Dave Lavinsky


Dave Lavinsky
Dave is an internationally renowned expert in the fields of business planning, capital raising, and new venture development. Over the past decade, Dave has guest lectured at top universities, developed over 100 business plans, and has written hundreds of articles on entrepreneurship, business planning and capital-raising. He is also the author of Start At The End: How Companies Can Grow Bigger and Faster By Reversing Their Business Plan, published by Wiley in November 2012. You can read some of Dave's articles at Grow Think. You can also listen to numerous interviews that Dave has conducted with prominent venture capitalists such as Guy Kawasaki and Brad Feld, and prominent angel investors like John Morris, former Chairman of Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel investor network in the country. Dave also launched and runs Growthink University, which is the leading community for entrepreneurs and business owners to learn how to raise capital. Members of Growthink University have access to all the insider capital raising secrets that Dave has developed over the past decade. Dave walks the talk. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, having started and exited multiple Internet and product-focused ventures, including Emerge Juice and Nutrition Systems - a wellness products developer and distributor; Shoutmouth - a niche music -focused social networking site; Z Reporter LLC - owner of over 3,000 niche-focused information websites; and TopPayingKeywords - a Search Engine Marketing & Optimization research data firm. Dave is a past board member of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance and a winner of the Anderson School at UCLA's Knapp New Venture Competition. As a co-founder of Growthink, Dave has managed more than 150 client engagements across all of Growthink's practice areas. He particularly enjoys helping early stage companies prepare for significant growth as he has done with Dakim, Sandel Medical, XCom Wireless and numerous other businesses. Dave also conducted the market research and wrote the initial business plan for KeySpan Energy Services, now part of National Grid, which grew from zero to over $1 billion in revenues in less than three years. Prior to Growthink, Dave gained professional management consulting, marketing consulting and market research experience with FIND/SVP (now Guideline), BPA International and The NPD Group. Dave has an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA and earned his Bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia. He lives in New York with his wife and two children.