Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I was speaking recently to the team at NuOrder , an LA-based company we’re an investor in about “realism in startups” — an impromptu talk I have given to any of our portfolio companies who ask. I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly. “I I work with a few computer vision companies.

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." If you do build the MVP and show it to them, they will ask you about your metrics. They really want metrics, not a product.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

When should you start a company? What company should you start? When should you join a company? Anyone who has worked in a large company further knows that timing a product launch or a new marketing strategy has more to do with internal politics than reading market forces. When should a VC invest?

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2019

Even if it’s only a few PowerPoint slides or typed paragraphs, writing something down is the first step toward making it real. Always write in the future tense, what you will do, and name yourself as the key person responsible. Set target date milestones and metrics to gauge progress.

Ideas 99

Ideas Slides Writing Startup 99

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2020

These are ones behind many of the modern game-changing companies, like Pinterest and Foursquare. Put it behind you by setting your own realistic metrics for success and happiness. Then write them down. By writing these goals, you add validity to each target and create a mental desire to see them fulfilled.

Entrepreneur 123

Entrepreneur Satisfaction Writing Startup 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 26, 2022

For example, instead of quick slide presentations, teams at Amazon write six-page memos to lay out ideas in narratives to be read in silence at the start of a meeting. Richard Branson , who manages many companies, even provides feedback by walking around the cabin and talking directly to his key staff during his Virgin flights.

Coach 145

Coach Slides Social Network Metrics 145

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. should companies do spreadsheets / plan / have a hypothesis for success? how do you handle internal company morale? 9:14 What was the root cause of the failure of your first company?

Social Media 301

Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. Your deck should be so good that a VC asks you for permission to show it to his or her portfolio companies.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

It’s a hard topic to write about because it’s almost an accepted norm that total transparency is good. You took the risk to start your company. They told you, “Yeah, man, I’ll gladly write the first $250,000. I worked with a startup CEO who decided he wanted to sell his company. CEO transparency.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

In a funding round with 1 or 2 VCs and 15-20 angels or 4-6 seed funds if you gave every investor you financial information and performance metrics your proprietary information would increase in its probability of leaking out. We are doing what we do – writing larger checks and playing an active role at the company.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

The other thing that struck me, is because it is only men, they tend to write with lots of testosterone. Their writing style, even for a mainstream publication, is they write with lots of testosterone. They write about the transmission, the brakes, and the suspension, and that creeps into all of their evaluations of cars.

Truecar 204

Truecar Writing Edmunds Sites 204

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

It’s super hard not to want to spend more time with these companies. I always ask when somebody sends me a deal, for example, are you already a shareholder in the company? I got an email recently from a VC who had invested in a company a small amount in a seed round. I’ve seen you write a $10 million check before.

Venture Capital 333

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Email 333

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Do you need a board when you first start you company? Time based as in “a guaranteed right for 12 months, which can be renewed by mutual board consent” and event based “a guaranteed right until the company has raised $x million from new investors.” Should I be worried that I could be fired from my own company? Not really.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

Months of submissions and the amazing help from our judges , the Spotlight is shinning down on awesome companies that were born right out of Southern California. And now without further ado I present the Spotlight: LA Tech Winter Companies: Spotlight Companies. We write and create our own content for the game.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2013

They cite sources like a recent BusinessWeek story, “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ” and this NY Times article. In fact, they are probably in such a hurry to give you money that they don’t want you to waste time writing anything down and passing it along to new investors. Clemson University professor William B.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Technical Review Writing Slides 100

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. What makes their story more remarkable, in the age of 20-something billionaires, is that both of the company’s founders are in their 50’s.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

What is it to start up a company, and run it to the brink of shutdown�only to have it acquired and restarted immediately? We caught up with co-founder Joey Flores on the story behind the company's brush with death, and its recent acquisition by You42, which was announced last week. So, we decided to shut down the company.

Software Review 100

Software Review Startup Metrics Content 100

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. We also represent a few larger companies with international issues. You are writing about the essentials of business. Any thoughts on my recent post Startup Metrics ? That's great.

