Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 24, 2017

When I hear executives and professionals in larger businesses talking about their dream of going out on their own to start a new company, I always cringe. They and I never realized how hard it is to break the big-company habits and conventions. Professionals get dependent on big company perks. I have been there and done that.

Company 58

Company Companies Startup Training 58

InfoChachkie

APRIL 16, 2012

No matter how much you think you know about Steve’s lean startup philosophy, Eric Ries’ contributions to the movement, or the methodologies by which companies have put lean startup tenets into practice, I am confident you will be enlightened and entertained by Steve’s frank and insightful remarks. . Four Steps was essentially my class notes.

Startup 229

Startup Class Press Custom Development 229

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata investments rights given investors the right to invest in your future fund-raising rounds and maintain their ownership % in your company as your company grows and raises more capital. You now own 20% of a company valued at $50 million but you’ve put in $4m to get that. Why investors care about prorata rights.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 25, 2012

I hear many executives and professionals in large corporations talking about their dream of jumping ship, and starting their own company. Executives in an enterprise usually don’t write their own memos, contracts, and certainly don’t schedule their own meetings. In a startup, that luxury isn’t possible, so the work suffers.

Startup 93

Startup Company Companies Training 93

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The poor performance of the asset class (this analysis has largely been wrong as I pointed out here –> most analyses were clumsy rear-view mirror looks at the data). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. On the surface the narratives have been. Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2010

What they don’t realize is that the longer they wait, the more big-company habits they are acquiring, which will make their eventual decision harder and entrepreneurial efforts less and less likely to succeed. Executives in an enterprise usually don’t write their own memos, contracts, and certainly don’t schedule their own meetings.

Entrepreneur 92

Entrepreneur Company Companies Training 92

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

They write into their investment documents that they will occupy a seat on the board for as long as they are invested in the company, thinking of this as a protection for their investment and tool for them to influence growth. Even venture capitalists who sit on boards where they have significant investments often forget this point.

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Class Coach Invest Sales 179

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2020

In fact, Mehta focuses on a special class of entrepreneurs that he calls disruptors. These are ones behind many of the modern game-changing companies, like Pinterest and Foursquare. Then write them down. By writing these goals, you add validity to each target and create a mental desire to see them fulfilled.

Entrepreneur 123

Entrepreneur Satisfaction Writing Startup 123

socalTECH

OCTOBER 28, 2010

So, I ended up writing that first book, and Bruce helped me with the research, and that was one way we got to know each other before we were even dating. If we had both still be in Los Angeles, we'd been too busy to start a company, and wouldn't have need to start a company. At the time, I got Lynda.com. It was going crazy.

Startup 242

Startup Web Design Writing Web 242

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 2, 2015

I even wrote about my experiences attending Web Summit , something I rarely ever write about. If you want to see world-class speakers and hear what they have to say in person – you will get that. This is how he gets world-class speakers to travel half way around the world. He’s back stage like an orchestra conductor.

Web 150

Web Conference Technical Review Class 150

Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

Indeed, whether you’re a producer, screenwriter, director, actor, cinematographer, editor, art director or composer (or some combination of these) Stage 32 offers classes to meet your specific needs. Classes with a wide geographic appeal. The broad geographic appeal is a huge part of the company’s success.

Education 82

Education Entertainment Class Manhattan Beach 82

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. I’ve seen too many companies go off track by a VC hell bent on the team pursuing the VCs strategy which at times is about chasing the next shiny object. Most VCs are book smart. I call them “ VCs Seagulls.”

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

I even plan to use it in my upcoming UC Santa Barbara Entrepreneurial Selling class. Guy, how would your 2004 book, Art Of The Start , differ, if you were writing it today? If I were writing the book today, there would be a whole chapter or two…about how to use Facebook and Twitter. That doesn’t work.”.

Santa Barbara 262

Santa Barbara Technical Review Social Media Startup 262

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Bruce, along with his wife Lynda, created a learning company from their garage, initially by holding in-person classes and later selling VHS tapes via mail order. Under Bruce’s innovative guidance, the company was an early adopter of the Internet, creating online videos long before platforms such as YouTube became ubiquitous.

Sales 113

Sales Education Startup Class 113

socalTECH

DECEMBER 31, 2018

What was the biggest news for your company in 2018? We do, as of the writing of this in early December, seem to be seeing a correction at this time. Amazon has razor thin profits compared to their revenue but Bezos doesn't care he just wants growth and world domination and has a market cap of $763B.

Southern California 100

Southern California News Class Writing 100

InfoChachkie

MARCH 4, 2013

Business Lessons From The Dark Side Of The Moon. • Obtain Customer Feedback Before You Release Your Product - Musicians spend their entire youth writing songs and performing them in front of live audiences, which ensures that their initial album is validated by their fans before they enter the recording studio. Any time will do."

Startup 269

Startup Cloud Computing RSS Writing 269

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

When I sit down to write every week I never really imagine what is going to end up resonating the most with people but it seems I’ve most often been defined by my post that I Invest in Lines, not Dots. I was a proud angel investor in Jody’s company, EcoMom. So what is an EIR and why Sam? I thought that was the end of it.

