Climb the Vertical Learning Curve
Founders need to master a huge number of skills and topics all while scrambling to keep their business running.
Feel the Boot is here to walk with you along the difficult and rewarding path you have chosen.
107. Startup Failure Analysis 🔎 Key Lessons from Abby Sugar
In the world of startups, success stories often steal the spotlight. Yet, failure is a far more common companion on the entrepreneurial journey.
99. The 10x rule 🌟 Why better is not enough
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?
81. My worst day as a founder 😭 how we pivoted, survived, and eventually thrived
Creating and growing a company can be an incredible experience, but you will have days that seriously suck. Because I frequently talk about how challenging launching a startup can be, I want to share my worst day as a founder.
79. Cofounder Vesting 😭 Handling founder shares when things go wrong
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.
74. What is a Cap Table? 🧐 Tracking VC Investments and stock option grants
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.
67. 🤔 Blitzscaling vs. the 4 hour work week – choose the kind of company you want to create and run.
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.
65. Task Management ✍️ make time for strategic thinking
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.
60. Top Insights From 25 Years as a Founder, Angel, and Advisor
This is the best of the best of my learnings from 25 years as a founder, angel, and advisor. Don’t miss this one.
51. What founders need to know about patents and intellectual property for startups - Adam Philipp
Patent Attorney Adam Philipp explains what you need to know about patents and intellectual property as a startup founder.
50. Bad startup advice creates cargo cult thinking. Learn to spot and avoid it.
Startup advice, in the form of a recipe or template for success, can cause more harm than good. Learn what to look out for.
45. Founders, your competition might not be what you think it is
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.
40. How to make luck and exploit hidden business opportunities
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.
29. Escape the busyness trap that tricks entrepreneurs into working hard while accomplishing little
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.
25. In startups, distractions are everywhere. Entrepreneurs must find the fine balance of intense focus without rigidity.
What’s the difference between an intentional pivot and just having no clear direction? Learn to achieve focus with flexibility.
24. Why do most founders and entrepreneurs feel like frauds and suffer from impostor syndrome?
Founders often feel like frauds. Learn the nearly universal reality of impostor syndrome.
20. Passion is the secret weapon of successful entrepreneurs. Learn how to identify and leverage it.
Passion provides a gigantic competitive advantage. Learn how to connect your business to your passion.
18. While starting a business, when should you quit your day job?
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.
16. Why founders don’t delegate as much as they should
As a human, you don’t scale well. That means delegating, which can be painful but is the only path to growth.
15. Priorities and Perseverance: Finding balance and moving forward in the face of major adversity
Making a video while evacuated from a massive wildfire helped me think about my priorities and when to push through difficulties.
13. The three kinds of viral growth and how to use them in your startup
Virality is the holy grail of business models. Learn the three different kinds of virality which you can use in your startup.
11. Understanding Control and Power in Your Startup
You want to keep control of your startup, but that does not mean you need to keep 51% ownership. Learn what really matters here.
7. Why ideas matter less than execution to investors and your startup business
Why do investors want to hear about your ability to execute more than your idea?