TechCrunch LA

APRIL 7, 2019

While current technologies are not quite advanced enough to make Westworld a reality, startups are attempting to replicate the sort of human-robot interaction it presents in virtual space. I think in this age and time, that’s not what we want to get into,” Xinjie Ma, who heads up marketing for rct, told TechCrunch.

Startup 235

Startup Artificial Inteligence Los Angeles Software 235

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

Francisco Dao came up with the idea of letting 10 companies that weren’t selected for Twiistup to do a presentation the night before to a group of people and let the audience pick one company to win the final slot at Twiistup. So I thought I’d write a piece on how to not suck when you give a presentation.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I think my mentality to banker pitches was best summed up in this article about Y Combinator in which Paul Graham apparently made the following quotes. start-ups are overvalued. The other quote from the article is this: “The other thing they say is that they can’t tell on Demo Day which are the good start-ups.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Before I tell you the reasons I’m concerned about investment banking intros, I should start by saying I think bankers are enormously helpful for entrepreneurs in raising money. start-ups are overvalued. And I’m seeing this even at some really well run startups. It’s a Demo Day thing.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo.&#. I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. Can you just show up without one? If you want to go quickly to the demo – knock yourself out. Mobile app?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

Your product demo crushed. 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. If three of us go to the first meeting there’s no reason to have a follow up meeting 6 weeks later!)

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

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

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. There is a battle between entrepreneurs who try to change the world and solve a meaningful problem and those who write take-down pieces with no apparent personal benefit other than attention. She has never given up despite setbacks.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). I was telling him that it was much easier when I started because there were fewer deals, life was less public and somehow the world seemed to be spinning more slowly. I don’t.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Justin Bieber is unbelievably entrepreneurial and most of you will never know it because he serves a target demo that doesn’t include you. I was initially skeptical, but it was a pure delight for me from start to finish. It all has to start from talent. Usher worked hard to set up meetings (including L.A.

Entrepreneur 398

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Blogging 398

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Rarer still is the startup CEO who can make the transition effectively on their own. Unwillingness to devolve power is the bane of many management teams at startup companies. I see the problem directly at many startups I know. The problem is that we started with an SLA that was too favorable to us. This seldom works.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 10, 2012

Divshot's Founders conceived of their innovative web development solution, which automatically generates professional-grade code during the wire framing process, during a Startup Weekend event in Kansas City. No matter how you end up on the front page of a major news site, getting there is just the first step. Engagement.

News 198

News Sites Startup RSS 198

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. I’ve heard many startup CEO’s (and VCs!) It started socially. Robert’s article is worth reading.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons”. I’m not going to cover in this post the obvious post-show marketing tasks such as following up on all those business cards you grabbed, communicating with all those people who registered at your site and leveraging your new found fame to score venture capital.

Startup 310

Startup Press Venture Capital Journal 310

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2016

For the past few months I’ve been doing nearly daily “Snapstorms” or short videos with startup advice released on Snapchat. I remember the same disdain from people when I started blogging or using Twitter. I LOVE writing. But writing takes more time and some days I don’t have that. Why would a VC do that? I do these, too.

Snapchat 200

Snapchat Blogging Venture Capital Writing 200

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2020

Smith , the founder of Croquet (www.croquet.io), a new Los Angeles startup which actually has its roots at the very beginning of the modern computing era. You can spin a coin, pick up an object. In the real world, you pick up an object, and you can hand it to seomeone else. For today's interview, with talked with David A.

Platform 168

Platform Startup Examples Web 168

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

Something is rotten in tech startup land. It’s not that I’m anti innovation or a disbeliever in disruption or calling it a full-scale bubble or saying every darling startup is going to fail. The uninvited crowds have all turned up. He turned up for the fun but went too hard, too early. None of those.

Technical Advisors 150

Technical Advisors Startup Writing Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. In my post “ Measure twice, cut once ” I’ve outlined how to plan before you start raising. Should You Start with Your “Safety Schools?”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 28, 2012

The first-ever Silicon Beach Fest attracted more than 2,000 attendees from LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Barbara, New York, Toronto, and London to celebrate LA startups and entertainment with panels, parties, pitch fests, hackathon, and beach games: volleyball, basketball and surfing lessons in Santa Monica and Venice on June 21-23, 2012.

