The business titan behind KB Home and Sun America--also an author, philanthropist and art collector--on the trait that brought him success. Hint: It's not complacency.

Slightly built, bespectacled, mild mannered, and dressed as if he were attending a CPA seminar, Eli Broad comes off as anything but the legendary entrepreneur who started homebuilding giant Kaufman and Broad (later renamed KB Home) and the pioneering financial services company SunAmerica. The Los Angeles billionaire is also one of the nation's leading philanthropists and art collectors. In his recent book, The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking, Broad, who turns 80 in June, says much of his success, in business and elsewhere, stems from a dogged (some would say obstinate) unwillingness to go along with the crowd. --As told to Mark Lacter

Growing up in Detroit in the 1940s, I was always inquisitive. In high school, I would drive my teachers batty. They would make a statement, and I would say, "Why is that?" They didn't want to be questioned. But I've never accepted the status quo. After I was married a few years, my wife, Edye, found a quote from George Bernard Shaw that essentially said reasonable men adapt themselves to the world; unreasonable ones don't--therefore all progress comes from unreasonable men. She gave me a little plaque with the quote.

The first thing I did after I graduated from Michigan State was accounting. My initial salary was $67.40 a week, after taxes. I was married with a child on the way, and I wanted to make some money. I had some clients who were homebuilders--I didn't think they were all that smart, and they were making a lot of money. I decided that I could do that, and I found a partner in Donald Kaufman, a carpenter who did remodeling. I didn't know how to build a house, but I had a pretty good sense of finance and marketing. We started in Detroit at the end of 1956.

I looked at what was going on in homebuilding outside Detroit, where people were building different kinds of homes--say, without basements. I thought this was an opportunity for us. We would sell them for 20 percent less--and the payments would be less than the rent on a two-bedroom garden apartment.

We were more efficient than other builders. We never took out construction loans, which were very expensive. I would pay subcontractors and suppliers at the end of the following month from when the work was done. So if they finished on the 15th, I would pay 45 days later. By then, we would have a house closing, so we'd have enough money. We didn't have any financing costs.

In 1961, we went public on the American Stock Exchange. In 1969, we became the first homebuilder to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We had a pretty fancy P/E ratio in the 1960s, about 40 times earnings, and a market cap of over $1 billion when $1 billion was an awful lot of money.

We convinced Wall Street that we were countercyclical, that we weren't like a lot of those small homebuilders that would go broke after every cycle. But I knew that wasn't necessarily true. I looked back at the Great Depression. The one industry that did well was life insurance. I said, Maybe we ought to acquire a life insurance company.

In 1971, we acquired the Sun Life Insurance Company of America in Baltimore, founded in 1890, for about $52 million in cash and stock. We were competing with companies like Metropolitan and Prudential, so we needed to find a market niche. It became clear that there was a great need for retirement savings. So we started selling variable annuities, mutual funds, and some other products.

We also had to develop a brand. We changed the name to SunAmerica, hired an ad agency, and became the biggest advertiser on NBC Sports. People thought I was crazy. Well, our name became known, and people started seeing us as a lot larger than we really were.

No one on Wall Street understood the combination of the two companies. So we split them up: I stayed at SunAmerica, and Bruce Karatz stayed at Kaufman and Broad. [Donald Kaufman had retired shortly after the company went public.] I had been in the homebuilding business for more than 25 years, and I found this new industry--retirement savings--to be a great challenge.

By the late '90s, I was in my 60s, and I thought it was time to find a merger partner for SunAmerica. One of the companies that could afford us was AIG. I knew the CEO, Hank Greenberg, and I had high regard for him. I approached him about a merger, and he was excited at the idea. We got a nice premium--not huge, 27 percent, but in dealmaking, it's got to be something that makes sense for both parties.

I stayed on the AIG board for a number of years. And then I got lucky. One day, I said to Hank that 90-some-odd percent of my net worth was in AIG. I wanted to diversify. Hank said, "You're a director; you can't sell stock." So I got off the board and put the stock in The Broad Foundations, a pair of nonprofit organizations that focus on education, science, and the arts. That's why our foundations' assets are $2.5 billion.

