The Start Up J Curve

A predictable pattern of success Entrepreneurs who have read early drafts of The Start-Up J Curve responded, ''I wish I had this book years ago.'' A start-up unfolds in a predictable pattern; the more aware entrepreneurs are of this pattern, the better able they will be to capitalize on it. Author Howard Love calls this pattern the start-up J Curve: The toughest part of the endeavor is the time between the actual start of a new business and when the product and model are firmly established. The Start-Up J Curve gives entrepreneurs the tools they need to get through the early challenges so they can reach the primary value creation that lies beyond. Love brings thirty-five years of start-up experience to this comprehensive guide to starting a business. He outlines the six predictable stages of start-up growth and details the activities that should be undertaken at each stage to ensure success and to avoid common pitfalls. Instead of feeling lost and confused after a setback, start-up founders and investors can anticipate the challenges, overcome the obstacles, and ride the curve to the top.

More than 90% of start-ups change their initial business plans and many start-ups fail. Often, this happens because their owners don't understand the start-up journey or its various phases. Entrepreneur Howard Love applies his 35 years of experience and numerous successful start-up runs to explaining the ups and downs and sometimes obscure rhythms of developing a successful business. With his grasp of crucial subtle details and his clear explication of the big picture, Love's advice proves easy to follow, comprehensive and practical. getAbstract recommends his guidance to anyone considering a start-up and to entrepreneurs in their company's early years.

Locate nations on the J Curve -- left for authoritarian, right for democratic. Then figure out how to force those on the left to open their societies, rather than encouraging them to shut them tighter by further isolating them. The West's isolation of Kim Jong-il's North Korea gives him the cover he needs to extend his brutal regime (the mistake the U.S. made for a long time with Saddam Hussein and Castro); in Saudi Arabia, western governments should encourage manageable change before the country breaks apart; they should help strengthen China's economy so it can further liberalize; they must encourage Israel to decide what kind of country it will be. Filled with imaginative and surprising examples of how to correct outworn political ideas, The J Curve points the way for western governments to lead the way to a realistic political balance and a healthier economic future.

Do we have the wrong map for the Christian life? Life's inconveniences, disappointments, and trials can leave us confused, cynical, and eventually bitter. But the apostle Paul traces out the path of dying and rising with Jesus—what Paul Miller calls the “J-Curve”—as the normal Christian life. The J-Curve maps the ups and downs of daily life onto the story of Jesus. It grounds our journeys not in some abstract idea but in union with Christ and his work of love. Understanding our lives in light of the J-Curve roots our hope, centers our love, and tethers our faith to Christ.

Building on the success of the author’s previous book Beyond the J Curve:Managing a Portfolio of Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds, this work covers new and additional material and offers advanced guidance on the practical questions faced by institutions when setting up and managing a successful private equity investment programme. Written from the practitioner’s viewpoint, the book offers private equity and venture capital professionals an advanced guide that will make high return targets more realistic and sustainable. Factors that can sometimes cause institutions to shy away from venture capital are the industry’s opaque track record, unclear valuations and risks, perceived lack of transparency as well as the significant entry barriers to overcome before tangible results show. These issues are all addressed in details with practical solutions to the problems. Among other topics J-Curve Exposure includes discussions of: Experiences with the adoption of the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Valuation Guidelines to address fair value under IFRS. Approaches for splitting and prioritizing distributions from private equity funds. Techniques for track record analysis and other tools to help limited partners in their due diligence. Approaches to dealing with uncertainty, the relevance of real options, and co-investments and side funds as advanced portfolio management techniques. Questions related to limited partner decision making fallacies and how to manage portfolios of VC funds. Securitization backed by portfolios of investments in private equity funds. Real life case studies illustrate the issues relevant for the practitioner.

In recent times, venture capital and private equity funds have become household names, but so far little has been written for the investors in such funds, the so-called limited partners. There is far more to the management of a portfolio of venture capital and private equity funds than usually perceived. Beyond the J Curve describes an innovative toolset for such limited partners to design and manage portfolios tailored to the dynamics of this market place, going far beyond the typical and often-simplistic recipe to 'go for top quartile funds'. Beyond the J Curve provides the answers to key questions, including: Why 'top-quartile' promises should be taken with a huge pinch of salt and what it takes to select superior fund managers? What do limited partners need to consider when designing and managing portfolios? How one can determine the funds' economic value to help addressing the questions of 'fair value' under IAS 39 and 'risk' under Basel II or Solvency II? Why is monitoring important, and how does a limited partner manage his portfolio? How the portfolio's returns can be improved through proper liquidity management and what to consider when over-committing? And, why uncertainty rather than risk is an issue and how a limited partner can address and benefit from the fast changing private equity environment? Beyond the J Curve takes the practitioner's view and offers private equity and venture capital professionals a comprehensive guide making high return targets more realistic and sustainable. This book is a must have for all parties involved in this market, as well as academic and students.

Get the real guidance you need to create and build your first startup company from founders who have been there many times before. The first run printing of The Startup Playbook SOLD OUT! So, we revised, expanded, and improved this second edition, including a new foreword by Brad Feld, author of Venture Deals. We still give our personal, how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. You'll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we've learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We're sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you. We make no bones about our bias. We're on your side, the founder's side. While venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators can add great value in the startup ecosystem, this book isn't about their points of view. We'll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table—investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others—and what to do when that happens. The Startup Playbook is not a recipe, it's not a template, it's not a list of tasks to do. It's our insider's guide to starting a company and running it successfully in those critical early months. Between us, we've started over a dozen high-tech software companies and raised over $500 million in investment capital. We've acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We've also invested in over eighty startups, advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups. We've had plenty of failures, too. And we've probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of our advice, guidance, do's, and don'ts from our years of experience as founders many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve. "This book is extraordinarily fresh and exciting. In an accessible, straight talk fashion, this book is a manual, and an inspiration. The Startup Playbook is smart and avoids the 'I am so smart' over-writing endemic to the genre. Read this as it is presented. You'll be doing yourself a tremendous favor." —Amazon Reviewer

Discover the remarkable story of an orphaned Black boy who grew up to become the groundbreaking architect to the stars, Paul R. Williams. A stunning nonfiction picture-book biography from the Caldecott Honor–winning author and NAACP Image Award–nominated artist. As an orphaned Black boy growing up in America in the early 1900s, Paul R. Williams became obsessed by the concept of "home." He not only dreamed of building his own home, he turned his dreams into drawings. Defying the odds and breaking down the wall of racism, Williams was able to curve around the obstacles in his way to become a world-renowned architect. He designed homes for the biggest celebrities of the day, such as Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball, and created a number of buildings in Los Angeles that are now considered landmarks. From Andrea J. Loney, the author of the Caldecott Honor Book Double Bass Blues, and award-winning artist Keith Mallett comes a remarkable story of fortitude, hope, and positivity.