Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 30, 2016

By now if you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I do near daily “Snapstorms” or a collection of short videos (usually < 5 mins in total) with entrepreneur advice on Snapchat. You can follow me on Snapchat at msuster. Every platform has its unique strengths. Snapchat is similar. People tune in every day.

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 12, 2020

This morning, Snap joined a host of startup accelerators shifting its demo day online amid the COVID-19 quarantine. With its third class of startups, Yellow, Snap’s in-house startup accelerator that launched in 2018, brought investors and founders together in private slack channels after a live-streamed presentation.

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socalTECH

MARCH 21, 2017

The Snapchat analytics software developed by Los Angeles-based Naritiv , a startup producing online content for brands, has been acquired by social media management firm Hootsuite. Hootsuite said the acquisition specifically was geared towards the Snapchat analytics solutions created by Naritiv. and Allen DeBevoise.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2016

As the human ear ages it loses its ability to hear high-pitched sound frequencies (above 15-16 kHz) through a condition known as presbycusis that starts at 18 years old. Thus begins Snapchat and why you don’t get it. Snapchat will be used for both like the Internet (and TV) are. That’s the point. So get over it.

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

The new batch of startups coming from across the U.S. Mogul Millennial — this Dallas-based company is a digital media platform for black entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. — hailing from Mexico City, this startup makes mini games in augmented reality for brands and advertisers. Wabisabi Design, Inc.

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socalTECH

OCTOBER 15, 2014

The Disney Accelerator , the startup accelerator sponsored by Walt Disney and being run by TechStars, had its demo day Tuesday, showing off the nine companies to emerge out of the accelerator. Disney offered up up to $120K in investment capital, access to entrepreneurs and executives at Disney, and other resources to its startups.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 3, 2022

04% full, you should start looking for a new container. They are going to Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. TikTok is currently the fastest growing social network, while Instagram is close behind with a bigger share globally of new sign-ups. Time to start connecting them with each other. When the glass is only.04%

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TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 17, 2018

“We are the preferred prescription provider of Snapchat Spectacles,” says Lensabl chief executive Andrew Bilinsky. “[And] we are already talking to and partnering with a variety of brands to start and scale their prescription operations [and] really scale our direct to consumer lens business.”

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re not even profitable!”

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2016

conversation literally every week with startups. You will build out features or expend to platforms — often before you have enough market feedback to warrant it. I like the skip first base metaphor because for some entrepreneurs they really deserve to start on second base. I have this “How much should I raise?”

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TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 5, 2022

From Los Angeles to Silicon Valley , a trend emerged among social media influencers and startup founders alike: move into a mansion with 10 or so collaborators, work day and night together to build fame and wealth, and hope that your new roommates do their dishes. Image Credits: Robiiiworld (Brandy Merriweather via BStarPR).

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Tech Zulu Event

JULY 16, 2013

Today’s startup innovators come from about six hours south of Silicon Valley. Fun Fact: One of the most prominent figures from their firm, Mark Suster t, runs a blog startups follow religiously. Their Behavioral Marketing Platform even broke new ground at ad:tech 2011 winning an innovation award. Silicon Valley?

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Let me start with the obvious baseline that most people probably know instinctively: Los Angeles is the 3rd largest technology startup ecosystem in the US. Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly. LA By The Numbers. But even this is changing.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2014

A few years ago I started calling the local tech ecosystem down here #LATech. In fact, many people know I grew up in NorCal and still have a 650 area code on my mobile phone. And they were allegedly acquired (or so TechMeme says) by Apple in order to absorb the great engineers that built the leading iOS testing platform TestFlight.

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TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 14, 2019

Meanwhile, new venture-backed companies like the superstealthy Shadows, SuperPlastic and Toonstar are all developing virtual characters that will launch via social media channels like Snap and Instagram, or on their own platforms. “We started doing cartoon live streams and the founders of Musical.ly

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2019

04% full, you should start looking for a new container. They are going to Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Snapchat is currently the fastest growing social network, while Instagram is close behind with a bigger share globally of new sign-ups. Time to start connecting them with each other.

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Tech Zulu Event

JULY 28, 2014

There’s Snapchat that uses photos and then instantly disappears after 10 seconds, and then there’s the up-comer, Emojli , that uses tiny cartoonish icons for engagement. Snap Away with Snapchat. Snapchat, founded by Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel, boasts of its massive following among kids and teenagers.

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socalTECH

MAY 7, 2018

How do you get top tier venture capitalists interested in your startup? Our interview this morning is with Lidia Yan , the founder of NEXT Trucking (www.nexttrucking.com), a venture-backed startup which operates an online marketplace for freight shipping. How did the company start? That's when we came up with NEXT Trucking.

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socalTECH

JULY 21, 2017

We've combed through our database of companies to figure out which companies are involved in this industry here, ranging from key developers of military UAS/UAV platforms, to startups developing the software behind the growing consumer drone market. How is the parent company of Snapchat involved in drone development?

