Feld Thoughts: Financial Fitness for Entrepreneurs
By Bradley Feld of Mobius Venture Capital recently posted this article stating:
"I wrote the following article on 'financial fitness for entrepreneurs' last year for the Kauffman Foundation's Entreworld web site so it's reasonably fresh; I got a lot of positive feedback and it ended up in USA Today. It's aimed at any entrepreneur - not just those running venture funded companies. While it's aimed at an early stage entrepreneur, I think it's useful whether you have one employee (you, the founder) or thousands of employees in your business. It was 'professionally edited', so it lost some of my special voice (you'll notice the lack of cuss words.) Enjoy."
I did enjoy it and I believe you will too.
These are his financial tenets:
1. Cash is king: No matter what, don’t run out of money.
2. Put in real financial systems from day one.
3. Measure everything
4. Build an annual operating plan
5. Use your vendors to fund your business
6. Use your customers to fund your business
7. Be careful of personal guarantees
8. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
9. Finance your business appropriately for what you are trying to create
10. Choose professionals carefully
11. Don’t take anything for granted: Double-check everything.
