http://www.dealhorizon.com/deal_horizon_blogs.xml Posts from the DealHorizon.com blog by John Sharp en-us Fri, 18 May 2012 17:20:27 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=5069 <p>While browsing in an airport bookstore, I recently came across a copy of <em>Business Model Generation</em> - a Wiley publication written by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. If you're looking for an inspiring thought-starter when... Tue, 08 Mar 2011 06:55:11 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=5065 <p>When you really boil it down, there are only two ways people fall in love - the love-at-first-sight version ("I knew he was my soulmate the instant we met - it was like lightning struck and all I could see were his eyes, looking at me... Mon, 07 Mar 2011 10:29:15 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=5060 <p>Many years ago, I was offered several million dollars by a syndicate of investors as part of a first-round funding for a media company we planned to build. This was my first ever venture deal. At the stage the offer came, I had... Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:28:09 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=5055 <p>We had a nice night out last night at the home of a former pro poker player now living in Singapore. Over pre-dinner drinks with some of the other couples, we discussed the hassles of moving across oceans. I found myself scanning my... Sun, 06 Mar 2011 08:36:27 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=5015 <p>A few years ago, myself and a couple of friends played the role of angel investors and invested a small amount of money in a start-up that was building a system to enable easy administration and updating of advertising rate cards for... Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:03:51 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=5006 <p>So you're about to go meet with a VC. Here's some free advice from someone who has had a few of those: at a certain point in the meeting, approximately one third of the way into your allotted time, you will need to do something that may... Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:19:05 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=4847 <p>If you're like me, you're probably tired of receiving boring emails from social network marketing departments with static subjects like "Facebook Weekly Update" and "Twitter Development Group Update", etc. Static titles like these do... Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:35:49 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=4043 <p>Jon Samsel, CEO of <a href="http://heardable.com">Heardable</a> (disclaimer: I'm a co-founder) sent around some good news yesterday - after just ten months of operation, we've gone from a zero base to more than 50,000 uniques a month,... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:17:53 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3892 <p>Watching what is being decided and reported in the United States right now is frustrating on several levels - the most fundamental level being, I want the country to get back on its feet, and quickly.</p> <p style="text-align:... Sat, 03 Jul 2010 17:52:15 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3884 <p>One of my daily activities is checking house prices in Florida. Because right now, you can buy a lot of home for not a lot of cash.</p> <p>Okay, let's cut the BS - I also look at it because the drama is such that you can't cover your... Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:13:22 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3870 <p>The founder of a company I'm an adviser to recently asked me for tips on creating a PowerPoint presentation for his upcoming investor roadshow. He asked me to send him a copy of the best deck I've ever seen.</p> <center> <div... Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:52:13 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3847 <p>One of my partner investors in Heardable sent me along a link to a deck the other day from the Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI) that presents an extremely thorough picture of the user interest generation (social media) and user... Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:13:52 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3839 <p>I just had a meeting with a buddy and he got mad at me because he felt that he'd crossed a threshold in terms of what his technology could achieve and, for whatever reason, I wasn't buying it (enough). It didn't help that the entire... Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:00:41 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3834 <p>While some basic budgeting is necessary for all corporations, I'm strongly of the opinion that the wrong kind of budgeting can seriously hamper growth, prevent the kind of returns needed by venture capital investors, and set a company... Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:12:29 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3819 <p>Heardable's appointment of Jon Samsel as their new CEO counts as today's "Deal of the Day". There are very few guys out there that know what Jon knows about digital marketing, and fewer still that understand the interface between... Mon, 21 Jun 2010 22:12:38 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3806 <p>If the entertainment media is driving you to despair with images of today's fathers as a bunch of lying, cheating, irrelevant (when it comes to parenting) no-goods, take heart - the same sentiment was present over 100 years ago, and was... Sun, 20 Jun 2010 19:25:23 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3796 <p style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5;">Over the past twenty years, the folks behind this site have helped a number of entrepreneurs and startup companies raise tens of millions of dollars from venture investors. ... Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:33:05 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3795 <p>One of the benefits of being involved in several companies is you get to see a lot of individuals in action - managers, entrepreneurs, board members, technical advisors, investors, and customers. My takeaway from watching all this... Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:52:09 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3794 <p>A few years ago, at the Forbes CEO conference in Singapore, I asked Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, a question: what lessons could other third world countries take away from Singapore's rise to prominence?</p> <p>The... Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:10:52 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3689 <p>Several years ago, while I was setting up and building out sales and distribution offices for a satellite company in China, Indonesia and India, I was given a briefing on marketing to these emerging giants of the Asian market by several... Wed, 26 May 2010 09:02:24 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3636 <p>Almost every entrepreneur knows the "give away the razor, sell the blades" marketing strategy that King Camp Gillette pioneered, but Gillette had some other innovative ideas that have received rather less attention over the years - but... Sat, 15 May 2010 05:07:36 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3627 <p>Tonight, I'm here to talk about the damage that self-gratification can inflict upon companies, and their customers and shareholders - but also to talk about how some entrepreneurs manage to succeed, despite some potentially damaging... Thu, 13 May 2010 23:21:27 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3625 <p>There are three things they say you should never watch being made: sausages, your siblings, and web sites. Having just completed a two month re-work of DealHorizon, we can concur. But, that said, the task of improving one's web site is... Wed, 12 May 2010 23:00:37 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3619 <p>Many years ago, we tried to get funding from US investors for a start-up based outside the US. Big mistake! Our investors weren't interested in investing in an offshore-based company, and almost walked. We quickly moved the... Tue, 11 May 2010 21:48:21 GMT http://www.dealhorizon.com/blog.php?user_id=1&blogentry_id=3611 <p>As many of you know, I'm involved in several financial services start-ups (you're looking at one of them). And the thing that is most noticeably different about these startups versus other startups I get to see is the superb quality of... Tue, 11 May 2010 00:36:47 GMT