Official website of Dave Berkus
- How never to run out of cash! 03/27/2025The four basic dials to turn: There are four basic ways to increase the cash position of a company: 1) inject cash through borrowing or investment, 2) decrease spending or payments on debt, (3) increase efficiency of operations, and 4) increase revenues or advance payments from customers. …with one warning: Even before examining the tactics […]
- What if your business runs out of money? 03/20/2025Money in the bank is like oil in the car. Certainly, you have many ways you are pulled every day, both tactical and strategic. But when money is the issue, your time, energy and focus are drained from other important areas of your life or business. Running out of money is not always synonymous with […]
- The 18-month rule and a harrowing tale 03/13/2025It can take 18 months from initial concern about a critical employee to getting a replacement up to speed. Of course, I’ll tell another harrowing story here. But first. an old friend now departed, Dick Tanaka, gets credit for the 18-month rule. He observed that the process we follow to be humane in our handling […]
- Entrepreneurs: Employment law is not on your side! 03/06/2025A punch in the gut Small companies most often scrape by with borrowed or invested funds, doing everything possible to grow and prosper with limited resources. So, it is like a punch in the gut when an employee makes a claim against the company for a perceived or actual violation of a law or regulation. […]
- A worker compensation policy is not optional. 02/27/2025Is it the law of most states? This is one that early-stage CEO’s are almost universally unaware of. Most every state requires that any company with employees be covered by a policy of insurance against claims by workers for injury on the job, or worker compensation insurance. Many states have privately owned – but state-overseen […]
- Insurance is always too expensive – until you need it! 02/20/2025I expect that you have a story about how insurance saved you lots of money in your past. And of course, that’s the purpose of paying for policies when you think you’ll never need them. So, here comes the fact: Business insurance is one of the more poorly managed mitigations of risk in small and […]
- Pay non-cash incentives to service providers? 02/13/2025Use stock options and warrants to pay for service only rarely. Earlier, I stated that stock options are the currency of early-stage business. This truth is obvious when a start-up has no cash. So, we will assume a business is perhaps well beyond start-up and growing, but that cash is tight, used for growth and […]
- What founders often get wrong! 02/06/2025Thoughts from BERKONOMICS – Dave Berkus After 50 years in entrepreneurship and 200+ startup investments, here’s what most first-time founders get dangerously wrong: They obsess over the wrong metrics. The five most important metrics I’ve watched brilliant ideas fail because founders tracked vanity numbers while ignoring the real drivers of sustainable growth. The truth? There […]
- Find great advisors for your team! 01/30/2025Your valuable resources are often missed. Whether you find advisors from family, friends, faculty or fellow managers, great advisors can become an informal resource that rivals that of more formal resources, including board members. You will certainly know when you’ve found such a treasure, almost always through introduction by others and rarely because you have […]
- Really do think outside the box. 01/23/2025So, you’re managing all that work, all those interruptions, all those texts and pesky emails. You get home or stop your reading at some reasonable hour, kind of tired, and need a recharge. Sound familiar? Well, that’s probably because you’ve “wasted” a significant portion of your time on tasks others could have done effectively. So, […]
