Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2020

The price of entry can be less than $10,000, so the competition is huge and growing rapidly. This is a tough one to accomplish, but it has paid off handsomely for the first to win in other categories, such as Amazon Kindle and Netflix. According to Tim Cook at Apple, there were over 20 million registered developers in 2018.

Mobile 126

Mobile Develop Development Platform 126

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Many questioned whether it could survive under the fail whale, inevitable competition from Facebook, founder fighting, fights with 3rd-party developers let alone become a revolutionary business that could make money. ” By that we weren’t trying to demean companies building aps, games, photo sharing, etc., Far from it.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

socalTECH

MAY 28, 2013

Our current categories are electronics, photo equipment, cameras, lenses, appliances, music equipment, and baby products. You can walk into any audio/video store, including Best Buy or Home Depot, and negotiate with the sales or customer service representative. What''s the story behind the company?

Pricing 273

Pricing Product Help Sales 273

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

You are selling several successful computer video games, but notice more and more new ones popping up on smartphones. For example, quarterly sales on one of your most important products suddenly decreases, or your inventory across a whole category has surged. The entry of new competitors and new suppliers. Broad disruptive events.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Examples 93

SoCal CTO

APRIL 8, 2010

Death By Competitive Analysis - Steve Blank , March 1, 2010 Trading emails with a startup CEO building an iPhone app, I asked him why potential customers would buy his product. In response he sent me a competitive analysis. It looked like every competitive analysis I had done for 20 years, (ok maybe better.) And it made me sad.

Startup 150

Startup Software Review Competition SoCal 150

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

For example, in a new book, “ If You’re in a Dogfight, Become a Cat! ,” Leonard Sherman, executive in residence at the Columbia Business School, suggests that you should stay out of the competitive dogfight and continually redefine the game on your own terms. Use disruptive technologies to alter the value chain.

Examples 67

Examples Customer Custom Product 67

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

The Internet thus far has been monetized by display, video, and in-text advertising — but the one place every user’s eye focuses on first are photos. The old media companies were resistant to change. Though competitors have sprung up, Tanz welcomes the competition to help define the market. Millions, billions, trillions?

Advertising 98

Advertising Santa Monica Startup Content 98

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2015

The price of entry can be less than $10,000, so the competition is huge and growing rapidly. This is a tough one to accomplish, but it has paid off handsomely for the first to win in other categories, such as Amazon Kindle and Netflix. According to Tim Cook at Apple, there were over 9 million registered developers in 2014.

Startup 98

Startup Platform Pricing Netflix 98

InfoChachkie

JULY 2, 2012

In the following 3-minute video I discuss the four categories that emerge when employees’ productivity and their required degree of managerial oversight are considered. Of the four employee categories described below, seek to hire Self-effacing Superstars and promising Unproven Recruits.

Startup 182

Startup Class RSS Statistics 182

socalTECH

APRIL 14, 2010

Lolita Carrico: After I sold ModernMom last year to Demand Media and Richard Rosenblatt, which they merged into Brook Burke's company, BabooshBaby.com, I stayed with them through the transition. Those are our three biggest categories as far as sponsorship and readership. Is this competitive with Modern Mom? READ MORE>>.

Networking 230

Networking Social Media Startup Search Engine Optimization 230

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2015

You are selling several successful computer video games, but notice more and more new ones popping up on smartphones. For example, quarterly sales on one of your most important products suddenly decreases, or your inventory across a whole category has surged. The entry of new competitors and new suppliers. Broad disruptive events.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Startup 106

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). BuildOnline (the company I founded) has just announcement plans to be more aggressive in growing in the US. Let me not bury the lede.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. It places undue pressure early in the company’s history to “do big things&# when sometimes what is warranted is more prudence.

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 15, 2013

You are selling several successful computer video games, but notice more and more new ones popping up on smartphones. You are still providing conventional digital wristwatches while a crowd-sourced new company is offering a high-tech new version that syncs with your smartphone. The advent of new breakthrough technologies.

eBook 95

eBook Metrics Startup Examples 95

socalTECH

JANUARY 28, 2013

No fly by night startup -- the company is backed by the founders of Skype -- we talked with COO Stephen Sesar about how FreedomPop can provide free wireless Internet, the firm's expansion plans, and how the company hopes to turn the telecom industry on its head. There's massive inefficiency in this category.

Startup 245

Startup IP Networking Encino 245

socalTECH

DECEMBER 7, 2016

I built my own company around marketing services, and have been around business development, marketing, custom service, and sales, and also on the consumer side of technology, a little bit a mix of the two. We worked on Beatshare at Chapman, where there was a business plan competition, which we won. All are separate.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels CTO Coach Startup Pasadena Angels 100

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2017

You are selling several successful computer video games, but notice more and more new ones popping up on smartphones. For example, quarterly sales on one of your most important products suddenly decreases, or your inventory across a whole category has surged. The entry of new competitors and new suppliers. Broad disruptive events.

eBook 52

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 52

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

An alternate outcome that I also unfortunately observe in some cases are companies who had extreme early success with an initial product adoption but failed in key areas that limited the growth and therefore the ultimate financial outcomes. I see many companies that don’t make this transition well.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

One would think entrepreneurs would never want less available cash – until such time as their competitors ridiculously and unnecessarily all raise $50 million in the name of a “land grab” thus making it much harder for your totally reasonable company to attract investors. What is one to do? Easier said than done.

