Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2017

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders dilemmas in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. You don’t want to take money from friends and family, but it’s too early for angel investors and VCs. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 57

Entrepreneur USC Statistics Equity 57

socalTECH

JUNE 2, 2014

Last month, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti created a new program, aimed at growing, assisting and sustaining entrepreneurs in Los Angeles. The new "Entrepreneur-in-Residence" program has appointed its first, two, EIRs--Krisztina "Z" Holly and Amir Tehrani.--both Los Angeles is poised to play a huge role in that area.

Los Angeles 216

Los Angeles Startup USC Angel 216

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2019

Most entrepreneurs struggle with many startup founders quandaries in building their business, and these key dilemmas are probably the biggest source of pain and failure for the entrepreneur lifestyle. You don’t want to take money from friends and family, but it’s too early for angel investors and VCs. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 97

Startup USC Entrepreneur Statistics 97

socalTECH

OCTOBER 23, 2012

One of the biggest complaints that local entrepreneurs have with Los Angeles has been a dearth of local sources of venture capital. I tend to invest in seasoned entrepreneurs or those who have the right experience in the particular industry they are in. They're pretty competitive about deals.

Funding 253

Funding Startup Invest Commerce 253

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 2, 2011

At the Technovation Challenge LA Pitch Night hosted by Iridescent , we saw six teams of high school girls from various Los Angeles City Schools pitch a number of mobile app ideas to a panel of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Seek out similar academic competitions and programs. Don’t take no for an answer.

Technical Review 82

Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review USC 82

socalTECH

MAY 2, 2013

Despite a growing technology industry here in Southern California, local investors and entrepreneurs tell us there''s still a shortage of local, venture capital. We saw an extraordinary opportunity, in general, and in LA in particular, to really focus in on technology in Los Angeles. We have a lot of world class universities here.

Invest 159

Invest Technology Startup Venture Capital 159

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JUNE 30, 2010

Last week, Los Angeles-based Stroome (www.stroome.com), a new startup originally spawned out of a project at the USC Annenberg School of Communications, won $200,000 in the 2010 Knight News Challenge. Tom Grasty: Essentially, we started off as a graduate school project at USC. We grew out of an interesting use case. READ MORE>>.

Journal 187

Journal USC News Startup 187

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 21, 2014

Los Angeles is the only place in the US with a collegiate hackathon, an event where programmers spend hours together programming and building, of that scale and the LA Hacks team from UCLA made sure it was awesome. Sifting through the crowd, it was easy to see sweatshirts with Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, USC and many other universities.

UCLA 108

UCLA Los Angeles Snapchat USC 108

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2010

The group--which was started by Richard Koffler and John Morris , two well known investors in Los Angeles--has been trying to help connect CEOs with interesting university and other technology projects. That technology is coming out of USC's biomedical department, which is part of its School of Engineering. Thanks, and good luck!

Networking 215

Networking Research Startup USC 215

socalTECH

MARCH 26, 2012

The Los Angeles startup is looking to help connect travelers with local guides and hosts. We met at USC, and we had traveled a lot with study abroad programs. Aigerim Duiseneyeva: We met with Idealab through a USC Marshall competition. Tired of packaged tours where you really don't get to experience the local culture?

Startup 199

Startup Idealab USC Ideas 199

socalTECH

AUGUST 20, 2009

Last Week, Calabasas-based Masher Media announced it had received a round of angel funding from the Tech Coast Angels to fund its development of MyMiniPeeps (www.myminipeeps.com), a virtual world for children. There's more competition, but there's a lot more available to you as a developer. I found the process incredibly great.

Media 150

Media Tech Coast Angels Social Network Content 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We’re a national venture capital investment firm but with our roots firmly in Los Angeles. We try to hire people who we believe will be upfront and respectful of entrepreneurs and know that it’s far easier to judge ones decisions on the outside than it actually is to have to make the tough decisions inside of a startup every day.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

I then got my MBA at University of Chicago so I secretly pull for local entrepreneurs as long as they don’t make me visit in the Winter any more. For example, Lookout is a mobile security company that was founded by three talented graduates of USC. No – I’m not worried about the competition.

Company 369

Company Companies Startup Snapchat 369

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