Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2021

I was in pretty good athletic shape until 35 but after kids, starting my own companies, travel and age I slowly lost the habit of working out enough to consider myself an athlete. Starting in 2019 I unlocked the mindset and re-energized my inner-athlete. Every single day I struggle with “the start.” I just have to start.

Startup 332

Startup Writing Activity Summary 332

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. You had an amazing meeting with an investor. The dialog was great. They told you how much they loved your space.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 18, 2010

Chartbeat is a relatively young company and product. I’m only writing about the product because I’m passionate about it. Let’s start with what I like most about the product. It’s fun when a story is blowing up to see the right hand side of your screen light up like a pinball machine.

Blogging 287

Blogging Google Screening Mahalo 287

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 26, 2011

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. The startup entrepreneur knows that they’re going to be wrong often. Only half of this adage is accurate for startups. I’m not arguing that no screening is required. Hire Slowly?

Startup 335

Startup Technical Review Framework Entrepreneur 335

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

It’s the first EIR that we’ve had in the years that I’ve been with the firm and I hope will be the start of our investment in this program. I became aware of Sam several years ago as I started noticing his name repeated in the comments section of my blog. Sam later decided he wanted to do a startup.

Startup 372

Startup Course Ideas Invest 372

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2010

I believe that this is a major new area of growth & innovation for the Internet as Cloud Services start to form deeper & richer layers. You can think of even your PC as a stack in which the hardware manufacturers handled physical layers, Microsoft handled the OS layer and application companies built higher up in the stack.

Startup 343

Startup Technical Review S3 Services 343

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

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I was speaking recently to the team at NuOrder , an LA-based company we’re an investor in about “realism in startups” — an impromptu talk I have given to any of our portfolio companies who ask. I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly. “I I fall in love.” I feel personally committed and engaged.

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

My business partner and I working together for about 20 years, and we actually met at a short-lived startup Jimmy Iovine created in the 90's called Farmclub.com. While we were there we ended up in a conversation over drinks one night, over the vision of where digital music was going. So, we've ended up doing that for the past 20 years.

Startup 113

Startup Artificial Inteligence Content Platform 113

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A This applies equally to VCs, startups & big company executives. The need for creativity extends well beyond product design. When I write a blog post I often see the words before I write them. Many people are visual thinkers.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

I’ll try to get write-ups shortly but for now here is an overview of my interview with Nanea Reeves – President and COO of textPlus. In our video we discussed leadership topics such as managing product and engineering teams, communication and company organization. Company Organization.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Blogging RSS Organization 315

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

My business partner and I working together for about 20 years, and we actually met at a short-lived startup Jimmy Iovine created in the 90's called Farmclub.com. While we were there we ended up in a conversation over drinks one night, over the vision of where digital music was going. So, we've ended up doing that for the past 20 years.

Startup 100

Startup Content Platform Artificial Inteligence 100

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2009

This post covers the first out of 10 that I’ll write about. It’s the person who never gives up – who never accepts “no&# for an answer. If you’re already running a startup you know all this. But some founders have that extra quality that makes them never give up. Next on the checklist.

Entrepreneur 338

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Google 338

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

Rufus Labs is one of a number of hardware startups which have started to proliferate in the community, due to low cost hardware, 3D printing, and crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. What's your product, and what is it used for? We're focused on a product which makes for a more efficient, safer, workplace.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2013

She entered you reservation by writing in a time slot in a paper calendar and you were in. Today they announced the mobile version of their product – I’d be grateful if you would download it and give it a spin. and then took the lid off of the product by announcing the company – I wrote about that here.

Development Team Review 324

Development Team Review Course Mobile Writing 324

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Naturally, the next step in Bernstein’s evolution from blogger to businesswoman was a technology startup. Last month, the product launched with $1.2 Karat, a startup building a bank for creators. Karat and other new startups focused on monetization could accelerate an influencer’s path to entrepreneurship.

