Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 1, 2012

Based on my experience as a mentor and an entrepreneur, if you fail on your first startup, you are about average. Every young entrepreneur knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Of course, a real entrepreneur always takes a failure as a milestone on the road to success. How can you improve your odds?

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Ideas Resource Statistics 109

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Put simply – if you invested early in Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%). ” Some do, some don’t.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. 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.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

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. If you’re an entrepreneur, all else equal you prefer convertible debt because the deal is priced at a later stage when you’re worth more. We also talked about whether VC is shrinking and what that would mean for entrepreneurs if true.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 23, 2011

One of the most frequent questions entrepreneurs ask about when they raise a little bit of money or are getting close to launching their first product is whether they should hire a PR firm. Whether we like to admit it or not, PR drives behavior with customers, investors, employees and competition. In a startup this is a mistake.

Startup 349

Startup Writing Press Blogging 349

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

We talked with Noah about how the company grew out of a business plan competition at the University of Southern California, his recent funding from the Maverick Angels, as well as how the firm hopes to stand out among a crowded list of comparison shopping sites. Noah Auerhahn: We just had too much free time at USC.

USC 207

USC CPC Sites Startup 207

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

We all have one-click purchase power (Apple, Google, Amazon, eBay). The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). Just 3 years ago there was talk of institutional investors “not being able to write small enough checks.” Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 3, 2012

Seth is a design-oriented entrepreneur, with little desire to document details. The more you play around with ideas and you write them down, the better. Per Seth, emerging entrepreneurs should, "Find problems that need solving… that resonate (with you). Competition – which competitors will prove to be the most formidable?

Ideas 266

Ideas Guide Startup Santa Barbara 266

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

For the past 5 years or so Google, Facebook and a handful of tech industry giants have been quietly buying scores of early-stage startups for their talent. And a few teams of super talented, educated and bright entrepreneurs make a few mill. You have been at Google, Salesforce.com, Yahoo! has now employed the same strategy.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Shame about not getting it in legal writing that you owned the original IP.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 8, 2018

Steven Johnson, author of How We Got To Now , analyzes technological breakthroughs, looking for patterns that allow entrepreneurs to identify “How We’ll Get To Tomorrow.” Modern-day entrepreneurs use Evernote, Google Keep, etc. Seth is a design-oriented entrepreneur, with little desire to document details.

Ideas 69

Ideas Startup Technical Review Santa Barbara 69

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. It’s insanely competitive to get into our industry so most have degrees from institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Wharton and University of Chicago (blatant plug ;-). VCs, how to select a VC, etc.) Most VCs are book smart.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs try to do things on the cheap. there may be major competitive changes in the market that makes your next funding round hard (e.g. Google suddenly makes your product category free). - Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice Startup Advice.

Startup 319

Startup Venture Capital Capital Competition 319

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

We started looking at the landscape, and as I was getting my MBA at the time, ended up writing the business plan for ConsumerTrack. The world here is constantly changing -- particularly with shifts to mobile, Google algorithms, etc. - how does your company stay on top of all of that? It sounds like you''re completely boostrapped.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Based on my experience as a mentor and an entrepreneur, if you fail on your first startup, you are about average. Every young entrepreneur knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Of course, a real entrepreneur always takes a failure as a milestone on the road to success. How can you improve your odds?

Startup 100

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Resource 100

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2018

If I write back, and tell them to stay at the Marriott in Del Mar, we would detect the Marriott Del Mar in your message, whether that's on Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, in a text message, in an email, or whatever, and convert that into a link to one of our merchants who are part of the Wildfire network. What does that look like?

San Diego 159

San Diego Social Media Commerce Snapchat 159

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2010

They taught us to write down questions when they came up and batch them together in point sheets. OK, before you all tell me about Google Voice, let me say the following. If you care about a free product then you should obviously use Google Voice. I was a Google Desktop user for years. Unfortunately I was wrong.

Product 280

Product Startup Email Technical Review 280

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

On myfab5, people rank their favorite places instead of giving them star ratings and write bite-sized reviews instead of writing long reviews. When talking to review site users, we found the top two reasons people don’t write reviews is because it takes too long and it is confusing. Any competition? Who are the founders?

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2020

The other nice thing about that, is as things are happening on the same computer, there is no server code to write. It's really simple to write an application, compared to the complexity of an application that is multi-user. Are Android and iOS then your competition? It's all on the client side. to 7 kilobytes per second.

Platform 168

Platform Startup Examples Web 168

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 16, 2018

I was happy to see a real focus on preparing for tomorrow highlighted in a new book, “ Start a Successful Business ,” by Colleen DeBaise, who has made a career of studying and writing about entrepreneur challenges. I often hear entrepreneurs who seem to rely wholly on their own passion, and the view of a few friends.

