Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2019

Brands need influencers working on their behalf because they provide the third-party credibility and social proof that validates their products. Friendster was a fad, Second Life was a fad, MySpace was a fad, and Facebook suddenly seems old school. That won’t build any competitive advantage. Where did your friends go?

Social Media 95

Social Media Media Snapchat Platform 95

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

Web-based client for user stream data including Twitter (original focus), FaceBook, MySpace, Google Buzz, FourSquare and many others. It’s a very product that allows you to do visual search of eBay, ETSY, Match.com, AllRecipes and several others sites. It’s a cool product and worth checking out. They sponsor TWiVC.

Venture Capital 214

Venture Capital Startup Design S3 214

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2019

Of course, growth is implied in that equation, and is also required for maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Design a product or service that you can sell. Sure, you may need to give the product away for free to get traction, but assume you will have to sell something someday to get profitable and stay alive.

Snapchat 74

Snapchat Startup Course Yahoo 74

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 6, 2013

I moved in marketing for NextTag and I was part of the team that launched consumer lending products. I became friends with Tom Anderson and I jumped onto MySpace when it first launched. After MySpace was acquired by Fox, I learned that there was a huge market for ad inventory. What other products do you sell?

Marketing 96

Marketing Startup Incubator Advertising 96

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

No business or startup wants to be the next Myspace, or even the next RIM (BlackBerry), where changes in the marketplace were subtle. For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box.

Entrepreneur 93

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Examples 93

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2015

Some of you may remember MySpace , which came early to social media, but lost the lead to Facebook by evolving too slowly, many analysts say. A sense of urgency won’t save a bad idea or the wrong team, but the good news is that it will fail faster, allowing people to move on quickly to more productive opportunities.

Startup 103

Startup Social Media Custom Customer 103

socalTECH

JULY 7, 2011

Bryan Hertz: We do a lot here, but our flagship product is VoxOx. Although there are lots of aggregation products like Trillian for instant messaging, there are also lots of apps which are Sunday hack-a-thon types of apps. What has set us aside from the competition, is we built our own back end telco platform.

Social Network 259

Social Network Platform Networking Google 259

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2013

Of course, growth is implied in that equation, and is also required for maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Design a product or service that you can sell. Sure, you may need to give the product away for free to get traction, but assume you will have to sell something someday to get profitable and stay alive.

Startup 96

Startup Course Yahoo Funding 96

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 27, 2015

Brands need influencers working on their behalf because they provide the third-party credibility and social proof that validates their products. Friendster was a fad, Second Life was a fad, MySpace was a fad, and Facebook suddenly seems old school. That won’t build any competitive advantage. Where did your friends go?

Social Media 101

Social Media Media Marketing Snapchat 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 15, 2017

Of course, growth is implied in that equation, and is also required for maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Design a product or service that you can sell. Sure, you may need to give the product away for free to get traction, but assume you will have to sell something someday to get profitable and stay alive.

Snapchat 55

Snapchat Startup Course Yahoo 55

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2017

Brands need influencers working on their behalf because they provide the third-party credibility and social proof that validates their products. Friendster was a fad, Second Life was a fad, MySpace was a fad, and Facebook suddenly seems old school. That won’t build any competitive advantage. Where did your friends go?

Social Media 64

Social Media Media Snapchat Platform 64

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 18, 2015

No business or startup wants to be the next Myspace, or even the next RIM (BlackBerry), where changes in the marketplace were subtle. For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur eBook Metrics Startup 106

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

LA not only produced the obvious – MySpace – but also created the whole category of sponsored search (Overture), AdSense (Applied Semantics), Local Search (City Search), comparison shopping (PriceGrabber, Shopzilla) and lead generation (LowerMyBills). Much of this was highlighted at Twiistup.

Twiistup 228

Twiistup SoCal Southern California Yammer 228

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. That's the one we'll mass product. We talked with Dubin earlier about the company. It's David vs. Goliath.

Dollar Shave Club 210

Dollar Shave Club Startup Pricing Sample 210

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2013

Brands need influencers working on their behalf because they provide the third-party credibility and social proof that validates their products. Friendster was a fad, Second Life was a fad, MySpace was a fad, and Facebook suddenly seems old school. That won’t build any competitive advantage. Where did your friends go?

Social Media 100

Social Media Media Marketing Platform 100

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 1, 2013

Obviously these folks were serious about winning this competition, and had no time to worry about who the guy taking pictures with his iPhone. Microsoft , MySpace , WIX and Nokia all joined the Sponsors list by providing funds and products to distribute as awards. We’ve got to admit, their app was quite dazzling.

UCLA 96

UCLA Ideas Yahoo Competition 96

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2017

No business or startup wants to be the next Myspace, or even the next RIM (BlackBerry), where changes in the marketplace were subtle. For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box.

eBook 52

eBook Metrics Examples Startup 52

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 15, 2013

No business or startup wants to be the next Myspace, or even the next RIM (BlackBerry), where changes in the marketplace were subtle. For example, if it’s getting harder to charge a price premium for the product you’re marketing, or others are offering your subscription service for free, it may be time to start thinking in a new box.

eBook 95

eBook Metrics Startup Examples 95

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2014

Startup productivity is embodied in key ratios, including low cost of customer acquisition, high retention and high revenue per employee. Too many of the high user-growth startups have been fads, and numbers can go down as fast as they go up, as per Friendster and MySpace. Understanding competitive early-mover requirements.