I work harder now than I've ever worked. We've spent $600 million over the past 10 years on biomedical research. The biggest time-suck has been education reform. In science, no one wants to maintain the status quo, but people in education have been resistant to change.

We didn't know anything about curriculum, so we started looking at governance and management. With rare exceptions, people become school superintendents without any training in management, finance, systems. So I said, Why don't we create an academy to train superintendents? We've seen a lot of change in the past 10 years.

I didn't get involved in art until the early 1970s. Our first major acquisition was a Van Gogh drawing. Eventually, we moved into contemporary art, because I found it more interesting to be involved in art of our own time. I enjoy meeting the artists. Every artist is unreasonable, because he or she is doing something that hasn't been done before. All of the art in our collection will ultimately be shown at The Broad, our new contemporary art museum that will open in 2014 in downtown Los Angeles.

Philanthropy is not charity. Charity is just writing checks. Philanthropy is an investment where you want to see a return, whether it's breakthroughs in scientific research or performance in education or broadening the audience for the arts. You want to see results.

Buyer beware! Choosing the wrong PR agency can break the bank and tarnish your brand. Here's how to avoid a costly mistake.

It's a huge bite out of the budget when a small business owner hires a public relations firm. For most, it's also new territory. What could go wrong?

The nightmare begins when your publicist spams the press. A large number of my "spam" emails are from PR firms. It appears that these well-meaning publicists submit press releases to pretty much any journalist who makes their address public. This blanket, impersonal approach is an easy way to alienate a member of the press.

Many of the press releases I receive have nothing to do with my target audience (hey--that's you!) and aren't even relative to the topics I address in this space. An off-topic, dull, and lengthy press release means that an agency, and the client they represent, get filed in my mind as a "don't read, don't bother" item. Do you really want to work with a publicist who is out there alienating journalists? That doesn't sound like a good strategy to me.

So, I consulted with a few top-notch publicists who are always spot-on when they send a pitch. I asked them to offer advice on how to hire an outstanding PR firm. What are the red flags? How should a business owner prepare before interviewing agencies? They unanimously agreed that it's important to go in armed with these questions.

Is this the right firm to achieve my campaign goals?

Corinne Liccketto, director of sales at Smith Publicity, says that by stating your goals before any contract comes into the picture, you are providing a firm or individual with a clear set of expectations. "A trustworthy firm will be able to evaluate your goals and truly determine if their services are the right fit for you," says Liccketto. "Make a list of questions that coincide with your goals for a campaign so you know where to start."

What is the strategy?

"The goal for a PR agency is to generate earned media, not paid," says Michael Haas, managing partner at Extension PR. "If they are vague about timing for goals and deliverables, be wary. The best PR people will offer strategy and counsel, not just nod their heads to get you to sign with them. They should design a road map for a successful campaign. A great agency will interview you to make sure your goals are attainable and that the relationship will be mutually beneficial."

Does it go beyond the press release?

"Make sure that the firm you choose does not view media relations as simply issuing a press release," says Joy Schoffler, principal of Leverage PR. "Too many PR firms will just write a few press releases and spam reporters, calling it public relations. Press releases are great for search engine optimization, but should also be a part of a bigger strategy and must be news worthy."

Schoffler also points out that good public relations professionals are storytellers. They will glean insights about your company to grow your business and brand by crafting story ideas that are interesting to the media.

What kind of experience does your team have?

All of my experts agreed that many agencies will sell you with their executive-level experience, but then assign your account to less experienced people. Oftentimes, an intern or someone who is new to the industry will execute the campaign initiatives. Make sure you have the opportunity to interview everyone who will be on your team. Find out what their experience is and how they intend to engage with the press.

Who do they know?

Ask about the relationships the team has with your targeted media outlets. Strong relationships yield better media results. If the agency specializes in promoting authors and your campaign goal is to promote a new tech gadget, they won't be a good fit because they aren't likely to have contacts in the tech world. "Not knowing the limitations of a firm can lead to major disappointment when you thought your service included something they simply aren't capable of," warns Liccketto.

What about references and results?

"Always ask for 3-5 clients and journalists that you can contact to learn about their experience with the agency," suggests Haas. Also ask the clients about the results that the agency has produced for them.