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2017

04% full, you should start looking for a new container. They are going to Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Snapchat is currently the fastest growing social network, while Instagram is close behind with a bigger share globally of new sign-ups. Time to start connecting them with each other.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

He was running to be the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles and he outlined his vision to “open up the city government to technology and innovation” if he were elected. The “Snapchat effect” as I like to call it is that many engineers now want to stay and many more want to move here.

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Riot Games Los Angeles Technical Review Venture Capital 191

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2020

Our interview today is with Scott Grimes , the CEO of Los Angeles-based Stackin' , which operates a text-based, financial messaging platform. How did the company start? Scott Grimes: Ultimately, we are a text messaging platform build on top of Twilio. That's why I started Stackin. Stackin recentlyraised $12.6M

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LATechDigest

JUNE 6, 2016

Startup Bootcamp. SNAPCHAT Acquires 3D Selfie Co ( link ). SNAPCHAT Passes Twitter with 150M DAUs ( link ). Lexi Komisar & Neil Sahota of @IBMWatson share the future of platform for #cognitivebusiness to a maxed out crowd! Pasadena Cross Campus, Pasadena. 06/11/2016 – 06/12/2016. LMU, Los Angeles. **.

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socalTECH

AUGUST 17, 2020

We have a couple of thousand retailers and a product catalog of 80 million products, and every day, people are posting their photos and videos to Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. The second part of our app is Know It, which is a video on demand platform. Retailers will pay them for those recommendations.

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socalTECH

MAY 12, 2017

The way we're doing that, is we are creating video content, which we distribute across social platforms. How did you start the company? We had lots of success reaching the GenZ and millennial audience with video content on that platform. We started to see more and more audiences attracted to specific content online.

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Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

And while this has been the standard for years, one startup is hoping to personalize the birthday wishes even more. Initially Hagger wasn’t sure this concept would take off, but then Doppels started experiencing early success and ended up catching the eye of the 17-25 year-old demographic. During some early pop up events in L.A.,

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 10, 2019

Image via Pixabay After a frustrating meeting with a small business client recently who didn’t “have time” for social media, I was surprised to find evidence on the Internet that up to one quarter of small business owners are still hesitant to invest time, money, and effort into a social media strategy. Do your homework before you begin.

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Social Media Media Tool Startup 99

socalTECH

MARCH 11, 2014

Venice-based Zefr (www.zefr.com) got its start in the content world--licensing movie clips and posting them online--but soon, figured out there was a whole different opportunity in developing software tools to understand exactly what was happening on YouTube. Thanks for the time today. Why the rebranding? That goes a long way.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 22, 2016

Today, we have Cody Simms , Executive Director of Techstars (www.techstars.org), which has been very active this year in the startup accelerator and mentoring area. Cody Simms: Locally in LA the Snapchat IPO will have a huge impact on our local startup ecosystem. What was the biggest news from you or your firm this year?

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Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 29, 2014

ON is like a smorgasbord of the best features from other social media platforms and combines it into one experience that could change the way we meet new people. What ON does differently is take the best parts of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Tinder and roll into one social media platform.

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Social Media Platform Snapchat Media 93

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2018

And, if you're a social platform, is there a way to monetize all that activity happening on your service? San Diego-based Wildfire Systems , led by startup veteran Jordan Glazier , has developed software which product referrals and automatically transform them into trackable links across email, text messaging, chat, and social messaging.

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socalTECH

JULY 23, 2013

What''s one of the hottest, fastest growing mobile apps out there out of a Southern California startup? No, not Snapchat--it''s Tinder --a mobile app and service which lets users rate people nearby them, and if the feeling is mutual, connect them. But, there wasn''t a platform out there dedicated and effective to meeting new people.

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Mobile Southern California News Snapchat 245

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Today Upfront Ventures is announcing that we’ve backed Rebecca Kantar ’s startup Imbellus , a company designed to assess human potential and ultimately change the way we teach children. How does one come up with the right idea to start a company? We led a $4 million investment along with Thrive Capital, GLG and Sound Ventures.

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Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 22, 2016

Less than a month ago, Snapchat opened custom on-demand geofilters to everyone. Industry news was excited, but for how amazing of a product they are, custom Snapchat geofilters have remained stunningly under the radar. Geofilters first started appearing a little less than a year ago , and they’ve taken off from there.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

It conjures up a range of emotions anytime I’ve privately expressed my opinion to thought leaders in our industry that I believe it is one of the most innovative companies in digital media. In fact, the platforms weren’t always so quick to crack down as many of them benefitted financially. Wasn’t Jonah worried about “platform risks?”

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 5, 2019

Snap has taken a three-pronged approach: extending its stories feature (and ads) into third-party apps and building out its camera play with an AR platform , but it is the launch of social games that is the most intriguing. It managed to stop the rot with a flat Q4 , but resting on its laurels isn’t going to bring the good times back.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2015

04% full, you should start looking for a new container. They are going to Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Snapchat. In 2014 Tumblr overtook Instagram as fastest-growing social platform, and Snapchat is the fastest-growing mobile app, driven largely by Millennials and teens. Time to start connecting them with each other.

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Social Media Media Marketing Snapchat 101