Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Setting up the business as an LLC or C-corporation can now be done online with low registration fees and minimal risk.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

I recently wrote about the 12 tips to building successful startup communities. I lived in London from 1997-2005 and for 6 of those years ran my startup based out of London. It was a strange contrast for me having grown up in Northern California where failure seemed to be a badge of honor. I remember this lesson well.

Startup 350

Startup Ideas Education Class 350

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2011

As you might imagine, when you go to the page on Customer Development , you find the best and the latest content from people like Steve Blank and Vinicius Vacanti. Or looking at issues around Founders you find the great post from Ben Yoskovitz on Founder DNA – How Investors Evaluate Startup Founders.

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Content Startup Social Media IP 175

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2023

A common initiative I hear from business owners today is their effort to improve the customer experience. To achieve real growth, business leaders need to improve both employee as well as customer experiences. Flexible – listen to allow flex hours and customization. Proactive – timely communication to build trust.

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Customer Custom Training Tool 113

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 12, 2018

seems like an unlikely place to grow one of the next billion-dollar startups in the booming Los Angeles tech ecosystem. But it’s here in the (other) Valley’s southernmost edge that investors have found a startup they consider to be the next potential billion-dollar “unicorn” that will come out of Los Angeles.

Glendale 271

Glendale Los Angeles Startup Technical Review 271

SoCal Tech Calendar

SEPTEMBER 15, 2012

Friday, September 21, 2012 -- Lean Startup Machine. Lean Startup Machine is a three-day workshop where attendees use Customer Development and Lean Startup principles to validate an idea for a new product or service. See [link] (more)

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Startup Custom Development Ideas Customer 124

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. And market your brand, not your personality.

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Startup Venture Capital Tips Custom Development 279

InfoChachkie

APRIL 16, 2012

Article first published as Steve Blank Discusses Origin And Future Of Lean Startup Movement on Technorati. I recently spoke with Steve Blank, author of the new book The Startup Owner’s Manual. He is credited with pioneering the Lean Startup Movement in 2005 via the publication of his bestselling, Four Steps To The Epiphany.

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Startup Class Press Custom Development 229

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 4, 2012

Sunday, June 10, 2012 -- Lean Startup Machine is a three-day workshop where attendees use Customer Development and Lean Startup principles to validate an idea for a new product or service. See [link] (more)

Startup 113

Startup Custom Development Ideas Customer 113

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 3, 2012

Saturday, June 9, 2012 -- Lean Startup Machine is a three-day workshop where attendees use Customer Development and Lean Startup principles to validate an idea for a new product or service. See [link] (more)

Startup 113

Startup Custom Development Ideas Customer 113

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 2, 2012

Friday, June 8, 2012 -- Lean Startup Machine is a three-day workshop where attendees use Customer Development and Lean Startup principles to validate an idea for a new product or service. See [link] (more)

Startup 113

Startup Custom Development Ideas Customer 113

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

Because of this, I've always tried to stay up-to-speed on how early-stage investors look at valuation of companies. He just post: Establishing the Pre-money Valuation of Pre-revenue Startups. What are they really looking for? What do you really need to prove? is a requirement. It's required reading.

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Startup Custom Development Sales Writing 198

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 19, 2012

He wanted to get input from me on what he's doing, and he wants to begin to ask developers what it would take to build his product. I asked some of the same questions I ask in my Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions and then I get to a very common conversation: Me : Do you have specs? Founder : Ummm. what do you mean?

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Develop Development Technical Review CTO Coach 354

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

These two ads showed how disconnected from their customers these once industry leaders have become. Sadly this is just a single example of what is happening to thousand of companies that are not listening to their respective customers. What IMVU thought was game changing technology was not why customers used the software.

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Customer Custom Blogging Startup 72

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. You could just outspend.

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Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Some great content around the intersection of startups and being a Startup CTO in June this year. This continues my series of posts: Top 30 Startup Posts in June 2010 Top 29 Startup Posts May 2010 Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March The following are the top items based on social signals.

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Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2016

Aliso Viejo-based software developer Smith Micro Sofware said that it has launched a new, design and development service, which will help its customers develop their own mobile apps. According to Smith Micro, the service is aimed at B2 enterprises and startups, and help them develop iOS, Android, and Windows apps.