Software Review 150

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Invest 150

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2012

It's an intensely competitive market in developing games for the iPhone and other mobile platforms, with thousands and thousands of titles competing for attention from users. In 2010, we sold the game assets and name PlayScreen, which we had acquired, and formed a new company with some solid financial and technology guys.

Mobile 216

Mobile Startup Software Review Platform 216

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2015

People seem polarized between, “that’s what it takes to succeed” to “I can’t believe what a heartless, intolerant and misogynistic company culture they’ve built.” It’s the most ambitious and has had the most impact on our daily lives basically creating the modern category of retailing.

Startup 150

Startup Demand Organization Social Network 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly that is an “in-stream advertising&# company currently focused on monetizing Twitter. Traditional media companies published their stories on the web. My firm was an early investor in Overture (then called GoTo.com) who created this category.

Ideas 286

Ideas Advertising Google Technical Review 286

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

At the same time, it’s a smart manufacturing decision, as American-made quality usually stands head and shoulders above outsourced competition. These range from technology mainstays like Motorola to companies known for pushing the envelope like Tesla. Users can always see who’s at their door no matter where they are.

Technology 104

Technology Google Mobile Outsource Development 104

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

It turns out that to build a successful company you ultimately need this strange thing called “revenue” that people don’t just hand you: You need to earn it. Most of this advice boils down to an argument in favor of basic planning before starting a company or raising money. MakeSpace provides physical storage.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He invented the category of sponsored search. At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs. So he launched a company with exclusively paid search. They were a juggernaut and Google was a small company.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

LA not only produced the obvious – MySpace – but also created the whole category of sponsored search (Overture), AdSense (Applied Semantics), Local Search (City Search), comparison shopping (PriceGrabber, Shopzilla) and lead generation (LowerMyBills). We have accomplished much yet have much work to do.

Twiistup 228

Twiistup SoCal Southern California Yammer 228

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. But a certain amount gets lost in the headlines – especially when not everybody actually heard the video and knows the nuance of the message. Fair enough.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

Bijan Sabet – investor & board member in some small companies you might have heard of like Twitter, Tumblr, Boxee & OMGPOP – took issue with the whole notion that you even need a Powerpoint deck anymore. First, if it’s an early stage company, I don’t need to see a powerpoint deck. I funded them 8 weeks later.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

The video is only 16 minutes long and it is well worth the time. Facebook is about to try to dominate display ads the way Google dominates text ads - Chris Dixon , May 15, 2010 It is customary to divide online advertising into two categories: direct response and brand advertising. It's a great talk. It's a great talk. The Application.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Hale Boggs: Think of Manatt Digital Media as a one-stop shopping for digital media companies. Peter is an entrepreneur and founded and exited four digital media companies, he is going to be building with us and bringing a capability of advising and consulting digital media from startups to big brands on their digital media strategies.

Los Angeles 84

Los Angeles Media Invest Startup 84

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

So, we created a site which not just aggregates, but also organizes activities by type, category--land, sea, air--and things like competition, family, culture, adrenaline--to really narrow down the possibilities for what you're looking for. How is the company funded? We're really in the memories business.

Activity 164

Activity Startup Sites Web 164

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. I think you’ll enjoy this TWiVC video because the topics were so wide ranging. Online video: is Hulu’s inventory really “sold out” as they often claim?

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I was an angel investor in his company, made a bunch of calls on his behalf and then I personally sent it out on AngelList. We talk about all of this in the video. I think how hard it is for me to be hands-on with a handful of portfolio companies. I’ve had to do this with 2 companies at the same time.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2011

I’ve just completed an investment in Ryan Carson’s new company, TreeHouse. I’m investing heavily in Internet video. So I invested in Maker Studios , which is now the 3rd largest producer of Internet video on the web. TreeHouse is also a video company. Americans watch 5.3 Full stop.

Invest 295

Invest Carson Technical Review Education 295

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2016

That’s why today I’m so excited to finally be able to tell you about Density , a company I led a $4 million financing (2) along with Jason Calacanis (We’re teaming up on the board together! A mobile marketing company could track campaigns and then measure increases in retail traffic driven into local stores. Why Density?

Marketing 150

Marketing Course Startup Organization 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

This always makes me chuckle because in my first company we had 5 investors in our first round and we picked up 5 more before we finally sold the company. In my second company I had only 1 investor. Most companies hit a bump in the road at some point. You are then a “stranded&# portfolio company.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Startup Invest Pricing 314