Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2010

I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “ Deferred Life Plan &# and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I would love to say that I’m the productivity guru. Tim Ferriss gave this extra emphasis in his book.

Product 280

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Here are some ideas: In your company or other companies. Find the developers in your current company and other companies that you can get inside. Here's an example of that kind of email. Do you have dollars to pay for development?

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. Over the past 2.5

Venture Capital 223

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

Your product demo crushed. You race back to the office to tell everybody how well it went and you wait for the follow-up call to have a partners’ meeting or talk about term sheets or at least dip into due diligence. Wednesday I have 4 companies coming in to talk about their companies. The dialog was great.

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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).

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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

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SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Innovation and Geography I ran across a post in Read/Write Web - Does Location Matter in Web Innovation? Ive personally been involved in the start-up world in Los Angeles for about 15 years, and have had the opportunity to work on many early-stage companies (e.g.,

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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. When we ship product.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

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

JULY 22, 2016

What's your product, and what is it used for? Gabe Grifoni: At Rufus Labs, we are focused heavily on building wearables and technology in a wearable platform for the enterprise. We're focused on a product which makes for a more efficient, safer, workplace. So where are you now with your product?

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." It is almost never the case that you are building an MVP to "show" to an investor the product itself.

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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. That's the one we'll mass product.

Dollar Shave Club 210

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

I give a sneak peek at a blog post I’m writing on the topic next week. I spoke about the need of the CEO, CTO and head of Products to be in the same location. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

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

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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. for face-to-face general networking events.

Los Angeles 150

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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

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO).

Funding 112

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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. I also serve as CEO of a small media companies that profile “Tomorrow’s Most Exciting People Today”. I help internet companies make money. I usually.just focus on revenue.

Startup 225

Startup Los Angeles Social Network Twiistup 225

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens. In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies.

Tips 365

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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. And, I dont like to copy and paste.

Blogging 150

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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

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

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO).

Startup 104

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Xconomy

JUNE 6, 2016

After operating in the shadows for the past 11 years, a San Diego neural technology company founded by former NASA administrator Dan Goldin is stepping into the light to introduce two commercial products intended to advance the frontier of human-machine interaction.

Artificial Inteligence 62

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2011

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CFO) and a product lead (CTO).

Startup 101

Startup CTO Hire Press Customer 101

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.

Entrepreneur 293

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Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

TechZulu caught up with co-founder Calvin Schemanski chat about their upcoming launch, their product and why Long reviews suck. On myfab5, people rank their favorite places instead of giving them star ratings and write bite-sized reviews instead of writing long reviews. What is myfab5? Don’t like a restaurant? What inspired you?

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

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

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. Thta kind of determines how valuable the product is that you're building. How has the experience going from a big company to a small one?

CTO Hire 147

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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

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Hours after the panelists debated the future of content distribution at the Silicon Beach @ USC conference, across campus at the Annenberg Innovation Lab a remarkable product demo was taking place by Coincident.TV. A technology that will surely revolutionize how viewers interact with content and television in the very near future.

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Tech Zulu Event

JULY 22, 2014

While we have become more productive as a society, with the advent of computers aiding our work, physical inactivity has become a high risk factor in contributing to chronic illnesses. The broader goal of our company is to provide people with actionable information to lead healthier lives. It could be a lot worse than just comfort.

USC 104

USC Southern California Activity Study 104

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

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 22, 2010

If you have a product description, that’s necessary, but not sufficient. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually have a plan. A CEO who has “been there and done that” is traction, especially if teamed with a financial lead (CIO) and a product lead (CTO).

Tips 88

Tips Startup CTO Hire Press 88

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

Frank Addante

JANUARY 23, 2007

Under Process, Over Deliver So, you need to develop a product? ► 2006 (20) ► December (2) Just Say What it Is 12 Proven Guidelines for Rapid Product Development. Web Development & Marketing Technology) Exit: evolved into L90 (next company) Lesson: What you dont know cant stop you.

Outsource Development 40

Outsource Development Develop Development Product 40

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2011

I focused on relationships, connections, human bond, idea generation, testing products and also I generally tried to be available for others. And we’re here with Dan Martell , who like any great startup founder is wearing his company t-shirt for Flowtown. I had scheduled dinners every night with small groups of people.

Ideas 294

Ideas Startup Marketing Pricing 294