Okay, you have decided to raise venture money. You have had a few meetings with a VC, presented to some partners, and you are in the pre-termsheet pipeline with a venture firm that you’re interested in. Okay, but that is a much more perilous place than most entrepreneurs understand, so here are four questions you need to get answered right away:

1. Do I have

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Author: Paul Kedrosky
Source: Four Unusual Questions You Should Ask in Raising Venture Money
Subject: Entrepreneurship Questions

1. What is your competitive advantage? Simply being in an industry with successful competitors is not enough. You need to effectively communicate how your company is different and why you have an advantage over the competition. Do you have a better distribution channel? Key partners? Proprietary technology?
2. Who is behind the company? “Bet on the jockey, not the horse” is a familiar saying among investors.

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Author: Mike Drummond
Source: Under the Microscope: Funding in 2001
Subject: Entrepreneurship Questions

1. What will your role in the business be, and what do you expect mine to be? The co-CEO game can be difficult, so consider putting one person in charge.
2. How will we split up ownership, how will we divide profits and losses, and how will we each be paid? Some experts suggest avoiding a 50-50 ownership split. But if you are equal partners, be

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Author: Stephanie Clifford
Source: 10 Questions to Ask Your Partner (Before You Sign an Agreement)
Subject: Entrepreneurship Questions

Different people learn differently. In order to help you be successful as a business mentor, review the practical tips below so you can adapt your teaching styles and get the most from your people and their potential:

1. Do they like to gather information through words, and if so, what kind? Everyone responds to the spoken word, but some people are more “doers” than listeners

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Author: A. J. Schuler
Source: Becoming a Successful Mentor: How to Recognize the Different Ways Your People Learn
Subject: Management Questions

1. Are we fit to fight? Before even thinking about engaging in war, it is safe to wonder whether one is fit to fight. Companies faring worst in the boom-bust of the 1990s were those with high debt levels and/or over-capacity. So, the first question is: have we cleaned our house sufficiently structurally to be fit to fight—no more overweight soldiers, no more

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Authors: Herman Vantrappen, Hubertus M. Mühlhäuser, Nils Bohlin
Source: Smart Growth: A Road Map for Executives
Subject: Management Questions

The word “leader” stands for someone who leads, enables, articulates, decides, encourages, and rewards. Although these are not the only traits exhibited by successful leaders, they do epitomize those characteristics shared by nearly all those who successfully influence others. Besides applying the general guidelines noted above, those seeking to become effective leaders should ask themselves critical questions as part of an on-going effort to improve … [ Read more ]

Author: David F. Wilson
Source: Being a Leader
Subject: Leadership Questions

Before undertaking any knowledge management effort, answer three fundamental questions:

1. What is the work group? The first task of knowledge management is to select what one might call a unit of analysis or a unit of management. Then place primary responsibility for the content of knowledge management there. This is not necessarily a functional unit. Cross-functional project teams, for example, clearly need a “knowledge

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Author: Thomas A. Stewart
Source: The Case Against Knowledge Management
Subject: Knowledge Management Questions

Your IT system needs a major overhaul, and hordes of consultants would love to fix it for you. How do you find one who’ll get the work done on time and on budget? Start by asking these questions.

1. What happens if I’m not satisfied at the end of the project? A mediocre IT consultant will start talking fast about money-back guarantees. A smart one

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Author: Jennifer Gill
Source: Smart Questions for Your Tech Consultant
Subject: IT Questions

Michael Michalko, author, Thinkertoys: A Handbook for Business Creativity, recommends a technique invented by Alex Osborn, a pioneer in understanding creativity, in which you accept that there really are no new ideas, only updates of existing ones. With that in mind, take the subject you want to think about and ask the questions below to generate ideas. SCAMPER is a mnemonic to remind you … [ Read more ]

Authors: David Lidsky, Michael Michalko
Source: Brain Calisthenics
Subject: Innovation Questions

Overall innovation strategy must answer three questions:

1. Where to Innovate? Depending on their specific situation and ambitions companies must decide if they want to focus on new products for existing markets, on developing new markets, etc. Beyond this, they sometimes have to re-evaluate whether to change their position in the value chain through backwards integration, forward integration, etc. And if the current market position

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Authors: Per I. Nilsson, Thorsten Gerhard
Source: Innovation at Work: The Innovation Imperative
Subject: Innovation Questions