Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2022

Most entrepreneurs believe they are “different,” but they can’t quite understand how. The classic book, “ Hunting in a Farmer's World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. Dini makes the case that entrepreneurs are hunters, while the rest of us (large majority) are farmers.

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socalTECH

JULY 20, 2021

Techstars LA, the startup accelerator headed up by Matt Kozlov, announced its 2021 class this week, drawing an international group of twelve new companies to its startup accelerator in Culver City. Companies this year in the program come from as far as Canada, India, and Ukraine.

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socalTECH

AUGUST 26, 2014

Los Angeles-based The Honest Company , the online, family products retailer led by serial entrepreneur Brian Lee, and which was co-founded by Jessica Alba, has raised $70M in a funding round, according to the company Tuesday. The funding brings the company''s total raised to $122M. READ MORE>>.

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Berkonomics

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Most entrepreneurs quote a resource for market size but fail to then take the next step to eliminate all parts of that market unreachable by the company or product. I then created a gross domestic and gross international annual market size estimate for my industry’s products. Sources for your data.

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Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Can you create a product in a vacuum? Creating a new product in a relative vacuum is an exercise in complete trust that you know what’s best for the customer, perhaps even without interaction with such a customer. Seeking, then analyzing responses allows you to make changes to the plan and product in response.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 19, 2022

As a startup advisor, I see many aspiring entrepreneurs whose primary motivation seems to be to work part time, or get rich quick, or avoid anyone else telling them what to do. Yet, for those with more realistic expectations and the right motivation, the entrepreneur lifestyle can be the dream life you envisioned. Marty Zwilling.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2023

Technology is so key to every business these days that experienced business-smart but non-tech entrepreneurs are feeling deeper and deeper in the hole. Only one component of running a business is managing technology, but it is a critical component, so no entrepreneur can afford to ignore it or totally delegate it.

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TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 8, 2020

Watt, who came to MoviePass as an entrepreneur in residence at True Ventures, previously founded the brand and product placement startup NextMedium and also spent time as a board partner at Upfront Ventures. Now, the serial entrepreneur and startup investor is combining his two career paths under the auspices of Share Ventures.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

It’s a special mix of entrepreneur and company, regular in every respect except for having the courage and foresight to make an idea happen that was supposed to be impossible. As an entrepreneur in a startup, how do you know if you have this potential, and what are the steps to get from an innovation to a revolution?

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2020

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2015

If you define your self-worth as an entrepreneur by how busy you are, it’s time to find another lifestyle. For survival, entrepreneurs need to be all about accomplishing results that matter for themselves, their team, and their customers. That’s productivity. That is a huge hit on productivity. Why is this so hard?

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Product Entrepreneur Framework Social Media 111

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 14, 2018

Brian Norgard, who was Chief Product Officer at Los Angeles-based dating app developer Tinder , has left the company, and will be starting up a new company, Norgard said today. Norgard has been a longtime Los Angeles startup entrepreneur. READ MORE>>.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 18, 2014

Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 18, 2022

Here are some key insights that I and others have collected for mature company leaders, as well as serial entrepreneurs. Innovative product and process solutions are only temporary, as they quickly become a commodity in the minds of customers and competitors. I advise working the next one as thoroughly as the first one.

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socalTECH

MARCH 20, 2019

Los Angeles-based online real estate investment marketplace PeerStreet --which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz--is expanding the scope of its marketplace with a new loan product, which will offer up loans for purchases of residential rental properties.

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Product Google Los Angeles Entrepreneur 113

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 2, 2021

New entrepreneurs routinely jump into a startup with a full charge of passion and energy, but often find themselves drained of both after a few months by the workload and challenges. Of course, this same challenge extends well beyond the entrepreneur, into all walks of life and work. These keys are meaning, interactions, and energy.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2021

As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. For aspiring entrepreneurs, or if your last startup failed, it’s all about standing out above the crowd of others like you, and demonstrating your readiness.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

In fact, only 100 of the 10,000 multimillion-dollar consumer companies around the world can claim to be an “apostle brand” – one that inspires enduring trust, loyalty, and endorsement. Shame on you if you offer any product or service that is dull or unattractive. People still judge a book by its cover. Steve Jobs was a master at this.