Not all campaigns are created equal; it would be impossible for every campaign to be as successful as the last. "Don't be afraid to ask the hard questions," reminds Liccketto. "Learning how an agency has handled the less than successful campaigns says a lot about their team and structure."

What is the payment structure?

Some firms charge on a pay-for-placement basis while others charge on retainer. Liccketto recommends asking questions about the paymentstructures: "What is the charge of the pay-for-placements and do they differ for national, regional, and local placements?" Also ask if there a limit to the number of solid placements for a team working on retainer.

According to Haas once you find out if their billing formula is hourly, monthly, or project based, you'll want to inquire about items they bill for in addition to staff time. Ask about their mark up for out-of-pocket expenses and what those expenses may be.

Most importantly, use your intuition and observe the level of passion that your publicity team has for your industry and for representing your company. The best agency relationships come from people who believe in your product and are proud to be a part of your team.

You've got a seven-floor elevator ride to sell your business idea to an investor. Can you do it? Probably not.

Can you sell your business idea in a seven-floor elevator ride?

You better be able to.

Pitch opportunities are being compressed. Investors have heard so many bad ones they just want you to hustle through that painful part so they can get to their 20 questions. Bear in mind that whether you’re pitching your business to angels, venture capitalists, customers or strategic investors, you will have less time to articulate your business out loud, period.

The 30-second elevator pitch, which I call the seven-floor pitch, is the hardest to nail: You’ve got the investor for seven floors and the core of your business must be communicated in that brief ride. If you try to pull out and show him a mobile device screen, it’ll look like everyone else’s screenshot, and you’ll probably blow your first impression.

Success is when the investor grabs your elbow, asks you to step off the elevator, and says, “Tell me more about your business!”

The elevator pitch should be the fastest, simplest, most easily understood summary of your business. And it takes the most amount of work. No, it doesn’t always happen in the elevator, but sometimes it really does. In fact, I started honing my ear for effective elevator pitches when I ran the elevators in the U.S. Senate, House and Capitol during college. Imagine being in the background as four-star generals and prominent K Street lobbyists fervently make their case to a Congressman during the elevator ride from the Rayburn subway to the gallery of the House of Representatives.

Entrepreneurs have the same challenge: trying to surmise and deliver the shortest, most succinct--and most convincing--description of their businesses.

CEOs should be precise when describing their businesses. Of the hundreds of companies I’ve coached, sometimes I’ll hear a great extended pitch right off the bat. But hearing the great elevator pitch at the beginning of a coaching session is the rarest scenario of all. It’s an extremely difficult skill to master.

If you are just launching, don’t try to start out by creating the elevator pitch. This is backwards and a time consuming folly. Indeed, the seven-floor pitch is probably the last pitch you will polish. Great pitches are an iterative process. Think of politicians who spend months talking to voters. They find their key messages, then they simplify, repeat, simplify and repeat. CEOs must do the same thing.

First, do what you do every day: Think about your business. Determine why you’re going to be successful. Maybe you’ve solved a cool problem by identifying a business opportunity. Investors want to know how you’re going to make money, so start your thinking there.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, you want to start by mastering your longest pitch, and work down from there. Start by crafting a 20-minute, 20 page deck. Get all your thoughts out on the canvas. It is your best first script. Include very tight statements like: "I'm looking for X amount of dollars; this is what our business does; our go-to-market strategy; the competitive environment and how we're different. Define and articulate the revenue streams to illustrate your business model and how you will make money. List a couple business milestones you've already accomplished, define a few down-the-road milestones, and as the closer, tell them a little about your team.

From the 20-minute pitch, you will simplify to the 10-minute pitch, to the five, down to the two-minute and finally the seven-floor, 30-second pitch. (My LinkedIn has a deck template and recommended order of the script.) You’re boiling the business down to its most compelling essence. Never forget: Each pitch is an audition to be a CEO in an investor's portfolio.

Now, can you step off the elevator and tell me more?

Sure, it seems like a great idea to start up in the Valley. But have you really taken a good look at the nation's most famous start-up hub?

Many would argue that since Silicon Valley gets the most venture capital, has the most powerful pillar companies, the deepest talent pool, and the best universities that it’s the best place to locate your start-up.

