TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

Responding to Elizabeth Warren’s call to regulate and break up some of the nation’s largest technology companies, the venture capitalists that invest in technology companies are advising the presidential hopeful to move slowly and not break anything. This too shall pass.” — Balaji S. .

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Here are some ideas: In your company or other companies. Find the developers in your current company and other companies that you can get inside. Here's an example of that kind of email. Do you have dollars to pay for development?

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

The first check I wrote was just over 10 years ago into a company called Invoca who just announced a new $56 million in funding led by Scott Hilleboe at HIG Growth Partners. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 15 million first checks but we also have three growth funds. $15

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Funding 112

Funding Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire 112

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

One of the hardest things to know when you’re new to fund raising is what you’re supposed to send to an investor, when and will they keep your information confidential. This is part of a series on how to improve your fund raising game. As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. Compelling. whether they invest or not.

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

After my board meeting I had to do an interview with a CFO candidate that one of my portfolio companies asked me to speak with. I then had to review a nefarious IP lawsuit filed against another company and help the CEO figure out whether we should just pay it or join forces with the other companies named and fight it.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Working hard together at a big company just isn’t the same. You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. Who came in the office at 2am when the servers crashed – even on the night of the big company party. Writing a book will be fun.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Innovation and Geography I ran across a post in Read/Write Web - Does Location Matter in Web Innovation? Ive personally been involved in the start-up world in Los Angeles for about 15 years, and have had the opportunity to work on many early-stage companies (e.g.,

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. No problem to have some developers in remote locations.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Brad Feld hadn’t written his seminal “ term sheet series &# and The Funded hadn’t yet been created. You’ll need to hire and retain talen to grow your company.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. Working at a big company is honorable and I don’t believe the narrative that all of this tech disruption is to kill off big companies. ” **.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. Great companies are comprised of great individual point people or functional leaders. But when I’m looking to write my check I need to look in the eyes of the captain — the maestro who brings the whole orchestra together.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

He eventually founded and sold consumer health firm ViSalus to a public company and is now back making investments, in technology companies, as a venture capitalist here at Los Angeles-based HashtagOne (www.hashtagone.com). After we sold it to that public company, I founded HashtagOne. It's all about leverage.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 28, 2013

Join us for a special evening with InfoWorld’s Dave Linthicum as he delves into global enterprise software trends with some of LA’s most successful SaaS and cloud computing companies. He keynotes leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, enterprise application integration, and enterprise architecture. Alex earned a B.A.

SaaS 92

SaaS Cloud Computing CIO Web 92

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. Because of this, I've always tried to stay up-to-speed on how early-stage investors look at valuation of companies. What are they really looking for? is a requirement. Not sure why. Size of target market $100M is okay.

Startup 198

Startup Custom Development Sales Writing 198

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Many people will write the history on why Ring became an enormously successful company and why it became a real-world unicorn in a world when many startups are anointed that merely on paper. It is an LA-based company that was recently acquired by Amazon, which you can read more about in this incredibly well-researched article.

Startup 247

Startup Pricing Product Marketing 247

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. Tempus Fugit.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Startup 104

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 104

socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

The company--which is in the business of operating a content delivery network (CDN) to accelerate the delivery of web graphics, multimedia, applications, and more to end users-- recently disclosed it more than doubled its revenues in 2012, and has grown to over 230 employees--all due to a huge amount of demand for CDN services by its customers.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

Steve Jillings has a long track record of running successful startups in Southern California, ranging from such companies as FrontBridge Technologies (sold to Microsoft in 2005 for over $200M) and Vantage Media (acquired in 2007). Telesign provides authentication services for the largest web companies in the world.

Marina Del Rey 238

Marina Del Rey Startup IP Examples 238

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’ve always been a big believer that just a couple of key individuals make all of the difference in a company’s success. Your highest priority right now is hiring the 1 or 2 people that are going to join your company and make a difference. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder. Patron Companies.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

However, in a very unusual move, the City of Los Angeles has tapped a true technology veteran and insider, well known to those here in the industry-- Peter Marx , most recently at Qualcomm--to head up the city''s efforts to both adopt technology and improve the city''s relationship with its growing technology companies.

Los Angeles 203

Los Angeles Technology Startup Examples 203

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2012

Running a new business starts with building a solid and credible business plan, working the investor funding process, and building an organization from nothing, with minimal resources. For example, if your rich uncle is providing all the initial funding, but has no active business role, it might be smart to offer him a 20% slice of the pie.

Startup 101

Startup Entrepreneur Equity CTO Hire 101

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

That not only helps companies with things such as insurance and worker's comp, but from a more human standpoint, employees are not getting injured by vehicles such as forklifts. Gabe Grifoni: The most advanced companies today are using devices that are hand held, like a tablet or smartphone. Our tool does the same thing.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

socalTECH

APRIL 29, 2014

We spoke with Mike Outmesguine , CEO and Alan DeRossett , CTO of the company, and how their roots in do-it-yourself, "Maker" projects is key to their entry into the prize competition. The company actually was working on a different project which had dried up at that point, and it was just natural to step into this at that point.

Startup 262

Startup Competition Software Review UCLA 262

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Now investors will pay attention, since scale-up funding is less risky and has a time frame.

Startup 101

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 101

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

On myfab5, people rank their favorite places instead of giving them star ratings and write bite-sized reviews instead of writing long reviews. When talking to review site users, we found the top two reasons people don’t write reviews is because it takes too long and it is confusing. Don’t like a restaurant? Who are the founders?

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

This hot list is based on various social signals of what people are writing about, reading, bookmarking, searching, etc. Last month we Launched Los Angeles Tech and in the announcement we provide the Hot List for the first half of January 2009. You can go to the Hot List post to see what was hot then.

Layoffs 159

Layoffs Woodland Hills Southern California Orange County 159

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Running a new business starts with building a solid and credible business plan, working the investor funding process, and building an organization from nothing, with minimal resources. For example, if your rich uncle is providing all the initial funding, but has no active business role, it might be smart to offer him a 20% slice of the pie.

Equity 91

Equity Startup CTO Hire CTO Coach 91

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

His main company Providence Holdings has invested in real estate and several small businesses. Mathew Brian (Chief Creative Officer) is also based in Columbus, OH, and is behind the strong branding effort of Huddlewoo. He also serves as the Chief Creative Officer for Will Zell’s Providence Holdings.

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

Every investor expects to see some traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have neither, and choose to approach an investor, you will get no attention, and probably never again get a shot at funding with that investor. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan.

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

I am ( Michael Piermont ) co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer amSTATZ. Working with professional athletes combined with my natural leadership ability and experience in business development makes me uniquely suited to lead a technology company in the health and fitness industry. Have you raised any funding yet?

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Nearly every company faces its crisis moments and only through the inspiration , focus and dedication of the leadership can you motivate teams to dig in deep and come out the other side stronger. I made an investment in a company with deep domain knowledge. I’ll write that post one day – it is a very interesting story.

CTO Hire 363

CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2012

As a hiring manager, and as the former CTO of Buy.com, Navid Nobakht , Co-Founder of Recmnd.Me ([link] had a problem--how to really figure out if someone he was hiring could actually execute. How has the experience going from a big company to a small one? Plus, it makes it difficult from other recommendations.

CTO Hire 147

CTO Hire Startup Sites Technical Review 147

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Last week, Santa Monica-based Revolution Prep announced its first, institutional round of funding, worth $15M, from Kennet Partners. The company provides SAT, ACT, and other similar test preparation courses and related software. To hear about the company, we spoke with Ramit Varma , co-founder of the company.

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178