In the early stages of your startup, you might feel the urge to cast a wide net, but the key to success is focusing on a niche market.

The freemium business model is popular, but is it right for your startup?

What if you could pivot before building your solution or going to market? Imagine the resources you could save!

In this article, we unpack the nature of secret sauce, why it is critical to the success of your startup, and why investors focus on it.

Why do investors play the waiting game, and how can you get them off the fence and committed earlier?

In the world of startups, success stories often steal the spotlight. Yet, failure is a far more common companion on the entrepreneurial journey.

It's a sad reality that most startups fail within the first few years. There are ten things that most failed startups have in common.

Your elevator pitch is more than just an introduction; it’s the gateway to potential investment and growth opportunities.

Negotiation is one of the core roles of CEOs. As a founder, you will negotiate with investors, co-founders, employees, vendors, and customers.

At first, most founders are not expert negotiators. I certainly wasn't.

Every early-stage investor wants to hear about your market opportunity. How big can you plausibly get if everything goes well?

That usually means sharing your TAM, SAM, and SOM. But what are they, how do you calculate them, and are they really the best way of showing your market potential?

In this episode, I talked with John Li, co-founder of PickFu because of his focus on testing ideas and assumptions in startups.

Sales strategy is often a neglected aspect of many tech startups, especially those led by technical founders.

Investors and advisors may have told you your solution needs to be ten times better, faster, or cheaper than the competition. But why is that?

Raising money from investors is a long, arduous process, so many founders seek help.

In response, a whole cadre of people specializing in that sprang up, often called fundraising facilitators. The problem is that most of them appear to be ineffective at best and harmful at worst.

How demoralizing is spending hours on a pitch deck and associated materials only to get ghosted by the investor or receive an automated form rejection?

In this interview, Sabir Ibrahim, an attorney and entrepreneur, provides valuable insights on the implications of privacy and privacy policies for startups.

There's a paradox that impacts most startups early in their journeys. You can't make your product without money, and you can't get money without a product.

Mara Rada explains how to use branding and positioning to maximum effect in your startup.

If you're serious about angel investing, it's critical to understand the underlying economics.

You want to attract and, more importantly, retain top talent. but you can’t pay top dollar. So what can you do?

In this article, I share the thirteen factors I consider when evaluating angel investment opportunities.

In this interview, Caroline Arzoo, Director of Partnerships at OmniSync, and I discuss the different options for funding a startup, with a focus on non-dilutive funding.

The first money you raise for your startup will probably be from people who already care about you and your success, your friends and family.

Once you decide to start angel investing, your first challenge is finding strong dealflow. You need access to a large number of companies looking for funding that meet your general target criteria, because most won’t be worthy of your money.

What can you do as a startup CEO, what requires approval by the Board of Directors, and what needs a shareholder vote? How do those meetings work, and how do you make them official?

VC investment is a double-edged sword. It can launch your startup like a rocket, but it can also cause it to explode on the launch pad.

Learn how taking venture capital investments can destroy your company.

Angel investing can seem intimidating at first. This article will teach you a low-risk way to get started and how to maximize your long-term results.

When the economy gets rocky, raising funds for your startup is more challenging.

In this article, I show how to adapt your fundraising strategy and position your company for maximum success.

Founder stock vesting can be a touchy subject. If an investor asks you to vest your shares, you might worry that you will lose control or that they will take your ownership and kick you out.

Money from investors should fuel your startup's exponential growth. But a lousy term sheet can leave the company spluttering on the launch pad with nothing to show for all your hard work.

Sometimes when you pitch, the technology won’t cooperate. Learn to handle it so you look as good or better than you would have if everything had gone perfectly.

Investor update emails are your best tool for keeping investors, potential investors, advisors, and supporters in the loop and engaged with your progress. This framework and template will help.

Sometimes you will find yourself running out of runway for your startup. What should you do when you only have a few months of capital left?

Many new founders are confused about how cap tables, stock, and dilution work. Learn what you need to know to talk intelligently to your attorneys, investors, co-founders, and employees.

Almost every startup finds itself in a dark place where it seems they have few options. Even if things are going well for you now, keeping these strategies in your back pocket will probably help at some point.

I've heard from several founders who are a little bit confused about how advising works here at Feel the Boot. Here’s a quick explanation.

Founders constantly strive to grow their companies and maximize their valuation. Unfortunately, sometimes a high valuation can hurt your company.

If someone came up to you with a check and said they wanted to buy your company, how would you make that decision?

A strong advisory board is a powerful asset for your startup that can transform your ability to grow and fundraise, but who should you ask to join your board and how do you find them?

Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? It's an insane job with super high risk and crazy hours and totally unknown outcome at the end of the day.

If you're thinking about raising funds for your startup, you might be asking what your company worth right now, the pre-money valuation? I'm going to pull back the curtain and explain to you how investors look at valuing your startup.

Founders and CEOs can often get into the trap of working on mundane tasks while failing to take time to do the critical strategic thinking that will make the company soar. I share two frameworks that helped me in my startup.

2021 was a big year for us at Feel the Boot. We experienced lots of growth, and I want to thank all of you for making such a fantastic experience.

Tim Fitzpatrick, founder of Rialto Marketing talks about marketing strategy, marketing fundamentals, and strategic thinking.

This is the best of the best of my learnings from 25 years as a founder, angel, and advisor. Don’t miss this one.

For technical founders, coding and development are our comfort zone. Learn how and why to put that on hold and talk to your prospective customers.

When I started as a founder, I struggled with sales meetings.

