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. On a phone call it’s too easy to be distracted and thumb through paperwork, stare out the window or glance at your computer screen.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

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

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

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Hiring in any new venture needs to be a structured and high priority task, not the ad hoc informal process I see in many startups that are struggling to grow: Crisis mode hiring rather than planned team growth. I’m not suggesting executive search firms for every startup position, but national recruiting organizations will get better results.

Organization 104

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 104

socalTECH

MARCH 21, 2014

In a world with a rash of startup incubators and accelerators, super angels, crowdfunding sites, and more, what''s the relevance of organized angel investments groups? He started the group because he wanted to help companies succeed. We want to help companies find success, with our help on board, our connections, and advice.

Pasadena Angels 162

Pasadena Angels Pasadena Angel Startup 162

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2020

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. Trying to save costs by seeking resumes on the Internet will result in poor quality candidates, more time required for screening and interviews, and high turnover.

Organization 135

Organization Satisfaction Entrepreneur Screening 135

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

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. Where they start to fail, is one, they are handheld. Because of that, wearables have a good leg up.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

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

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

MAY 4, 2013

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. start-ups are overvalued. And I’m seeing this even at some really well run startups. Big difference.].

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

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.” Mission driven, commercially focused.

Invest 254

Invest Writing Pricing Metrics 254

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

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. start-ups are overvalued. Well, it’s not because the good start-ups look bad; it’s because the bad start-ups look good!

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

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

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You’re writing a freaking blog post! The same kind of tasks that a startup team has. I met for coffee with one of my favorite “startup advisors” in LA. I like to meet people like this because in an hour I get catch up on everything going on in the startup community. He has a startup.

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

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. If you want to get a quick sense of the app there’s a short screen cast here that make it obvious what it does. Startup Advice' The hostess worked from 4-10pm so you had to call during these hours. It sounds crazy, right?

Development Team Review 324

Development Team Review Course Mobile Writing 324

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

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. Watch this space.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

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

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. Maker’s talent started commenting on it and sharing it. Why would it? Sure, the revenue & margin will be significantly lower than traditional TV.

Startup 380

Startup Media Content Platform 380

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 3, 2013

Available exclusively from AT&T, pre-orders start today, Friday May 3 here and will retail at $199.99 ″ 1920 x 1080p Full HD IPS Screen (400 ppi resolution). Internal Storage: 32 GB on-board , support for up to 64 GB of expandable memory for a total of 96 GB. ″ Optimus G Pro. 3,140 mAh Battery. Android 4.1.2

Screening 104

Screening IP Mobile Social Network 104

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

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 Custom 306

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

This is a post I’ve been dying to write for 18 months. But I never gave up. The opportunity came up to invest in this one and I pounced. Well, we started out a free text messaging platform. OK, that sounds like an interesting business, but nothing to write a freakin’ blog post about? More on that later.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

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

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. We became as popular as the hoola hoop.

Custom 120

Custom Customer Writing Southern California 120

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

I asked some of the same questions I ask in my Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions and then I get to a very common conversation: Me : Do you have specs? You likely are writing your first one of these. Make sure you look at 32 Questions Developers Should Ask a Startup Founder to spark possible additional features.

Develop 354

Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

Tech.Co

MARCH 9, 2020

In fact, if you don't have a regular meeting on the books, preferably over video, you could end up not seeing your employees at all. According to a study from the Harvard Business Review , remote workers have a tendency to feel left out and even ganged up on when check-ins aren't part of the typical work schedule.

Tips 157

Tips Software Review Study Email 157

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

Xconomy

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

But the request this time was different: could we urgently help make realistic screen displays for a big Hollywood science fiction movie that was just about to start shooting? The first line I hear is “I’ve prepared a list of questions [for the aliens], starting with some binary sequences…”. This is great!” And a word changes.

Hollywood 81

Hollywood Startup Screening Writing 81

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 29, 2013

Proper Context – If the context of the intro is the least bit unclear, I ask the person requesting the introduction to write a paragraph or two that I can forward to the target contact. However, if all you do is obtain approval before playing the role of corporate matchmaker, your impact as a startup mensch will grow exponentially.

Email 256

Email RSS Social Media .Net 256

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series on Start-up Lessons that I learned from founding two companies. But first I’d like to start with a story. They had a team trained up in Documentum and we certainly had enemies from the inside. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. I HATE LOSING.

Startup 151

Startup Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review 151

socalTECH

OCTOBER 30, 2008

to the business of script writing, and is looking to combine a free online tool for writing scripts with matching those scripts with content producers. We're now scaling up to the next stage, where we have that filter as we described, so that we can have an agency independently review content and allow producers to browse that content.

Content 138

Content Writing Software Review Hollywood 138

Steve Reich

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

They have to be aggressive, and they have to be willing to write a check. Clearly you start with the officers and directors of your Angel group, but also pay attention to who speaks up in meetings. He is a long-time Angel, a former Chairman at TCA, and has invested in more startups that most of us will see in 2 lifetimes.

Tech Coast Angels 40

Tech Coast Angels Angel Pasadena Angels Startup 40

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . I wanted to be sure that they felt they knew all of my partners well so they could see why I joined up with them in the first place – they are smart guys who have a 20-year track record of winning. Write things down.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

Steve Jillings has a long track record of running successful startups in Southern California, ranging from such companies as FrontBridge Technologies (sold to Microsoft in 2005 for over $200M) and Vantage Media (acquired in 2007). To learn more, we caught up with Steve. Every other hand goes down, and ours stays up.

Marina Del Rey 238

Marina Del Rey Startup IP Examples 238

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2016

It’s no wonder that half of startups fail in the first five years , and an even smaller percentage ever see a return for their years of effort. Trying to save costs by seeking resumes on the Internet will result in poor quality candidates, more time required for screening and interviews, and high turnover.

Organization 57

Organization Entrepreneur Satisfaction Screening 57