Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. The three largest webmail services had over 1 billion global users at the end of 2011. And while this data is from mid-2011 I can assure you that data is not going down. There are 2.9

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

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 ).

Venture Capital 161

Venture Capital Funding Capital Startup 161

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). 2011 was an incredibly huge year for us, and 2012 will be the same way. They started in January of 2005.

Marina Del Rey 238

Marina Del Rey Startup IP Examples 238

InfoChachkie

JULY 30, 2012

I always enjoy a great guerilla marketing story, such as TestFlight’s use of T-shirts and Tacos to gain Steve Jobs’ attention at Apple’s 2011 developers’ conference. For instance, a senior executive from a major media agency, who did not attend the show, was prompted by a bearded-booth-babe tweet to contact the company’s VP of Sales.

Marketing 209

Marketing Conference RSS Angel 209

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Even though they usually end up innovating and creating at the idea level, they usually need to have a business partner or someone else, to either become CEO of a company, or help them translate their innovation into practical use. Then, I went and founded a company called Intelisense. Who can enter the competition?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on the skills I’ve developed in my career. In the latter cases many companies (Flickr, Delicious, Blogger, Writely in 05-08 and lately Invite Media, Aardvark, Dodgeball, etc.) So where are we now?

Invest 284

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 284

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 8, 2012

Go Trexx (www.gotrexx.com), which is based in Mission Viejo, think it's by engaging kids with mobile applications which provide background information, helps to build excitement, and gets kids involved in traveling to different destinations. Where did the idea for the company come from? I'm more of a serial entrepreneur.

Guide 232

Guide Framework Mobile Startup 232

socalTECH

MAY 14, 2013

We caught up with founder Evan Britton about how his company has created the top site in the Internet niche of celebrity birthdays, and how that intense focus on a single niche--and user experience- has paid off for the company in terms of user engagement and growth. What''s next for your company? What is FamousBirthdays.com?

Google 236

Google Sites Startup Web 236

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 31, 2012

It has been an incredible journey for me and I could not be prouder of what we accomplished over the past few years helping define Yahoo as a leader in digital media and advertising. Yahoo is an amazing brand and company, and I leave knowing we did all we could to help inform and entertain more than 700 million users each month.

Yahoo 74

Yahoo Pricing Writing Entertainment 74

Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Since launching 2011 global membership has grown to be over 500k people actively collaborating and supporting each other to move film and television projects forward. In the past year alone the company has amassed over 1k hours of educational content and generated over $1 million. Membership took off. Again, access is limited.

Education 81

Education Entertainment Class Manhattan Beach 81

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Employers also have a hard time looking for viable candidates for their company. We clearly went through some difficult transitions in the company. The company almost died. Then we rescued it from nothing around the end of 2011. Hearing that your company almost died. I had to lay off 60% of the company in one day.

Mobile 86

Mobile Marketing Writing Startup 86

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

A friend helped him get out of this situation and changed Matt’s life forever. Don’t and you might make one catastrophic mistake that leaves you in the annals of Effed Companies. Matt was one of my inspirations behind Launchpad LA (yes, we’re going to have a program in 2011 – news very, very soon).

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Will Zell (CEO) is based in Columbus, OH, and is an Empact100 entrepreneur who was honored at The White House in 2011. His main company Providence Holdings has invested in real estate and several small businesses. Two great companies! Who are the founders/ background? He also attended The Ohio State University.

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 26, 2012

Miselu presented their first prototype, neiro, this year at SXSW for an early debut of what is to come from the company. Miselu is his third company, the first in consumer electronics. The feedback we got will help us iterate and next time we show, we will have an even bigger impact and better product. What are your next moves?

Press 100

Press Ideas Product Activity 100

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. One of them is profitability.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

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. The name came from the earliest iteration of our product, which helped groups of people pool money for shared expenses. What is WePay and why the name?

Startup 71

Startup Tool Capital Customer 71

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

Amplify’s portfolio companies are schooled on every challenge they need to master in order to achieve success. All the companies that graduate from the accelerator’s program work from the same office and can literally reach out and touch their investors at any time. Jeff looks for these same qualities in the companies he backs.

