Berkonomics

AUGUST 17, 2023

Preparing for the game… If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

Invest 296

Invest Capital Startup Entrepreneur 296

TechCrunch LA

MAY 12, 2020

Over the past three years the Los Angeles-based startup Maple Media has amassed a portfolio of roughly thirty companies and one hundred apps in its quest to become the IAC of app store businesses. The company recently acquired PlayerFM , a podcast discovery service, for an undisclosed amount to expand its footprint in the podcast space.

Acquisition 136

Acquisition Media Los Angeles Google 136

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2021

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. Actively pursue mergers and acquisitions. Overreliance on acquisitions drains resources and de-motivates internal teams. Partial acquisition.

Organization 132

Organization CTO Hire Startup Outsource Development 132

Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

It reportedly paid a hefty $230 million to acquire the podcast publisher and network startup Gimlet Media, and has also acquired the podcast monetization platform Anchor for an undisclosed price. It’s the biggest podcast industry acquisition ever, and Spotify isn’t done. Spotify Acquires Gimlet Media and Anchor.

Acquisition 124

Acquisition Media News Platform 124

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

The company--led by longtime cloud and hosting services veteran Simon Anderson--offers up managed services and consulting for cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. READ MORE>>.

Services 133

Services SaaS Los Angeles Education 133

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2023

None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. Most retail and commercial banks offer investment services to their customers, but these services have nothing to do with investing in your business. Many investment banks even call themselves “boutiques.” Very confusing.

Funding 72

Funding Startup Invest Venture Capital 72

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

This can be an advantage to startups who don’t have the resources and brand awareness of mature businesses, if they understand and position themselves to win in the decisive moments of the new customer buying process. Great startups manage to continually improve the relationship through outstanding follow-on support and service.

Customer 124

Customer Custom Startup Course 124

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2013

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. Actively pursue mergers and acquisitions. Overreliance on acquisitions drains resources and de-motivates internal teams. Partial acquisition.

Acquisition 88

Acquisition CTO Hire Startup Outsource Development 88

socalTECH

JUNE 16, 2021

CloudBreak Health got its start providing remote language interpreting services via video-based carts in hospitals, but since then has expanded to offer up telepsychiatry, telestroke, tele-quarantine, remote patient monitoring, and other services to hospitals.

Startup 113

Startup Acquisition Los Angeles Services 113

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

Wrench , the Seattle-based on demand vehicle maintenance and repair service for consumers and fleets, has raised $20 million in its latest round of financing. RepairSmith , which operates a similar service out of Los Angeles and San Francisco, is backed by Daimler to provide much the same on-demand repair services.

Demand 100

Demand Services Los Angeles Mobile 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2022

Every entrepreneur thinks he can relax a bit after his business model is proven, funding is in place, and revenues are scaling as projected up that hockey-stick curve. He has helped many companies with this problem, and as an advisor to startups, I see the same common themes leading to growth slowdowns.

Startup 106

Startup Pricing Cloud Computing Customer 106

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

In a move to sign up more consumers for the company''s free mobile phone service, Los Angeles-based FreedomPop said yesterday that it will start letting users bring their old Sprint phones to its service. The company is backed by venture capital investors DCM, Atomico, and Mangrove Partners.

Services 138

Services Mobile Startup Venture Capital 138

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. The startup had raised only a “small seed round” prior to today’s announcement, Vaish said, declining to reveal any financial details. 60% of all software is bought in the U.S.,

Los Angeles 209

Los Angeles Angel Startup Google 209

TechCrunch LA

JULY 29, 2020

What remains of the company is an inventory management system on the back end and a service that will allow any retailer to get involved in the rental business going forward. “ If we had cracked user acquisition in LA we would have rolled it out in a bunch of places.”

Invest 263

Invest Services Southern California Ideas 263

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 8, 2021

A spin-off is merely a startup spawned by a mature parent (company), and conventional logic would dictate that it has a survival advantage over the lowly startup. Mingle and learn from the startup culture and new technology – without losing control. Yet spin-offs seem to most often fail to launch in the real world.

Company 125

Company Companies Startup Examples 125

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 27, 2020

Los Angeles was always more than a one-industry town, even when it comes to technology startups, as media and entertainment (and social networking) were always the big draws in Tinseltown. Fastly is also setting up a $50 million retention pool of restricted stock units to give out to Signal Sciences employees.

Culver City 249

Culver City SaaS Los Angeles Social Network 249

socalTECH

JANUARY 23, 2014

Santa Monica-based startup accelerator MuckerLab unveiled its latest class of startups yesterday at its Demo Day, showing off the third class of companies out of its program. demoday demo incubator capital venture software accelerator startup muckerlab' READ MORE>>.

Class 174

Class Startup Santa Monica Incubator 174

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2023

This is the confirmation that your product or service fills a real need in the marketplace. This may also be the moment when you get your first big acquisition offer, rather than a clone appearing. Enjoy that first video interview at an industry conference, or the newspaper story which enhances your startup visibility and credibility.

