SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. You may end up hiring these people eventually and you'll know more about them when you do. And in most cases they are not ready to hire developers either. Great post Gabriel!

CTO Hire 205

CTO Hire Outsource Development CTO Coach Develop 205

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

LA saw its first big enterprise exit in recent memory with the recent acquisition of Signal Sciences for $775 million, and less than a month later a hometown startup, Britive has raised $5.4 Those cloud technologies presented new challenges for the kind of privileged access management technologies that Poghosyan had developed.

Los Angeles 308

Los Angeles Chief Technology Officer Culver City Angel 308

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2022

I’m not talking here about a small pivot. I’m talking about the kind of change that moved Apple from personal computers to music distribution to consumer electronics, and Amazon from books to e-Commerce to cloud computing services. The first customers are early adopters who are the least price-sensitive.

Startup 106

Startup Pricing Cloud Computing Customer 106

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 About this Blog Ive been thinking about doing a blog with my thoughts on technology and whats happening in the Los Angeles area technology scene for a while, but it was Ben Kuos recent start of a blog that inspired me to actually go ahead and do it. Thanks Ben.

Blogging 150

Blogging CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire 150

TechCrunch LA

JULY 23, 2019

On Tuesday, Haptik announced it has acqui-hired Convrg, a Los Angeles-based startup that develops chatbots, to serve customers in North America. Founded in 2017, Convrg has made a name for itself by developing several popular chatbots and voice products. 60% of all software is bought in the U.S.,

Los Angeles 209

Los Angeles Angel Startup Google 209

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

What You Can Learn From Public Markets It doesn’t really take a genius to realize that what happens in the public markets will filter back to the private markets because the ultimate exit of these companies is either an IPO or an acquisition (often by a public company whose valuation is fixed daily by the market). So it’s about 20%.

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2014

Los Angeles-based Lettuce , the developer of inventory and order management apps headed by Raad MObrem, has been acquired by Intuit , the company announced this morning. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. Some reports are pegging the acquisition at around $30M. Lettuce had raised around $2.0M READ MORE>>.

Acquisition 178

Acquisition Los Angeles Report Software 178

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

Whether we are talking about startups or corporations, innovation requires a leader who can inspire others to step into the unknown. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Business risks are not just development risks.

Coach 137

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 137

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

The latest investment is being used to finance the acquisition of another company in the space — Appetize, a digital and mobile commerce payments platform for enterprises such as sports and entertainment venues, theme parks and zoos. The acquisition of Appetize extends SpotOn’s reach to the enterprise space in a major way.

Technical Review 296

Technical Review Software Review Invest Acquisition 296

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2021

It provided an industry-leading graphic development interface, but was not so strong on modeling and simulation. As a result, we shared in capturing a new high-end market, without major new marketing or development. All this was done without damaging anyone’s credibility, or stealing customers.

Startup 173

Startup Outsource Development Examples Customer 173

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2020

Every aspiring entrepreneur I know is talking about the fact that there are over 2,000 billionaires in the world today, and how their innovative idea could make them one of the next ones. I suggest looking for painful problems to solve, rather than “easier to use” or “nice to have” solutions, for customers with money.

Outsource Development 154

Outsource Development Social Media Software Review Customer 154

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2020

I’m not talking here about a small pivot. I’m talking about the kind of change that moved Apple from personal computers to music distribution to consumer electronics, and Amazon from books to e-Commerce to cloud computing services. The first customers are early adopters who are the least price-sensitive.

Pricing 123

Pricing Cloud Computing Customer Custom 123

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Saturday, February 17, 2007 Finding Good Developers in Los Angeles? About 18 months ago, the entire group began to mention that they were having more difficulty finding good developers. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles CTO Hire CTO Coach Develop 150

socalTECH

MARCH 19, 2019

Talk about Telesign and what you do? Telesign was the first thing we were working on, but there were a bunch of different little businesses we started all about the same time. I was about 19 at the time. Talk about Telesign now, talk about your growth path? What enabled you to get that first customer on board?

Marina Del Rey 113

Marina Del Rey Software Review Startup Incubator 113

socalTECH

OCTOBER 31, 2012

For ThinkNear , it looks like the whole process paid off in less than two years, after the Los Angeles company went from the TechStars accelerator just last June, to a healthy acquisition by TeleNav earlier this month for $22.5M. Congrats on the acquisition! How did the acquisition come about? It was really great.

Startup 225

Startup Acquisition Doc Ideas 225

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation: The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer. Decreasing Your Customer Acquisition Costs. Unattributed – There is no such thing as organic customers.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. Customer acquisition cost.

Metrics 150

Metrics Startup SaaS Course 150

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

After operating in stealth mode for about two years, First Resonance , a company founded by former SpaceX engineers, is finally showing the world their software toolkit designed to let manufacturers make things using the processes employed by their former boss.

