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

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. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Disruptive.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Tech.Co

AUGUST 16, 2017

Finding potential customers continues to be a huge challenge not only for established marketing and sales teams but also for startup executives and solo entrepreneurs. You need to find lead gen tools that will convert leads, fill your sales funnel, and increase your revenue effectively. You need to have a strategy.

Tool 79

Tool Startup Help Template 79

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Many entrepreneurs I know don’t realize that the language they learned in the corporate world, or even their recent MBA class, won’t get them ahead in the startup world today. Even if you have heard some of the new terms, but can’t explain how, when, and why they are relevant to your startup, you may be in jeopardy.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Startup Web Equity 109

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 14, 2016

The most obvious, is to drive sales. How did you start the company? Ryan Costello: I started out as an event producer in Washington DC. So, we started with a restricted access system, so that when I sent out an electronic invitation, you couldn't just forward that invitation to get on the list.

Sales 100

Sales Santa Monica Startup Orange County 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Business success is all about having the best team, yet the average entrepreneur has little prior experience with hiring people and building top-notch teams. Most new entrepreneurs assume their passion will attract and motivate the right team members. Don’t bother with previous employment follow-ups.

Organization 104

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 104

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 26, 2011

I have often said that what separates real entrepreneurs from pundits and bystanders is a bias towards getting things done versus over analyzing things. That doesn’t work in a startup. There’s a certain cadence that you can feel when you spend time hanging any well-run startup company. My credo has always been JFDI.

Startup 335

Startup Technical Review Framework Entrepreneur 335

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My advice to entrepreneurs was and is “ when the hors d’oeuvres tray is being passed take two ” (e.g. So I agreed to offer my current thinking on the economy and what it portends for the VC industry & fund raising for entrepreneurs. I doubt they will ever catch up.&#. raise money now to weather any storms).

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2020

Business success is all about having the best team, yet the average entrepreneur has little prior experience with hiring people and building top-notch teams. It’s no wonder that 45 percent of startups fail in the first five years, and an even smaller percentage ever see a return for their years of effort.

Organization 135

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 135

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 5, 2013

Take, for example, the recent City Council vote to end ride-sharing services and effectively shut down an entire sector of emerging tech startups – putting both their app developers and their enterprising users stranded in no man’s land. People don’t just solely watch TV nowadays; they multitask with a handful of screens.

Los Angeles 98

Los Angeles Startup Angel Southern California 98

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

Then there is the EIR (entrepreneur in residence) who is usually at a VC for a temporary period of time and other individuals such as venture partners or operating partners. The process for raising money from a VC is a sales process and as such much of what is taught in enterprise sales can be applied.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Sales Entrepreneur Startup 308

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2011

This might be a VC meeting but also might just be a sales or biz dev meeting. Sit closest to the projector – Many times a week I have entrepreneurs who do presentations for me and often I’m with some or all of my colleagues. Your laptop will be synchronized with the screen so resist the temptation to turn around.

Tips 392

Tips Screening Slides Venture Capital 392

Xconomy

NOVEMBER 13, 2016

The idea was to feature early stage companies in the region that have not attracted much attention or raised a substantial amount of startup capital. I started with a list of companies already screened by the San Diego Venture Group’s annual venture summit, and consulted with investors and startup mentors to refine the list.

San Diego 40

San Diego Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Startup 40

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

InfoChachkie

MARCH 16, 2016

Startups do not always have the luxury to optimize their product for both buyers and users. I learned the hard way that during a startup’s early days, entrepreneurs should give slightly greater emphasis on developing buyer features, in order to reduce the friction of the sales cycle. Build For Buyers Or Users?

SaaS 100

SaaS Startup Software Review Development Team Review 100

Steve Reich

MARCH 13, 2012

This week, I helped a young entrepreneur at a “stealth startup” evaluate his progress on the sales front. This gave him an initial filter to screen candidates. He also interviewed a significant number of individuals to establish his own benchmarks for the specific traits he needed in a sales staff.

Sales 40

Sales Company Companies Startup 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

The promised to follow up with: calls, using your product, talking to customers or “noodle on things.&# Will they? Despite best intentions they probably won’t follow up on their actions. Why don’t VC’s follow up? I like to tell entrepreneurs to treat it like a sales campaign.

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Startup Email News 277

socalTECH

JANUARY 3, 2014

One new, Los Angeles startup-- Laudville (www.laudville.com)--recently launched its service to try to tackle that huge task, of bringing your content together. Phoebe Scott: I started Laudville, because I consume a lot of entertainment of all kinds. So, I started working on it. What is Laudville? What is Laudville?

Entertainment 206

Entertainment Startup Southern California Netflix 206

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We want to give our brightest new startups the connections and interactions they need to help streamline success. We’ll be conducting a series of educational programes covering: fund raising, team building, product development, sales, marketing, business development and how to prioritize your time as a CEO.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Time sure flies when you’re having fun, or building a startup. Those who are more involved in traditional entertainment are seeing a major shift online which is why an additional one-day seminar was created to coincide with Silicon Beach Fest Hollywood as a partnership called, Idea to Screen. ” Collaboration was also key.

Hollywood 100

Hollywood Screening Ideas Entertainment 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2010

Let me start by saying I’m a huge business book cynic. But Net had told me that he picked up some valuable lessons from the book, so I thought, “WTF? They can travel the world, take classes in interesting subjects, spend time with loved ones or start new hobbies. You’re on the DS (deferred startup) plan.