Startup 372

Startup Course Ideas Invest 372

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Do you need a board when you first start you company? Time based as in “a guaranteed right for 12 months, which can be renewed by mutual board consent” and event based “a guaranteed right until the company has raised $x million from new investors.” Should I be worried that I could be fired from my own company?

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

Obtaining funding is a key milestone, but equally important is helping fledgling companies build institutional mass once they leave the relatively safe confines of an accelerator. Bringing an accelerators’ graduates back as mentors provides value to the next class, certainly. Convert Graduate-Founders Into Mentors.

Startup 100

Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

So I thought I’d write a piece on how not to suck when you give a presentation. You’re not lecturing to a college class, you’re not at a cocktail party and you’re not chatting with a small group in a board meeting. If you write sentences you’ll read them and you’ll … suck.

Slides 399

Slides Startup Conference Writing 399

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. He did it yesterday, “Mark, I’m going to write a blog post following on from your VC’s aren’t dumb. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies. He is very pleasant when he calls and writes.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

Months of submissions and the amazing help from our judges , the Spotlight is shinning down on awesome companies that were born right out of Southern California. And now without further ado I present the Spotlight: LA Tech Winter Companies: Spotlight Companies. We write and create our own content for the game.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

John gave me the book after I spoke at his entrepreneurship class at UCSB. I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. should companies do spreadsheets / plan / have a hypothesis for success? how do you handle internal company morale? 9:14 What was the root cause of the failure of your first company?

Social Media 301

Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

LPs have been feeling great about venture capital due to holding valuable paper positions in companies like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Dropbox, all of which they feel confident will drive large cash distributions in the future. And that’s real cash that LPs can’t put to work in other asset classes.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

This was evident at the Twiistup pre-event company pitch last week at UCLA. Francisco Dao came up with the idea of letting 10 companies that weren't selected for Twiistup to do a presentation the night before to a group of people and let the audience pick one company to win the final slot at Twiistup. I was the judge.

Twiistup 124

Twiistup GRP Partners Tips UCLA 124

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

I told him only 2 weeks ago when we were in London together that I wanted to write a blog post that has been in my head for 2 years. How to help his companies. When he writes them online his Tourette’s comes out and sometimes the substance gets lost in the style. My pal Dave occasionally presents “headline risks” for investors.

Startup 309

Startup Venture Capital Email Writing 309

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time. Would they build a world class team. Were they ambitious?

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

We know you invest globally, but are there specific kinds of companies you hope to focus on here in Southern California? So, you will see March participating in the early stage with consumer companies. You'll see we have several enterprise software companies already in the March portfolio. It's all about the entrepreneur.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

Tech.Co

MAY 24, 2017

And not just the token two children, but to actually be the one who volunteered in their classes and screamed at them to stop picking flowers on the soccer field. Three and a half years later, my company has 130 employees and is closing in on $20M in revenue in 2016. I wanted the career and the family. Build Your Squad.

Class 91

Class Journal Writing Demand 91

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Working hard together at a big company just isn’t the same. You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. Who came in the office at 2am when the servers crashed – even on the night of the big company party. Writing a book will be fun.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

socalTECH

APRIL 30, 2009

Most companies, when they're looking to raise company morale, might set up a company picnic, Friday night beer bash, or maybe go on a ski trip. The company has also banned people who have previously fought before, or had experience in martial arts, from participating, with the exception of one employee.

Culver City 140

Culver City Startup Training Class 140

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2011

I was recently approached by Fast Company to comment on “crisis management&# at startups in the wake of the Airbnb “ranksackgate&# story. I agreed to do the interview because the story was about what other companies can learn rather than about airbnb in particular. What are the teachable moments? Know Your Key Messages.

Startup 329

Startup Press Training Media 329

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 21, 2017

I was influenced heavily before my career even began because in my undergraduate work I took a ton of statistics classes that showed how easily we human brains fall prey to easy biases and slights of data and try to draw conclusions that don’t exist. Coming back with an empty chamber for the third battle is much worse than not coming back.

Venture Capital 182

Venture Capital Statistics Writing Report 182

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to write it because I have mixed feelings about AngelList. I didn’t want to write it because the bloggosphere doesn’t always do nuance well. So why I am writing it then? Most VCs fund companies with a degree of traction.

Venture Capital 267

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2011

We're looking to launch our first class in the fall, with five to ten companies, with the TechStars model of a small capital investment, and a seed investment of $6000 per founder. Typically, venture backed companies, always entrepreneur led. Then I started working for these companies as well.

Startup 221

Startup Mentor Southern California Incubator 221

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

But being best-in-class at online marketing is also a sine qua non to standout from your peer group. SEO / SEM are promotional techniques for marketing through the Google distribution channel, which have yielded huge benefits to many companies – Yelp being a prime example. It’s worth a quick read. But it wasn’t to be.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379