Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. Investors: Matrix (Dana Stadler, who was the CTO of PayPal).

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Capital Rustic Canyon Mobile 270

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 previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. My blog was wiped out. Remember, I was new to professional blogging.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. The abundance of late-stage capital is good for us all. My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. Entrada Ventures? —?that

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

This is part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital. I recently wrote a post on how to Deal with your Elephants in the Room during your VC meetings. Elephants being big issues that the VC will be thinking whether you bring it to his/her attention or not. Skeletons in the Closet are these types of issues.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Examples 311

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. “Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money? .” After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital!

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review 390

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). I'm a bit of an anti-VC, as you know. Tell us a bit of the story on how you started HashtagOne?

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. Tesla is not. It's a great talk.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

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. I just want to figure out what a fair valuation is.&# I figured all the VC’s talked so we should. But this example above is all entrepreneur math, not the VC’s.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

This applies to both founders and to VC’s that work with them. You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. I also liked to sit in on sales pipeline meetings.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 7, 2007

I've been reading or hearing quite a bit about how startups these days don't take nearly as much capital to create as they used to. If that's actually true, then it creates New Rules Of Technology VC. What used to cost $1M now takes $100K. Just as they always have.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Incubator Networking 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

People like Vinod Khosla, Keith Rabois, Brian Singerman, Marc Andreessen and others have all made head-scratching private comments to me that sounded so foreign to what I thought other people were doing in VC that they caused me to challenge and ultimately change some of my own views.

Startup 407

Startup Framework CTO Coach Sales 407

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal. Stuart is well worth following on Twitter & now that’s he’s a VC he is likely to share his wisdom more freely. We tell startup stories.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

socalTECH

JANUARY 16, 2013

Robison reports that the company now has over 400 employees, spread across seven building in a Carpinteria campus, in addition to a web development branch in Calabasas, and sales offices in the UK and Australia.

Funding 178

Funding Santa Barbara ReachLocal Southern California 178

SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Monday, March 12, 2007 MyShape Article - Analyst Misses the Point The NY Times did a piece today on MyShape, a start-up in Pasadena - Log in Your Measurements, and the Clothes May Fit. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO. Technology Jobs in Southern California – a Rebound.

MyShape 150

MyShape CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 7, 2013

accredited investors in 1,000 angel groups and venture capital funds to. Perhaps surprisingly, the components are NOT the traditional coding/business pieces; nor are they even coding /user interface / business / sales, or whatever. Described by BusinessWeek as a “world conquering.

Startup 189

Startup Sales Ideas Entrepreneur 189

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2010

One other big tell for me is the CEO’s grasp of the sales pipeline. I can’t tell you how many CEO’s I’ve met with who can’t walk me through the details of their sales pipeline. years as a VC, “You don’t want to raise money from me. Who does sales report to?

Entrepreneur 286

Entrepreneur Startup CTO Hire Sales 286

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2009

We started getting approached by venture capital and private equity, and we have eight figures in revenue. We've never raised outside capital, but decided to do a late stage round from a VC firm. I was working for a small venture capital firm, Shelter Capital Partners, and before that I was working for iXL.

Venture Capital 113

Venture Capital SEM Commerce Email 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

When Roger Ehrenberg & I agreed to fund Nick’s first institutional VC round we agreed it knowing that he was staying in the UK, that he was building out product & engineering in the UK and that he was the CEO of the company. So Nick drove strategy & tech from the UK and remained an active board member and CTO of the company.

CTO Hire 309

CTO Hire Organization Google Course 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

Having street smarts with no inspirational ability to build teams can yield a great small business but will be difficult to scale into a large VC-backed business. So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders who have the whole package or as much of it as possible. In the book they profile how VC worked in the early days (60s / 70s).

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

Most of them are completely mundane such as choosing which: bank, office space, 1-year lease vs. 2-year lease, logo, URL, pricing structure or which VC. The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. What lovely charts! Nobody seemed shocked.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

At night I had a group dinner where I met 6 new entrepreneurs and hung out with some old friends from law firms, banks and other VC funds. Last time we met I didn’t have my CTO with me. Would it be alright if I brought her by your offices for a super quick coffee?” I always tell people that fund raising is a sales process.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Your goal should be to turn your VCs into extended members of your team to get real value from them. 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. Ask your VC to send a critical email to a contact.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

socalTECH

JULY 7, 2010

Demand Media / Richard Rosenblatt / Los Angeles - Rosenblatt's last big win: MySpace, where he was Chairman, brokering its sale to News Corp. His new site, Mahalo, is focused on people-based, online search, with backing from Seuqoia Capital and Elon Musk, among others. Less known--a healthy domain name registration business.

