My challenge to entrepreneurs is this: stop thinking up new ideas, start executing on your existing ones, and stay focused until you achieve your goals.

As the year wraps up, it’s abundantly clear that everyone is BURNED OUT.

A few years ago I started making an “anti-resolutions list” at the end of the year. As someone with an early December birthday, I consider myself lucky in that I get a reflective head start on one year coming to an end, and another nearing its beginning.

Many entrepreneurs — including yours truly, in a former life — gravitate towards an obsessive focus on revenue as the most important statistic in explaining their company’s growth path.

When it comes to the challenges that startups face, the most preventable are the people problems. And most people problems arise because of a lack of opportunity for communication.

Startups are often founded by friends and staffed by people in the founders’ networks, so it’s not a surprise that many early stage companies are staffed by people who look the same and come from similar backgrounds.

In the last few months we’ve made impactful changes to the way we review companies.

Let’s put it out there — Q2 was not a big quarter for hiring. It was a quarter for preserving cash, revising budgets, and taking care of your team.

Solid financial reporting and accounting practices is the foundation for a good business. Without them, you’re betting your business on conjecture and faith.

There’s no comment that will end the evaluation of an early stage founding team more swiftly than someone on the investment committee saying “They just don’t seem coachable.”

“The purpose of this meeting is….” I wrote that sentence on hundreds, maybe thousands, of memos during my four years as a political scheduler and fundraiser.