"Wait, I have to do financials for my business?!" That's what many entrepreneurs shriek as perspiration rolls down their foreheads when they're told three or five year pro-forma financials are needed for their business when applying to the Innovation Fund. That's closely followed by, "How am I supposed to do that? I'm an entrepreneur, not an accountant." In all honesty, when asked to write this blog I shrieked, "But I'm a numbers person. I don't write!" It took a bit to calm me down, but I realized I do know about financials and I have written before, so I could do this. Hopefully, your panic will subside or at least diminish and be replaced by some degree of confidence after reading this blog.

If you’re running a startup I’ve got one important bit of advice: you will never have enough funding. You will (and should) always be looking for your next source of funds. Well, maybe never is a bit over the top, but never is a good benchmark during the first five years of any startup.

It's a valid question. Your innovation is going to require money in order to advance from development to commercial launch. Whether your total capital needs are $3 million or $30 million, the needed money can trickle in via smaller increments or in tranches of millions of dollars—depending on how you ultimately structure your funding request. But, independent of such incremental amounts, you must establish and validate a valuation for your business. In other words, how much of your company (i.e., stock or ownership) will an investor get for their investment?

An embryo seems to miraculously mature through layers of development. Cellular differentiation, a forming spinal column, organ development, and more, are all necessary for a healthy, vital birth. Just as the developing fetus goes through a myriad of maturation steps, your innovation and your company must proceed methodically through multiple tasks. But this business procession is no miracle—it’s plain old work. I would say the adage, “plan your work, and work your plan” is invaluable advice—provided that your plan is well constructed.

Can you diagnose these symptoms? The subject has conceived of a novel innovation that he or she believes is so important it will soon become a staple product across the globe. The inventor thinks its features and benefits solve a problem facing the world. However, our inventor has never queried anyone beyond him or herself and a few friends.

How likely are you to obtain a patent for your invention? If you made and sold it right now, would you be infringing someone else’s patent? Researching the patent databases will help you answer these questions and give you a good idea about whether your innovation is already described or claimed by others.

IP. Many of us have heard that commonly used abbreviation “intellectual property.” IP includes patents, trade secrets, trademarks and copyrights. If you have an innovative idea that could, some day help people or solve a real world problem, then being a little versed in IP, especially patents, could be very important.

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear about an entrepreneur’s new service or product. If you’re one of those innovators toying with such a technology right now, then you must deal with some very critical realities. In fact, I would boil those realities down to five basic elements.

Sizing the market is a necessary task for business planning and budgeting for all startups. Those seeking investment from third parties want to be particularly diligent in this task, as VCs and angel investors need to know they are investing in a business with potentially large market size. To determine the market size for your startup, ask yourself the following four questions:

What do you think of when you hear technology transfer? Maybe you picture a university professor approaching the school's technology transfer office with an idea that has been the basis of her graduate team's research for years. The college then foots the bill to patent it, build a prototype, and license it to a startup for commercialization.

I wish I had a dollar for every time we are told that the market really wants this product or service. For most startup companies conducting well designed and professional market research is a non-starter. In addition getting even limited access market research reports can also be very expensive. Scouring free online news reports can be helpful but generally they only report a snippet of the actual data in a market research report and very seldom question the validity of the study. Some startups conduct informal surveys that can be helpful but probably not conclusive based on who they pick for the study.

Well, this is a first! The first GLIDE blog...when we started GLIDE in 2001 I am not sure if blogs existed. But over ten plus years you see and learn a lot. And that's what the GLIDE blog will be for the most part, a discussion of the entrepreneurial lessons we've both learned and shared in the past decade. All the questions we've been asked by entrepreneurs and the business advice we've given will make their way to this blog.