Southern California 228

Southern California Entrepreneur SoCal Mahalo 228

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A few things jumped out at me: - Experience in sales or technology - considered a minor negative? If you've not had a C-level but have had experience in sales or tech. He has a bunch of factors that investors should be considering (and generally do). Not sure why. Size of target market $100M is okay.

Startup 198

Startup Custom Development Sales Writing 198

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 28, 2014

Scherzay was previously the CTO at CrowdGather, and also had founded social media software firm FavRav. Taher Scherzay: I''ve been an engineer since school, and a CTO for quite a number of years. Now, we''re putting together a team of engineers, sales, and marketing people to launch this nationally. What is Thaeres about?

Startup 159

Startup Oracle Customer Custom 159

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Content 175

Content Startup Social Media IP 175

socalTECH

AUGUST 20, 2010

We went out on the Android and Blackberry, and as we were going out to market, we realized that we could use that consumer launch as a proving ground for our technology, and leverage that to the B2B market. When I joined the company, I found an amazing technology platform and analytics capability. How is the company funded?

Content 189

Content Screening Mobile Customer 189

Xconomy

OCTOBER 16, 2016

After raising $30 million, San Diego-based Certona said it is moving to accelerate its product development, expand its sales and marketing team, and improve its client services as an e-commerce technology vendor. billion.

Artificial Inteligence 40

Artificial Inteligence Commerce San Diego Web 40

SoCal CTO

MAY 19, 2010

I’m planning on going to a Tech Coast Angels mixer tomorrow and the topic for me is whether there is angel funding out there for startups that don’t meet classic VC models. If there are, then who are they, what are the criteria, what does it typically look like?

Invest 205

Invest Angel Tech Coast Angels Pasadena Angels 205

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

The perverse nature of raising capital is that “no’s” almost always precede “yeses” because it’s very easy for a VC to tell you that you’re not a good fit without doing any real work to evaluate your company so you hear “no” far before others start doing more work. Raising money is a sale and selling requires persistence and follow up.

Funding 238

Funding Venture Capital Startup Course 238

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

Notes Wadhwa, “Jason [Calacanis], Fred [Wilson], and Silicon Valley VC’s, I’ve got news for you: you’ve got it all wrong. I’m now a VC that funds entrepreneurs. At the margin you can make yourself better at sales, product design, marketing, leadership, capital raising, etc. I’m biased, too.

Startup 289

Startup Statistics Entrepreneur Study 289

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. For businesses like this, finding new ways to drive more of these high-value inbound sales calls is key. Rincon Venture Partners and GRP Partners ).

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

SoCal CTO

JUNE 14, 2008

At the CTO Group that I organize in Santa Monica, we've had lots of discussions around this. StructuredBlogging.org is an initiative to create blogging tool plugins which support not only microformats, but other technologies that will provide a comprehensive set of standards for producing microcontent. Everything else is closed.

Platform 150

Platform EC2 Java S3 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2013

He believed we had a weakness with his CTO. It would be yet another distraction for this fledgling CEO and he felt he needed to focus on biz dev, sales, marketing and fund raising. That’s how I see the role of a VC. The CTO had at-will employment with no notice period. He said we couldn’t make a change yet.

Resource 344

Resource Organization Venture Capital Startup 344

Frank Addante

MARCH 26, 2007

► August (3) Venture Capital - What's the rush? the Rubicon Project (Internet Advertising Technology) Status: Pre-Launch Visit the Rubicon Project Website Startup 5.0: the Rubicon Project (Internet Advertising Technology) Status: Pre-Launch Visit the Rubicon Project Website Startup 5.0: Zondigo, Inc.

Outsource Development 40

Outsource Development CTO Hire Startup Venture Capital 40

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 25, 2008

I just went out to a VC conference out in New York, and what I'll say is -- it was just too damn easy. There were companies at the VC conference starving for money, but I think we could have raised $20M like nothing. We were oversubscribed, and had a stack of term sheets.

Startup 113

Startup CTO Hire Resource Venture Capital 113

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. While I agree that many VCs are crummy seed investors, I think there are some that are excellent seed investors. How it happens.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191