But all that external evidence of success masks a deeper reality.

Silicon Valley is a hugely expensive place to operate your start-up and depending on what product you’re selling, locating there might handicap your chances for success.

Here are five reasons you should avoid Silicon Valley.

1. Too much seed money. You must be scratching your head now and asking yourself: How can too much money be bad? If you remember the dot-com bubble in the 1990s or the housing bubble that burst in 2008, you get the idea.

So many individual investors have grown super-wealthy in Silicon Valley over the last few years thanks to big IPOs for companies like Facebook and Zynga that there are scores of so-called angel investors.

They can write checks of $50,000 to $500,000 to help start-ups get off the ground. That sounds great but it also means that those “lucky” seed money recipients will be on their own from the moment they cash the check.

If they succeed, those angels will cash out--giving them bragging rights. But odds are good they’ll lose the seed round lottery and fail. And that is not the kind of cash your start-up needs.

2. Insufficient mentoring. If you run a start-up, there’s a good chance that you’ve never built a business in your life. And that means you need experienced entrepreneurs to help you take your great idea and turn it into a business.

A big reason that so many of those Silicon Valley seed-capital-backs start-ups will fail is that their CEOs won’t be able to get that help. The reason is simple, those angel investors have the know-how to give mentoring to start-ups – but they have better things to do with their time.

So if you move to Silicon Valley and get that seed capital, you will be on your own to build a prototype and get customers willing to buy it.

3. Absence of second-stage financing. And even if you get over that first hurdle, your start-up will need a bigger check to hire the sales people you need to generate revenues in the seven or eight figure range.

Unfortunately, if you’re in Silicon Valley you can’t get those so-called Series A checks in the $5 million to $10 million range. That’s because venture capital firms that provided those checks in the past have not generated spectacular investment returns for their limited partners in recent years.

As student loan start-up, SoFi’s CEO, Mike Cagney explained in a December interview, "The $5 million to $10 million dollar check just isn’t out there like it used to be. However, it is not hard to raise $500,000 seed capital and ironically it is not hard to go out and get a $25 million to $30 million dollar Series B at a $100 million valuation. What is hard is getting that $5 million to $10 million Series A."

And without the Series A, your start-up’s growth is going to be stunted. So you’re better off locating close to a source of that second-stage financing.

4. Exorbitant rents and salaries. If you’re like most start-ups, you are not exactly flush with cash. This raises a significant challenge when it comes to renting office space and hiring people. Simply put, odds are that you do not want to pay the highest rents and salaries in the country.

But if you locate your start-up in San Francisco that’s what you have to do. For example, the monthly rent in a decent office space in the South of Market (SoMa) district in San Francisco if $57/square foot – that’s how much Airbnb spent for its 170,000 square foot office in SoMa in November -- and salaries for top engineers can easily top $120,000 (as they do at Google).

The point is that this is a terrible environment for cash-poor start-ups. Why would you want to pour your scarce resources into such high rents? So stay away and less you have a huge capital basis.

5. Fierce competition for talent. And it’s not just the high salaries that ought to dissuade you from locating your start-up in Silicon Valley. It’s the fierce competition for that highly-paid talent.

Waltham, Mass.-based data storage company, Actifiio, CEO Ash Ashutosh, explained that talent in the Boston area is in it for the long-term but not so much in California. As he said in a December interview, “If I am trying to build a company for a long term the last thing I want to do is worry about constant churn of people coming in and out [which is so common with West Coast companies]."

What he means is that in Silicon Valley, it is common for an engineer to join a start-up and get stock options. If those options don’t pay off within a year--with the company going public or being acquired--engineers find another start-up and try again.

Married couples that start a business together are more likely to have a female partner who takes on traditional gender roles according to surprising research.

Imagine a successful entrepreneurial couple who jointly found a business. How do you imagine the gender roles usually get handled?

As being a founder is pretty far from the traditional female roles of wife and helpmate, you'd probably guess that most women in "copreneur" relationships are on a more or at least equal footing than many other dual-career marriages. These "corpreneur" women are in the thick of their businesses, so surely they must generally be equal partners at home and at the office, right?