Startup 295

Startup Email Technical Review Course 295

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2012

Santa Monica-based Fundable (www.fundable.com) is a newly launched, crowdfunding site which is headed by local entrepreneur Wil Shroter. Recently, an interesting project popped up on the site--a a 2D to 3D conversion project , from the inventor of the original, LCD projector, Gene Dolgoff. Tell us about your project?

Startup 252

Startup Sites Patents Outsource Development 252

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

After listening to hundreds of startup pitches, and reading even more business plans, most new venture investors develop their own favorite list of “red flags” that signal the beginning of the end of their interest. Every startup needs focus, due to limited resources, so setting irrational goals implies overall poor business acumen.

Funding 98

Funding Startup Innocal Entrepreneur 98

socalTECH

AUGUST 24, 2009

One of the startup areas where we've been seeing renewed activity in the last few months is in the enterprise software space--specifically, in software-as-a-service applications targeted at corporate customers. We spoke with the firm's CEO and co-founder, John Hanna : How'd you end up starting the company, and what is FunnelSource all about?

Oracle 145

Oracle Sales Startup Screening 145

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 5, 2015

In his premier film appearance in the blaxploitation send-up “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” Chris Rock inadvertently addresses a key pricing challenge faced by most entrepreneurs. Even sales reps will invoke a cost plus logic when negotiating with me on behalf of their customers. > The Customer Is Not Always King.

Pricing 100

Pricing Product Startup Custom 100

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

The Annual TechZulu Startup Forecast is one of our most anticipated events. Peter Csathy – CEO Manatt Digital Media Ventures, accomplished media and digital media entrepreneur. Richard Wolpert – Managing Director of Amplify.LA, startup incubator and Venture Advisor at Accel Partners. Let’s Talk Bitcoin.

Startup 95

Startup Google Education Venture Capital 95

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 25, 2012

As we continue this monumental year in the startup realm, we welcome a newcomer – Boston Startup School. Last week Boston Startup School officially launched and began with their inaugural class. ” -says Shaun Johnson, Co-Founder and COO of Boston Startup School. great jobs.

Education 86

Education Startup Software Review Technical Review 86

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2012

Fred Wilson wrote two posts in 2010 that were very influential with the startup community. I know that they really impacted an entire cohort of startups because every company that was coming to pitch me businesses was (is) saying, “I’m a ‘mobile first’ company.” The power of large screen real estate.

Web 334

Web Mobile Startup Software Review 334

socalTECH

JANUARY 23, 2018

Anyone who has ever bought or sold a home is most likely familiar with the Multiple Listings Service (MLS), the big database of homes for sale used by traditional real estate agents. We caught up with Jack Ryan , the CEO of REX, to understand how, exactly, the company sells homes without the MLS. They have to go out and find buyers.

Artificial Inteligence 113

Artificial Inteligence Woodland Hills Orange County Startup 113

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 20, 2013

As the NBA playoffs closes to an end in a grueling road to Game 7 between Miami Heats and San Antonio Spurs, it would behoove every startup founder to learn from key elements and strategies of both teams, as lessons from the sport of basketball can directly translate to the success of a startup company. Who is the sales person?

Startup 94

Startup CTO Coach Coach Study 94

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. Fund raising (as is much of life) is a sale – pure and simple. As with any sales campaign you need to: Qualify your buyers early so you focus your scarce resources on people likely to buy your product. .

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Berkonomics

JUNE 11, 2015

It’s good advice; the theory being that entrepreneurs can discover the flaws in their business models sooner, make course corrections and move in a more favorable direction. In my case as a young software entrepreneur, I had a different approach: Fail Locally, one customer at a time. I became an entrepreneur by default.

Custom 120

Custom Customer Writing Southern California 120

InfoChachkie

MARCH 3, 2011

In the spirit of the “land grab” mentality of the day, we emphasized usage of our screen sharing technology with no thought applied to how we would convert such users into paying customers. We then sorted these email addresses by company and initiated targeted sales campaigns wherever we identified a critical mass of users.

Custom 162

Custom Customer Technical Support Startup 162

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I just had to line up behind him. I was saying that I was happy it was all out in the open because I felt at least everybody could now understand the issues & opportunities from the perspectives of angels, entrepreneurs and VCs. We then started talking about Dave McClure. EcoMom originally started as SproutBaby.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 31, 2011

Coming hot off the coat tail of earlier this year’s Startup Weekend LA where Zaarly launched, this LASW was nothing less than amazing and as someone put, one of the best tech events in LA they had ever been to.

Los Angeles 73

Los Angeles Startup Angel Tech Coast Angels 73

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 13, 2012

Running that effort is Kevin Hell , the founder of DivX, who we caught up with to learn more about EvoNexus and how the group is trying to help grow technology startups in San Dieog. We're providing a very unique benefit, which is an entrepreneur-friendly incubator. It's a unique, community supported model.

Incubator 212

Incubator San Diego Technical Review Development Team Review 212

socalTECH

JULY 25, 2012

Edward Park: My background is screen printing and production. My previous company did production runs for small clothing lines, promos, and trade show giveaways, and one of the things we realized it's such a volume industry, and the technology of screen printing has been around for 10,000 years, developed by the Egyptians and the Chinese.

Startup 174

Startup Commerce Web 2.0 Screening 174