I want to share some of my key learnings with you so you can skip straight to mastery.

Profitability Master Ruth King, the award-winning author of 5 books including “the Courage to be Profitable” and “Profit or Wealth?”, talks about the lifecycle of startups and surviving a phase she calls “No Man’s Land.”

Should you bootstrap your startup to greatness or take outside investment to accelerate your growth?

Most investors just skim pitch decks in a few seconds. This technique ensures they still get the key information about your startup.

In startups, resources are critically limited. What are you going to build, and more importantly, what will not get built?

Most investment pitching now happens over video conferences, so mastering remote fundraising is critical.

Most founders talk way too fast when pitching leaving investors baffled about what they are talking about.

Patent Attorney Adam Philipp explains what you need to know about patents and intellectual property as a startup founder.

Startup advice, in the form of a recipe or template for success, can cause more harm than good. Learn what to look out for.

Why should you put off automating business processes as long as possible? Learn the benefit of doing things by hand in the early stages of a business.

I don't introduce myself in these blogs or episodes, which may leave some of you wondering, "Who is this Lance person, and why in the world should I take his advice on startups?"

I see a ton of bad pitches. I want to share the top ten fundraising mistakes and how you can avoid them.

In this year-end installment of Feel the Boot, I want to, not surprisingly, look back at 2020 and also talk about some of the ideas I have for where Feel the Boot can go going forward.

I want to talk about a different way of thinking about your competitive environment. Your competition isn't just the other companies in your space.

A follow-up interview with Che Voigt, chair of the North Bay Angels and co-founder and CEO of Altwork.

When I founded Anonymizer, I struggled with selling and marketing our solutions. I share how I overcame my science habits and prejudices to become effective at it.

Johann Moonesinghe, founder of InKind, pioneer in crowd funding, active angel investor, and startup advisor through TechStars, talked about how the COVID crisis impacted restaurants, some survival strategies, and his experience as a gay minority founder.

Joy Hermsen, expert on entrepreneurship and leadership, talks about finding mentors, startup survival strategies, and how training for triathlons relates to entrepreneurship.

Intelligence, skill, and hard work are necessary for your startup to succeed, but they are often not enough. In my experience, you need to be lucky too.

When you pitch to investors, your audience will only remember a couple of ideas. Learn what about your company will wow investors.

Lisa Tamayo, serial entrepreneur, angel investor, CEO/Co-founder of Scollar, talked about their pivot from product to platform, and shared her hard-won experience about the startup process.

If you need to choose a problem to solve, identify your customers, and settle on a solution. In part 2, you will learn to identify your best option.

If you need to choose a problem to solve, identify your customers, and settle on a solution. This framework will help you through the process.

Iris Fujiura, Chapter Lead of the Silicon Valley chapter of Golden Seeds, and an engineer/executive working on rockets and launch systems, provides great insight into angel investor priorities, and what makes for a successful funding pitch.

I will share my proven five-step process for building a killer pitch.

Che Voigt, co-founder and CEO of AltWork and chair of the North Bay Angels, talks about their innovative workstation and how the work from home trend is driving sales and their experiences with a China based supply chain during COVID.

I interviewed numerous angel investors to create this list of nine things angels want to learn in your pitch.

Elizabeth Gore, co-founder and president of Alice (helloalice.com), shares numerous insights that will be of great help to any small business owner..

The busyness trap is when you get caught in a pattern of doing a lot but accomplishing little. I share some approaches to escaping from that trap.

When you talk to an investor, they expect you to show financial projections. How can you do that when you are pre-revenue?

Learn how to launch a company without savings or investment.

During an economic crisis, companies need to take immediate and radical action to stay alive. These five moves can save your startup.

What’s the difference between an intentional pivot and just having no clear direction? Learn to achieve focus with flexibility.

Founders often feel like frauds. Learn the nearly universal reality of impostor syndrome.

Why are so many strong startups failing to raise their A-Rounds?

Almost all successful companies share one thing in common: a pivot. Learning and adapting can be the best path to growth and success.

Building a business is risky and expensive, but you can minimize the risk and avoid unnecessary expenses by testing your assumptions early in the process.

Passion provides a gigantic competitive advantage. Learn how to connect your business to your passion.

When you are raising funds for your startup, one of the biggest questions is, “How much should I ask for?”

One of the most frightening moments as an entrepreneur is when you finally quit your day job. You can risk reduce that transition and improve your chances for angel funding at the same time.

I lose interest in most of the pitches I see within the first thirty seconds. Here I share with you how to nail the opening of your pitch.

As a human, you don’t scale well. That means delegating, which can be painful but is the only path to growth.

Making a video while evacuated from a massive wildfire helped me think about my priorities and when to push through difficulties.

I learned this from hard personal experience. It is far easier to stay ready for due diligence than to get there at the last moment.

Virality is the holy grail of business models. Learn the three different kinds of virality which you can use in your startup.

Most blockchain pitches I see are terrible. Learn how they go wrong so you can avoid those mistakes.

You want to keep control of your startup, but that does not mean you need to keep 51% ownership. Learn what really matters here.

What are the best ways to use stock options to motivate employees?

What are stock options, and how do you explain them to your employees so they appreciate them?

What is the difference between pre-seed, seed, A, B, and C rounds?

Why do investors want to hear about your ability to execute more than your idea?

How to break through the logjam of startup fundraising.

A deck you present won’t work when read alone, and vice versa.

Asking investors to sign your NDA before seeing your pitch will kill most deals. Why is that?