Platform 170

Platform Marketing Tool Venture Capital 170

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. Like any sale you first need to plan your “prospects” and qualify whether or not they’d be a good fit for your product?—?an

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Traction can simply mean showing that you’re making progress with customers, product development, channel partners, initial revenue as a proof point, attracting well-known angel investors, winning industry awards / recognition. They tell you they’re going to ship product and they do. Schedule a follow up meeting.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I was talking with an early-stage founder who has a product vision and wants to get it built. He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. Me : Product definition, use cases, feature list, wireframes, comps, really whatever you have.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

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. It took me ages and as I walk many friends through how to use the product I get profound “thank you’s” every time.

Snapchat 150

Snapchat Screening Venture Capital Guide 150

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2016

As a business advisor and advocate for entrepreneurs, I find myself almost always talking and writing about change. I was reminded of a number of these by a recent book, “ The Thing About Work: Showing Up and Other Important Matters ,” by Richard A. Showing up still matters. This is not about clocking in to work.

Startup 93

Startup Writing Entrepreneur Screening 93

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What stage?

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. Street Smarts - OK, so you’re a tenacious person – you never give up. Well obviously that’s meaningless if your startup idea sucks. He was at a startup that was in a super hot sector.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

I have started thinking about what the future might look like and I’ve started imagining what I call, “MMOV” or massive multiplayer online video. think Amazon) and therefore hits with high production costs were more suited to the medium. Maker’s talent started commenting on it and sharing it.

Startup 380

Startup Media Content Platform 380

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

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. We want to give our brightest new startups the connections and interactions they need to help streamline success. And of course we had, TheMan.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

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. Either it’s a bunch of pictures or screen shots or it’s a bunch of words. You still need the presentation to back that up.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Tech.Co

MARCH 9, 2020

Efficiency and Productivity. Work When You're Productive. Efficiency and Productivity when Working from Home. But, extended periods of working from home can risk having a negative effect on productivity. Even better, many of these software provide other helpful features that can make tracking productivity even easier.

Tips 157

Tips Software Review Study Email 157

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

This is a post I’ve been dying to write for 18 months. I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. But I never gave up. The opportunity came up to invest in this one and I pounced.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2012

We spoke with Michael Tringe , one of the startup's co-founders, to learn more about what the company is getting set to launch. YouTube has a player which works in Google hangouts, so they can instantly screen your work or your pitch, and you can get instant feedback that way. What is CreatorUp all about? What's your background?

Web 187

Web Content Startup Education 187

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

I never asked Marc why he stopped blogging but I presume it is some combo of having started a venture capital firm (which you might guess takes a bit of time) and also allowing some air time for his then-less-well-known compadre. ” He was writing to people. To get on his radar screen. Startup Lessons' Many people.

Social Media 307

Social Media Blogging Media Startup 307

Berkonomics

JUNE 11, 2015

Perhaps like many businesses, mine started out painfully slow; wage-wise, I think it was three years before I earned $30,000. You just had to be lucky, write reasonably good code and land in an industry with some legs, and of course, treat the customer well. I became an entrepreneur by default. And I would learn customer service.

Customer 120

Customer Custom Writing Southern California 120

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

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I just had to line up behind him. We then started talking about Dave McClure. At first I was cynical about his ability to have 500 startups (or some fraction of that which is still larger than any VC has). I started to realize that Dave is able to do it because he approaches VC differently. Show Notes.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 23, 2010

Fred talks about it here – he beat me to the punch because I always wanted to write about how awesome this is. Answers OnStartups- Shortly after I started blogging I noticed a website called “ Answers on Startups ,&# which I instantly loved and spent a bunch of time on. Quora “Lite&#.

Blogging 301

Blogging SEO Startup Writing 301

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

One of the great joys of doing the web series This Week in VC every week is that I get to spend time with great people debating the issues of our day including how our industry is evolving as well as insights into how companies got started, got their initial traction and dealt with adversities. We then spoke about startups.

Startup 286

Startup Venture Capital Web Ideas 286