Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

I myself coined the term ENIFA (everyone now is a f **g angel) in 2011 but it didn’t stick as well as the term Unicorn did. And from Nancy Hua … “Too many angels can also hurt a start-up and be taken as an indication that a company is not strong enough to attract any one “lead” investor, said Ms. Hua of Apptimize.

Angel 150

Angel Startup Seed Funding Invest 150

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

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 8, 2012

Our first set of products started rolling out in May, and are a set of travel guides for children. It helps get of how hard it is to send a postcard nowadays, where you have to look for a postcard at a kiosk, write out that postcard, find a stamp, and all sorts of other stuff. Where did the idea for the company come from?

Guide 232

Guide Framework Mobile Startup 232

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

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

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

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

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

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’s seeks to “innovate products to create the next generation of musical experiences,” according to their statement on their website. Malte: It was great to finally show something publicly.

Press 100

Press Ideas Product Activity 100

Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Richard Botto, Stage 32’s founder and CEO, says, “It’s certainly no longer a fact that filmmaking and television production only happens in LA and NY. 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.

Education 81

Education Entertainment Class Manhattan Beach 81

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. Not just the fact that you Tweet publicly versus privately, but also that they’re open in letting their Tweet stream flow into other products & services.

Social Media 274

Social Media Google Media Startup 274

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. I’m writing this post to explain to entrepreneurs what you should be thinking about in terms of the VC’s you approach and the size and stage of their funds.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

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

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 19, 2012

“The object is to exploit the convergence of people, information, products, services and places with today’s smartphones and tablets, which drive online orders in addition to purchases from brick-and-mortar stores.”. The benefits “digital interactions” have and continue to offer coupon companies are vast. Getting Mobile-Ready.

Mobile 85

Mobile Software Review Statistics Technical Review 85

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

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

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 31, 2011

BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2011 comes to Los Angeles and its finally here. Shani Higgins joined Technorati in 2007 to lead strategy and day to day operations for the company¹s advertising sales, business development and the Technorati Media advertising network. Jace Hall is the President and founder of HDFILMS INC.

Los Angeles 75

Los Angeles Angel Social Media Media 75

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. As any historian of bubbles will tell you – there were periods of bubbles in assets as arcane as tulips , South American trading companies , dot-com bubbles & housing bubbles. Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! I believe that. and profits!

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

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. 2011 was the first year I went to SxSW. You get a feel for the company “vibe.” You don’t get to know companies that way.

Startup 319

Startup Organization Entrepreneur Blogging 319

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 31, 2011

BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2011 comes to Los Angeles and its finally here. Shani Higgins joined Technorati in 2007 to lead strategy and day to day operations for the company¹s advertising sales, business development and the Technorati Media advertising network. Jace Hall is the President and founder of HDFILMS INC.

Los Angeles 49

Los Angeles Angel Social Media Media 49

TechEmpower

MARCH 28, 2013

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. Simulating production environments. Our goal is to approximate a sensible production deployment as accurately as possible. Its worth knowing what youre getting into. Two Amazon EC2 m1.large

Framework 560

Framework EC2 PHP Java 560

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. There are several competitors we’ve identified who have built a similar product. Braintree Payment integration is another.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

TechEmpower

APRIL 30, 2013

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. Simulating production environments. Our goal is to approximate a sensible production deployment as accurately as possible. It''s worth knowing what you''re getting into. Load simulator.

Framework 544

Framework EC2 PHP Java 544

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

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

OCTOBER 11, 2012

Facebook just hit 1 billion active users globally and that was great but a new social payment application is set to make Facebook users across the world get more from their connections and even allowing companies to sell or receive payments from their pages. As we know, developers always give their product a code name. What is Zunguz?

Software Review 92

Software Review Social Network Platform Technical Review 92

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. In the past an affordable solution was far from available.

Advertising 87

Advertising Content Template Technology 87

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

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. Cyrus Farudi is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Flipswap, Inc in 2004 and Capsule in 2011.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

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. The fact that Twitter built a product around the mobile phone culture right out of the gate is significant: it created a new social pipeline. Why is Twitter’s user acquisition at a standstill , and why are their ad products failing?

Platform 40

Platform Startup News Content 40