Author: wi11iamm
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How Rock Star CFO Tim Oakley Thinks About Hiring in the Finance Function
Tim Oakley, CFO of Appia and former CFO of iContact, is one of the Triangle’s best entrepreneurial executives. With multiple exits and financings under his belt, and a commitment to servant leadership, we are fortunate to have him mentoring and guiding a generation of entrepreneurs (like me!) in the Triangle (the New Entrepreneurial Hub of the South).…
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Kicking Off with New Investors – Building Team at Every Level
We closed and announced our $5.25MM Series B in the last few weeks. It was crucial to me that our shareholders, employees and vendors (which together comprise the Windsor Circle team!) have the opportunity to really engage and build relationships. So, we created a very intentional and open set of events at the first board…
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“Silicon Acres?” Branding the Entrepreneurial Hub of the South
During the Google Demo Days competition, Jimmy Goodmon of CBC New Media shared the story of how his father, Jim Goodmon, had a vision of uniting the several communities of the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) with a centrally located, massive professional sports complex that would capture the two franchise expansions in the NFL and NBA at…
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The Entrepreneurial Hub of the South
I wrote this email to then-Governor Bev Purdue back in Oct of 2012 after attending an entrepreneur-focused luncheon at the Governor’s mansion. It didn’t go anywhere at the time, but aspects of this vision are being implemented, so I thought I’d post the vision publicly and contribute to the noisy, rambunctious start up process that…
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Thoughts on the National Circles program, and our involvement in it.
The following email was a bit of free form thought processing that stemmed from a dinner conversation with friends about Windsor Circle’s pending commitment to participate in the National Circles program (being implemented locally by REAL Durham, of which Mel Williams is an active contributor). It involves us making an 18 month, bi-weekly commitment to…
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The Weekly Planning Sheet
Years ago, I spent some real time digging into Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In quick summary, his thesis is: He studied a bunch of very successful people (not just financially, but those w/ high degrees of respect in their community and having accomplished interesting things but not at the sacrifice of…
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Should you work at a Start Up? (Cross post from Bessemer)
Note: This article, originally in Venturebeat and cross-posted on the Bessemer Venture Partner’s website was so spot on that I’m quoting it in it’s entirety. Source: Bessemer Venture Partners Blog ============ <quote> Should you work at a “start-up”? January 2014 Authors: Charles Birnbaum This article was originally published by Venturebeat I recently made the switch from…
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The Culture Sandwich
We have an informal professional development thing going at Windsor Circle. The group chooses a book, company buys copies for everyone that wants to participate, and then we meet for several weeks and discuss the book as we progress through the chapters. In a recent conversation, we discussed at length how culture is set in…
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5 Critical Components of Building A Winning Startup Team
This week I was invited to speak at an entrepreneur’s only lunch hosted by CED, on the topic of building winning teams in a startup environment. The attached presentation highlights what I think of as 5 Critical Components of Building a Winning Startup Team. Founding Team – Share Equity and Play Fair Commander’s Intent –…
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The Power of Myers Briggs for Start Ups
We hold a quarterly team day to ensure that we are nourishing our most important asset… our people. In an entrepreneurial environment, it can be hard to come up with the resources (cash, expertise, time) to create meaningful exercises that dramatically accelerate a team’s ability to form and perform, beyond the stereotyped foosball table and…
The Next 10,000 Hours 