TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review ! This writeup from industry analyst Karl Guttag showcases how Magic Leap has turned away from several of the key technologies it raised billions of dollars to develop with its latest hardware which he nevertheless believes will “blow away” the HoloLens 2 in image quality.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

Pasadena-based robot developer Miso Robotics, which develops kitchen assistance robots, says it is looking to raise another $40M more via crowdfunding, after just completing $50M in an equity crowdfunding push. The company said it is undergoing a "SEC review process" ahead of the new crowdfunding effort.

Artificial Inteligence 124

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Pasadena Demand 124

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

For example, Bill Gates founded and grew Microsoft, and Michael Dell built a great technology company, both with no outside funding until they went successful enough to go public years later and sell shares to common stockholders. Many times friends and family have been broken by failed investments.

Funding 107

Funding Startup Satisfaction Venture Capital 107

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

Responding to Elizabeth Warren’s call to regulate and break up some of the nation’s largest technology companies, the venture capitalists that invest in technology companies are advising the presidential hopeful to move slowly and not break anything. This is not a new model, and it makes no sense,” says Narasin.

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

socalTECH

JANUARY 7, 2019

During the holiday season, our tradition over the last few years has been to post reflections on the past year and some predictions for 2019 from Southern California's technology industry. There was no monetary reward for those who participated (and Startup Boost does not take fees or equity from the companies that we help).

Technical Review 157

Technical Review Software Review Startup Coach 157

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

If you’ve read any of my ongoing series on fund raising from venture capitalist (episode 1?— ?controlling Building models to evaluate the deal and/or reviewing customer files, company financials, business plans, etc. controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

socalTECH

JANUARY 16, 2013

Lynda.com , the online video education provider which has been one of the region's most successful, bootstrapped companies--is no longer bootstrapped, after inking a massive, $103M growth equity round. According to Eric Robison, the firm's CEO, the funding round will go towards increasing the firm's global reach and expanding content.

Funding 178

Funding Santa Barbara ReachLocal Southern California 178

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Self-funding or bootstrapping is still the most common and safest approach for startups Keep your day job until real revenue flows. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Solicit funds from friends and family. Use crowd funding to build reserves. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

Startup 136

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 136

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

James (chairman of the Althea Foundation) and appointed Adam Sroka as Senior Vice President of Technology in a move to make business transactions simple and secure. . Jackson , “This financing round, coupled with hiring Adam Sroka as our head of technology, puts CapLinked in a position to further enhance our enterprise product offerings.”.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Software Review Bertelsmann Technology 88

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

SEEING THINGS FROM THE VC SIDE OF THE TABLE While I was a VC in 2007 & 2008 those were dead years because the market again evaporated due the the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Almost no financings, many VCs and tech startups cratered for the second time in less than a decade following the dot com bursting. billion fund.

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

A critical stage for most first-time entrepreneurs is getting their idea developed into at least a prototype to validate their technology. Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S. The approval process is long and bureaucratic.

Funding 90

Funding Technical Review Startup Research 90

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

By way of a definition, a business or startup incubator is a company, university, or other organization which provides resources to nurture young companies, usually for a share of the equity, hoping to capitalize on their success, or at least strengthen the local economy. Initial funding. Follow-on funding and connections.

Incubator 146

Incubator Technical Review Entrepreneur Mentor 146

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

Self-funding or bootstrapping is still the most common and safest approach for startups Keep your day job until revenue starts to flow. Solicit funds from friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups. Use crowd funding. Join a startup incubator.

Tips 104

Tips Startup Technical Review Equity 104

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

Self-funding or bootstrapping is still the most common and safest approach for startups Keep your day job until real revenue flows. Nevertheless, it’s an option that doesn’t cost you equity. Solicit funds from friends and family. Use crowd funding to build reserves. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

Startup 128

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 128

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2015

I usually envision a 50-50 ownership split for their efforts, but every engineer believes the technology side deserves the majority share. If you consider yourself a technologist, you probably believe and may be propagating one of the following myths: The first priority for funding should be to develop the technology.

Technical Review 101

Technical Review Patents Entrepreneur Customer 101

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

And you may also want to review Startup Development. I've tried to collect them together here as a starting point for this topic. Here are some resources that come from other sources: Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

CTO Hire 175

CTO Hire CTO Coach Resource Startup 175

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

And you may also want to review Startup Development. I've tried to collect them together here as a starting point for this topic. Here are some resources that come from other sources: Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering? Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

CTO Hire 175

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 175

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. What's you believe is your biggest technology risk, if any? Or how are you funding the next few milestones? Can you help me get funding?

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

Self-funding or bootstrapping is still the most common and safest approach for startups Keep your day job until revenue starts to flow. Solicit funds from friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups. Use crowd funding. Join a startup incubator.

