If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Before we finish with our examination of the Income Statement, it’s worth addressing some of the “games” that can be (and have been) played in reporting. Why is this important? At some point, you will likely be comparing your company [...]
Archive for September, 2010
Advisory Board Advice
On September - 23 - 2010
When sitting through entrepreneurs’ presentations, I often find myself cringing when the “Advisory Board” slide makes its appearance. Advisory Boards have been in vogue for some time. In the “go-go” years of the first internet bubble, every company had such a group filled with household names. Even today, I find many startups use advisory boards [...]
My EBITDA is Bigger Than Yours . . .
On September - 21 - 2010
Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers and related professionals love to sprinkle their conversation with esoteric terms – most notably the fabled EBITDA and EBIT. Let’s examine the calculation of these items and, more importantly, why they are used. EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. Although this can be calculated from the Net [...]
The Viral Marketing Fallacy
On September - 16 - 2010
More often than not, I find that business plans that are presented to me are woefully inadequate when it comes to the Go To Market section. We’ll explore Go To Market planning and needs in more detail in a future post. Today I want to address the “strategy” that many entrepreneurs expound when I draw [...]
The Income Statement
On September - 14 - 2010
Continuing our discussion of key accounting and finance elements for entrepreneurs, let’s take a look at the components of a financial statement. It’s easiest to begin by examining the Income Statement. The Income Statement is what many people imagine when thinking of financial statements. Essentially, the Income Statement is the Profit and Loss statement (P&L) [...]
Entrepreneurial Expectations & Superhero Status
On September - 9 - 2010
“Seth,” a coaching client said to me recently, “I love being an entrepreneur. I was prepared for pressure – but I never realized how much of the pressure would come from expectations.” It’s one of the dirty little secrets of entrepreneurship. Part of the reason why many people start new ventures is that you are [...]
Leaping the GAAP
On September - 7 - 2010
One of my clients once said to me “When I first had to deal with accounting and financial statements, it made me want to cower in fear.” While that may not be the typical entrepreneur’s experience, it can sometimes feel like accounting processes were designed to be overly complicated and confusing. Today, we’ll examine GAAP [...]
