How to Be Sure Your Students Interview Customers
As a college professor, I always want to trust my students do what they say they do. Unfortunately, I can’t. In a 2017 survey by Kessler International, 86% of college students admitted […]
The Easiest and Stupidest Way To Name Your Company
As an entrepreneurship professor, every semester I have about 20-30 student teams developing concepts and the first big question they struggle with is: What should we name our company? While there are […]
Three Resources to Get Started On Your Pitch Deck – Two are Free
As you may have read in my previous post The Business Plan is Dead, the pitch deck is the key to garnering an investor’s attention. If you cannot tell your story in […]
Five Small Details That Give Your Investor Pitch an Edge
It’s the big day. You and your partners have prepared your slide deck, you have your executive summary printed, and are ready to share your amazing investment opportunity. Here are five simple tips that […]
How to Build a Financial Model – The Best Tool Ever
If you’ve read my previous post on unit economics you know how important assumptions are in building a financial model for your business. However, building assumptions into a financial model requires some strong […]
Seven Deadly Sins of Pitching
There are certainly more than just seven mistakes that you can make when pitching to investors, but these seven could definitely be the nail in the coffin that prevents you from getting […]
Mistakes Pitching Investors – Five Examples from a Recent VC/Angel Conference (Part One of Two)
This week, I attended a venture capital (VC)/angel investor conference in the Bay Area and part of the event involved entrepreneurs pitching their concepts to a panel of VCs and angels. I was […]
One SIMPLE Way To IMPROVE The Way You Talk About Your Business: The First Question Test
This is one of my favorite exercises for entrepreneurs. In nearly every single case, this simple exercise will help improve just about any kind of introduction for a business (it works for salespeople […]
10 Phrases to Delete From Your Business Plan NOW
After over fifteen years of working with entrepreneurs, investors, and professors in the realm of entrepreneurship, new ventures, and business plans; I’ve learned there are some very simple, yet devastating red flags that […]
Get Your Students to Text During Class – No, Seriously!
Ah, the common problems of cell phones in class. We seem to have all become somewhat addicted to our phones. A recent study actually found that female college students, in particular, spend […]
Over 20 Surprising Spelling Mistakes from College Seniors
Can you spell graduation without a computer? A college senior probably couldn’t. I remember what shocked me the most when I began teaching college students – their poor grammar and spelling skills. […]
Addiction to Ideas: How to Break the Cycle
This was me about 10 years ago: Hi, I’m Colleen. I’m an entrepreneurship professor. I listen to ideas all day long and I can’t get enough of them. I dream about my students ideas and […]
Three Best Friends College Entrepreneurs Need To Make On Campus
While most entrepreneurs in the United States tend to start businesses after the age of 35 according to the Kauffman Foundation’s Index Start Up Activity, about 25% of entrepreneurs start businesses earlier. […]
One of the Worst Mistakes When Pitching Your Idea
Our semester at Chico State just wrapped up. As part of my final exam, the students are required to pitch their concepts to a panel of external judges from the community. We call […]
A Challenge Facing Nonprofit Strategy – Caring Too Much
Anyone who has been involved in a board conversation or a management discussion within a nonprofit has faced the following question: Do we do what is best for the cause or best […]
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