Despite this instinct, research actually says otherwise, according to a recent lengthy article in Knowledge@Wharton on married couples who found companies together. Amid first person accounts of cofounding a business and tips on making it work from experts, the articles reports some surprising research findings:

[Successful husband and wife business partnerships] tend to be ultra traditional, according to Kathy Marshack, a business psychologist who counsels many husband and wife management teams. She conducted research in the early 1990s involving 30 married business partners, and found that many of these "copreneur relationships" are less egalitarian than dual-career marriages. For instance, 83% of the copreneurial wives were entirely in charge of general housework, compared with 49% of wives with their own careers. Nearly 65% of copreneur wives handled all the household shopping, versus 36% for the other working wives. At work, copreneurial women typically performed "chorelike" tasks, such as payroll and billing….

"Couples who are in business together tend to have more rigidly defined roles. The husband is the founder, the CEO and the president. She is a support person. Many copreneurial wives will tell you that this is not the way it is," Marshack adds. But she says that many of the portrayals of husband and wife partnerships in the popular press feature remarkably egalitarian couples. These people, she notes, often make incorrect sweeping statements about copreneurial ventures. "But then you dig down and find out what she's getting paid, what her title is, and who people in the company come to for a final decision, and you find that" the partnerships are more complicated and less equal than they might seem.

Some of the research this picture of less than equal partnerships is based on is 20 years old, Marshak concedes, but she adds: "I don't think things have changed that much."

What are we to make of Marshak's observations? Is her sample of 30 partnerships simply skewed by how she found these pairs or who they are, or are media accounts of rosy, modern marital relations among copreneurs the ones that are biased?

What's your experience – are married founders more, less or equally likely to take on traditional gender roles compared to your average professional couple?

Jeff Shelstad thought he had created a better way to publish textbooks. Just one problem: getting college kids to pay.

The Backstory

As an executive at textbook publisher Pearson Education, Jeff Shelstad saw an industry stuck in the past. High production costs drove up the prices of college textbooks. To preserve sales, publishers released new editions often, making it difficult for instructors to keep up. And instructors had limited flexibility to adapt texts for their courses: If the books omitted relevant content, instructors often had to assign supplementary texts, further inflating students' bills.

So in 2007, Shelstad and his Pearson colleague Eric Frank co-founded Flat World Knowledge in Irvington, New York. Shelstad sought to make textbooks affordable for students and customizable for teachers. He started by making all of its textbooks available digitally. Using the company's online platform, instructors could edit and remix the books' content, choose among versions, and move to new editions on their own schedules.

Flat World was well placed to address an emerging movement in higher education: open educational resources, or OER. Institutions had begun publishing instructional content that was free to use, adapt, and distribute. But the quality of many OER materials was untested. Flat World's textbooks, on the other hand, were peer reviewed, lending added credibility.

Flat World made basic editions of its textbooks available for free on its website and offered hard copies starting at $30, a fraction of the price of most college textbooks. It also sold downloadable mobile versions. The company raised $10 million in 2009. A year and a half later, Flat World's books had been adopted for more than 1,000 college courses nationwide.

The Problem

Shelstad, the company's CEO, had long suspected that offering textbooks online for free would be a gamble and that many students would simply rely on the free versions rather than pay for the physical books or the mobile versions. But a significant number of students, it turned out, preferred print copies of their textbooks--and were willing to pay for them. In Flat World's first two years, about 40 percent of the company's student customers opted for paid versions of its products.

By 2011, Flat World seemed poised for strong growth. By January of that year, the company had raised an additional $15 million from investors, including Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Bessemer Venture Partners, to fund the publication of new titles in additional subjects. Three months later, Random House invested $3 million.

But as the year progressed, Flat World's share of paying customers began to decline. More students were using digital textbooks than in past years, but few of them chose to purchase the downloadable e-books. Instead, most accessed the free versions online. Plus, as print copies of Flat World's textbooks began to enter the used-book market, students could buy them from resellers at a lower cost. By December, only about a quarter of students who accessed the company's textbooks were paying customers.

More students were using Flat World's textbooks, but the company's revenue per customer was dropping. Shelstad knew he had to entice more students to pay for the company's products. "We were going the wrong way," he says, "and we needed to fix it."

