Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.” Seed funds now represent 67% of all funds being created now, which is up 100% from 6 years ago.

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

years ago you’d remember RIP Good Times from Sequoia, which still strikes me as having been prudent advice in late 2008. This is a theme that comes up in one the most influential business books for me of the past decade, The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb where he talks about the role that luck plays in business success. I did that?

Startup 391

Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 9, 2012

In my experience, there is no magic gene involved, just simple good habits executed consistently and convincingly until everyone around you in a startup wants to follow your example. In a startup, things don’t always work, and it’s easy to blame someone else, the poor economy, or just bad luck. Be accountable for your actions.

Startup 104

Startup Examples Entrepreneur Ideas 104

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 26, 2021

Then fans would be tasked with writing their own stories, submitting them to the Realms of Ruin universe by minting them as NFTs on the Solana blockchain. If the authors are inviting fans to write fan fiction about a universe they created, who owns the derivative works? It’s a turducken of things people don’t understand,” she said.

Writing 196

Writing Outsource Development Technical Review Examples 196

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. I commented briefly on his blog and made a mental note to write a blog post. I filled up with 20 people pretty quickly and realized this schedule was masochistic. Felipe grew up in Brazil.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Startup High Tech Software Review 282

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 16, 2010

The meeting was set for Wednesday, May 8th 2008 at 11am. And that’s why he stood me up! But as a gentleman I would have picked up the phone in advance and personally called the appointment to apologize for cancelling at the last minute – no matter whom I was meeting. The day before - This starts to get problematic.

Startup 346

Startup Conference Century City Email 346

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

Tom tells us how he went from running Intuit's Tax Group--which is behind the popular TurboTax tax software--to his own startup, which allows non-technical, business users to create their own business forms and processes. How did the company start? So you ended up here in San Diego because of Intuit? What is PerfectForms?

Startup 150

Startup San Diego Entrepreneur Tool 150

Eric Greenspan

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

This company I started with my own money and in my third bedroom, had grown and served its customers and employees well for over 11 years. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but 2008 accelerated its demise and while we continued to do great things, fate and progress eventually took control and it was over. Once again, restarting.

Startup 167

Startup Entrepreneur Writing Customer 167

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

When the masses start all running one way without questioning “why?&# – and when it defies any logic I can figure out in my head – I call bullshit. And so it happened that between 2000-2008 I was the biggest buzz kill at dinner parties. And it’s driving up prices beyond their inherent value.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

InfoChachkie

APRIL 21, 2013

"When people would ask me when I was a little kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them ''a waitress,'' much to my mother''s chagrin. It was that love of serving people that led me on my long journey of starting a company.". Sarah continued her story by describing her life growing up in an entrepreneurial household. "I

Networking 214

Networking Startup Santa Barbara RSS 214

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. But when I’m looking to write my check I need to look in the eyes of the captain — the maestro who brings the whole orchestra together. A caller dialed in to ask us questions about his startup. That’s hard core.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2012

I had this ethical dilemma pop up on one of the first deals I even did as a VC. I had been looking around at several deals in late 2008 as the markets were tanking. I got a call from a VC friend of mine who said, “we’re looking at this deal but can’t write the full check. The night started harmless enough.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Writing 356

InfoChachkie

MAY 12, 2014

Before arriving in Santa Barbara, he had already launched his first startup, Rooming , which helps college students manage their living accommodations while studying abroad or interning. When I attended Startup Weekend in Berkeley, I was inspired by parallel entrepreneur Adam Cheyer''s keynote speech. Meeting Adam Cheyer.

Entrepreneur 211

Entrepreneur Santa Barbara Email Startup 211

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

We All Know That Dollars into Venture Have Gone Up … As a starting point, we know that the dollars into venture have steadily rebounded to pre great-recession levels, with just under $30 billion committed to US technology venture capital in 2015. That’s money that fuels our startup ecosystems.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2008

Anne Walls and John Singleton are co-founders of WordHustler (www.wordhustler.com), a local Hollywood startup looking to help writers connect with publishers. WordHustler launched in May of 2008 in a beta. We caught up with both Anne and John to learn more about the company. What kind of writing and writers are you targeting?

Writing 209

Writing Hollywood Startup Sites 209

socalTECH

APRIL 30, 2009

Most companies, when they're looking to raise company morale, might set up a company picnic, Friday night beer bash, or maybe go on a ski trip. Lyman said the firm now has 17 employees signed up for the event. What do employees get out of beating each other up? The firm is giving the winner two free weeks of vacation.

Culver City 140

Culver City Startup Training Class 140

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

As of today, I will have published an article here for entrepreneurs and startups every day for the last 1001 days, since I started Startup Professionals Musings near the close of 2008. Finding funding for startups is a tough process. Don’t plan to get rich from your startup.

Entrepreneur 96

Entrepreneur Startup Blogging Social Media 96

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ). Lindel Eakman led the discussion with Fred and Andy.

Venture Capital 161

Venture Capital Funding Capital Startup 161

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2013

In my experience, there is no magic gene involved, just simple good habits executed consistently and convincingly until everyone around you in a startup wants to follow your example. In a startup, things don’t always work, and it’s easy to blame someone else, the poor economy, or just bad luck. Be accountable for your actions.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Examples Ideas 104

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2011

Jimmy Hendricks: We actually started two and a half years ago. But, with the economy turning south in 2008, lots of those customers went out of business. So, we took that contest and crowdsourcing platform, and started ArtisticHub. In the meantime, Groupon came along, and our media customers started to lose advertising.

