Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

It’s what life was like as an entrepreneur. But this is nothing like the stress of being an entrepreneur. What’s it really like being an entrepreneur? You probably follow some high-profile entrepreneurs on Instagram and Twitter and see conference pictures of them in Davos, Mexico, Monaco or wherever.

Blogging 420

Blogging Press Entrepreneur Venture Capital 420

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

RedBeacon went on to sell to HomeDepot in what was considered a very successful acquisition on all sides. But Ethan had left by the time of the acquisition. And I had been telling my partners for a couple of years that I thought Ethan was one of the more talented entrepreneurs I had come across in San Francisco. Nice sweep!

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Most investors won’t touch a first-time entrepreneur at this stage.

Funding 104

Funding Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding 104

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 13, 2015

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should select only social media for marketing, or stick with digital media, or just count on traditional media. According to a recent article in Entrepreneur , 94% of small and medium businesses (SMBs) now use social media as a marketing tool, and 81% use it to drive growth.

Social Media 108

Social Media Media Marketing Resource 108

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

One of the fastest growing startups in Southern California in recent years was Hautelook, which went from just an ideas to a huge, $270M acquisition by Nordstrom only X years later. Hautelook was able to help define--and conquer--the online flash sales category, in record time. Tell us a little bit about your background?

Southern California 200

Southern California Startup Customer Custom 200

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. The way to start is with a sample financial model, freely available from many sources on the Internet, such as this one from Entrepreneur.

Startup 103

Startup Pricing Sample Customer 103

socalTECH

JULY 24, 2009

Helping entrepreneurs succeed. Custom Insurance Programs for Technology Companies. An on-line community for entrepreneurs. Cox Communications - Orange County was recently ranked 2nd amongst Employers Group's, "California's Best Places to Work - 2008" in the Large Companies category. Silicon Valley Bank (www.svb.com).

SoCalTech 100

SoCalTech Orange County Southern California Westlake Village 100

socalTECH

AUGUST 7, 2009

Helping entrepreneurs succeed. An on-line community for entrepreneurs. Custom Insurance Programs for Technology Companies. Cox Communications - Orange County was recently ranked 2nd amongst Employers Group's, "California's Best Places to Work - 2008" in the Large Companies category. Silicon Valley Bank (www.svb.com).

SoCalTech 100

SoCalTech Orange County Southern California IP 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2016

Good entrepreneurs are all about managing change, but too many forget that they have to change themselves as their dream evolves from a startup to a scalable business. Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback. Trust your gut, and ignore naysayers.

Social Network 59

Social Network Startup Demand Entrepreneur 59

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2013

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should use social media for marketing, digital media, or traditional media. Every business should look at its cost of customer acquisition (COCA) and return on investment (ROI) twice a year and after each campaign. These give good customer connection and SEO. Marty Zwilling.

Social Media 103

Social Media Media Marketing Startup 103

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

We spoke with one of those companies-- El Segundo-based ConsumerTrack (www.consumertrack.com)--which is a $30M, bootstrapped an online marketing company which is driving millions of customers to big name, financial customers. What is ConsumerTrack all about? Brett Rossman: ConsumerTrack is a performance-based, online marketing company.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2017

From a customer standpoint, though, it's pretty clear. So, from the customer side, it was much easier. You have to make sure your cost of acquisition, retention rates, and conversion metrics are all in place. We went a little too fast, and took on too many categories at first. The supplier is the hard part.

Startup 174

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 174

socalTECH

APRIL 2, 2014

It''s a perfect opportunity for data geeks in marketing and the business side to get information on customers in real time. There are companies much bigger than Smartify trying to solve the challenge of how to create a unified database of customers. carla bourque smartify facebook social marketing entrepreneur startup interview'

Marketing 196

Marketing Pasadena Platform Email 196

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

One or more of the following parameters are viewed by most investors as traction indicators, but good entrepreneurs are often creative and define their own to supplement these: Start with sales to-date for a priced offering. One customer is not traction, and beta tests with a thousand customers at no cost don’t count.

Startup 106

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 106

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2017

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should select only social media for marketing, or stick with digital media, or just count on traditional media. Every business should look at its cost of customer acquisition (COCA) and return on investment (ROI) twice a year and after each campaign. Marty Zwilling.

Media 59

Media Marketing Social Media Resource 59

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

. “it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive a higher acquisition valuation” I would like to amend her statement slightly to read, “it’s smart to use an impending investment valuation to drive an higher acquisition.” Christin goes on. A nice play if you can make it.”

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

My firm, GRP Partners, invested in the company that innovated this entire category – Overture (formerly known as GoTo.com). But of course Google eventually became the massive winner in this category. For starters – the team is exactly what I look for when I’m looking to fund entrepreneurs.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

where entrepreneurs share their stories. 63 Los Angeles Entrepreneurs To Be Proud Of By mario on May 2, 2012 in Features , grid. Free Corporations For First-Time Entrepreneurs. Right now they’re setting up 500 free corporations for first time entrepreneurs. Here are 62 63 Los Angeles entrepreneurs we can be proud of.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

socalTECH

MAY 11, 2010

Jody--an experienced entrepreneur who was most recently co-founder of a firm he sold to the Virgin Group, and has been involved with such firms as Lycos, Buydirect.com, and Xoom--told us the story of EcoMom, plus how he connected with McClure on the investment. We caught up with EcoMom CEO Jody Sherman , to learn more about the company.