Startup 118

Startup Satisfaction Customer Custom 118

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

This can be an advantage to startups who don’t have the resources and brand awareness of mature businesses, if they understand and position themselves to win in the decisive moments of the new customer buying process. Great startups manage to continually improve the relationship through outstanding follow-on support and service.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Startup Course 146

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

When people talk about “online food delivery” services, chances are that they’ll think of the Uber Eats, Instacarts and Getirs of this world. GrubMarket got its start several years ago as one of many companies looking to provide a more efficient farm-to-table service.

Startup 249

Startup Platform Software Los Angeles 249

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2013

CapLinked , the Los Angeles-based developer of enterprise software for managing M&A transactions, venture deals, and other business deals, is aiming squarely at legacy, virtual data room services with its latest updates. CapLinked is headed by Eric M. READ MORE>>.

Services 218

Services Venture Capital Equity Los Angeles 218

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2010

Startups are usually so focused on selling more of their branded product or service to their own customer base (organic growth) that they don’t consider the more indirect methods (non-organic growth) of increasing revenue and market share. An example of a startup which used non-organic growth early and effectively was Microsoft.

Acquisition 85

Acquisition Startup Organization Competition 85

L.A. Business Journal

SEPTEMBER 12, 2016

OSI Systems completes $269 million acquisition of American Science and Engineering, Lionsgate and Univision team up for Spanish-language streaming service, artificial intelligence startup Oben raises $10 million, and more

Artificial Inteligence 100

Artificial Inteligence Acquisition Report Services 100

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 17, 2009

I’ve recently had a chance to reconnect with Eric David Greenspan ( LinkedIn , Twitter ) He’s the CEO of Make It Work a high quality, personal, high touch technology service provider for homes and small businesses. A typical day starts with email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Yammer checks/updates. What's keeping you up at night?

Acquisition 170

Acquisition Customer Custom Ideas 170

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 23, 2020

TikTok , the fast-growing user-generated video app from China’s Bytedance, has been building a new music streaming service to compete against the likes of Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Specifically, a source close to TikTok has confirmed to TechCrunch that this Merlin deal covers its upcoming music subscription service Resso.

Services 182

Services Los Angeles Media Marketing 182

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2011

I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. I'll get to service providers in a later post. Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee."

Equity 391

Equity CTO Hire Startup Examples 391

socalTECH

AUGUST 30, 2012

Earlier this week, Los Angeles-based Wittlebee (www.wittlebee.com) announced the acquisition of its own, clothing company--Cottonseed Clothing Company--as it continues to build out its subscription, children's clothing service. Tell us about the acquisition of Cottonseed, the clothing company. How did it come about?

Acquisition 167

Acquisition Help Social Media Startup 167

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

Responding to Elizabeth Warren’s call to regulate and break up some of the nation’s largest technology companies, the venture capitalists that invest in technology companies are advising the presidential hopeful to move slowly and not break anything. As a whole, venture capitalists viewing the policy were underwhelmed. ”

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “ Startup Burn Rate is Normal. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Let’s set up a framework. Gross Burn vs. Net Burn.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

socalTECH

APRIL 26, 2021

Venice, California-based Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, has acquired 3D image acquisition company Pixel8earth. Pixel8earth develops a crowdsourced, 3D imagery acquisition service, which allows people to help build out a an open, 3D map of the world--mapping into 3D space. The deal was reportedly worth $7.6M.

Snapchat 113

Snapchat Venice Acquisition Report 113

socalTECH

MAY 8, 2015

In a world awash with on-demand startups, Los Angeles-based Serviz (www.serviz.com) stands out--not because of the market segment it is tackling, but because it was founded by two, very experienced serial entrepreneurs-- Zorik Gordon and Michael Kline. Our vision is really to become the premier provider of on-demand home services.

Services 100

Services ReachLocal Demand Startup 100

Tech.Co

MAY 6, 2022

Now, it's dramatically expanding capacity in another area, fulfillment, with the acquisition of Deliverr. It's the biggest acquisition in Shopify's history. Sign up to the Tech.co It all adds up to make Shopify a better rival to Amazon when it comes to delivering the goods. Shopify is paying $2.1 newsletter.

Networking 120

Networking Press Newsletter Startup 120

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. That bit is easy.

Metrics 150

Metrics Startup SaaS Course 150

socalTECH

MARCH 29, 2017

San Luis Obispo-based MINDBODY , the developer of cloud-based business management software for spas and the wellness services industry, has acquired Lymber Wellness , a startup that provides yield management and pricing software for class and appointment-based businesses. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced.

Technology 100

Technology Startup Class Pricing 100

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

Fast forward to almost exactly one year later, and a lot has changed for the payments and software startup. 4 key areas SaaS startups must address to scale infrastructure for the enterprise. 4 key areas SaaS startups must address to scale infrastructure for the enterprise. Image Credits: SpotOn.

Technical Review 296

Technical Review Software Review Invest Acquisition 296

TechCrunch LA

DECEMBER 15, 2021

Papaya is a Los Angeles-based startup with a mission to do just that. To prove the point, CEO and co-founder Patrick Kann demonstrated for me via Zoom how even after tearing up a bill into a few pieces, Papaya’s app was able to scan the pertinent parts of the invoice to make sure it was paid. “As Paying bills is hardly a fun thing.

Mobile 208

Mobile Artificial Inteligence Startup Los Angeles 208