrews. “Occasionally, we’ve lost money on a particular account, just to make sure the customer was happy. We’ve bent over backwards to keep customers happy and protect our reputation. That’s a given if you want to last a long time.”

“You have to value the customer, do what you say you’ll do, have high integrity and take good care of the customer,” Jerry Long says. “That philosophy has always permeated our business, and it’s made us successful.”

Make Smart Funding Choices

An infusion of capital at the right juncture from the right partner can significantly affect a company’s sustainability. Many Connecticut companies turn to Connecticut Innovations.

CI helped fund Datalytics’ expansion several years ago. Now the company’s partner, SAP, is urging it to expand into an even larger market, so Datalytics plans to raise a significant amount of outside capital.

PCC Technology Group, which had always been self-funding, recently obtained funding from Connecticut Innovations. Why now? “We have some growth goals, and we want to be sure we can meet those goals,” says Jerry Long. “It’s critical to our presence in Connecticut. We want to grow as we think we should.”

Phoenix Soil also recently sought outside funding from CI and other financial institutions for the first time to help the company move to a new location, purchase its own property and implement advanced technologies. “CI has been amazing,” David Green says. “They made it very enjoyable and pleasant, and they were extremely timely. It was a magnificent business dealing. CI would be the first group I’d go and see again.”

From the financial perspective, Green offers one final piece of practical advice to anyone who wants to build a sustainable company: “Don’t spend more than you make.”

NOTE: Special thanks to those who shared their insights for this article:

David Andrews, founder and chair of Datalytics Technologies LLC
David Green, president of Phoenix Soil LLC
Jerry Long, co-founder and CEO of PCC Technology Group LLC

Link to PDF[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” class=”cs-ta-left” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”http://ctinnovations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/backtocontentlibrary.png” alt=”back to content library” link=”true” href=”http://ctinnovations.com/access-content-library/” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”back-image”][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]

Creating a Customer-Centric Culture

Abysmal customer service. Is there anything worse? Well, yeah, but when a company treats you poorly, it’s still pretty upsetting. If your company offers exceptional service to every customer, you can stop reading now. But if you’ve got some room to improve in this area, it’s time to make it a priority. Here are some sobering stats compiled by HelpScout, makers of customer service software, that illustrate why customer service is so important.

Playing Up Your Startup’s Culture to Attract and Retain Talent

If you’re anything like the entrepreneurs we talk to every day, one of your biggest challenges, after funding, is finding and retaining talent. After all, you’re competing for employees with bigger, more established firms. They have deeper pockets and dedicated recruiters. And they usually pay more, offer better benefits and provide greater job security.

Setting Goals for Your Startup

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”http://ctinnovations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Content-Detail-News.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]Setting Goals for Your Startup.

You know you should be setting goals for your company and the various departments within it. But you’ve tabled the task yet again in favor of dozens of competing priorities. Think about this, though: If everyone in your startup can’t name the company’s top three to five goals, how are they going to prioritize the myriad things they need to do to realize your vision?

Link to PDF[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ class=”cs-ta-left” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”http://ctinnovations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/backtocontentlibrary.png” alt=”back to content library” link=”true” href=”http://ctinnovations.com/access-content-library/” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=”” class=”back-image”][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]

Congratulations, You Sold Your Company. Do This Next.

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”http://ctinnovations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Content-Detail-News.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” separator_top_type=”none” separator_top_height=”50px” separator_top_angle_point=”50″ separator_bottom_type=”none” separator_bottom_height=”50px” separator_bottom_angle_point=”50″ style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ class=”cs-ta-left” style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text] Congratulations, You Sold Your Company. Do This Next.

You did it! You sold your tech company. You now belong to a group of elite entrepreneurs who have captured the holy grail. Against formidable odds, you turned your idea into a viable startup, grew it into a major player disrupting your industry, and then exited (while amassing piles of cash). Before you move on to your next venture, it’s a smart move to take a step back and develop a plan to preserve your wealth.

Everything Entrepreneurs Need to Know About Insurance

If you’re creating a company from scratch, you’re probably spending most of your energy finding customers, building your team, refining your idea and pivoting accordingly. Probably the last thing on your mind is insurance. But covering your business risks is a smart move, says Augusto Russell, CIC.

Newer Posts

Older Posts