Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

With valuations rising fastest in late-stage venture and the competition that is well-known from corporate VCs, mutual funds, hedge funds (and even LPs), it is unsurprising that LPs are most concerned about late-stage VC. But of course, for every angle of the market where one person sees caution, another spots opportunities.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2012

I met with local seed fund investors like Mike Venerable who is the MD of CincyTech (a local seed stage fund), Tony Shipley who is a director of Queen City Angels as well as some local entrepreneurs including Blake Shipley of CoupSmart and Sameer Mungur of ZipScene. “But, ” OF COURSE! Of course they don’t.

Press

socalTECH

JULY 26, 2012

seed funding round, led by GRP Partners, CrossCut Ventures, Adam Goldenberg (JustFab), and Michel Daher (of Daher Foods). The startup, founded by David Hauslaib and Tom Balamaci, operates a subscription service which ships out three-course, frozen meals to people which have been developed by top chefs.

GRP Partners

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

Therefore of course they need to be more selection when writing checks and can’t spread their bets across 75 deals. million and tell the entrepreneur that they can bring in angels or seed funds for the remaining investment if they want. Of course the same goes with traditional VCs. This is what leads do.

Venture Capital

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 15, 2015

million in seed funding since its founding in 2012. The post Tapiture Taps Into Successful Social eCommerce And Secures $2.25M In Seed Funding appeared first on TechZulu. Santa-Monica based Tapiture has grown in traffic by 300%, monetized from year one and raised $2.25

Seed Funding

SoCal CTO

APRIL 2, 2012

Hiring seems to be the preferred use of seed funds (by investors and founders), whereas I'd prefer a focus on customer acquisition. Of course, there's still hard work to be done to as the bad news is that its hard finding good Web Development in Los Angeles and certainly its tough Finding Developers Here in Los Angeles.

CTO Hire

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. But of course it’s hard to advise people that they should do PR without a guide to how to do it on the cheap or how to do it at all.

Press

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are so many events to attend that one could become a full time conference attendee and you could easily feel like you’re missing out with each event that happens without you and of course there is Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat to remind you just how fun it was for everybody else. For investors life is no different.

Software Review

socalTECH

OCTOBER 1, 2019

Los Angeles-based Knowable , which offers up paid, audio classes on a wide range of topics, said it launched on Tuesday morning, charging students $100 per student for access to a wide range of audio course on topics ranging from launching a startup to sleeping better at night.

Class

socalTECH

APRIL 10, 2018

other companies, which are already off and running are ready for aceclerators and seed funding. We occupy the space in ecosystem to service companies who are getting ready for seed or have just started to go out for seed funding. Steve Blank teaches at Stanford business school, but he's open sourced the course.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

Before skimmers race to the comments or Twitter to complain – I’m not saying intro’s aren’t valuable – of course they are. You need to say “no” faster to things you know you’re not going to fund based on fit, focus, geography, quality of concept, conflicts with portfolio.

Startup

socalTECH

DECEMBER 4, 2020

Los Angeles-based The Skills , a startup which operates an online education site where professional sports players teach different skills, said on Friday that it has raised $5M in a seed funding round. The funding was led by Will Ventures, and also included Global Founders Capital, 8VC, Maveron, Hack VC, and Correlation VC.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

In the old days there usually weren’t convertible notes on early-stage deals and there weren’t party rounds with 20 angels or 6 seed funds. Of course investors care about controls (board, protective provisions, IP assignments, non-solicitation) but these are all pretty standard. Those are the big three.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

This has led to the creation of incubators, accelerators and seed funds. Contrary to some press reporting, the boom in startups, the creation of accelerators and seed funds as well as the deserved popularity of AngelList do not signal doom for our industry. Thank you, Aaron Sorkin! The Exit Problem. Today’s Normalization.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

On Funding?—?Shots Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing.

Funding

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

One of the attributes of this prize, is that USC is going to also conduct a business plan preparation and entrepreneurship course for the students. After the course, we're hoping that they will then come up with eight to ten different, professionally prepared business plans based on the original idea of the engineer or innovator.

Competition

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

When we get involved in Seed investments we usually represent 60–80% in one of the first institutional rounds of capital, we almost always take board seats and then we serve these founders over the course of a decade or longer. In fact, I am still active on two boards where I first invested in 2009.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

” Of course life is more complicated. Back then Michael Arrington accused some of Silicon Valley’s top seed funds of “colluding” by meeting secretly to talk down the valuation of startups. Of course a group of 10 seed funds can’t fix the prices of a market. What hogwash.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

Of course you could start your own company. Of course I’m not suggesting people shouldn’t start a company. And if you want to be a CEO one day you need the messaging to reflect that. For many people that’s the right answer. If you can and if you want to – you should.

