Timeless Advice

The healthcare heroes that are part of a growing community in Austin taught me just enough about their worlds to be dangerous (thank you, Gary Sabins, Dennis McWilliams, Timothy Sullivan, Jack Henneman). 

Thankfully, jumping back into that world on the East Coast recently proved that the best entrepreneurial advice really is timeless. The following gems offered by a stellar panel of LaunchBio investors seem to ring a bell from years past: 1. Don’t be too focused on valuation- it can be your undoing. Do your homework, look at the market, be flexible. 2. Make sure you’ve built your (IP) moat 3. Hit your milestones 4. Know where the puck is going 5. Communicate- clearly (harder than it sounds) 6. Go for non-dilutive funding- or at least have a plan to pursue it (see larta dot org) 7. Companies fail when bad things happen and there’s no money in the bank. Make sure these things don’t happen at the same time. 8. Hiring the best management team is your single most important function 9. Be careful about choosing your investors & advisors. Those outside of tech find it hard to understand the blinding pace of change entreps face while building company infrastructure, while facing regulatory and investor scrutiny. While the pace might be fast, it’s nice to know that least the rules for success remain constant.