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. Like many product managers, my background is fairly eclectic. My first job out of school was at one of the early bioinformatics companies in Silicon Valley, working as the head of technical services. Tell me a bit about your background.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2021

Many years ago, John Hamm published some definitive work on this subject in " Why Entrepreneurs Don't Scale " in the Harvard Business Review. This is generally a required quality for a successful entrepreneur, but it can turn into an unhealthy stubbornness during the scaling stage. Trusting your gut at this stage isn’t good enough.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2020

In my own experience as a startup advisor and mentor, I find that entrepreneurs who can’t attract and maintain a highly motivated team rarely even get off the ground. There are many ways to add levity to a tough challenge, and engaging the team occasionally in some fun activities will work wonders for your team’s productivity and motivation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

In my experience in large businesses as well as years of advising startups, I see far too much focus on product skills, and too little on people and process skills. His focus is on sales, but I see the same skills needed for entrepreneurs. Building a company and selling are all about gaining commitments.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2021

Roberta is a recognized thought leader on improving employee engagement, and has consulted with many top-tier companies and achieved some great results. Remember that people don’t work for companies, they work for people they trust. The same principles apply, whether you are an entrepreneur, term member, or manager in a large company.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Every business professional I know, or have met in my consulting role, has given serious thought to the alternative of switching to the entrepreneur lifestyle , pursuing a long-standing dream, and controlling their own destiny. To survive, you need to find a product-market fit. Product-market fit (PMF) is all about value creation.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

With the appearance of do-it-yourself services on the Internet, entrepreneur curriculums at every university, and a wealth of new books on the subject, the need for expensive consultants and business advisors has also been mitigated. The need to build a new million-dollar factory for each new product is gone.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

One of the vivid memories I have from being a startup CEO is the feeling that most people in your company have a look in their eyes that like they can do your job as well as you. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 16, 2019

Every entrepreneur believes that their product or service is memorable, and that every customer will quickly see the advantage over competitors. Yet true product differentiation in the eye of the customer is rarely achieved. Isn’t that why you signed on to the entrepreneur lifestyle in the first place?

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SoCal Tech Calendar

NOVEMBER 10, 2019

Saturday, November 16, 2019 -- Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum - Transportation. The ways that people and products move around cities worldwide are rapidly changing. As traditional car ownership declines, companies are offering cost-effective alternatives powered by new technology and networks.

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CalTech Entrepreneur Demand Mobile 100

Berkonomics

APRIL 8, 2021

Discord is a great example of a company going viral mostly from word of mouth. How do you make your product go viral? What are the elements needed to focus upon in making the attempt to take a product viral? Sometimes, it is just the right idea to brand your product inside that of a known presence. Third: cost.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 31, 2020

As an angel investor in startups, I’m a believer that smart investors invest more in you as the entrepreneur than the next billion dollar solution you are pitching. Even if you are still in school, and never started a company before, strong entrepreneur candidates can point to projects they initiated, led, that produced significant results.

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Entrepreneur Startup Examples Metrics 124

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

The Honest Company , the Los Angeles-based e-commerce company founded by Brian Lee and celebrity Jessica Alba, has raised $25M more in a funding round, the firm said this morning. The Honest Company offers up a variety of eco-friendly baby- and kids- products via subscription. READ MORE>>.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. They use products because the products solve a need they have. He is both. Blah, blah, blah.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2020

Even if you ignore all the hype around crowdfunding, there can be no doubt that it is a real alternative for entrepreneurs to achieve visibility and funding today. Product pre-order model. With this model, a startup pre-sells their product early, at a cheaper price, in exchange for a pledge. Donation good-cause model.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

Santa Monica-based Convertro , the developer of marketing attribution software led by serial entrepreneur Jeff Zwelling, has rolled out a new product, which it says helps marketers measure the return on investment from printed catalogs.

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InfoChachkie

JULY 7, 2016

The entrepreneur cannot wait to show me their product via a demo. Most entrepreneurs seem confused by my reaction and often say something like: “VCs love demos. You’re the first one I’ve met who didn’t want to see our product.” Note: I invest almost exclusively in b-to-b software companies. Don’t Demo Me Bro.

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socalTECH

MAY 2, 2014

In a bid to boost the Los Angeles economy and create new jobs in the city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday that he has created a new "Entrepreneur-in-Residence" program, which will help the city in developing initiatives and policies aimed at growing, assisting and sustaining entrepreneurs in Los Angeles. READ MORE>>.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2016

If you define your self-worth as an entrepreneur by how busy you are, it’s time to find another lifestyle. For survival, entrepreneurs need to be all about accomplishing results that matter for themselves, their team, and their customers. That’s productivity. That is a huge hit on productivity. Why is this so hard?

Product 60

Product Entrepreneur Framework Social Media 60