SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. " Typically, this requires quite a bit more information for me to be able to respond and provide real help. Your technical advisor can likely help. Here are some ideas: In your company or other companies. Get to know the developers.

CTO Hire 211

CTO Hire CTO Coach Startup Equity 211

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

The first check I wrote was just over 10 years ago into a company called Invoca who just announced a new $56 million in funding led by Scott Hilleboe at HIG Growth Partners. Ownership Matters At Upfront we focus our energy on fewer companies where we take meaningful ownership and we continue to invest throughout the lifecycle of the company.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels. But issues do arise as your company grows. I see two common mistakes in companies (not just in startups, in fact).

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

After my board meeting I had to do an interview with a CFO candidate that one of my portfolio companies asked me to speak with. I then had to review a nefarious IP lawsuit filed against another company and help the CEO figure out whether we should just pay it or join forces with the other companies named and fight it.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

The mistake entrepreneurs make is either writing a lengthy email (everybody has too much email so it will get skimmed / not digested) or not having a deck which means the VC can’t quickly determine his or her fit as a potential investor. The key is WHAT you send. Compelling. Don’t send these?—?

Venture Capital 261

Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

However, in a very unusual move, the City of Los Angeles has tapped a true technology veteran and insider, well known to those here in the industry-- Peter Marx , most recently at Qualcomm--to head up the city''s efforts to both adopt technology and improve the city''s relationship with its growing technology companies.

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Los Angeles Technology Startup Examples 203

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 14, 2009

I moved into writing software to analyze audience data, and wrote a lot of computer graphics software. In 1986 I started an advertising and public relations firm to serve software and hardware companies, which became a marketing consulting business ( www.Allen.com ) when I moved to L.A. Great stuff. What keeps you up at night?

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Networking Marketing Startup 150

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. Meredith came to see me along with the CTO Marc Berte.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 28, 2013

Join us for a special evening with InfoWorld’s Dave Linthicum as he delves into global enterprise software trends with some of LA’s most successful SaaS and cloud computing companies. He keynotes leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, enterprise application integration, and enterprise architecture. Alex earned a B.A.

SaaS 92

SaaS Cloud Computing CIO Web 92

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

Steve Jillings has a long track record of running successful startups in Southern California, ranging from such companies as FrontBridge Technologies (sold to Microsoft in 2005 for over $200M) and Vantage Media (acquired in 2007). Telesign provides authentication services for the largest web companies in the world.

Marina Del Rey 238

Marina Del Rey Startup IP Examples 238

SoCal CTO

MARCH 18, 2010

I started out as screenwriter, went into local television, ran ad sales in the west for AOL and joined Facebook in the companies very early days. Today I lead a small consultancy that helps advertising supported develop and scale the revenue producing sides of their businesses. I help internet companies make money.

Startup 225

Startup Los Angeles Social Network Twiistup 225

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

A lot of my time is spent helping early-stage companies get to proof points so that they can raise capital. Because of this, I've always tried to stay up-to-speed on how early-stage investors look at valuation of companies. What are they really looking for? is a requirement.

Startup 198

Startup Custom Development Sales Writing 198

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Thursday, March 22, 2007 Discussion Creation Among Bloggers - LinkedIn, Blogging and Discussion Groups Ive been participating in a Yahoo Group that are users of LinkedIn and who are Bloggers: [link] Its an interesting group of folks from diverse backgrounds. Maybe this meme will help.

Blogging 150

Blogging CTO Coach CTO Hire Southern California 150

socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

The company--which is in the business of operating a content delivery network (CDN) to accelerate the delivery of web graphics, multimedia, applications, and more to end users-- recently disclosed it more than doubled its revenues in 2012, and has grown to over 230 employees--all due to a huge amount of demand for CDN services by its customers.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

That not only helps companies with things such as insurance and worker's comp, but from a more human standpoint, employees are not getting injured by vehicles such as forklifts. Gabe Grifoni: The most advanced companies today are using devices that are hand held, like a tablet or smartphone. Our tool does the same thing.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. Working at a big company is honorable and I don’t believe the narrative that all of this tech disruption is to kill off big companies. ” **.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

Forget visits to random restaurants, myfab5 uses the power of the crowd to help you search for the best restaurant in town. Founded by Omeid Seirafi-Pour , Calvin Schemanski and John Gulbronson they aim to help users find fabulous restaurants in their cities. What is myfab5? myfab5 is a platform that reinvents the restaurant review.

