Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened? There was no money train.

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Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

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Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

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. The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless. Did anybody hold patents that would prevent us from using this technology? We hired IP specialists to review prior art.

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Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.”

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact). You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on.

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Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

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.

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Technical Review Hollywood Platform Competition 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. Why a business plan competition, and why in engineering school?

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Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. When should you start a company? What company should you start? Most startups die. Start writing down predictions about people, companies, and markets. When should a VC invest?

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

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. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. I acknowledged this in the article.

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Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

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

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. What makes up revenue?

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2020

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about bringing the work back home, since costs have gone up in less-developed countries, there are issues with intellectual property, and time zone and language differences make management difficult. Saving cost won’t help you if you can’t make the daily innovations required to stay competitive.

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Outsource Development Outsource Software Review Technical Review 122

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Let’s set up a framework. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

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.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

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

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. Trying outrageous new things or even trying mundane things but in new ways but with extreme quality & innovation is what fuels the tech startup industry. But today I want to give you advice on how to decrease your odds of failure in a startup.

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Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Tech.Co

MAY 26, 2020

Jeff Bezos didn't get to be the world's richest man by writing a lot of checks, and one recent way to keep Amazon's profits healthy has been to cut its affiliate commissions scheme. A host of bloggers and publishers are seeing their revenues massively dented, from tiny BBQ grill review sites to the hugest media organizations around.

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Technical Review Buzzfeed News Networking 129

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

TechZulu caught up with co-founder Calvin Schemanski chat about their upcoming launch, their product and why Long reviews suck. myfab5 is a platform that reinvents the restaurant review. Unlike typical review sites, our platform does not use star ratings or long reviews. What is myfab5?

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

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. In addition, the discipline of producing it, like writing a business plan, will help you immensely in understanding the key elements that drive you and your business.

Writing 19

Writing Technical Review Entrepreneur Advertising 19

InfoChachkie

MAY 16, 2011

As an entrepreneur and startup investor, I have helped create companies which achieved two IPOs which collectively raised over $100 million, as well as two acquisitions which totaled $385 million. Value is created through diligent hard work. 5) Allow Partners To Write Your Agreements. 5) Allow Partners To Write Your Agreements.

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Startup Outsource Development Outsource Sales 242

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 9, 2012

Friendly constituents will not sustain your startup. To such enterprising souls, the inherent ambiguity of a startup is thrilling, rather than daunting. Accomplished entrepreneurs are curious about their customers' desires, competitors' future strategic directions and their industry's technological trends.

Tips 277

Tips Startup Entrepreneur Entertainment 277

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 10, 2010

Intellectual Property (IP) is an ugly thing at a startup. However, to a Big Dumb Company (BDC), a startup’s IP is a thing of beauty. How can IP be worthless to a startup yet very worthwhile to a BDC? Patents held by startups generally have a limited ability to reduce competition. free weekly Infochachkie articles!

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IP Patents Company Companies 256

socalTECH

APRIL 29, 2014

A number of teams have recently been looking to turn that vision into reality, as a result of the Qualcomm Tricorder Prize , a $10M competition being run by the X Prize Foundation to create a real life Tricorder. Mike Outmesguine: We''re one of about thirty teams left in the challenge, out of more than 300 that signed up last August.

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Startup Competition Software Review UCLA 262

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.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

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.

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Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 8, 2018

Steven Johnson, author of How We Got To Now , analyzes technological breakthroughs, looking for patterns that allow entrepreneurs to identify “How We’ll Get To Tomorrow.” We all have hunches, but if we do not diligently document them, we risk losing them. The more you play around with ideas and you write them down, the better.

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Ideas Startup Technical Review Santa Barbara 69

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2014

I got a call a few years ago from a well-known investor up North. I reviewed a deal for a friend of mine tonight. He wanted to know what I thought of his technology deal. Competition is fierce. I’ve seen you write a $10 million check before. He opted for two big VC funds up North who split $1.5

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Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Email 333

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2010

I scan it for the most important messages to be sure nothing urgent has popped up. It made me laugh because the technical world has this exact phrase to talk in computing sense about the need to block out interruptions in order to complete a task. About six months ago I signed up for a service called PhoneTag run by Jamie Siminoff.

Product 280

Product Startup Email Technical Review 280

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Too Techie - Tone down emphasis on the technology underlying your venture; an interested investor will perform tech diligence at the appropriate time. Competition. Who do I write the check to and where do I send it? Follow my startup-oriented Twitter feed here: @johngreathouse. Patents and Trademarks.

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Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 15, 2012

There are many paths into the VC world, but they can generally be lumped into two categories: (i) serial entrepreneurship, and (ii) tech-oriented investment banking. All you need do to become an Angel is identify a promising venture and write a check. In contrast, an Angel Investor is someone who invests their own capital.

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest RSS 242

InfoChachkie

JUNE 20, 2011

There is never enough time to perform all of the outstanding tasks at the typical startup. Due to their lack of practical experience, this delegation/efficiency tradeoff is especially acute with respect to hiring Interns. The growth rate of most startups justifies hiring an in-house talent coordinator.

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Startup Software Review Technical Review Class 244

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 3, 2015

I often write about the best strategies for startup fundraising or how to manage startup financing and optimize for growth. Equally important, is an area many startup founders don’t always prioritize: choosing the right service providers and understanding the value they can bring, especially to early-stage startups.

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Startup Outsource Development IP Outsource 40

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 24, 2016

The Affordable Care Act, often referred to as “Obamacare,” has enacted major changes for healthcare providers since it was enacted at the start of President Obama’s first term. Even so, employers will need to keep their plans competitive in order to discourage marketplace health plan shopping.

Startup 49

Startup Competition Study Writing 49

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2014

Recently, Ive seen a lot of discussion about bringing the work back home, since costs have gone up in less-developed countries, there are issues with intellectual property, and time zone and language differences make management difficult. Saving cost wont help you if you cant make the daily innovations required to stay competitive.

Outsource Development 95

Outsource Development Outsource Offshore Software Review 95

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 11, 2012

Tech Reporters: These individuals will write and edit informative and practical articles on a range of topics including Startups/Entrepreneurs, Gadgets, Mobile Tech, Tech in Entertainment, Gaming, Apps & Software, productivity, and cover breaking tech news. Take a look below and give us a shout.

Technical Review 71

Technical Review Software Review Writing News 71

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. Thus, while we maintain a healthy degree of optimism, we begin each funding discussion knowing that most nascent startups are not worthy of an investment, until we prove them otherwise. Unicornless.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100