Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal. Neither is very strategic nor in the best interest of either set of customers that VCs have (portfolio companies & LPs). We tell startup stories.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. I run the recruiting process for my VC firm, GRP Partners. I want our associate to have empathy for the customers we serve — our portfolio companies. What about VC’s and Risk? It was May. I don’t think so.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital CTO Hire 293

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Putting customers first. Legendary customer support. Through advertising or direct sales, these sites harvest intent. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said. Innovative.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

socalTECH

JANUARY 17, 2013

We spoke with Christopher Webb, the firm's CEO, to hear about how ChowNow's goal is to make mobile, social orders something any restaurant can afford and implement--and how a new $3M funding round from GRP Partners, Double M Capital, Daher Capital, Karlin Ventures, and Velos Partners is helping it to deliver on its mission.

Mobile 197

Mobile Startup Platform GRP Partners 197

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 18, 2009

Customers are harder to sign than you want. You’ve got to accept customer losses as learning experiences and see how you can improve next time. But then I got a call from my lead investor (coincidentally it was GRP Partners where I now am a partner) and they told me not to lose confidence.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners Venture Capital 298

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Messenger : Rob Duva , Co-Founder, COO RingRevenue, prior Director of Customer Acquisition, CallWave. Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. Work hard to get the right people on your team.

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

I have no quarterly sales targets for the first time in a decade – For anybody who’s ever been in a company with sales targets you can attest to what a fire drill the ends of March, June, September and December can be. You get on a plane at a moment’s notice because a senior customer agreed to meet you.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

If you care about accessing customers, reaching an audience, communicating your vision, influencing people in your industry, marketing your services or just plain engaging in a dialog with others in your industry a blog is a great way to achieve this. I’ll bet your customers, business partners or suppliers would love similar.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

My firm, GRP Partners, invested in the company that innovated this entire category – Overture (formerly known as GoTo.com). further down the sales funnel from CPC advertising where you pay for a click but still need to convert on your own). But higher value product sales often require a phone call.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Look beyond California and you have group purchasing (GroupOn in Chicago, LivingSocial in Washington DC), private sales (Gilt Groupe in NY, HauteLook in LA), artisan marketplaces (Etsy in NY), eCommerce (Amazon in Seattle) and on and on. If you hit a groove on funding and customer growth it does become a challenge to ramp quickly.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Huge structural under-employment in much of the country and full employment in some niche tech markets where it’s impossible to hire developers, designers or sales professionals. customers who paid for services often get burned. So at GRP Partners we’re very active now. You know what I’m talking about.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ). He knows the ad management and ad network businesses.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

SoCal CTO

JUNE 14, 2008

Benefit of a proprietary platform can be finding customers. Mark Suster Partner GRP Partners He's an ex-Salesforce.com employee. First company built on top of EMC, Unix servers, field sales to large clients. Stamps.com - two back-ends - mainline service vs. marketing site. I would tend to agree. Completely agree.

Platform 150

Platform EC2 Java S3 150

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

We brought together Peter Cowen of Groundwork Equity , Mark Suster of GRP Partners , Rick Smith of Crosscut Ventures , and Richard Yen of Saban Ventures -- all of who will be on the judging panel for the Tech Coast Angel's Fast Pitch on February 24th, to give us a their hints and tips about pitching to venture capitalists.

Tech Coast Angels 100

Tech Coast Angels Ideas Entrepreneur Invest 100