Technical Review

socalTECH

JUNE 1, 2012

We had worked together for six years before starting MergeLocal, which came about on the golf course. Can you talk about how your company is funded? Michael Wong: We're with StartEngine, and have received a small amount of seed funding from them. We're also funding it out of pocket.

CTO Coach

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

But if there is nothing wrong with you then please don’t let early rejections alter your course.” When investors hear that somebody else wanted to fund you it gets their FOMO going and they pile on. When you’re funded you’re often over-funded. When you finally get a term sheet you get three.

Press

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2020

Of course, every alternative has advantages and disadvantages, so any given one may not be available or attractive to you. For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Funding

Tech.Co

JANUARY 15, 2018

The constantly changing media landscape is relentless, so our seed funding part-way through our journey from the Zappos leadership of Tony Hsieh and Fred Mossler via the downtown Las Vegas revitalization efforts of the Downtown Project was particularly helpful as we adjusted, and readjusted.

Media

socalTECH

JUNE 19, 2019

We have highly engaging courses, taught by professional players, and where you track your progress, driven by data, and which also features an on-demand marketplace to help you find any coach you want to help you improve your play on any game. After finishing a course, we've found they likely also want to find a coach.

Help

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2022

Some entrepreneurs, like Paul Graham , co-founder of Y-Combinator, and Dave McClure , founder of 500 Startups, mask their focus on multiple startups by running an incubator or accelerator, and providing seed funding for a number of individual efforts. Of course, there are huge risks when you try to ride multiple horses at one time.

Entrepreneur

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

Of course everything could be replicated if a massive juggernaut like Amazon or Google wanted to pour all of their resources into it but I’m talking about technology that is hard to replicate, takes years of know-how and once adopted is significantly valuable. Of course the media doesn’t do nuance well so this is an emotional topic.

Venture Capital

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

Initial funding. Many incubators do provide seed funding for entrepreneurs selected, usually in small amounts like $10,000 to $20,000, and usually taking 5% to 15% of your equity in return. His tests focus on personality traits alone (ignoring your startup idea), looking for fluid intelligence, openness, and agreeableness.

Incubator

socalTECH

MARCH 8, 2013

We have our own small seed fund, which we trigger to fund that company and hire a team, a CEO and a CTO. Or, they might have taken funding from a major VC, and will need to swing for the fences, which means they are going to have to pass up on an acquisition and build a bigger company.

Incubator

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

An investor called the founder, spoke for 30 minutes on the phone and committed to funding having never met the team. Great seed investors like Bryce Roberts / OATV (and other great ones like Floodgate , Founder Collective , Information Arbitrage or Rincon Ventures ) still get all the dealflow the need. Isolated incident?

Venture Capital

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2013

Initial funding. Many incubators do provide seed funding for entrepreneurs selected, usually in small amounts like $10,000 to $20,000, and usually taking 5% to 15% of your equity in return. His tests focus on personality traits alone (ignoring your startup idea), looking for fluid intelligence, openness, and agreeableness.

Incubator

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Ann Wang: Thanks to the recent Forbes competition, and a lot of momentum from that, we actually are opening up a round for seed funding in the next month or two. We''re now releasing a brand new look to our collection, with new stories and impacts and people, and of course amazing products.

Commerce

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 16, 2012

In the Fall Knwomia promises to bring what it calls Mini-Courses; less than an hour teacher-curated video lessons with teacher comments and quizzes to measure students progress. Knowmia is a Y Combinator startup and is self and seed funded. The application is in public beta with additional features coming.

Education

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Of course, every alternative has advantages and disadvantages, so any given one may not be available or attractive to you. For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2019

Some entrepreneurs, like Paul Graham , co-founder of Y-Combinator, and Dave McClure , founder of 500 Startups, mask their focus on multiple startups by running an incubator or accelerator, and providing seed funding for a number of individual efforts. Of course, there are huge risks when you try to ride multiple horses at one time.

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2014

Initial funding. Many incubators do provide seed funding for entrepreneurs selected, usually in small amounts like $10,000 to $20,000, and usually taking 5% to 15% of your equity in return. His tests focus on personality traits alone (ignoring your startup idea), looking for fluid intelligence, openness, and agreeableness.

Incubator

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2016

Of course, every alternative has advantages and disadvantages, so any given one may not be available or attractive to you. For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

Of course, every alternative has advantages and disadvantages, so any given one may not be available or attractive to you. For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Startup