Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2023

From my consulting with entrepreneurs in Europe and other countries, I’m convinced that we all could benefit from adapting to meet their environments. He comes from a background in venture capital from inside and outside the Valley, as well as entrepreneurship work with startup efforts around the world.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2016

GOAT just announced it raised $5 million in venture capital led by our friends at Matrix Partners. It’s a Chanukkah story where 18 months of venture capital funding ends up lasting more than 4 years and where against all odds the underdog succeeds. On the surface that sounds unremarkable — fundings happen daily.

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Venture Capital Summary Writing Funding 199

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? Nobody cared about our valuations any more.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 8, 2021

Knowing all too well how hard it is to start a single new business, I’ve always wondered how several well-known entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson and Elon Musk , have managed to successfully lead dozens of startups to success, and thrive on the process. Serial entrepreneurs embrace the risk, gather the relevant facts, and move forward.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2023

If you can’t deal with failure, then the entrepreneur lifestyle is not for you. Failures and pivots come in all shapes and sizes, but entrepreneurs need to adhere to a common set of principles for failing productively, leading to ultimate success: Don’t allow the same failure twice. Explore the root cause of every failure.

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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. What excites me about this space is that there’s so much low-hanging fruit.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2022

With the cost of entry at an all-time low, and the odds of success equally low, more and more entrepreneurs are starting multiple companies concurrently. Other prolific entrepreneurs, like Richard Branson and Elon Musk , simply have several startups on the table at any given moment. Many entrepreneurs love investing in other startups.

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socalTECH

JANUARY 22, 2019

This morning's interview is with Kevin O'Connor , a longtime investor and serial entrepreneur, who is now running venture capital investment firm ScOp Venture Capital. Congrats on the new name for your venture capital firm. Tell us a little bit about the firm? It's always hard with venture capital.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Here, we have Greg Martin, Founder and Managing Partner of Archer Venture Capital (www.archervc.com). This was a most difficult year, filled with unimaginable hardship, and the raw humanity of this year, in all its forms, is what I will remember most about 2020. We'll be posting these throughout the next two weeks.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. Eventually you need a VP of Product to handle your product roadmap, a CTO for engineering leadership and VPs of sales, marketing & biz dev. And then there’s product management. As CEO, do you step in? Engineering?

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. I know we spoke about it this week. VC funding.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 17, 2012

I’m fond of saying that I look for entrepreneurs that have a chip on their shoulder. ” I’ve written about similar topics: 1. Entrepreneurs Should be Respected, Not Loved. I am a product of one so maybe there’s resonance there. And this is the point of this post – be careful about your chip.

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

The subject of raising money is critical to many businesses and a passing option to others, depending upon the capital efficiency of the enterprise. There is a lot to say about retaining control. How important is this issue for your business? It is for this group that we explore the implications implicit in raising money for growth.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2012

I’ve noticed that most young entrepreneurs are more socially conscious today than ever before, which is a great trend. Examples of profitable companies practicing this model include Trader Joe’s , led by Doug Rauch as retired president, now CEO of Conscious Capitalism®, and the Container Store , led by Kip Tindell.

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Capital Entrepreneur Guide Startup 99

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? And the truth is that several entrepreneurs prefer it this way. Of course we can’t.

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Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

This morning, Moonshots Capital (www.moonshotscapital.com), led by Kelly Perdew and Craig Cummings , announced its first formal fund, a $19M seed stage fund. Tell us about this new announcement? That really helps to catalyze the process for entrepreneurs, and helps to get others involved. That was the umbrella.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. What stage? What price?

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SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. Tell me a bit about your background. Like many product managers, my background is fairly eclectic. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products.

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Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” If you have the urge to be an entrepreneur, I encourage you to think seriously about each of these, before you zero-in on one or two, and get totally discouraged if those don’t work for you. Marty Zwilling

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2014

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Most entrepreneurs think first of bank loans as the primary source of money, only to find out that banks are really the least likely benefactors for startups.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. I would love to see Tara follow up with blog posts on: why she believes this is the case & what we can do about it. The truth is I have been thinking a lot about the topic, I just haven’t been writing about it.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2019

If we build it, they will come ” may have worked as a movie theme for Kevin Costner, but as an investor, I tell entrepreneurs a great solution is not enough. Successful businesses require innovative people, who have built an abundance of innovation capital, to win support and resources for their ideas.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2022

New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. Conscious Capitalism , a popular business movement with a focus on culture and ethics, claimed a few years ago returns 10 times higher than the S&P 500.

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TechCrunch LA

MARCH 19, 2020

A new initiative from a Los Angeles investor is taking stock of venture firms and their ability to commit capital in an effort to match firms that are still open for business and cutting checks to startups that are fundraising in the age of COVID-19. PLEASE RT to spread the word. — Laurent Grill (@laurentgrill) March 18, 2020.

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Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Los Angeles 135

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2010

I call it the entrepreneur thesis. I’m not talk about the age old debate amongst investors whether you back entrepreneurs, markets or products (or as people like to hedge – product / market fit). It’s entrepreneurs I back. Today’s post is about my investment thesis. I have a philosophy. A thesis.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 23, 2021

Anyone who works with entrepreneurs will tell you that all are different. The Opportunist is the speculative part of the entrepreneur in all of us. The Specialist entrepreneur will enter one industry and stick with it for 15 to 30 years. Of course, discovering your entrepreneur type is only the beginning. Specialist.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital. One example is that they introduced a program where their founders can pool together shares from their company and exchange them for a small portfolio of other First Round Capital companies. I'm a huge fan of this innovation. and Half.com.

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Capital Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Yesterday I saw two biopic films: “ Amy ” about the life of Jazz sensation Amy Winehouse who died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 and “ Montage of Heck ” about the life of Kurt Cobain , the grunge-rock generational voice who died of an overdose of heroin and valium at the age of … 27.

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Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

socalTECH

JANUARY 2, 2020

Every year, at the end of the year, we share some reflections on the past year from our readers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, sponsors, and others in the local technology community. Today, we share the thoughts of Peter Cowen , Managing Director of Sutton Capital Partners (www.suttoncapitalpartners.com).

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

There is much discussion online and also in small, private groups, about why the price of technology companies – public and private – are falling. Most venture capitalists who have been in this business for a long time foresaw this correction and have been talking about it privately for the better part of the last year or two.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. I have been close to the tech & startup sectors for more than 20 years and I can’t think of a period in which I felt more optimistic about the innovation and value creation I see in front of us. This article originally ran on PEHub.

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Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this.

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socalTECH

JULY 16, 2014

Recently, the team behind MuckerLab has made a subtle shift--becoming Mucker Capital (www.muckercapital.com)--focusing on seed stage investments. We caught up with Erik Rannala , co-founder of both, to understand the move and why Mucker Capital felt like it needed to put more capital to work in local, seed stage startups.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. One of my goals in doing the show was not only to educate entrepreneurs but also to put a human face on many of the VCs in our industry as VCs can be hard to get to know. (5:00 5:00 – 5:55).

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

On why you should be an entrepreneur, “A lot of people do what they have to do. He stood up, grabbed the mic and gave a heartfelt overview of his experiences in experimenting with new technologies to build relationships with his audience, get feedback on his product quality and to market his music all the way to the top of iTunes.

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InfoChachkie

JUNE 30, 2014

Entrepreneur and noted investor Brad Feld unwittingly echoed Franks approach to marketing when, during a discussion with me , he declared, " …companies should… focus on building amazing products. If you have amazing products, the marketing of those products is trivial. Hurry Up And Stop Marketing. Poor Franks Got Yelped.

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