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Design Develop Development Services 100

SoCal Tech Calendar

DECEMBER 8, 2010

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 -- LeanLA December Meetup: Conquering Madison Avenue as a Lean Startup. Battle stories and lessons learned about how Sharethrough, applying the lean startup process, figured out the advertising landscape and customer developed their way into the door of a myriad of Fortune 500 customers.

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Startup Advertising Custom Development Customer 100

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

Yesterday I wrote a post about how much capital your startup should raise. That is so self centered it winds me up. Who started this meme? I say define a strategy, test it up front and pivot if you’re not getting the traction you had expected. Validate that you can make money before starting.

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Startup Entrepreneur Customer Custom 308

socalTECH

OCTOBER 6, 2017

We caught up with Lauren to hear about Hopscotch, and why teams and schools are turning to the company to power their mobile apps. Laurence Sotsky: I started the company about two and a half years ago, with the intent of connecting people to their passions. We got our start in sports, with a ton of mobile applications for sports fans.

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Mobile Platform El Segundo UCLA 162

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

I started with a Top 10 list for Nivi (at VentureHacks), but I couldn’t cram it into 10 so it became a Top 11 list. In no time after they had researched their market they were up with pilots with local TV stations in 3 key DMAs. This is exactly the reason I like people who present to me to start with their personal bios.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Startup SaaS San Diego 267

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. equity debate.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

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Startup Invest CTO Hire Cloud Computing 97

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Setting up the business as an LLC or C-corporation can now be done online with low registration fees and minimal risk.

Entrepreneur 104

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Commerce 104

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

The creators of the renowned StartupWeekend — a place where random ad hoc teams work frantically for 54 hours to build a demo of a new business and then complete for fame and fortune — have picked up where StartupWeekend left off and have birthed a new course for entrepreneurs who need to level up called StartupWeekend Next.

Class 98

Class Mentor Startup UCLA 98

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 5, 2012

Startup Weekend LA has grown to become a very special event here in Los Angeles. It’s also a very exciting time here in LA Tech with over 6 accelerators and incubators springing up over the past year. On Friday evening, the SWLA energy started to brew at the Coloft as participants began showing up around 5:00 PM.

Startup 66

Startup Mahalo Technical Review Idealab 66

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. I care about your assumptions going in.

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2010

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

Startup 90

Startup CTO Hire Cloud Computing CIO 90

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

At the time when you did a search on Lycos, Alta Vista or similar for a category such as Cars you ended up getting 9 spam results and 1 proper website to meet your needs. He came up to Bill after the event and said, “clever idea, we should do that with you.&# The idea actually came to him from the Yellow Pages business.

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Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2014

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). Chief Brand Officer.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Funding Cloud Computing CIO 100

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 21, 2011

Welcome to the accelerated version of Startup Weekend. Brought back fond memories of my weekend at Startup Weekend. Just like Startup Weekend most had never meet their team mates until the day of, and came together to develop a possible prize winning product in eight hours. All coming to join in on the fun.

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Santa Monica Startup PHP HTML 90

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 10, 2011

The message was clear, beware of false prophets when dealing with your young and budding startup. This particular evening, we attended the LeanLA meet-up located at Coloft, a swank professional co-op/work space in the heart of Santa Monica, known as the epicenter of the LA startup scene. If not validated, re-state assumptions.

Startup 86

Startup Santa Monica Los Angeles Custom Development 86

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

So when Google started pushing AdSense (ads for affiliate or 3rd party sites) they had a HUGE cost advantage. Plus, a TweetUp already means a meet up in a city organized through Twitter. In the former case many people scoffed at paying up for Google at IPO. Tiny Speck Online gaming start-up. He’ll pivot.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Capital Google Platform 271

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 23, 2016

This information is used to speed up the hiring process and find better fits, benefiting employees and employers alike. Fenero is a provider of cloud-based contact center solutions for sales and customer service operations worldwide. This could include information on LinkedIn, media sources and more.

SaaS 49

SaaS Artificial Inteligence Netflix Platform 49

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 3, 2010

If you’ve ever wondered what your customers think while on your website, you’ll love KISSinsights. If you’ve ever wanted to ask questions to your users, you’ll love KISSinsights. If you’ve ever read a post by Steve Blank or Eris Ries, you’ll love KISSinsights.

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Customer Custom Custom Development Web 74