Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2016

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Personally visit another startup funded by this investor. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Innocal Offshore Entrepreneur 63

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns. In other words, if it seems this obvious to us then it must be this obvious to many other investors and probably to many other teams gearing up to compete.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

socalTECH

JUNE 11, 2018

For our interview this morning, we caught up with Scot Lawrie , the President and technical Co-founder of Los Angeles-based Coverfly (www.coverfly.com), and John Rhodes , Coverfly's head of Marketing and Business Development, to learn a bit more about the early stage, bootstrapped startup focused on Hollywood script writers.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Hollywood Platform Competition 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about “ the politics of startups ” in which I asserted that all companies have politics, which in its purest sense is just about understanding human psychology. I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior.

Startup 340

Startup Technical Review Course Press 340

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you. West Coast”).

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 20, 2020

For starters Uber itself has had to lay off 27% of its workforce due to the pandemic and has been severely impacted financially from the crisis with no immediate respite in sight. Even more likely is eventual technology disruption where drones deliver foods and make it hard for existing car delivery services to compete.

SaaS 242

SaaS Customer Custom Technical Review 242

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2019

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late. Start networking smarter and smaller.

Marketing 97

Marketing Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review 97

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m inspired by the enthusiasm of the young, emerging startup ecosystem that is here. Seattle should be the envy of any non Silicon Valley tech community in the country. As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0 As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0 I will start recruiting soon.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

I’m a very big proponent of the “lean startup movement&# as espoused by Steve Blank & Eric Ries. In the late 90′s I saw a dangerous trend creeping into the startup world, which was that companies were suddenly raising huge amounts of money too early in their existence. This post originally appeared on TechCrunch.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. The start of marketing is figuring out a market need and a way to solve that need better than anybody else.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2013

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. You need to clearly convey what makes your startup the only choice for your customers. Start networking smarter and smaller.

Startup 103

Startup Marketing Social Media Technical Review 103

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 18, 2019

The company started the year with no revenue and at it’s peak had a run rate well in excessive of $100 million / year. Unit Economics Accelerating One topic I heard a lot in investor circles last year and in the press a lot was that there weren’t good unit economics and therefore the scooter market was never going to perform well.

Santa Monica 250

Santa Monica Venice Competition Software Review 250

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Too many startup execs place too much emphasis on the big stage launch. But more broadly it got me thinking to one of the biggest mistakes tech executives get into in the first place. It started socially.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 28, 2019

If you listen primarily to the popular press, you could easily be convinced that all successful startup businesses are built by one smart person, such as Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, or Jeff Bezos at Amazon. Collaboration has to start at the top. Technology startups need experts more than collaboration.

Entrepreneur 94

Entrepreneur Technical Review Ideas Tool 94

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. The world has changed much since I started my first company in 1999. some came from our customer service, some were to improve performance / scalability from tech ops, some were bug fixes, etc.) Tim started to change our processes. Turn Your Organization Inside Out.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds? Do investors always take up their prorata rights in later rounds? ” Some do, some don’t.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

I remind founders that the no’s come early because it’s super easy to qualify out a deal that you know is unlikely due to stage, focus, geography, competitive deal you’ve done or even just the fact that you’re too busy right now. When you read about the funding in the press it sounds like it was a walk in the park.

Press 232

Press Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 232

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2017

You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late. Start networking smarter and smaller.

Tips 75

Tips Marketing Technical Review Startup 75

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Photo by Hope House Press - Leather Diary Studio on Unsplash It’s also true that there will be tough moments in your company’s journey where you will want to be able to carry people behind the tough decisions you want. They decide to wake up early to read the materials. The meeting starts. It probably starts late.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most newspapers are written at a third-grade reading level, White House press releases average a fourth-grade reading level and the New York Times is easily digestible by the average fifth grader. Competition. Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. Patents and Trademarks. Management Team.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

I have been close to the tech & startup sectors for more than 20 years and I can’t think of a period in which I felt more optimistic about the innovation and value creation I see in front of us. The number of startups being created has increased by an order of magnitude. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin!

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Xconomy

OCTOBER 10, 2016

By popular acclaim, San Diego-based Echo Laboratories founder Eugene Cho claimed top honors, and a $15,000 check, for his two-minute presentation last week in the 10th annual “Quick Pitch” competition, hosted by San Diego’s Tech Coast Angels. Crowd Gathers for San Diego Tech Coast Angels “Quick Pitch” Competition.

Tech Coast Angels 40

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review San Diego Software Review 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

Machine Learning / AI They discussed many topics ranging from protection of the press to what Mark looks for in an entrepreneur to investing outside of Silicon Valley and of course Trump and sports. He said that he believes AI will have a bigger impact than any technology in the last 30 years. He said if Instagram went public.

Artificial Inteligence 105

Artificial Inteligence Study Press Netflix 105

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# When I was running startups I felt like a horse with blinders on because I was super focused on the content management market and ignored many other markets. Then I spent many years as a startup CEO.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

We All Know That Dollars into Venture Have Gone Up … As a starting point, we know that the dollars into venture have steadily rebounded to pre great-recession levels, with just under $30 billion committed to US technology venture capital in 2015. That’s money that fuels our startup ecosystems.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

It’s always fun debating companies with Dana because she’s always so knowledgeable on deals – particularly those in the digital media, ad-tech and eCommerce spaces. Another topic we debated early in the program was “lean startup” vs. “ fat startup ” where we both took the obvious hedge and said “it depends.”

Venture Capital 240

Venture Capital Startup Platform Technical Review 240

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I suppose I should have imagined that this line would get more press than all other comments combined. People get too worked up over the word. Responses ranged from, “hey, they’re in a HUGE market&# to “it is an amazing company and their technology rocks.&# I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2012

A tweet by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on August 9th caused a stir in the tech scenes. ” Matt Ocko also revealed to Silicon Beat that they have been getting a lot more press inquiries due to the number of deals they were doing. Strong Network, Operational Experience and Technical Background. Big Data Shift.

Technical Review 74

Technical Review Entrepreneur Oracle Software Review 74

InfoChachkie

MAY 19, 2011

Give up Branding. Relinquish Press Release Capabilities. Serve up World-wide Distribution. In some instances, it will be appropriate to grandfather ongoing payments due regional distributors for their past performance. Deploy a Free Pilot. Cut a Multi-year Agreement. Lock Down the Escape Hatches. Surrender Arbitration.

Outsource Development 193

Outsource Development IP Technical Review Entrepreneur 193

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Just like the sky scraping investment banks of Wall Street, the technology industry tends to be a sausage party. pitch and technology competition at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, I couldn’t help but feel like it might be a hall of crickets with a few passionate women warming the front row.

Conference 77

Conference Startup Technical Review Software Review 77

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

Start by trying to narrowing the list of total prospective VCs. I get approached about clean tech or biotech periodically – I don’t focus on these. In ad tech there’s Seth Levine at Foundry Group and both Dana Settle & Ian Sigelow at Greycroft. Tell a friend! And now, the details … 1.

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2019

In my experience as a business advisor, one of the best ways to get all of these, is to publish a book on the technology, the journey, or some relevant lessons learned. Yet, most good business people I know agree, but don’t know where to start. What’s holding you back from starting today?

Writing 19

Writing Technical Review Entrepreneur Advertising 19

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March There was some really great content in June. It shows a lack of interest.

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175