Software Review 200

Software Review Commerce Startup Sites 200

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2013

Most entrepreneurs struggle with financial projections, not wanting to commit to numbers they can’t deliver, and having no clue what investors might consider reasonable. Most entrepreneurs, with no experience, believe that they can make good money with lower margins than competitors. Gross margins greater than 50%. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 97

Startup Equity Entrepreneur Venture Capital 97

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I often ask entrepreneurs to consider, “What’s your objective? I want to understand how many units the company is selling, whether this is increasing over time and how well they’re doing at retaining the customers that they do acquire. This is precisely why large Internet categories often produce “winner takes most” outcomes.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should use social media for marketing, digital media, or traditional media. Every business should look at its cost of customer acquisition (COCA) and return on investment (ROI) twice a year and after each campaign. These give good customer connection and SEO.

Media 92

Media Social Media Marketing Resource 92

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2014

Most entrepreneurs struggle with financial projections, not wanting to commit to numbers they can’t deliver, and having no clue what investors might consider reasonable. Most entrepreneurs, with no experience, believe that they can make good money with lower margins than competitors. Gross margins greater than 50%. Marty Zwilling.

Equity 99

Equity Venture Capital Invest Pricing 99

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Ten Tech Entrepreneurs Who Are Putting LA on the Map. Tech startup accelerators dot the landscape, feeding investments into the waiting arms of the nation’s most intelligent and driven entrepreneurs. Miller was even honored as an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” for 2011. Follow PandoDaily: Search.

Technical Review 75

Technical Review Entrepreneur Riot Games Southern California 75

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

socalTECH

JANUARY 17, 2017

What we've developed, is an Android app that allows us to open up financial access to customers in emerging markets. The really, really exciting this, is in emerging markets, customers have been underserved by financial institutions for years, because they lack credit scores. Also, as you mention, we're far away from our customers.

Startup 100

Startup Santa Monica Customer Custom 100

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate the myth that focusing on profits is ALWAYS the right answer and then I hear many entrepreneurs (and certainly many “normals”) repeating the same mantra. I have had this discussion with many a first-time entrepreneur. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!”

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

socalTECH

JULY 5, 2017

There were lots of things we did around investment and acquisitions. The last piece, was we figured that we could disintermediate a broken, retail channel, by creating a customized, sophisticated, Web 2.0 I think that that's what makes what we are doing in the apparel category quite unique, and differentiated from traditional apparel.

Web 2.0 100

Web 2.0 Equity Legalzoom Capital 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. This is wrong.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. How much ad revenue does TripAdvisor make? And how much do others providers make?

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. We discussed whether investing in the second largest player in a category makes sense given that Groupon is 10x the revenue, 3.5x eCommerce is hot again!

Clearstone 236

Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

socalTECH

JUNE 9, 2014

That''s relevant, because of our third piece, where we have been hired by traditional media companies, to basically provide them a turnkey, outsources content acquisition team. One of those, is content we know from our licensing customers is the kind of content they are interested in. How do you decide what content you will license?

Media 235

Media Content Startup IP 235

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Without their buy in, we don’t get the opportunity to interact with end customers. My brand marketing experience is making a big difference with our audiences since hospitality is all about a ‘brand experience’ and they want their stuff to look great, be a reflection of their brand and get customers excited. from the Wharton School.

Startup 233

Startup Design Mobile Social Network 233

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I would mostly lump me in that category. In reading the comments on Bijan’s blog and having discussed this so many times, I know some entrepreneurs only want to talk with VCs that think that Powerpoint causes leprosy. Who are your key customers? Talk about the customer problem and how you solve it. Mobile app?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

InfoChachkie

JULY 20, 2015

Six outstanding entrepreneurs have created this sweet flavor of success in one of the most beautiful places on earth – Santa Barbara, California. As Emmy Award winning comedian Bill Grundfest aptly points out in this video , entrepreneurs should seek the intersection of the things they enjoy doing and the tasks which will make them money.

Santa Barbara 100

Santa Barbara Startup Sales Entrepreneur 100

SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

However, the ubiquity of the iPod including use by many folks who certainly would fall in the Time Rich category (lots of time to play with music) suggests that their product and marketing appeals to both segments. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

Entrepreneurs create opportunities by creating ripples, and mini-ventures are great ripple creators. the smartass entrepreneur replied, “It’s called business. getting the consolidated notes in return) and the entrepreneur had to negotiate a fair price with the students who purchased the notes. Customer Problem/ Pain Points.

Ideas 153

Ideas Startup Pricing Entrepreneur 153