Customer 57

Customer Custom Technical Review Software Review 57

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2011

It’s a well-accepted axiom in the investor community that entrepreneurs learn more from their failures than their successes. Test and adjust your projections, based on experienced advisor input and industry norms, rather than the Google high exception. Don’t focus too much on the competition. Where are you along this spectrum?

Startup 96

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Writing 96

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2012

Even the Google search engine crawlers may take up to two weeks to find you. So what’s an entrepreneur to do to get his new business noticed these days? Be visible online and to traditional media, volunteer to lead, write guest posts for others, be responsive, give stuff away, and provide many ways to communicate.

Startup 104

Startup Social Media Platform Blogging 104

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2010

Search engine marketing is simply buying advertising for your business from Google or another search engine company. SEO is not placing ads, but tuning your website so that it is more highly ranked by Google, and featured in the first page of results, not in an ad beside the results. Campaign setup and ad copy writing.

SEM 90

SEM Marketing Startup Search Engine Optimization 90

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Admittedly, that last part is an exaggeration but they were bad enough that I am writing this essay in the hopes that you will read it and not make these mistakes. So when we come across an entrepreneur who cannot resist using 20 words when 10 would suffice, it’s painful, really painful. I Googled that claim and didn’t find anything.

Tips 70

Tips Startup Statistics Metrics 70

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

We typically do not ask entrepreneurs to visit our offices in Santa Barbara, but Jeff wanted to meet with Kevin, an investor in our Fund who helped us vet opportunities and occasionally invested alongside of us. Rather, we value entrepreneurs' time and thus our diligence generally includes introducing them to potential customers and partners.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

These days that’s not the case and it’s a great outcome for entrepreneurs and for innovation. A new group of investors have clustered around writing earlier-stage, smaller checks. A: Only because it’s a nicer branding for entrepreneurs. I totally agree and have been arguing this to entrepreneurs for years.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

socalTECH

DECEMBER 15, 2010

We manage that competition through an aucton process. How is the competitive landscape is nowadays? Yahoo made the decision that they could not, or would not be able to make the level of investment required to keep up with Google. They can put their inventory in there, and lots of people compete to buy it.

OpenX 242

OpenX Advertising Yahoo Pasadena 242

socalTECH

MARCH 21, 2011

There was a real opportunity for me to arbitrage the last decade and a half of my experience in the Internet, and apply that to a products company, and to get some real competitive advantage. Having a strong presence online and strong, positive word of mouth in a relevant audience is a real competitive advantage. Thanks!

Web 225

Web Social Media SEO Media 225

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

…” I’ll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social network and what I think comes next. ” In this week’s discussion with entrepreneurs I think the word impending wasn’t used often enough. The first being a competitive acquisition offer from a fierce competitor.

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. Entrepreneurs are neurotic about it. They’re competitive. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. I will embrace my losses.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 23, 2013

Sergey’s diverse experience as an entrepreneur, technology consultant and software executive qualifies him to lead amSTATZ’s technology development. Jenna can write a recommendation on Andy’s profile or send an email to friends recommending Andy, one of his workout plans or the fitness event she’s registered for. Any competition in LA?

Social Network 92

Social Network Networking Training Summary 92

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

I believe that it is part of the DNA of an entrepreneur – being so competitive that you’re practically sick when you lose. Entrepreneurs are neurotic about it. They’re competitive. Write things down. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. I will embrace my losses.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2010

Let me be clear – a product or consulting startup today without a blog, even with a static website, risks not being competitive in cost and time to reach and hold that critical mass of online customers. Otherwise, your blog content will be indexed separately from your web site content, resulting in a lower overall Google rank.

Blogging 48

Blogging Search Engine Optimization Startup Writing 48

InfoChachkie

MAY 23, 2011

As noted in Contract Traps Entrepreneurs Should Avoid , exclusivity can kill a small company. If the BDC has no competitive incentive to market your solution, there is a real risk that it will put your technology “on the shelf” and move on to the next entrepreneur whose technology must be kept out of reach of the BDC’s competitors.

Technical Review 183

Technical Review Marketing Sales Competition 183

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. When I started my second company I was a serial entrepreneur. I introduced myself as a serial entrepreneur. I was a serial entrepreneur. I defined myself. I controlled my own brand.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Leading advertising networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare, Google Affiliate Network, ShareASale and many others license our platform to help their advertisers and publishers easily create, manage, track, and optimize call-based advertising campaigns.”. Who do you view as your biggest competition? You’re right.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. So here is what I have been telling entrepreneurs privately for the past 6 months. What a bubble means for each entrepreneur. I believe that. But it will end.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309