The Decision

Flat World began efforts to convert more students into paying customers. In July 2012, the company launched the online $20 Study Pass, which included highlighting and note taking, as well as a supplementary study guide. But by September, only 5 percent of students had purchased it.

Shelstad had an additional concern. Through an institutional licensing program, some students bought textbooks through their schools rather than via Flat World's website. The institutions paid Flat World a fee. Those schools were, in essence, "subsidizing those who chose free," he says. "I felt that making our books affordable across the board was more appropriate."

In other words, he had decided it was time to erect a paywall. That, however, could affect Flat World's relationship with schools that adopted the company's textbooks because of the free access. Further, a shift to a paywall could jeopardize Flat World's open-publishing license, preventing instructors from collaborating.

Ultimately, Shelstad decided that Flat World's business would never be sound unless all students paid. In November 2012, the company announced that it would end free access to online textbooks in January--a move it billed as "free to fair." At a minimum, students would have to purchase the Study Pass. They could also choose to upgrade to products like a $50 so-called VIP Pass to access Flat World's print and online textbooks.

The Aftermath

Some instructors were supportive. Even at $20 to $50, they reasoned, Flat World's textbooks remained much more affordable than those from other publishers.

But others felt blindsided by Flat World's announcement. Instructors who had used Flat World's textbooks specifically for open education initiatives worried about restricted collaboration. "If it's behind a paywall, it's no longer open--that's the bottom line," says Geoff Cain, director of distance education at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California. "It feels to a lot of people like a bait and switch."

Shelstad believes Flat World, whose textbooks are now used in around 3,800 courses, has garnered enough goodwill to remain on solid footing. The company has resolved that instructors will still be able to revise textbooks for their own use, though it's not clear yet whether they will be able to collaborate. The company is also looking to expand the licensing program.

The shift in direction triggered management changes. In December, the board named as CEO Christopher Etesse, previously a vice president at the educational technology company Blackboard. Shelstad will remain with the company, and he remains confident in Flat World's mission. "I think the changes are going to have a positive impact for institutions, for authors, as well as the bottom line," he says.

***

The Experts Say...

My Concern Is the Long Term

The key in open-source software is galvanizing a whole community to bear the cost of developing a product. But Flat World used a traditional approach to authorship, and it locked its content into its platform. I think in the short term, Flat World will get a bump in revenue. But my concern is that in the long term, it will be just another publisher. Every publisher is developing a platform to modify books now. And over the long term, the cost of books will drop, so that distinction will fade, too.

--Victor Vuchic
Program officer in education, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Consider All the Stakeholders

Even mission-based businesses still have to create business models that work. I suspect that setting up licensing deals with schools to provide textbooks at low cost will ultimately work well. Some critics of the company seem to be taking one stakeholder's point of view, that of the student or the school, but the company has to take into account all of its stakeholders: authors, investors, employees, suppliers, schools, and students. Any decision driven by only one or two of those groups won't be a good one.

--Steve Piersanti
President, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Make Your Model Clear

The fact that something is initially offered for free doesn't mean it will always be free. The key is to make your business model clear to customers up front. Particularly in higher education, there are some people who don't embrace the nature of commercial enterprises, so some of the noise is not unusual. But if it is a small group of people complaining, then I don't think it should be a big concern.

--Steve Murray
Partner, Softbank Capital

You’re always told of how AngelList is so awesome for people looking for prospective investors and a host of other things. Of course, they never tell you what they’re doing to get investments, and nothing seems to be trickling down your way. Looking for money is a tough deal, especially when you’ve already spent a sizeable wad of cash to get your project moving.

The only way to really get attention is to make yourself more visible. One of those ways involves getting listed in Angel List’s Trending Startups newsletter, a newsletter emailed to thousands of potential investors around the globe. If you could get in Trending Startups, it probably won’t be long before you get a message from a suit with a little red wagon full of cash. But how do you get there?

Lifting The Curtain: Understanding How AL Works

First off, people starting out don’t really understand the mechanics of AngelList. They just create a profile to “be there” and hopefully run into someone. AngelList, much like Twitter, bases itself on followership. The more followers you have, the more people will be comfortable with writing you a check. Now we raise the problem of getting some followers. Your profile isn’t going to just attract followers out of the blue.

