Entrepreneurial

– Tim Berry is the president and founder of Palo Alto Software. This post originally appeared on his blog, “Planning, Startups, Stories”. The views expressed are his own. –

Sure, maybe you need the money. Maybe that’s what your business plan says. But seriously: Do you really want to have investors involved in your dream startup?

I’ve said it before: bootstrapping is underrated. I get frequent emails from people asking how they can get investment for their new startup, and I’ve admitted to being a member of an angel investor group. But let’s not forget, while we’re thinking about it, these 10 good reasons not to seek investors for your startup.

1. It’s almost impossible to get investment for your very first startup. If you don’t have startup experience, get somebody on your team who does. Chris Dixon said it best: either you’ve started a company or you haven’t. And if you haven’t, and nobody in your team has either, that makes it very hard.

2. You are selling ownership. Investors write checks to own a serious portion of your business. I admit that’s patently obvious, but you should see the emails I get in which people think of investors as if they were some sort of public agency. Once you get investment, you don’t own your entire company.

– Shane Mac is the co-founder of online job recruitment startup Hello There. He is also the director of marketing at Zaarly and formerly spearheaded marketing at Gist (acquired by RIM). This is an edited version of the original article that appeared on Quick Sprout. The views expressed are his own. –

About a year ago, I sat in a coffee shop pitching a new idea to one of the founders of Startup Weekend, Clint Nelson. Never would I have predicted that this one meeting would have such an impact on the next year of my life.

The entire concept was all on one page of my notebook: sketches, pricing models, tag lines and even people I should sell it to. I’ve put every idea from notes, books, speeches, and product sketches in an indexed notebook since I read a post by Tim Ferriss two years ago.