Entrepreneur 98

Entrepreneur Organization Invest Customer 98

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2016

Startup productivity is embodied in key ratios, including low cost of customer acquisition, high retention, and high revenue per employee. Too many of the high user growth startups have been fads, and numbers can go down as fast as they go up, as per Friendster and MySpace. Understanding competitive early mover requirements.

Startup 58

Startup Organization Invest Customer 58

socalTECH

JUNE 30, 2010

A few months later, we won the USC New Venture Competition. They can contribute content, contribute their edits, remix video, work together as groups, and then send that content across the web to Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, or their own website. We licensed our product to USC Annenberg as a teaching tool in the classroom.

Journal 187

Journal USC News Startup 187

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

But, with Intercasting and our ANTHEM version of MySpace, it's a client integrated into the device. You can do additional things like access the camera, upload photos directly to MySpace, go to your address book on the phone and send direct message to friends. We're really focused on enterprise sales and carrier grade products.

Social Network 113

Social Network Anthem Mobile Java 113

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

An investment doesn’t guarantee your product will suddenly be on the investor’s price sheet. Founded in April/May 2010 by Diego Berdakin (Ex-Slingshot Labs) and Josh Berman (Ex-Slingshot Labs, MySpace Co-founder) in Santa Monica, CA. FTC is considering an investigation into Apple’s anti-competitive practices.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

socalTECH

JUNE 30, 2009

What really differentiates us from our competition is the data set we have. Our competition doesn't have that data. For example, if you write a letter, you can post it to Facebook, or Myspace, or send a tweet about it--it's all integrated into the product itself. We offer Federal, State, county, and city representatives.

Startup 100

Startup Writing Southern California Email 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

So we ended up with “real-time streams&# in Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blip.FM, etc. If anybody is to show ads you then need to decide: banner ads (how’d that go for MySpace?), Just ask MySpace. If we continue our success we will have strong competition. All of them are really sharp on product and market.

Ideas 286

Ideas Advertising Google Technical Review 286

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2010

Alec Shankman is CEO of Santa Monica-based Gotcast (www.gotcast.com), an online site focused on casting of actors for television shows, movies, and other productions. News, ABC competition game shows, feature films, etc.--people We sat down with Alec the other day to hear more about the company and what it's try to do.

Hollywood 252

Hollywood Startup Sites SEO 252

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. So, you need to develop a product? Scrappy versus Steady (Part 1 of a 5 part series: "So, you need to develop a product?") Build a SWAT team 3.

Outsource Development 40

Outsource Development Develop Development Product 40

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2011

One of the toughest and yet most important questions you will be asked by savvy potential startup investors is “What is your sustainable competitive advantage?” Yet many entrepreneurs, maybe in their passion for their new product, gloss over this one, or even announce that they have no competition.

Competition 102

Competition Patents Startup Social Network 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

In reality, too many choices actually dilutes customer interest in your existing market, and makes your job of production, marketing, and support much more complex. New entrepreneurs, especially technical ones, are excited by early adopters, and tend to focus on their feedback, which will always suggest more product features and options.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Custom 160

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 15, 2022

Consider MySpace and Webvan. By definition, most startups begin as a result of some innovation in product, process, or service. The problem is that innovations in most business areas are coming so fast these days that yours can be overrun while still being scaled up across geographies and other products. Product-line expansion.

Startup 142

Startup Web 2.0 IBM IBM 142

SoCal Delicious

MARCH 1, 2010

And thats not even counting MySpace, which Rupert Murdoch famously paid $580 million for in 2005. If you look at Google in the way they operate, you have two products, one is called AdWords, one is called AdSense, okay? Because its just not that hyper-competitive, Im-hiring-all-your-staff, because-Im-Google environment.

Los Angeles 50

Los Angeles Company Companies Angel 50

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

Nanea help leadership roles at EA (SVP, COO Global Online), Gaikai (Chief Product Officer, Chief Strategy Officer), JAMDAT (SVP), Machinma (COO) and currently textPlus (President & COO – including leading engineering and product). Here are some things we discussed: User experience focused product management.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Blogging RSS Organization 315

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 28, 2010

One of the toughest and yet most important questions you will be asked by savvy potential investors is “What is your sustainable competitive advantage?” Yet many entrepreneurs, maybe in their passion for their new product, gloss over this one, or even announce that they have no competition. Proven team with inside relationships.

Competition 49

Competition Tips Patents Startup 49

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2019

Consider MySpace and Webvan. By definition, most startups begin as a result of some innovation in product, process, or service. The problem is that innovations in most business areas are coming so fast these days that yours can be overrun while still being scaled across geographies and other products. Product-line expansion.

Startup 89

Startup Web 2.0 IBM IBM 89

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 14, 2015

Consider MySpace and Webvan. By definition, most startups begin as a result of some innovation in product, process, or service. The problem is that innovations in most business areas are coming so fast these days that yours can be overrun while still be scaled across geographies and other products. Product-line expansion.

Startup 98

Startup Marketing Web 2.0 IBM 98

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

It’s hard to get people to take a risk at a startup or for a reasonable salary with all this competition. We have the actors, directors, producers, lighting specialists, writers, agents, post-production editors, etc. Each of these companies exited for more than $500 million and several north of $1 billion.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2017

Consider MySpace and Webvan. By definition, most startups begin as a result of some innovation in product, process, or service. The problem is that innovations in most business areas are coming so fast these days that yours can be overrun while still be scaled across geographies and other products. Product-line expansion.

Startup 53

Startup Web 2.0 IBM IBM 53