Startup 150

Startup SEO Pepperdine Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. There is an inherent value that any company has. I acknowledged this in the article.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

Some examples of common objections across many companies: 1. As a company you need to invest in ROI calculators (spreadsheets) that are easy for sales reps to plug in basic customer metrics and pop out with an expected benefit. More experienced sales leaders seldom compete on price.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2012

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. then you can start writing a recipe. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team.

Startup 96

Startup Writing Metrics Marketing 96

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

The minute you try to monetize now they have metrics with which to beat you up and say you’re business has limitations.” The company with no revenue and a $150k burn rate that raised $2.5 Should I write off my $2.5 And I only know one reason companies go out of business – they run out of money.

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Skip the acronyms, history of the company, and the disruptive technology behind your solution.

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

Amos Schwartzfarb: I have been in and a part of early stage startup companies since the mid 90's, in San Francisco. I left HotJobs, and started another company, with Jake Winebaum, called Work.com, while he was running Business.com. I thought I'd swear off early stage companies, even though I ended up three or four more after that.

Sales 113

Sales Startup Custom Development Framework 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 31, 2014

These are ones behind many of the modern game-changing companies, like Pinterest and Foursquare. Put it behind you by setting your own realistic metrics for success and happiness. Then write them down. By writing these goals, you add validity to each target and create a mental desire to see them fulfilled.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Satisfaction Startup Writing 100

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

We’ve had just one market since then and it could confuse one into thinking: every deal finds downstream investors, every company good or bad finds a home, you know anything at all about brazil, india, china or even saas sales, ecommerce or analytics (you know all these in a bull market). Too much money too early often f s companies up.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. VCs (and LPs) have a vested interest in having more data, whether they want to invest in your company / firm or not.

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. He did it yesterday, “Mark, I’m going to write a blog post following on from your VC’s aren’t dumb. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies. He is very pleasant when he calls and writes. Further Reading.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 22, 2015

The good news is that recent big company financial woes and layoffs have generated a flood of candidates with real experience seeking positions at startups. Too many entrepreneurs naively believe that candidates with lofty titles from a larger company can easily do the same job for their startups. This doesn’t work in a startup.

Startup 99

Startup Mentor Layoffs News 99

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

But the hardest question to actually answer is, “What is the right burn rate for your company?” In other words, fund-raising is a permanent part of the job of the CEO (and CFO) of a company so whether you allocate 5% of your time to it or 20% – it is a year-round activity even if just in the background.

Startup 150

Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2015

These are ones behind many of the modern game-changing companies, like Pinterest and Foursquare. Put it behind you by setting your own realistic metrics for success and happiness. Then write them down. By writing these goals, you add validity to each target and create a mental desire to see them fulfilled.

Satisfaction 57

Satisfaction Entrepreneur Writing Startup 57

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2021

Noom worked really well initially because it dealt with the psychology of why people make bad food choices and forced me to write down what some of my bad behaviors actually were. and he mentioned that one of their portfolio companies was having a lot of success because it dealt with the psychology of why people overeat.

Coach 538

Coach Startup Guide Journal 538

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2011

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. then you can start writing a recipe. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Metrics 91

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary. They all offer a list of requirements that might take 50 pages to address, but of course they ask you to write concisely. Skip the acronyms, history of the company, and the disruptive technology behind your solution.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

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

Tech.Co

APRIL 11, 2018

Plenty of workers have had enough: In the final quarter of 2017, according to real estate company Redfin , more residents left San Francisco than any other major U.S. Writing in March, the New York Times’ Kevin Roose had an answer that will hit Bay Area-bound tech workers where it hurts: Their wallets.

Report 70

Report .Net Template Writing 70

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Even when your startup is a one-man show, you will soon find that you are “out of control,” unless you start organizing and writing down how and when key things need to get done. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. The right question is “What is the minimum that I need?”

Startup 102

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 102