The Startup Checklist

Acknowledgments

AS WITH MY PREVIOUS BOOK on angel investing, this book is my attempt to codify and explain current best practices in the entrepreneurial finance industry—in this case, the intricacies of starting up a company the right way. As such, virtually none of it is original to me, and I have simply served as the interlocutor who brings together the hard lessons learned over long careers in the startup world by much better entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers, mentors, and advisors than I will ever be. In particular, many chapters owe enormous debts to the leading experts in their respective fields. These include:

Bill Gross, the internationally renowned entrepreneur and CEO of Idealab, who has long been a role model not only for me, but also for millions of entrepreneurs around the world, for graciously contributing the Foreword.

Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur for their seminal work on the Business Model Canvas described in Chapter 1;

Legendary business planning expert Tim Berry for entire sections of Chapter 2 on creating a lean business plan;

Charles McCormick of McCormick & O'Brien, who created the Founder Accord described in Chapter 4;

Frank Demmler of Innovation Works, one of the most respected startup mentors in Pittsburgh, for his practical Founders' Pie Calculator discussed in Chapter 5;

Eric Ries of lean startup fame (and my successor as entrepreneurship track chair at Singularity University) for the essentials of the lean startup methodology in Chapter ...