Part 1: Mastering the fundamentals

Part 2: Selecting the right investor

Part 3: The idea fundraise

Part 4: Building and managing boards

Part 5: Achieving liquidity

1. Starting a venture has never be easier exceeding has never been harder

2. Try to act normal

3. Aim for an order of magnitude improvement

4. Start small but be ambitious

5. Most failures result from poor execution not unsuccessful innovation

6. The best idea originates from founders who are users

7. Don't scale your technology until it works

8. Manage with maniacal focus

9. Target fast growing dynamic markets

10. Never hire the second-best

11. Conduct your hiring interviews as see if you're an airline pilot

12. A part-time game changer is preferable to a full time seat filler

13. Manager team like a jazz band

14. Instead of a free lunch, provide meaningful work

15. Team of professionals with a common mission makes the most attractive investment

16. Use your financials to tell your story

17. Create to business plans, an execution plan and a aspiration plan

18. Know your financial members and their interdependence by heart

19. Net income is an opinion but cash flow is a fact

20. Unity economics tell you whether you have a business

21. Manage working capital as if it were your only source of funds

22. excellent exercise district its financial discipline

23. Always be frugal

24. To get where you are going you need to know where you are going

25. Measurement comes with pitfalls

26. Operational setbacks require swift and deep cutbacks

27. Safe surprises for birthdays not for your stakeholders

28. Strategic pivots offer silver linings

29. Don't accept money from strangers

30. Incubators are good for finding investors but not for developing business

31. Avoid venture capital unless you absolutely need it

32. If you choose venture capital pick the right type of the investor

33. Conduct detailed due diligence on your investors

34. Personal wealth is not good investing

35. Choose investors who think like operators

36. Deal directly with the decision makers

37. Find stable investors

38. Select investors who can help future financings

39. Investors syndicates needs to be managed

40. Capital intensive ventures required deep financial pockets

41. Strategic investors pose unique challenges

42. Raise capital in stages as you remove risks

43. Minimizing dilutions is not your fund raising objective

44. Don't let a temporary fix become a permanent mistake

45. Pursue the lowest cost capital in light of your circumstances

46. Escape the traps of venture debt

47. Choose one of four approaches to determine how much money to raise

48. Always have your aspirational plans ready

49. More ventures fail from indigestion since from starvation

50. Never stop fundraising

51. Venture capital moves in cycles

52. Fund raising takes more time than you think

53. The pitch must answer the fundamental questions about your venture

54. Make it personal

55. When pitching carefully read the room

56. Use white papers for deep dive follow-ups

57. Prepare your financing document ahead of time

58. Obsessively drive the close

59. Constant communication is important in convincing investors

60. Milestones can solve irreconcilable valuation differences

61. Liquidation preference will change your outcome safe

62. Do not take rejections personally

63. Boards are deliberation bodies not collection of individuals

64. Conflicts of interest and conflicting interest are elephants in room

65. Your board should be operational rather than administrative

66. Small boards are better than big ones next one

67. Lead investors ask for board seats quantify them first

68. You need a lead director

69. Add independent board members for expertise and objectivity

70. True board diversity is a competitive advantage

71. Each director must commit to spending meaningful time

72. Review director performance regularly

73. Your chief financial officer has a special relationship with your board

74. The founder should choose the best CEO available

75. Find a coach

76. It is the CEOs job to run efficient productive meetings

77. Don't oversell your board

78. Board agenda should look like this

79. Prepare thoroughly for board meetings

80. Use your daily management materials for board meetings

81. Too many unanimous board decisions is a sign of trouble

82. Use a working sessions and committees to reinforce your priorities

83. Your board should spend time with your team

84. Building companies to last, providing liquidity along the way

85. Who liquidity is not limited to initial public offerings and acquisitions

86. If you go public don't slip and fall

87. Investors and management's interest in liquidity often conflicts

88. Individual needed liquidity too

89. Your evaluation will have a local maximum

90. Ventures aren't just bought they can also be sold

91. Choose an acquisitor, don’t wait to be chosen

92. If you want to sell your business you need to know the decision-makers

93. Determine whether you are a good fit for acquisition before contacting them

94. Know your acquisitor’s acquisition history in detail

95. Make yourself visible

96. Build a relationship with potential acquisitions don't cold call

97. Be ready when they are

98. Success is not linear

99. Prepare for your lucky break 

100. Learn the rules by heart so you know when to break them