Platform 263

Platform Training Software Review Advertising 263

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

Paul Kedrosky made the case for “naive optimism&# being an important part of startup success. I know that in late 2010 it’s not as popular to say this because we’re in the era of “super angels&# and feel-good startups. got picked up early without raising a lot of VC.

Invest 284

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 284

socalTECH

JUNE 30, 2010

Last week, Los Angeles-based Stroome (www.stroome.com), a new startup originally spawned out of a project at the USC Annenberg School of Communications, won $200,000 in the 2010 Knight News Challenge. Tom Grasty: Essentially, we started off as a graduate school project at USC. It ran in April of 2008.

Journal 187

Journal USC News Startup 187

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2013

Despite the increase in startup activity in Southern California, local venture capital funds are still few and far between, and a large chunk of the funding here is still from Sand Hill Road. Our 2008 fund is also performing incredibly strong. If I write about online education, I''ll see 25 online education plans. READ MORE>>.

Funding 196

Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Social Media 196

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Prior to starting PublishThis, I was the General Manager for Edmunds.com, the automotive site here in Santa Monica. I ran that between 2001 and 2008, and then left to start what has become PublishThis. What we found, was we were trying to get really specific content that matched up with a much granular level of topics.

Web 237

Web Newsletter Content Startup 237

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

What people don't know is how First Round got started and often people know less about the amazing background of one of its co-founders, Howard Morgan (everyone tends to know Josh Kopelman as one of the highest profile players in our industry overall). Josh and Howard began co-investing as angels and in 2005 they started a $10 million fund.

Capital 284

Capital Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

The rest of this post series deals with the reasons why VC froze up in the first place, why investments have heated up recently and why the future of VC funding at the current pace is not certain. Huge downturns have a real impact on the revenue line of start-ups and therefore the pressure on valuations.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Startup Invest Funding 263

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Failure is part of the startup process. Since first launching in 2008, Dreamit has received thousands of applications – heck, I’ve personally reviewed thousands of applications in the not quite three years since joining Dreamit. Applications so bad that I threw up a little in my mouth. The #TrustMeFail. The Hand Waver”).

Tips 70

Tips Startup Statistics Metrics 70

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 22, 2011

I began publishing my blog in 2008. was published in 2009 and Time Wounds All Heels was written in 2008. Startup Tips From Jeff Bezos. For instance, I was recently asked by Inc.com to write a weekly column. If you have not already signed up to my email newsletter, you can do so HERE. All Time Rank. Article Title.

Newsletter 205

Newsletter Blogging Santa Barbara Content 205

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. People get too worked up over the word. But this mania to not miss out on the next big thing is driving some investors to pay growth-equity prices for traditional market risk (as in, they’re paying up before it is clear there is product / market fit). I believe that.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. Thus, while we maintain a healthy degree of optimism, we begin each funding discussion knowing that most nascent startups are not worthy of an investment, until we prove them otherwise. Unicornless.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

socalTECH

JULY 20, 2011

She also has served at DoubleClick, had a stint as an investment banker at JPMorgan, been a venture capitalist at Bertelsmann Ventures, and started with an Electrical Engineering degree before her MBA. Jennifer Sargent: HitFix started two and a half years ago. It was the fall of 2008, when Lehman Bros.

News 173

News Entertainment Startup Bertelsmann 173

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Innovation and Geography I ran across a post in Read/Write Web - Does Location Matter in Web Innovation? Ive personally been involved in the start-up world in Los Angeles for about 15 years, and have had the opportunity to work on many early-stage companies (e.g.,

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 22, 2012

Formerly an area considered PayPal ‘s domain, new companies are setting up shop in the online payments sector and capitalizing on what they say is the giant’s weaknesses. TechZulu caught up with the founders of WePay and bring you the latest. The company was founded in 2008 but launched publicly in March 2010.

Startup 71

Startup Tool Capital Customer 71

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Paul Kedrosky made the case for “naive optimism&# being an important part of startup success. I know that in late 2010 it’s not as popular to say this because we’re in the era of “super angels&# and feel good startups. In the latter case many companies (Flickr, Delicious, Blogger, Writely, etc.)

Invest 152

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 152

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2016

There is no shame in getting knocked down; it’s getting back up that matters. In a startup, pivots and problems will happen. Howard Schultz, who grew Starbucks to 13,000 stores by 2008, decided to step back in as CEO when the economy was killing his stores, and refocus everyone on the customer. Promote resilience.

Examples 76

Examples Startup Coach Patents 76

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

We caught up with Jim Armstrong to learn more about the new fund, areas of interest, his insights into what makes startups successful, and where he thinks the venture market is today. That's when you start meddling in the company. We can now write $20M, $25M, and $30M checks to existing, breakout companies in our portfolio.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

socalTECH

JANUARY 25, 2010

We spoke with Johnson about his new startup, as well as had him fill us in on the story behind VirtualTourist, how he bootstrapped that firm, and his exit. Johnson: Back in 1999, we started a company called VirtualTourist.com. We ended up growing it through the lean years, at least for the Internet space.

Content 204

Content Startup Sites Manhattan Beach 204