Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

The “span of control” for a growing tech startup is probably 6-9 people. The “doers” in your organization. You help them prioritize their objectives and review the results. You motivate, cajole, reassign tasks, hire, fire and push the organization forward. You set direction. You hire great people.

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I never built a Google-sized business but I did build an organization from scratch that grew to 120 employees in 5 countries before we sold it. I’m not a big believer in too much hierarchy.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 138

Technical Review Startup Innocal Offshore 138

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

XPRIZE , the nonprofit organization which has been using large dollar prize competitions to spur innovation in a wide range of areas, has booted up a brand new, $2M prize around ocean health, the group said this week. xprize ocean health carbon dioxide emissions competition prize' The XPRIZE Foundation said that. READ MORE>>.

Southern California 204

Southern California Competition Technical Review Organization 204

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. Of course, I have an advantage because I organize the LA CTO Forum. How do we need to structure the systems to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition? What technologies will we use?

Fractional CTO 225

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach 225

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for due diligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. My best advice is to stick to the middle ground.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 118

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. Why a business plan competition, and why in engineering school?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

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. Periodically we do portfolio reviews to evaluate whether we have enough diversified risk across the fund. Far from it.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Seattle should be the envy of any non Silicon Valley tech community in the country. It really wouldn’t take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. 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.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 20, 2014

According to a recent Forbes article , UC Santa Barbara''s Technology Management Program offers students a superior startup education over the University of Pennsylvania (home of Wharton), as well Harvard, Northwestern and even its acclaimed southern neighbor, the University of Southern California. Organic Academia. Techpreneurs.

Santa Barbara 258

Santa Barbara Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 258

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Innocal Offshore Entrepreneur 103

socalTECH

JULY 12, 2010

A group of businesses and local organizations in Goleta, California, north of Santa Barbara, are looking to rally more businesses to join in their effort to spur new, direct flight support to San Jose, California, after a loss of the service in February.

Santa Barbara 202

Santa Barbara SoCalTech Technical Review Commerce 202

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2016

The XPRIZE Foundation , the group which has been organizing prize-based competitions to help advance critical areas of technology to benefit mankind, announced on Thursday that it has 32 teams from 22 countries who are competing for its $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Competition Organization Technology 100

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. They’re competitive. So I organized a team dinner with all four of my partners and all three of their founders. We met everybody in the organization. They had agreed!

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

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. They’re competitive. So I organized a team dinner with all four of my partners and all three of their founders. We met everybody in the organization. They had agreed!

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. While many tech startups do this intuitively (say, SnapChat thinking it would be much better if our photos out partying disappeared) it still happens. So they’ll have to look for other competitive advantages for distribution.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Tech.Co

MAY 25, 2018

If you’re an early-stage entrepreneur, technology has served you well. In 2006, a passion to help startups grew into Tech Cocktail , a company whose mission was to showcased burgeoning companies in bars around the country. The Foundation was created in 1997 by tech pioneers, Jean and Steve Case.

Startup 137

Startup Technical Review Competition Software Review 137

InfoChachkie

APRIL 14, 2014

Even the organization''s lexicon reinforces its startup mindset. It performs "due diligence" before it makes "investments" and it measures results as a "return on its investment.". In order to learn more about ABC''s innovative approach, I sought out Liam Krehbiel, the organization''s Founder and CEO.I

Organization 199

Organization Startup Technical Review Invest 199

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior. But I would posit that in order to sustainably build great products in an intensely competitive industry with skills shortages – people management is one of the most critical soft skills organizations need.

Startup 340

Startup Technical Review Course Press 340

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

To say that the tech elite were cynical of Hulu’s launch would be an understatement , but by the time it launched just a few months later it was getting great reviews. Because they are anti-competitive most countries ban cartels. I have personally always felt a sort of cognitive dissonance regarding Hulu.

