Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

The world has changed much since I started my first company in 1999. We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. What changed for us was Tim Barker arrived.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

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.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

When you are selected you share the stage with 49 other companies (in the case of TechCrunch50. Most people pay attention to the first 5 companies. By company 22 it’s hard to remember what any of them did. Many other great companies are not. - It’s no wonder many companies don’t get good coverage.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’ve always been a big believer that just a couple of key individuals make all of the difference in a company’s success. He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving. Patron Companies. The ingredients are all here.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Most board meetings are administrative updates that accomplish very little other than inform board members about the performance of the company since the last board meeting. Nobody knows how many outstanding shares are in the company so nobody knows what percentage Mary’s 22,475 shares is equal to. The meeting starts.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

I believe that over capitalizing companies too early often favors the VC. In the late 90′s I saw a dangerous trend creeping into the startup world, which was that companies were suddenly raising huge amounts of money too early in their existence. Over funding often produces bad behavior in early-stage companies.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2012

The Thursday launch of Data Collective demonstrates the increasing uptake of Big Data and signals a new door for entrepreneurs building Big Data companies. ” Matt Ocko also revealed to Silicon Beat that they have been getting a lot more press inquiries due to the number of deals they were doing. Founded Two Years Ago.

Technical Review 74

Technical Review Entrepreneur Oracle Software Review 74

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. Cloud computing and the open source movements have brought down the costs of starting a company by more than 90%. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin!

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Startup 347

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I suppose I should have imagined that this line would get more press than all other comments combined. As any historian of bubbles will tell you – there were periods of bubbles in assets as arcane as tulips , South American trading companies , dot-com bubbles & housing bubbles. Fair enough. and profits!

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

pitch and technology competition at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, I couldn’t help but feel like it might be a hall of crickets with a few passionate women warming the front row. able to sign up online and rent the car, with only $50,000 invested in the company, which went towards the website, database and beta car.

Conference 77

Conference Startup Technical Review Software Review 77

AeA Los Angeles Council

JULY 7, 2008

As I earlier suggested, part of the problem is due to the organization of Washington, DC, right down to fiscal years and annual budgets. One, the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has an office called the Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP, which heads up the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) ( [link] ).

Education 45

Education Technical Review Research Web 2.0 45

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

Just because a product has a patent, deep complexity and an obvious competitive advantage does not mean that it can fly by itself into the market. had two occasions recently to review products which had clear market leadership. " The Bible Code predicted the Sept 11 attacks 5,000 years ago." Which button do you press?

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175