article thumbnail

Ryan Blair, HashtagOne: From Gang Member, To Entrepreneur, To Anti-VC

socalTECH

He eventually founded and sold consumer health firm ViSalus to a public company and is now back making investments, in technology companies, as a venture capitalist here at Los Angeles-based HashtagOne (www.hashtagone.com). So, now, as a VC, I swore I'd never treat entrepreneurs like those VCs treated me. I love entrepreneurs.

article thumbnail

Some Thoughts on Branding Startups and Communities

Both Sides of the Table

Brad Feld visited Los Angeles this past week. ” Many people on the Westside of Los Angeles are using the term Silicon Beach these days to describe the amazing renaissance that is truly happening here. Let my try those for Los Angeles as an example: Second largest city in America with 13 million people.

Startup 304
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Interview with Bruce Huang, UCLA Silicon Beach Innovation Lab

socalTECH

The idea came about, because we see a lot of people coming through our program at UCLA, who might have the desire to be an entrepreneur, and to get into the technology field, by studying data science or cybersecurity. However, it's very difficult. At the same time, companies are saying that in cybersecurity and data science, there are 1.5

UCLA 159
article thumbnail

Want to Start a Technology Company in LA?

Both Sides of the Table

Los Angeles. We have many seasoned entrepreneurs who have built successful companies here and made a lot of money for investors and themselves. I believe you can attract people to relocate to Los Angeles but it’s likely that they’ll come from locations other than Northern California.

Company 290
article thumbnail

Making The Enterprise Cloud Real: Unitas Global's Cloud Vision

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based Unitas Global (www.unitasglobal.com) recently raised a round of funding from MK Capital and Azure Capital for its vision of helping enterprises make that transition to cloud technology. Most of the CIOs we are talking to are at large banks and healthcare providers. But, the way we do it is different.

article thumbnail

Above the Cloud with Dave Linthicum | Shifting Perspectives on SaaS and Enterprise IT

Tech Zulu Event

Featuring panelists from SOA Software , Edgecast and Bitium , we’ll discuss: Top priorities and challenges for today’s CIO. The rise of the social enterprise and Chief Digital Officer – what it means for the CIO. Alex is a proven web entrepreneur, having led and sold multiple successful startups. Alex Kazerani.

SaaS 92
article thumbnail

Can You Really Build a Great Tech Firm Outside Silicon Valley?

Both Sides of the Table

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.