Welcome to Forge Ahead!
The Blog for Ambitious Startup Founders
From avoiding founder overwhelm to how to improve your investor readiness, and much, much more!
The difference between good startups and great startups: Planning and Execution
When you are building a startup, it can feel like there are never enough hours in the day …
The Best and Worst thing about being a Founder
Being a startup founder is harder in reality than most people think before they get started. Some founders are drawn to one of the best parts of being a founder: not having a boss. The funny thing is…
Creating a strong value proposition
Who values your Value Proposition? A value proposition tells people why they would buy your product, yet a lot of...
Founder Bias (Blindness) is holding back your startup
When you work with a variety of founders, a number of patterns emerge. In my work coaching early stage founders, one...
4 storytelling tips to boost your startup success
I recently gave a presentation at GSVLabs on Effective Storytelling for Startups (a recording of the workshop is...
Creating an effective Go to Market Strategy
The Go to Market strategy is one of the most critical elements in a startup’s arsenal. You can have an awesome...
When pitching to investors, it’s OK to tell them what you are doing
When pitching to investors, it’s OK to tell them what you are doing This morning I had the chance to review 7 pitch...
Traction is for planning, not just pitch decks
If you have made any efforts at all to put together an investor pitch deck, then no doubt you’ve heard that one of the...
Are you an investable founder?
Do you have the traits that make investors want to give you money and support you? If you’ve been around the startup...
It’s time to be honest about your startup advisor relationships
All advisor relationships are not created equal If you’re like most of the startups I’ve worked with for the past 20...
Successful investor pitches engage emotion and motivation
A good funding pitch does a lot of things. It showcases a founder’s knowledge of their industry. It shows their...
Your Pitch Deck isn’t a Teleprompter
One of the frequent errors that I see first time founders make is putting wayyy too many words on a slide. If...