Myths of Entrepreneurship | The Portfolio Partnership

Entrepreneurship and the Exit Myth

by Ian Smith | Jan 24, 2024 | Entrepreneurship, Exiting your business, Operational Alignment

Most entrepreneurs start a business to create something valuable whether they bootstrap it from Day 1 or launch through seed capital and/or venture capital. The type of funding will influence the exit process. External funders will expect an exit. If the business is...

Exiting to Private Equity Vs Strategic Buyer

by Ian Smith | Nov 15, 2023 | Exiting your business

I was inspired to write a short article by a recent event I attended at Katahdin’s CEO club, where we discussed the issues surrounding exiting to a PE firm compared with selling out to a strategic. These thoughts are based on my own experience and I make some...

How To Scale 98% of US Companies

by Ian Smith | May 18, 2023 | Scaling

Hard to believe but 98% of US companies employ less than 100 people. Take a look at the table below created from the latest US Census data. The green cells represent the companies employing 99 people or less or 98.1% of US companies, 6 million out of 6.1 million (who...

Entrepreneurship – Checklist of Myths

by Ian Smith | Nov 27, 2017 | Entrepreneurship

It’s all about profitability. It’s not. It’s about positive cash flow. You go bust through lack of cash, not profit. Websites are the responsibility of marketing people. Wrong. Today the website is the responsibility of the CEO. Most websites are a disjointed,...

13 Myths About Entrepreneurship

by Ian Smith | Apr 8, 2014 | Management

It’s all about profitability. It’s not. It’s about positive cash flow. You go bust through lack of cash, not profit. Websites are the responsibility of marketing people. Wrong. Today the website is the responsibility of the CEO. Most websites are a disjointed,...