SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. Actually, I should start by saying – I’m not a lawyer and you might want to get someone who can help you understand your position here. Was it pre or post?

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Great exit. - Don’t.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. If you asked me to tell you a list of three of the best decisions in my life, I can certainly tell you that regularly writing is one of them. Why You Should Write. Hybrid monetization.

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Startup Product Technology Venture Capital 191

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 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 30 Startup Posts in June 2010 Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March The following are the top items based on social signals.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217

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. This applies to both founders and to VC’s that work with them. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact). I’m not a big believer in too much hierarchy.

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Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

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

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Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

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. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Startups are hard. You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. We tell startup stories. Our founder, Yves Sisteron, was my mentor and board member at my first startup. Stuart Lander has joined Upfront Ventures to help us run operations.

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CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

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. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Investors own 25%, the founders own 75%.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. but: Something is Still Missing.

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Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

You race back to the office to tell everybody how well it went and you wait for the follow-up call to have a partners’ meeting or talk about term sheets or at least dip into due diligence. This is a very common scenario when entrepreneurs pitch VCs and frankly is a very common scenario when VCs try to raise money from LPs.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. 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. A caller dialed in to ask us questions about his startup.

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Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m inspired by the enthusiasm of the young, emerging startup ecosystem that is here. As I gear up to give a keynote at the annual Seattle 2.0 awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. Because of this, I've always tried to stay up-to-speed on how early-stage investors look at valuation of companies. He just post: Establishing the Pre-money Valuation of Pre-revenue Startups. is a requirement.

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Startup Custom Development Sales Writing 198

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Today I’m handing her the largest A-round check I’ve ever written as a VC as we lead her $10 million A-Round at uBeam. 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. That was three months ago this week.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

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. He is very pleasant when he calls and writes.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

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." That said, you likely could have still come up with some cheaper way than building the iPod. Results of Algorithms.

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Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Many people will write the history on why Ring became an enormously successful company and why it became a real-world unicorn in a world when many startups are anointed that merely on paper. It is an LA-based company that was recently acquired by Amazon, which you can read more about in this incredibly well-researched article.

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Startup Pricing Product Marketing 247

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. I grew up in Los Angeles and went to undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, graduating in 2003 with Honors in Economics. While at UC Santa Barbara, I started a café which served over 1100 dorm residents.

Startup 150

Startup SEO Pepperdine Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

I grew up believing that human behavior was 20% nature, 80% nurture. I wasn’t going to write about it since he had just covered the topic and echoed my point of view. Notes Wadhwa, “Jason [Calacanis], Fred [Wilson], and Silicon Valley VC’s, I’ve got news for you: you’ve got it all wrong. Nature vs. Nurture.

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Startup Statistics Entrepreneur Study 289

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Thursday, March 22, 2007 Discussion Creation Among Bloggers - LinkedIn, Blogging and Discussion Groups Ive been participating in a Yahoo Group that are users of LinkedIn and who are Bloggers: [link] Its an interesting group of folks from diverse backgrounds. Maybe this meme will help.

Blogging 150

Blogging CTO Coach CTO Hire Southern California 150

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

However, in a very unusual move, the City of Los Angeles has tapped a true technology veteran and insider, well known to those here in the industry-- Peter Marx , most recently at Qualcomm--to head up the city''s efforts to both adopt technology and improve the city''s relationship with its growing technology companies.

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Los Angeles Technology Startup Examples 203

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Messenger : Thorsten von Eicken , RightScale’s Co-Founder and CTO, Chief Architect at Citrix Online (formerly Expertcity) and Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University and UC Santa Barbara. That’s what we’ve started to tackle and the mission RightScale is on. 9) The story of how you started RightScale is classic.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2011

Every entrepreneur is flooded with information from all directions, but despite their best efforts to absorb it, they likely miss the information really needed to start a business. They write and tweet every day, with the single guiding credibility and personality that the new social culture demands. Lessons Learned , by Eric Ries.

Entrepreneur 92

Entrepreneur Technical Review Blogging Java 92

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

This hot list is based on various social signals of what people are writing about, reading, bookmarking, searching, etc. Last month we Launched Los Angeles Tech and in the announcement we provide the Hot List for the first half of January 2009. You can go to the Hot List post to see what was hot then.

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Layoffs Woodland Hills Southern California Orange County 159

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 28, 2013

Dave’s industry experience includes tenures as CTO and CEO of several successful software companies, and upper-level management positions in Fortune 100 companies. He keynotes leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, enterprise application integration, and enterprise architecture. CTO at SOA Software.

SaaS 92

SaaS Cloud Computing CIO Web 92

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

How did Revolution Prep start? We started in 2000. Using that, and a partnership model where we go into schools and partner with them to provide SAT and ACT service, we've been able to build up a private tutoring service from basically nothing. Ramit Varma: I've been sort of in and out of the venture space since we started.

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

But, when it comes to tracking what ad placement or publisher was responsible for getting a consumer to pick up the phone and call, that’s pretty difficult. 9) In Getting The Band Back Together , I write about the power of serial Founding teams. Why aren’t there a half-dozen well-funded startups running up your tailpipe?

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Lately the topic of leadership & teams has been coming up a lot in my daily life. You do a startup and decide you want somebody to step in and run the company so you can focus on technical excellence. The toughest or coolest kids in class often like somebody who is willing to stand up to them – but not cross them.

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CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Today they say its Africa’s largest and fastest growing social networking utility with over 4,000 daily new sign-ups. TechZulu caught up with Chidi Nwaogu, co-founder and CEO brings you the energy behind the twin co founders. As of writing, my twin and I serve as the Co-CEOs and Co-Presidents at LAGbook. What is LAGbook?

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Social Network Networking Advertising Startup 100

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

Right now they’re setting up 500 free corporations for first time entrepreneurs. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs here in Los Angeles who are building awesome companies, writing awesome books, making awesome movies and are trying to solve important problems to help make this world a better place. Thank you @eminutes. .

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Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

Frank Addante

JANUARY 23, 2007

► August (1) Stay Positive ► July (2) Go Fast, but Don’t Hurry The DNA of an A++ Team ► June (1) Setting up Shop - Picking an Office Space ► May (3) Startup 6.0 - the Rubicon Project: Internet Advert. ► August (3) Venture Capital - What's the rush? Startup 3.0:

Outsource Development 40

Outsource Development Develop Development Product 40

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

► August (1) Stay Positive ► July (2) Go Fast, but Don’t Hurry The DNA of an A++ Team ► June (1) Setting up Shop - Picking an Office Space ► May (3) Startup 6.0 - the Rubicon Project: Internet Advert. ► May (5) the Rubicon Project The Journey Startup 6.0: Startup 3.0: Be scrappy.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40