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. Tempus Fugit.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

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). After we sold it to that public company, I founded HashtagOne. It's all about leverage.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 100

socalTECH

MARCH 22, 2012

The company also made quite an impression with its viral video --which you have to watch to appreciate--of CEO Michael Dubin extolling the virtues of the company's products, and panning overpriced, expensive razor brands. We talked with Dubin earlier about the company. What's your background, and how did the company start?

Dollar Shave Club 210

Dollar Shave Club Startup Pricing Sample 210

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

Founded in the summer of 2011 and their first product out a few weeks ago amSTATS wants to help users to follow fitness events and programs near them and find a great fitness trainer to help them stay fit. TechZulu caught up with Michael Piermont, amSTATZ Chief Executive Officer and this is what he revealed.

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Other founders, “as a privately held company we don’t disclose our valuation.&# Me, “dude, I’m not a journalist. The VC assumes you’ll have an option pool.

Venture Capital 405

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

socalTECH

APRIL 29, 2014

We spoke with Mike Outmesguine , CEO and Alan DeRossett , CTO of the company, and how their roots in do-it-yourself, "Maker" projects is key to their entry into the prize competition. The company actually was working on a different project which had dried up at that point, and it was just natural to step into this at that point.

Startup 262

Startup Competition Software Review UCLA 262

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. Great companies are comprised of great individual point people or functional leaders. But when I’m looking to write my check I need to look in the eyes of the captain — the maestro who brings the whole orchestra together. Was I too harsh?

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

His main company Providence Holdings has invested in real estate and several small businesses. Mathew Brian (Chief Creative Officer) is also based in Columbus, OH, and is behind the strong branding effort of Huddlewoo. He also serves as the Chief Creative Officer for Will Zell’s Providence Holdings.

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

socalTECH

JUNE 18, 2009

We caught up with the firm's CEO, Gregg Champion--who formerly was Vice President of Programming and Development at Mania TV--to learn more about the company, its business, as well as its fundraising plans. That was the jumping off point for OneCubicle a little over 18 months ago, when we started writing the business plan and code.

Social Network 100

Social Network Entertainment Startup CTO Coach 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. Goliath” mythology take on the titans of industry and wins. This “overnight success” was first financed in 2004.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2012

As a hiring manager, and as the former CTO of Buy.com, Navid Nobakht , Co-Founder of Recmnd.Me ([link] had a problem--how to really figure out if someone he was hiring could actually execute. How has the experience going from a big company to a small one? Plus, it makes it difficult from other recommendations.

CTO Hire 147

CTO Hire Startup Sites Technical Review 147

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2010

Colin Kelley, the CTO of RingRevenue , left a comment in my last post about the need to “ mask interrupts &# in order to get work done. They taught us to write down questions when they came up and batch them together in point sheets. In fact, they were recently bought by a publicly traded company called Ditech Networks).

Product 280

Product Startup Email Technical Review 280

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 22, 2014

HV: Our current focus is helping people get up and move more, and that’s why we created Movn. The broader goal of our company is to provide people with actionable information to lead healthier lives. We then give you interesting bits of information and interesting guidance throughout your day to help you lead a more healthier life.

USC 104

USC Southern California Activity Study 104

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Messenger : Thorsten von Eicken , RightScale’s Co-Founder and CTO, Chief Architect at Citrix Online (formerly Expertcity) and Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University and UC Santa Barbara. I taught a somewhat crazy course about writing and deploying a scalable website in Ruby on Rails and deploying it in EC2.

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

The company provides SAT, ACT, and other similar test preparation courses and related software. To hear about the company, we spoke with Ramit Varma , co-founder of the company. It was us, funding ourselves from credit cards, literally, to a company that is now on par with Kaplan and Princeton Review.

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. We have a number of startups (or pre-startups) that we are helping get launched. We also represent a few larger companies with international issues. You are writing about the essentials of business.

Startup 150

Startup SEO Pepperdine Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2011

You couldn’t help but seeing Uber Pedicabs all around town. And we’re here with Dan Martell , who like any great startup founder is wearing his company t-shirt for Flowtown. This time on mysterious party bus to nowhere but situated with the CTO & Cofounder of Living Social, Aaron Batalion. Hanging out.

Ideas 294

Ideas Startup Marketing Pricing 294

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

Features like this, as well as our daily interviews wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support of our sponsor eMinutes – a law firm here in Los Angeles that focuses on helping entrepreneurs structure their companies. We want to help them, and will. Thank you @eminutes. . Charlie Capen – Co-founder of HowToBeADad.com.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78