Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 2, 2021

In case you hadn’t noticed, the key elements of a competitive advantage for your business have changed as businesses move online, and your domain is instantly global. As a business advisor, I have to recommend even to established companies that they review and revamp their competitive strategy now, even if it appears to be working today.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

El Segundo-based The List , a startup which operates a matchmaking service for business professionals, is one of four, female-led startups which is part of Beta Boom , a startup accelerator focused on training traditionally overlooked founders, such as women and people of color.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Do you need a board when you first start you company? If you haven’t raised any money or if you raised a small round from angels or friends & family I would suggest you avoid setting up a formal board unless the people who would join your board are deeply experienced at sitting on startup boards.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entrée for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration.

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Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

socalTECH

OCTOBER 24, 2019

San Diego-based Radicle Growth , a startup investor which invests in innovative agtech and food tech startups, says it has awarded $250,000 to WeedOUT , an Israeli startup focused on the resistance of weeds to existing chemical herbicides. READ MORE>>.

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Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

You’ve come up with a solution. Start by figuring out who your target market is—and no, not everyone is your target market. You can also do some competitive analysis at this point, researching similar companies to find out their gross margins, profit, and overhead, and use these findings as a guidepost. Or are you?

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building?—?and Kara said “no” because she wanted to start her own company, which she did and I backed. In any job you either find leadership opportunities for your best people BEFORE they ask or other people start asking them to become leaders somewhere else.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

Thus, financial projections for up to five years are a necessary element in every business plan. Per the words of an old country song, “if you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” If you are losing money on every unit, it’s hard to make it up in volume. Calculate investment amounts and timing.

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Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Small Business Grants to Apply For Today If your business doesn't have enough capital to take on future debts or has a unique specialism or back story that could catch the eye of grantors, it might be a good idea to apply for a grant. Up to 100 businesses will receive honorary mentions and get $300 in My FedEx Rewards vouchers.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. Enter Amazon.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 23, 2019

Today, we share the thoughts of Kelly Perdew , the founder and Managing Director of Moonshots Capital (www.moonshotscapital.com). We have invested in 13 companies out of our Fund 1 so far and are more bullish than ever on the amazing entrepreneurs we are meeting and the companies we are helping them build. Since 2010, $6.3B

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Capital Technical Review Truecar Venture Capital 100

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2012

Crowdfunder , an online site offering up a platform to help startups raise money for their firms via crowd funding, is dangling $25,000 in a contest open to Los Angeles companies. The startup contest--which accepts entries through June 20th--is having a panel of judges--including Peter H. READ MORE>>.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2015

Yet I can’t remember the last time any entrepreneur asked me to assess personal potential, despite the fact that most investors will admit they invest in the person more than the product. We all have strengths and special interests, and it always pays to capitalize on these, rather than assume all opportunities are the same.

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Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Even though the color of their money is always green, all startup investors are not the same. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan. It’s no fun for either side.

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Technical Review Startup Innocal Offshore 138

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

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Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

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. In this case the barrier would be reduced access to capital.

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Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? On the one hand, you’re over paying for every investment and valuations aren’t rational.

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

One startup that aims to help make the process simpler, cheaper and less stressful by helping people manage the home renovation process has raised $6 million to help it grow even faster. Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar Renovating a home is an exciting, yet often fraught-filled, endeavor.

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Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2023

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together. Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration.

Startup 112

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 112

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Thus, financial projections for up to five years are a necessary element in every business plan. Per the words of an old country song, “if you don’t know where you’re going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” If you are losing money on every unit, it’s hard to make it up in volume. Calculate investment amounts and timing.

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Startup Pricing Sales Statistics 116

socalTECH

APRIL 12, 2017

Hollod is now joined up with Burkle and recording artist D.A. Wallach on investments out of a new fund, Inevitable Ventures. How did you end up here in Los Angeles doing investments? Chris Hollod: Growing up in Atlanta, I was completely oblivious to California and more specifically LA. All day, every day.

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Invest Startup Hollywood Echo Park 157

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. A partnership was announced with the City of New York, to connect and grow NYC's startup ecosystem.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2022

In the old days, every entrepreneur planned on taking their startup public, and making it big. Today the rate of startups going public (IPO – Initial Public Offering) is finally up from the dead zone of the last two decades, and is now double the rate back in 1999. Startups going public are laid open to competitors and critics.

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Startup Report IBM IBM 98

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

San Diego-based Radicle Growth, which focuses on incubating early stage agriculture and food technology, and agriculture giant UPL said today that the two are in a new partnership, which will invest $1.25M in two startups that can "positively impact and reduce the carbon footprint and improve soil health of the food value chain."

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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.

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socalTECH

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

Los Angeles-based dog sitting marketplace DogVacay has raised $25M more in a Series B1 funding, the company disclosed this morning, as the competition heats up for the "top dog" in the market. The new round was led by Omers Ventures, and also included GSV Capital, Science Inc., READ MORE>>.

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Competition Venture Capital Startup Capital 166

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.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. However, they have been sending VCs far more investment checks in the last ten years than they’ve gotten back as distributions.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according the Crunchbase. Institutional venture capital dispensed in 2019 was down a bit from record highs the previous year, but up significantly over the last few years.

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

The new paradigm, driven by disruptive technologies, cloud-served supercomputing, and the new generation of young adults with global empathy, is partnering and giving something now for a competitive advantage in the future. A partnership was announced a while back with the City of New York, to connect and grow NYC's startup ecosystem.

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IBM IBM Startup Examples 131

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 18, 2014

I don’t think I need to make the case for raising capital for your startup. For many companies, bootstrapping will only get your company so far…and then, in order to grow bigger, faster, it’s likely that you’ll need some additional capital from an outside investor. When you start fundraising, this can become a full-time job.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. Even then private market investors can paper over valuation changes by investing at the same price but with more structure so it’s hard to understand the “headline valuation.”

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

Tech.Co

MAY 25, 2018

The barriers to entry when it comes to launching a company require less tension and a lot less capital. Still though, when founders are seeking funding, “ 75 percent of the venture capital goes to three states: Massachusetts, New York, and California,” said Steve Case in an interview with Recode. The Case Foundation (Washington, DC).

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Startup Technical Review Competition Software Review 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2021

Today you can start a new web site business for as little as $100, produce cheap smart phone apps, or lead the effort to tap the multitude of opportunities brought by capitalizing on our concern for dwindling natural resources. Consider the startup MarkForged , which takes carbon-fiber to a 3D printer.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2022

My friends who “grew up” with lifetime careers in General Motors, Exxon Mobil, or even IBM, are now often too embarrassed to even mention it. Competitive advantages are rapidly vaporizing on these. Having only a large capital base and distribution channels, with no innovation, is not a sustainable business model.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according to a classic Crunchbase article. Individual angel investors and crowdfunding have been adding to the momentum, some say exceeding VCs in total amount invested.

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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. Explain what kinds of investments TenOneTen makes or hopes to make? David Waxman: We''ve been making investments since the beginning of the year. David Waxman.:

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