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Funding Startup Technical Review 113

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. What's you believe is your biggest technology risk, if any? Or how are you funding the next few milestones? Can you help me get funding?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Consumer spending is 70% of the economy and will continue to be stretched – We can look all we want at tech innovation, VC funding cycles and hot M&A deals, but ultimately growth and therefore investment must be underpinned by revenue. We spent our future since the equity was artificial. So why the ’09 bounce?

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Startup Funding Technical Review 269

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” He or she has worked at some very successful big technology or media companies and went to a great school. He still has the dream. He has the hunger.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2017

The “venture capital” model is the only option they know, where they feel they get no mercy, giving up equity and control. The key is to look hard outside the world of “professional investors,” to regular people who share your vision and dreams, friends and family who believe in you, and crowd funding your ideas that have a popular appeal.

Technical Review 88

Technical Review Equity Capital Entrepreneur 88

socalTECH

APRIL 13, 2021

Dave Eastman: For one thing, although we're not completely unique in this, is we don't take equity. Plus, I'm also direction of the Innovation node here in Los Angeles, as well as the Managing Director fo the Viterbi Venture Fund, which is a fairly small fund, which makes passive investments in teams that are affiliated with USC.

Marina Del Rey 150

Marina Del Rey Startup USC Incubator 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2014

Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). I just don’t see it happening any time soon. billion collected in 2012.

Invest 111

Invest Angel Funding Startup 111

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2015

Every investor in your startup, even friends and family, normally expects a share of your company (equity), which means your return for all your effort goes down quickly. After months of preparation, you should expect another six to nine months for reviews and funding cycles. Seek funding from multiple sources concurrently.

Pricing 100

Pricing Equity Technical Review Research 100

socalTECH

OCTOBER 2, 2012

Southern California's technology community--despite all of the recent excitement around Silicon Beach--continues to be underserved in terms of capital, with a lack of venture capital funds (with money), and other private technology investors. Jeb Spencer: We consider ourselves a private equity firm.

Acquisition 168

Acquisition Software Review Technical Review Equity 168

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Adeo Co-Founded the entrepreneur-friendly website The Funded and he is the Founder and CEO of The Founder Institute , whose goal is to create and foster local startup ecosystems across the globe. I began by asking Adeo about the inspiration for The Funded. The Funded was created ''07. It is a crowdsourced, review portal.

Entrepreneur 232

Entrepreneur Startup Equity Technical Review 232

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 29, 2020

Kleiner Perkins , one of the most storied franchises in venture capital, has already invested much of the $600 million it raised last year and is now going back out to the market to raise its 19th fund, according to multiple sources. Kleiner Perkins gets back to early-stage with its $600M 18th fund. We went out to market to LPs.

IBM 164

IBM IBM Venture Capital Invest 164

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

Self-funding or bootstrapping is still the most common and safest approach for startups Keep your day job until revenue starts to flow. Solicit funds from friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups. Use crowd funding. Join a startup incubator.

Startup 87

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 87

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Even non-profits need money to scale, but their pitch should be to philanthropists, not equity investors. Terms “paradigm shift” or “disruptive technology” used more than once. Every startup needs focus, due to limited resources, so setting irrational goals implies overall poor business acumen. Skip the hype.

Funding 98

Funding Startup Innocal Entrepreneur 98

InfoChachkie

MAY 6, 2013

This is due to a fundamental disconnect between the increased activity of high-volume seed investors (that fill out lots of Seed rounds) and the relatively small number of Series A investors, who only make 1 or 2 investments, per partner, per year.". A from a new outside lead. Turtle Eggs And Startups.

Entrepreneur 246

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Capital 246

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 27, 2016

As an angel investor, I’ve learned to believe in this approach, since I have seen great ideas go astray, due to poor execution and I have seen apparently marginal ideas make millions, managed by a savvy entrepreneur. An entrepreneur needs a depth of business experience on the team, as well as technical expertise.

Ideas 53

Ideas Technical Review Entrepreneur Advertising 53

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 29, 2020

For example, Bill Gates founded and grew Microsoft, and Michael Dell built a great technology company, both with no outside funding until they went successful enough to go public years later and sell shares to common stockholders. Many times friends and family have been broken by failed investments.

Startup 124

Startup Satisfaction Venture Capital Entrepreneur 124

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2013

There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. In fact, most of the rich entrepreneurs you know actively turned away early equity proposals. You need a prototype. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 100

Startup Entrepreneur Technical Review Equity 100

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2012

A tweet by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on August 9th caused a stir in the tech scenes. A new venture fund had been launched, not because it was her husband’s but it was a totally unique and different fund and a timely move. She tweeted; So proud of my husband @zackbogue for the launch of his new fund, DataCollective ( @dcvc ).

Technical Review 74

Technical Review Entrepreneur Oracle Software Review 74

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. In fact, most of the rich entrepreneurs you know actively turned away early equity proposals. You need a prototype.

Technical Review 95

Technical Review Startup Equity Entrepreneur 95