SpaceX 248

SpaceX Tool Los Angeles Design 248

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

Whether we are talking about startups or corporations, innovation requires a leader who can inspire others to step into the unknown. It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Business risks are not just development risks.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2022

The key elements of leadership in a company, both individual and organizational, are less tangible, but very critical in setting a market value for investment, acquisition, or going public. Leadership brand development. Good performance management is more about rewarding desirable behavior than penalizing bad performance.

Technical Review 129

Technical Review Funding Organization Coach 129

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. And given your stage of development you sure better at least know what your goal is. Here are some measurements I think about. Customer Acquisition. Do you have a customer referral program?

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

We caught up with Skyler to hear about HeyTutor, which already has 25 employees and is growing rapidly. HeyTutor is about connecting people hyper-locally. Now we're in over 100 cities and have over 10,000 clients, 10,000 tutors, and a platform which is working very efficiently, and gives the customer what they want.

Startup 113

Startup Venture Capital Beverly Hills Acquisition 113

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is excitement about the possibilities of real change and an infectious “naive optimism” about how everything is possible. There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. How profitable is my product or service?

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

Santa Monica-based parking data and mobile app developer ParkMe (www.parkme.com) was just acquired this morning by traffic and telematics giant Inrix. How'd the acquisition come about? We've been gathering all of this data, and through this acquisition, they're effectively bringing our data to millions of their users.

Santa Monica 100

Santa Monica Startup Acquisition Ideas 100

socalTECH

JANUARY 23, 2020

For our interview today, we talked with Eric Friedrichsen , the CEO of Emburse , a developer of expense management and accounts payable software which has major operations in Los Angeles. For those who haven't heard of Emburse, talk about what you do? We are focused on giving employees all of their time back.

Platform 124

Platform Report Los Angeles Technology 124

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. Of if your VP Sales isn’t complaining about marketing she’s trying to get the function reporting to her. They talk to customers, operations, sales, marketing and engineering to determine the company product roadmap.

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Xconomy

SEPTEMBER 16, 2016

A cybersecurity report by Ponemon Institute, in association with Keeper Security, found that in the 12 months leading up to June 2016, 55 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) experienced a cyber attack, while 50 percent encountered data breaches involving customer and employee information.

Startup 40

Startup Framework Statistics Customer 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Think about the tension between media companies and cable operators like last year when Viacom threatened to pull Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, etc. Many of us learned about substitute products in undergrad economics courses. Ariel understood her customer?—?the from Charter’s subscribers. So Why Does This Matter?

Product 296

Product Course Customer Custom 296

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2015

“the ecommerce company gained fauxmentum by raising artificially high amounts of venture capital and spent lavishly on customer acquisition despite long payback periods and questionable LTV” __. But can sensible management team even do anything about it? __. faux·men·tum. fōˈmen(t)əm,fəˈmen(t)əm/.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Customer Custom 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, It has also brought about my favorite new term – Ramen Profitable. So, definition: when I talk about a business plan I’m not talking about a 40-page Word document outlining your market approach. portfolios. Going to charge less?

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Kraft, who co-founded Thrively with fellow startup veteran Girish Venkat, sat down to talk to us about Thrively, as it emerges out of beta. Tell me about your new company? One of our goals, is to help kids understand their unique strengths, and find things that they really can be passionate about.

Help 252

Help Idealab Activity Startup 252

socalTECH

MARCH 1, 2012

Last week, Pasadena-based Punchcard (www.punchcard.com) launched its mobile apps, which help local retailers provide rewards to loyal customers. It provides consumer rewards, and on the merchant side, it allows them to identify local customers and reacquire them by pushing them offers and incentives to come back. What is Punchcard?

Southern California 245

Southern California Idealab Startup Customer 245

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2021

I once met with an entrepreneur who had developed a new algae strain to cure world hunger and make him rich. Look for validation from your mainstream customers. Mergers and acquisitions also require new skills. The world needs more entrepreneurs to envision and create the needs we haven’t even thought about yet.

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Case Study Mentor Software Review 131

socalTECH

AUGUST 6, 2019

Ian talked to us about the rewards and challenges of being an entrepreneur, plus how important it is to manage lifetime value (LTV) of a customer versus customer acquisition cost (CAC) in making a successful company. (We We did another round with angels and early customers of Discotech. What is Discotech?

Startup 113

Startup Equity Customer Custom 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

I’m not talking here about a small pivot. I’m talking about the kind of change that moved Apple from personal computers to music distribution to consumer electronics, and Amazon from books to e-Commerce to cloud computing services. The first customers are early adopters who are the least price-sensitive.

Startup 116

Startup Pricing Cloud Computing Customer 116

Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Here's a roundup of some grants to be aware of in 2024: FedEx Small Business Grant The National Association for the Self Employed (NASE) Growth Grants Program Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Business Grants Amber Business Grants For Women The USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grants (RBEG) Program ? Learn more and apply here 5.

Technical Review 193

Technical Review Software Review Startup Competition 193

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? We have been growing, and profitable for the last ten years.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239