Hollywood 67

Hollywood Technical Review Startup Rustic Canyon 67

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. And to keep up with the Jones’s it seems that Yahoo! Almost certainly the startup would have raised some capital. Go do a startup. And who cares, right?

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2014

Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the deal, they don’t want to write another check themselves, etc.). I seek out great entrepreneurs. End of story.

Venture Capital 337

Venture Capital Invest Ideas Entrepreneur 337

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that funding is something you do in “funding season,&# some mythical 2-month period when you’re ready with a great Powerpoint deck and you hit up all of the VC’s at the same time so that you can quickly raise money and get back to the job of building a business.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

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. They demoed the electricity transfer with a physical device that looked like something that would never be allowed on an airplane. But it seemed to work. I spent one hour with them.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. How did you start blogging? “My In 2004 / 2005 I was starting to get intrigued with user-generated content. was starting. And I would rather, even before the executive summary, have something to play with (a demo)…” It falls in the category of show don’t tell.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

I’m going to write a pure admiration piece. We attended a fbFund demo day ( which I rarely do but it was put on by my long-time buddy Dave McClure – who hadn’t yet started 500Startups – and Sheryl Sandberg who was much more of a mere mortal back then). He stands up, raises voice, loud, “Come on!

Startup 150

Startup Conference Ideas Writing 150

InfoChachkie

MARCH 16, 2015

Why am I writing an article about a trade show that occurred nearly four months ago? In general, I think startups typically overspend at such events, in a vain attempt to gain attention and avoid appearing to be small. Invoca is no longer a startup, but frugality from its early days is firmly implanted within its DNA.

Conference 100

Conference SaaS Ideas Sales 100

Tech.Co

MAY 9, 2017

He ended up building a digital agency that did everything from custom apps and web development to branding and digital marketing. I’ve always been super into hardware tech and future technology and the only way I could think of actually getting my hands on a headset was to start a meetup group,” Taylor said. And UploadVR was born.

Startup 70

Startup Web Development Design Education 70

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

We had a training session from somebody who put up the four-quadrant graph you see above. This is really important as extroverts like to have the answers presented to them up front. For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase. Drain in quickly.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Mike Yavonditte is the founder of the “super hot&# Hashable , a startup out of NYC that has been described as a “ Mint.com for Social Capital ” Mike sold his previous company, Quigo , to Aol for $340 Million. I appreciate the write-up and your continued support of this blog. Quigo set up a system on specific web pages.

Google 302

Google Startup Advertising Acquisition 302

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

It’s unbelievable how often start up founders stifle their company from growing by not knowing how to effectively communicate their brand. It was a surprise knowing these start ups have spent $1000s for the chance to be noticed by the right influencer, whether it be a venture capitalist, early adopter or the press.

Press 97

Press Startup Technical Review Email 97

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2012

Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. It’s why I still randomly meet up with people I’ve met on Twitter or this blog. I had so many casual meet-ups with random people that I wanted to spend quality time with, like Naval Ravikant and Farb Nivi. We’ll see.

Startup 319

Startup Organization Entrepreneur Blogging 319

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.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Failure is part of the startup process. I’ve had the pleasure to read some really excellent applications that crisply and concisely showcased what made that startup shine. Applications so bad that I threw up a little in my mouth. We start skimming, skipping, and then bailing on the application altogether.

Tips 70

Tips Startup Statistics Metrics 70

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2014

.” I have been weighing in slowly on the topic over the past few weeks on Twitter but have avoided writing a blog post about it until now. I started from a position of wanting a “real identity” because to me I want to know whom I’m dealing with. Contrast that with HackerNews. Cars are dehumanizing.

Technical Review 329

Technical Review Blogging Examples Startup 329

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

I get questions from startup founders about executive summaries all the time. to “where can I get help writing one?” While it may be tempting, with everything that you have to do, to try to find someone else to write your executive summary, you really need to do this yourself. They range from “what should I include?”

Summary 40

Summary Outsource Development Writing Outsource 40

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 28, 2012

From LA Demo Day to Silicon Beach Fest to Crowdstart LA to hackathons to Startup Weekends, companies and entrepreneurs alike have joined forces to feed the startup ecosystem. Startup Weekend is a 54-hour frenzy in which a group of strangers can come together to form a company and compete for prizes.

Startup 100

Startup Ideas San Diego Mentor 100