Author: Jeff Thermond

How To Run Your First Board Of Directors Meeting

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

I remember my first Board of Directors meeting. It was a disaster. I made the naïve mistake of laying out several different business model options for our startup and then asked for the board’s opinion without first putting forth my

How To Handle An Unexpected Offer For Your Early-Stage Startup

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on VentureBeat.

You are running your first startup. You are starting to build your team and gain customer traction. You have taken advantage of a wealth of blogs about the right hygiene for starting and building a company. It is starting to

How To Attack A Crowded Market — And Come Out On Top

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

In a previous article, I described many unappreciated risks in competing in a crowded market. This article explains when to try and how to succeed in attacking a crowded market.

Research has

Is Competing In A Crowded Market Worth The Gamble?

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

One of the first things venture capitalists consider when they see a new pitch is, “How crowded is the market space in which the startup wants to compete?” If the investors express concern that the market is crowded, this should

The Most Common Mistake In SaaS Sales Strategies

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

Life is good: You’ve got an enterprise SaaS startup that is getting a lot of buzz. You have scores of customers, and some of them look ripe for upgrades which could deliver a 100% increase in bookings. Your VP of

The Path To Software Success Starts With A Data Roadmap

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

LinkedIn and other companies draw hundreds of millions of users every day in large part thanks to their ability to acquire, transform and leverage many types of data. The use of a data roadmap, which is a disciplined way to

How To Survive A Failed Product Plan — And Come Back Even Stronger

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

In a previous article, I argued that great startups solve large, and even more importantly, immediate pain points for customers by positioning products more like a pain killer and less like a vitamin. This is the essence of product/market fit:

Easing Market Pain: How To Position Your Products For Success

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

Whenever I talk to a startup CEO, the conversation moves quickly to the company’s growth rate for bookings and revenue. Too often, they’re not what the entrepreneur had hoped for. I want to offer a few thoughts on why that

How To Field Investor Questions Like A Pro

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

When asking entrepreneurs how their pitch went to a new VC firm, I often hear, “It was going really great until I got asked this question which really threw me. It was completely off topic. Things didn’t go so great

Mastering The Balance Sheet Can Make Or Break A Startup

This XSeed blog was written by Venture Partner, Jeff Thermond, and originally appeared on Forbes.

When I see something happen again and again in Silicon Valley, I use the phrase “Prevailing Pattern of Practice in the Valley” to describe it. When things work well here, they get copied broadly.

Over the last twenty