Hulu 292

Hulu Technical Review Content Advertising 292

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. The best CEOs realize that they need to build organizations and hierarchy and delegate decision making while still holding their teams accountable.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Custom Customer 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 30, 2021

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Product 159

Product Technical Review Pricing Software Review 159

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2022

In these days of global competition via multiple channels, you need continuous marketing to find more customers. Acknowledge every customer feedback and review. Don’t let that one negative stand out as the only review submitted. These also will keep you better informed on new technologies, trends, and likely competitors.

Technical Review 142

Technical Review Social Media Custom Customer 142

Tech.Co

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Unlike a lot of grants on this list, the competition is open to all US small businesses, as long as they have fewer than 99 employees, have been operating for at least six months, and have a FedEx business account that's been open before September 1, 2023. It's competitive though – last year 18,000 applicants competed for only 12 slots.

Technical Review 184

Technical Review Software Review Startup Competition 184

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. They are the lifeblood of many companies yet they are different than the traditional technology startup DNA so the ways that you hire, motivate, compensate and assess performance of these individuals will be different. My first startup was no different.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

socalTECH

DECEMBER 12, 2013

DreamHost was doing around $30 million when I joined, and we''re now approaching $50 million in recurring revenue, due to hosting growth and cloud hosting growth. Hosting companies are in a very dynamic environment, with lots of competition, new technology, the cloud--how does this all affect your company?

Software Review 238

Software Review Cloud Computing Technical Review Platform 238

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

XPRIZE , the organization led by Peter Diamandis which runs prize competitions to spur technology advances to solve major, human issues, is taking aim at a big issue with its newest XPRIZE: CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The XPRIZE group said the technologies will be tested at either a coal power plant or natural gas facility.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Competition .Net Organization 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

so compelling (other than the fact that the CEO Sean Rad is a great young technology leader and his advisers – Brian Norgard , Dan Gould and Evan Rifkin - are some of the guys I respect most in the LA tech market.). Wordpress), video (YouTube), pictures (Flickr), review sites (Yelp) and collaborative content (Wikipedia).

Ideas 286

Ideas Advertising Google Technical Review 286

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

AngelList 101 : As you know, AngelList is a platform where angels can invest in semi-screened tech deals. I know the populist sentiment about VCs is that many want to believe that taking one’s time to make investments is due to 8-week’s holiday every summer and not working past 5pm. That would add too much overhead.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2022

According to a classic survey conducted by Dimensional Research for Zendesk , 90 percent of respondents asserted that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions, and 86 percent admitted buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews. Let your continuous innovation become your sustainable competitive advantage.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Organization Social Media Entrepreneur 151

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2020

Charlene Li, in her classic book “ Open Leadership ,” shows leaders how to tap into the power of the social technology revolution and use social media to be “open” while still maintaining control. When done well, an organization’s online community can become a competitive advantage. Open microphone: encouraging participation.

Framework 159

Framework Social Media Software Review Social Network 159

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Only one guy in the room knew – their tech lead. Once you churn a user due to stability or performance problems it can be hard to get them back. How many adds came through organic SEO? Most people under estimate the challenge of winning “share of mind” the least understood concept with tech entrepreneurs. In 6 months?

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Custom 346

InfoChachkie

JUNE 4, 2012

Value is created through diligent hard work. Once you prove that a substantial number of people are willing to pay more for your solution than it costs you to provide it, you can then consider licensing your underlying technology. Fallacy: Most large organizations are driven by the fear of loss, rather than hope of gain.

Entrepreneur 272

Entrepreneur Outsource Ideas Technical Review 272

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. They are the lifeblood of many companies yet they are different than the traditional technology startup DNA so the ways that you hire, motivate, compensate and assess performance of these individuals will be different. My first startup was no different.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Custom 316

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 3, 2021

Starting an entrepreneurial business, or maintaining the competitiveness of a mature business, requires innovation. Real innovation only happens in entrepreneurial organizations. Other innovations, such as the ones from Kaizen initiatives, can only come from established organizations and processes.

Organization 172

Organization Ideas Technical Review Research 172

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2016

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Innocal Offshore Entrepreneur 63