Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). We generally have a policy to only fund entrepreneurs once the first version of a product has shipped or it near to shipping.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

If your idea is so amazing that it warrants my hard-earned angel money or the money of my LP investors from our fund then why should I take a risk on you if you won’t take a risk on yourself? Partners in VC funds only wanted to fund entrepreneurs who had a certain percentage of their net worth tied up in their venture.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

socalTECH

OCTOBER 6, 2008

Santa Monica-based Zag, which is developing software for auto buying programs, has signed on another AAA group as a customer. Zag is headed by former CarsDirect CEO Scott Painter, and is venture backed by Anthem Venture Partners, Capital One Auto Finance, GRP Partners, Arcturus Capital, Callaway Cars and the Skoll Fund.

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Zag CarsDirect Arcturus GRP Partners 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2012

I was here to see one of our LPs (limited partners are the people who invest money in VC funds) called Fort Washington. They’ve been a long-term investor in our fund – GRP Partners – and it was important to me to spend time with them in their home market and meet the people with whom they deal locally. Or a Skype.

Press 364

Press Course Startup Email 364

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Neither is very strategic nor in the best interest of either set of customers that VCs have (portfolio companies & LPs). “Getting the band back together” doesn’t stop for me with just our fund. Writing a book will be fun. There are a number of highly talented family that I would love to work with again.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

Startup 279

Startup Venture Capital Tips Custom Development 279

socalTECH

JANUARY 17, 2013

It's a huge development task to develop your own mobile application, connect into Facebook, and create an online ordering system--unless you use the software from ChowNow (www.chownow.com), one of the newest startups to get funding here in Los Angeles. You were in LaunchpadLA, did that help with the funding?

Mobile 197

Mobile Startup Platform GRP Partners 197

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. Because it is a “series&# I plan to get into some of the deeper complexities of funds such as “cross over funds&# and “why VC’s hate to price their own deals&# at a later stage.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Invest 265

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. Instead of making a few dollars per sale and hoping for thousands of sales, you sell to only a few customers, and charge much higher rates.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

He said, “They need an unbiased view of the fund raising environment because there is too much misinformation and everything seems to be changing fast.&#. – you’re very well positioned as a fund. Many good companies will not get funded. Get funded now, if you can.&#. And well they should be.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

My job doesn’t involve the daily grind of customer complaints, product outages, business partner / channel problems, hiring / firing, etc. You get on a plane at a moment’s notice because a senior customer agreed to meet you. I get paid to network – I love meeting people. I work hard, don’t get me wrong.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Messenger : Rob Duva , Co-Founder, COO RingRevenue, prior Director of Customer Acquisition, CallWave. At CallWave, Colin was CTO, Jason was CFO and I was in charge of product marketing and customer acquisition. Why aren’t there a half-dozen well-funded startups running up your tailpipe? You’re right. It won’t be easy.”.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

My firm, GRP Partners, invested in the company that innovated this entire category – Overture (formerly known as GoTo.com). For starters – the team is exactly what I look for when I’m looking to fund entrepreneurs. It should lead to higher conversion rates and happier customers.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

We brought together Peter Cowen of Groundwork Equity , Mark Suster of GRP Partners , Rick Smith of Crosscut Ventures , and Richard Yen of Saban Ventures -- all of who will be on the judging panel for the Tech Coast Angel's Fast Pitch on February 24th, to give us a their hints and tips about pitching to venture capitalists.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Ideas Entrepreneur Invest 100

SoCal CTO

JUNE 14, 2008

The basic conclusion was that it was a bit premature if you were talking about a serious, funded start-up. Benefit of a proprietary platform can be finding customers. Mark Suster Partner GRP Partners He's an ex-Salesforce.com employee. However, these platforms could be interesting for prototype and pilot solutions.

Platform 150

Platform EC2 Java S3 150

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

Mark Suster , GRP Partners. Topic discussion: Impact of social media on startups and on funding leads for investors. They make it easy to collect investment funds, track ownership, and provide targeted updates to investors. Allen Morgan , Mayfield Ventures. Moderator: Giang Biscan , PhD., The Startups.

Social Media 60

Social Media Technical Review Tech Coast Angels Venture Capital 60

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Mark Suster , GRP Partners. Topic discussion: Impact of social media on startups and on funding leads for investors. They make it easy to collect investment funds, track ownership, and provide targeted updates to investors. Allen Morgan , Mayfield Ventures. Moderator: Giang Biscan , PhD., The Startups.

Social Media 71

Social Media Technical Review Mixergy Tech Coast Angels 71

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this. I’ll bet your customers, business partners or suppliers would love similar.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

SoCal Delicious

MARCH 1, 2010

Mark Suster, a partner at GRP Partners in Los Angeles, spoke with Fastcompany.com about what makes L.A.s My fund was an early investor in Overture. Customer Service Workshop Fast Company joins the customer service revolution across the US. startup scene so hot. What makes L.A. a great place for startups?

Los Angeles 50

Los Angeles Company Companies Angel 50

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

I’ve heard it many founders of VC backed companies in LA who tell me that in their NorCal VC meetings they are told, “we might be interested but we’d want you to relocate to the Bay Area if we funded you.&#. Funding is different outside of Silicon Valley. As a result many funds are OK with big bets.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 18, 2009

Customers are harder to sign than you want. You’ve got to accept customer losses as learning experiences and see how you can improve next time. The agreement was that both sets of investors would fund the combined entity, we would reduce overlapped costs and become a healthier company. In the morning I flew home.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners Venture Capital 298

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving. Chris Devore & Andy Sack have created Founder’s Coop with the goal of funding, incubating & launching more early-stage ventures in Seattle. That’s one model.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2010

In 2006, Steven Dietz, a partner at my firm, GRP Partners, had given me $500,000 in a seed in convertible debt when I started my second company, Koral. GRP Partners had also funded my first company. I had initially called them wondering if they’d fund my third venture. So what is my thesis?

Entrepreneur 321

Entrepreneur GRP Partners Venture Capital Invest 321

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2011

Today I’m announcing that GRP Partners is doubling down on the Twitter ecosystem by investing in DataSift , a company who provides a real-time data platform and tools to third-party developers and corporations. Or the probability of Southern Democrats to buy cable versus satellite or an Android versus an iPhone.

Platform 307

Platform News Startup Invest 307