Having A Profile To Brag About Is Important

To start off, your profile needs to be filled out. The startup’s profile should be complete with a list of advisors and team members. If you don’t have advisors, you should get out in the sun more and actually interact with the world around you. Hand your business card out to people at trade shows. If you’re not ready to hustle, your startup won’t be much more than an idea with a couple of broke people behind it. Not only does the startup’s profile need to be complete, but you also need your team (and yourself) to fill out their personal profiles.

Get Social

After all that’s done, start following friends on AngelList through its social platform. This gathers interest, and some of them will also follow your startup. Once you’re done clicking and pointing your mouse everywhere, you’re going to need to start using that keyboard. Type up a nice, short status update bragging about accomplishments that your startup has made once in awhile.

Getting the picture already? All you have to do is hustle and find people to follow you. Look at other profiles of startups appearing on the “Trending” list and try to see what they’re doing that you’re not.

What To Do After You Get Some Cash

Oh, and when an investor actually shows interest and hauls some money your way, add that to your “previous investors” list. Startups that get good followings and funds often appear on AngelList’s Trending Startups list. The more visible you make yourself, the more likely you are to get moving. This sometimes involves getting your eyes out of the monitor and make things happen the old school way by attending trade shows. As you let more people know about what you’re doing, some of them will want to show some interest. Also don’t forget that people won’t be likely to share your page unless they’re told to!

Want to stay ahead of the curve? Here are some simple reminders for what it takes to be better than the rest.

You've probably heard by now that Dell has announced it will go private with CEO Michael Dell maintaining a majority interest with minority shareholders including Silver Lake Partners and Microsoft.

To better understand the news (and most importantly, what you can learn), you have to understand a bit about the company's history.

In the 1990s, businesses were buying PCs. Dell was competing with companies such as Compaq that sold PCs through retailers. But Dell sold directly to companies using its website. This meant that Dell did not have to include the cost of the retail channel in its prices, according to the Harvard Business School case, Matching Dell, that I used to teach. This was just one of the many advantages the company during this time, which enabled Dell to charge higher prices and make PCs at a lower than industry-average cost.

But the collapse of the dot-com bubble meant that companies stopped buying so many PCs. In the 2000s, the biggest PC consumers were individuals who wanted to see machines operating in retail stores before buying them.

While Dell is taking measures to move the company forward, it's a good reminder that start-ups need to keep a competitive edge. Here's how:

1. Maintain a healthy paranoia. If you want to keep your company growing, you must maintain a healthy paranoia. This means that you should maintain fear that forces outside your control could sink your company. It should not be that hard for you to stay scared--because all your employees, investors, and customers are depending on you to keep the company growing.

Sorry to say, maintaining that healthy paranoia must be something you must live with and show to your people every day. If you stay scared, you must share that fear with your staff and make sure that they are always on the lookout for ways to change the company so it can sustain its growth.

2. View your company from the customer’s perspective. One way to do that is to look at your company from the customer’s perspective. This means that you should pretend you are a customer and shop from your company and your competitors. Knowing what customers want when they buy your industry’s product, you should take careful note of whether your company is not winning the battle for value creation.

And if you are falling behind, change your company so it gets back in the lead. That means stripping out annoying processes that make the customer want to fire you. And if your product does not have the features that customers want or your price is too high--find a way to fix those problems.

3. Imagine that the board fired you and brought in a new CEO. If you have a strong board, it should be asking whether you are still the right person to run the company.

In 1984, Intel’s CEO, Andy Grove, was losing ground to Japanese memory chip makers. He thought about what a new CEO would do if the board fired him and put in someone new. The answer was to get out of the memory business and start making central processing units.

Rather than quit, Grove changed strategy - thus Intel got the benefit of new thinking without losing Grove’s managerial talent. And Intel went from nearly perishing to decades of CPU industry leadership.

4. Change everything to stay ahead of the pack. If the customer changes, your company must reinvent itself to keep up with the changing customer’s needs. You must be able to track how customers are changing and what competitors are offering those customers.

If you can give customers a new offering that puts your company ahead of the value curve, you will be able to sustain your leadership.