Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. Gogii came in my office in 2009 with three of the most talented founders I had seen. Add that to mobile and you’re talking about one talented executive.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. Founded in November 2007 in New York City by Alexis Maybank and Kevin Ryan (co-founder of DoubleClick); CEO is Susan Lyne (ex-CEO Marta Stewart Living Omnimedia) Revenue estimates: $50mm in 2008; $170mm in 2009 (versus budget of $150mm); $450mm forecasted for 2010.

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

Walk into any Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Southern California and you can’t miss their digital screens. They have developed a cloud-based platform for merchants to publish to multiple distribution networks, including social, mobile and email. The company’s first offering will be a mobile retail commerce platform.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. So we loaded up on flat screen TVs, multiple generations of iPods and trips to Hawaii. Unemployment continues to rise – Unemployment as of September 2009 is 9.7% So why the ’09 bounce?

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Startup Funding Technical Review 269

socalTECH

JANUARY 4, 2013

I took a little bit of time off, then started working on Frequency in the middle of 2009. Blair Harrison: I think the most important thing at the moment, is the end screen experience is one of the most important thing. Blair Harrison: I sold iFilm to Viacom at the end of 2005, and got out of there at the beginning of 2008.

Social Network 232

Social Network Startup Services Organization 232

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 9, 2009

Zoomorama was a finalist at the Microsoft BizSpark event at South by Southwest Interactive 2009. The company is targeting recruiters with problems screening candidates. CityZeum is available via Web and mobile browser. The site attracted seven million French-speaking travelers in 2009.

Incubator 40

Incubator Develop Development Social Network 40

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. He started targeting the ad by location and interest, and the number of potential people he was reaching began decreasing on screen (Facebook tells you dynamically). You could just outspend.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 31, 2011

Also of note was Ryan Orrico’s launch of HandJob, a new form of job applicant screening and referral tracking. When using the Handjob app , users must shake the app up and down or side to side and out pops a pre-screened job applicant. All presentations were of extremely high quality and teams did a killer job.

Los Angeles 73

Los Angeles Startup Angel Tech Coast Angels 73

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

He was Director of Online Marketing for Mota Motors, a BusinessWeek Top 50 Most Promising Startup of 2009 and TechCrunch50 finalist. Michael Schneider – CEO of Mobile Roadie. Michael Schneider is the CEO of Mobile Roadie , the leading self-service mobile app engagement platform. The site has since grown to nearly 7.5

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2010

When I was looking through their company’s history I saw the following statement made in September 2009: “Takes on WebEx, launches web conferencing and announces its US expansion with 900 US resellers&#. The voice was more clear than my mobile phone. And we had full screen video. And we had full screen video.

Screening 266

Screening Screencast Web Yammer 266

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2016

This morning I’m going to talk about the Mobile App ecosystem and why it’s led so many startups astray. It will be a follow on from my “App is Crap” or “Web Second, Mobile First” blog posts but in short, video, updated, digestible formats. The starting screen every time is the camera.

Snapchat 150

Snapchat Screening Venture Capital Guide 150