Web Design 103

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 103

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

Founded in the summer of 2011 and their first product out a few weeks ago amSTATS wants to help users to follow fitness events and programs near them and find a great fitness trainer to help them stay fit. Really great feedback that’s going to help us build an awesome product. There’s something like 4.5

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

I’ve been on the road much of 2012 and part of 2011. I plan to write about it early next year when we’re all through. He shut down his company gracefully and even thought it must have felt like a crap sandwich doing so I’ll bet his reputation is still solid with his backers. And so it goes again.

Blogging 420

Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 6, 2014

To get some up to speed, Rap Genius , as a team and company have upheld a reputation as anomalies in the tech world. More recently, they launched an iPhone app called Genius , which they say will be a cornerstone for the company’s future. As we’d mentioned, they were listed as one of YC’s fastest growing companies.

Startup 93

Startup Mobile Entertainment Sites 93

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 7, 2011

With QR codes, a company is able to promote their newest line of clothes with just one promotional media. There are companies that have seen the future of QR codes and the great potential they hold. The LA based company ShareSquare offers users all this and more. Both technologies will help push us forward in technology.

Advertising 87

Advertising Content Template Technology 87

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

Features like this, as well as our daily interviews wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support of our sponsor eMinutes – a law firm here in Los Angeles that focuses on helping entrepreneurs structure their companies. We want to help them, and will. Thank you @eminutes. . Charlie Capen – Co-founder of HowToBeADad.com.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

Amplify’s portfolio companies are schooled on every challenge they need to master in order to achieve success. All the companies that graduate from the accelerator’s program work from the same office and can literally reach out and touch their investors at any time. Jeff looks for these same qualities in the companies he backs.

Web Design 40

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 40

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

As I sit here writing this, I can’t help but think how excited I am about our future. Later, as I achieved a sort of cult fame status with my first YouTube show, WineLibraryTV , Twitter helped me grow my personal brand. Twitter search helped me build my business and personal brand. It was enormously fruitful and helpful.

Platform 40

Platform Startup News Content 40

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2012

Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. The travel companies offer brochures showing private beaches and phenomenal sights. It is this reminder that helps me form my internal compass and not hide behind a fortress. 2011 was the first year I went to SxSW. ” So true.

Startup 319

Startup Organization Entrepreneur Blogging 319

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

We were talking about a company, Factual (disclosure my firm is an investor), which was founded by one of LA’s most talented Internet entrepreneurs, Gil Elbaz , who as co-founder of Applied Semantics (purchased by pre-IPO Google for $102 million and now Google AdSense) is responsible for a large portion of the Internet’s monetization.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

AOL was controlled by one company and the Internet was distributed. AOL controlled the services, taxed companies to access users and decided what was good or bad. If you were a newly minted, venture-backed consumer Internet company you had to have a deal with AOL to reach your customers. companies versus the Web 1.0

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

TechEmpower

APRIL 30, 2013

We''ve done our best, but we are not experts in most of them so help is welcome! Application performance can be directly mapped to hosting dollars, and for a start-up company in its infancy, hosting costs can be a pain point. Two Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7-2600K workstations with 8 GB memory each (early 2011 vintage) for the i7 tests.

Framework 544

Framework EC2 PHP Java 544

TechEmpower

MARCH 28, 2013

Weve done our best, but we are not experts in most of them so help is welcome! Application performance can be directly mapped to hosting dollars, and for a start-up company in its infancy, hosting costs can be a pain point. Two Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7-2600K workstations with 8 GB memory each (early 2011 vintage) for the i7 tests.

Framework 560

Framework EC2 PHP Java 560

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

This has been especially true for angels or seed investors as there is a new thesis that less capital is needed to start Internet companies so more money is being spent at this phase of the funding lifecycle. VCs have also gone back to writing checks because as an industry we can’t be seen as “sitting on the sidelines” for years at a time.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

I know it’s easier to write “horse race&# stories about who’s signing up more users, raising more funding or who’s “hot&# lately. And some tech companies are growing like wildfire helping brands to find more people who “like&# them. Social Media helps change that.

Social Media 274

Social Media Google Media Startup 274

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2010

Dana Settle & I are hosting a dinner tonight (10/20/10) with some of the biggest companies in entertainment to talk about the future of television, film & digital media. But with the introduction of Apple TV, Google TV, the Boxee Box & other initiatives it’s clear that this battle will heat up in 2011.

Content 386

Content Google Media Hulu 386