Will Little @wclittle Subscribe

Managing Director at Prota Ventures.
I'm a bioengineer-turned-software-developer and venture builder/investor. Learn more about me professionally on LinkedIn, personally here, and check out the podcast I host, Ventures.

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Topic:   Startups
 Will Little

Oct 27, 2016
Startups

The 7 benefits of building a UX Flow Chart before writing a line of code (free template included)

Product people love to talk to customers and refine concepts, creatives are happy designing mockups all day, and engineers just want to ship code with increasing velocity. Even with a very small team (or a solo founder with split personality disorder), this tension leads to the chaotic mess known as #StartupLife.
Will Little

Oct 6, 2016
Startups Financial Modeling

Startup Financial Modeling, Part 4: The Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, and Unit Economics

In the first three articles in this series, we looked at the big-picture motivation for startup financial modeling, why it’s important to start with your assumptions, and how to practically build your income statement and custom detail tabs. Today, we’ll finish off the series by examining how to construct the final components necessary to complete your model, including a quick discussion of unit economics and how to best keep your model updated.

Will Little

Sep 29, 2016
Startups Financial Modeling

Startup Financial Modeling, Part 3: The Income Statement and Custom Detail Tabs

In the first two posts in this series, we examined why building a financial model for your startup is important and how to practically get started with your assumptions tab. Today, we’ll continue by diving into the income statement and supporting tabs used to calculate your projected revenue and expenses.
Will Little

Sep 22, 2016
Startups Financial Modeling

Startup Financial Modeling, Part 2: Start with Your Assumptions

In the previous post of this series we described what financial modeling is and why it is important for startup founders to build their own models from scratch. Today, we’ll begin by diving into how to practically start building a financial model.
Will Little

Sep 16, 2016
Startups Financial Modeling

Startup Financial Modeling, Part 1: What is a Financial Model?

Our plan is to break this out into a four-part series and guide you through the components necessary for building your own financial model from scratch: Part 1: The why and what of financial modeling // Part 2: Assumptions // Part 3: Income statement and custom detail tabs // Part 4: Cash flow, balance sheet, and keeping the model updated.

Will Little

Sep 14, 2016
Startups

Startup Rocket helps entrepreneurs build better companies

Along with my partners at Prota Ventures, I’m excited to announce today the public launch of Startup Rocket, a service that helps early stage entrepreneurs ideate, validate, create, grow, and fund new ventures. Startup Rocket provides a comprehensive operations framework, a collaborative online coaching tool, personalized coaching, and a ton of helpful resources for every step of a new entrepreneur’s journey.
Will Little

Aug 17, 2016
Startups

Introducing the Startup Rocket Framework

Based on decades of experience ideating, validating, creating, growing, and funding startups (from both sides of the table), my partners and I are developing a framework to help entrepreneurs with the first critical steps of their journey. Our goal is to help founders build upon the traditional business plan and ideation tools out there to focus on executing what matters: acquiring and retaining happy, paying customers.
Will Little

Aug 8, 2016
Startups

How to architect data flow and storage in a new startup

You may think you have a good idea, but it’s data’s job to tell you otherwise. Ironically, in the startup world today where everyone knows they should make “data-driven decisions”, few founders actually setup their data architecture and flow to give them the data they need on a daily basis to make smart choices, let alone facilitate growth.
Will Little

Jul 20, 2016
Startups Software Development

Five questions to ask when choosing a technology stack for your startup

Almost as dangerous as stating your political or religious opinions online is suggesting software tools and languages for a startup. Software engineers are an opinionated and tribal bunch; say the wrong thing and you’ll be ridiculed and cast out of camp faster than you can say “spaces are better than tabs.”
Will Little

Jul 12, 2016
Startups Visual Design

Why writing a user interface spec (UI spec) is critical for startup teams

Building a software product is hard. While we’ve all heard stories of hero developers cranking out projects in a weekend that go viral, that’s obviously not the norm. For the rest of the world, a smart and diligent approach is needed to build something useful and keep their team (however large or small) on the same page to avoid wasting time.
Will Little

Jun 7, 2016
Startups Marketing Product Management

Data-driven startups: How to design and build smart funnels within your product

The dance between product and growth in a new startup is rarely elegant, especially when founders fail to bake smart funnels into their product.
Will Little

May 16, 2016
Startups Software Development Product Management

Startups: How to set a realistic timeline when building a software product

“Sure, we'll have that done in three weeks.” says the engineer. The marketer rolls her eyes, of course, and expects it in five. Eleven weeks later, it's delivered (and it's not very good). After an additional seven weeks of ironing out the basic bugs and UX kinks, marketing finally feels comfortable promoting it. Why didn't the engineer just say “about 20 weeks” and aim for delivering a tad early?
Will Little

May 5, 2016
Startups Software Development Redux Ruby on Rails React

Seven reasons why a Rails, Redux, React, and React Native stack is fantastic for new startups

Here are the reasons why I'm all-in with this software stack.

Will Little

Apr 30, 2016
Startups Coaching

Life Coaching

Most of us — if we are fortunate (and whether we like it or not) — have people in our lives who help point out our blind spots and teach us new things. Significant others, friends, colleagues, kids, parents, sports coaches, teachers, music instructors, etc. are often the people that pour into us and/or remind us that we’re human. (Seriously, we have many people to thank!)
Will Little

Apr 12, 2016
Startups Venture Capital

Introducing Prota Ventures

Along with our first set of portfolio projects, my partners and I are excited to unveil Prota Ventures, a venture-building and early-stage investment firm based out of Seattle, Chicago, and Jacksonville.