Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 20, 2021

Based on my experience as a business advisor, I’m convinced that most startup investors invest in the entrepreneur, as much as a solution or product. Dominate or create the market category you seek. Convince people the market needs what you have. Show, don’t tell people what your product can do.

Startup 162

Startup Entrepreneur IBM IBM 162

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

Social Networks: Past, Present & Future. I recently spoke at Caltech at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking,&# the 30-minute video is here and the PowerPoint presentation is here on DocStoc ). What are the big trends that will drive the next phase of social networks?

Social Network 297

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Web 297

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 10, 2022

For example, I’m an introverted product guy who doesn’t care so much about building the personnel relationships needed to keep a motivated team. My advice is to build the relationship first through networking, and find some common values and passion, before assuming that money and experience will solve all potential partner differences.

Mentor 133

Mentor Startup Customer Custom 133

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2011

Wondering how, as a small business, you can reach customers in the YouTube age? Well, Los Angeles based Near Networks (www.nearnetworks.com) is looking to both reach customers online, and avoid the tacky, lousy production of typical small business ads, with a new service. What is Near Networks?

Networking 150

Networking Search Engine Optimization Product Startup 150

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 18, 2022

Things have already plunged so quickly at the signal of a recession that insiders fear a lengthy bear market could hit crypto far more brutally than expected — tearing tokens to lows far below the highs of the 2017 bull run. We talked through what went wrong on the Celsius network and how it’s surprisingly intertwined with the rest of crypto.

Newsletter 278

Newsletter Platform Capital Marketing 278

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 13, 2015

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should select only social media for marketing, or stick with digital media, or just count on traditional media. Social media as a marketing tool is here to stay, and is now widely accepted. Don’t try to tackle all 20 major categories of digital social media at once.

Social Media 108

Social Media Media Marketing Resource 108

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2017

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should select only social media for marketing, or stick with digital media, or just count on traditional media. Social media as a marketing tool is here to stay, and is now widely accepted. Don’t try to tackle all 20 major categories of digital social media at once.

Media 59

Media Marketing Social Media Resource 59

socalTECH

JANUARY 7, 2015

In the last few years, Southern California has been a key market in launching mobile applications and services, due to a huge, mobile-savvy consumer population. San Diego is a great market for us, because it has strong smartphone usage, and a great, mixed demographic. We operate our site differently, here and in other markets.

San Diego 100

San Diego Mobile Marketing Sites 100

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 1, 2013

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should use social media for marketing, digital media, or traditional media. The place to start today is if your company only uses traditional media for marketing, or no marketing. The place to start today is if your company only uses traditional media for marketing, or no marketing.

Social Media 103

Social Media Media Marketing Startup 103

Tech.Co

MAY 31, 2023

Business tools — from customer relationship management ( CRM ) platforms to accounting software — help to save startups time and money by automating key processes and maximizing efficiency. Yet, with so many tools vying for the attention of business owners, navigating the over-saturated market can be overwhelming. While Hide.me

Tool 128

Tool Startup Software Review Technical Review 128

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation: The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer. Decreasing Your Customer Acquisition Costs. This is equivalent to being handed a free customer for every ten customers you acquire.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should use social media for marketing, digital media, or traditional media. The place to start today is if your company only uses traditional media for marketing, or no marketing. The place to start today is if your company only uses traditional media for marketing, or no marketing.

Media 92

Media Social Media Marketing Resource 92

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Many writers have outlined the critical success factors for product companies, like sell every unit at a profit, patent the design, and continuous product improvement. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see. The distinction between product companies and services companies is easy to see.

Product 91

Product Services Satisfaction Patents 91

socalTECH

DECEMBER 5, 2014

The companyin the spirit of Nestis hoping that consumers will help drive adoption of its product, which it expects to ship in January. We spoke with founder Manrique Brenes --a veteran of such companies as Skype and Cisco--to hear about Blossom''s products, plus its link to such companies at Vizio. What your product all about?

Demand 258

Demand Startup Southern California Marketing 258

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. But of course Google eventually became the massive winner in this category.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

We spoke with one of those companies-- El Segundo-based ConsumerTrack (www.consumertrack.com)--which is a $30M, bootstrapped an online marketing company which is driving millions of customers to big name, financial customers. Brett Rossman: ConsumerTrack is a performance-based, online marketing company.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

We think there is a new category of the e-commerce and shopping sector, the entertainment sector. We allow customers to buy mystery bags of fashion items, and trade them. Very simply, you find a product you like, and offer a product you own. Dan Murillo: Little Black Back is what we call an entertainment shopping company.

Commerce 153

Commerce Sites Entertainment Social Network 153

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). It’s why opt-in marketing databases can be so incredibly valuable for companies like Gilt Groupe, One King’s Lane and AdoreMe. People don’t want to speak to customer service reps. Not so fast.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2019

You can jump into social media with a poor brand definition, poorly focused content, unrealistic expectations of customer service, or be killed by malware or viruses. Assess social media relevance to your product or service. If your business is industrial B2B products, social media should be low on your list.

Social Media 79

Social Media Media Invest Platform 79

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

My friend Michael Broukhim, founder & co-CEO of FabFitFun and I recently had a catch-up meeting for 3-miles on the Santa Monica “Bird Trail” No company has ever elicited so many questions by friends, colleagues, entrepreneurs, fellow VCs and journalists as has Bird, the company that pioneered the electronic scooter as a service market.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2019

I think, to be a great entrepreneur, you have to look at what is missing in the category that you will be playing in the industry, and figure what you can deploy with a little bit of strategy and technology to bring a better service and price. People were not just going to Google, they were looking all over the place.

Content 193

Content Social Network Coach Help 193

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2018

Early-stage ideas fall in the same category. According to an old Harvard Business Review article, many people in history, famous for their inventions, like Thomas Edison, were entrepreneurs who only later were remembered as inventors of the products they commercialized. You need a viable business model and customers.

Technical Review 86

Technical Review Patents Ideas Journal 86

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

As I like to say, “If you’re really on to an enormous idea then other people in the market are going to spot that and want to compete with you. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market. Is it one product line or multiple?

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I want to understand how many units the company is selling, whether this is increasing over time and how well they’re doing at retaining the customers that they do acquire. Is it one product line or multiple? Do 20% of the customers make 80% of the revenue or do the top 3 customers represent 80% of the revenue.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

In my role as an angel investor in startups, almost every pitch I see highlights some real innovation in technology, business model, or market opportunity. If it’s not an order of magnitude better or cheaper, customers usually conclude that the risk and cost of change are simply not worth the potential payback over what they have today.

Netflix 54

Netflix Social Media Competition Customer 54

socalTECH

JANUARY 28, 2013

Steven Sesar: FreedomPop is all about bringing the freemium model to the wireless Internet market, and disrupting the telephone companies. There's massive inefficiency in this category. Currently, users pay up front for data packages, and there are inefficiencies in that market. Instead, we use the Internet model.

Startup 245

Startup IP Networking Encino 245

socalTECH

AUGUST 8, 2018

Dave Fink: Postie is a building a technology platform with a mission of making direct mail marketing behave as easily and dynamically as your favorite, programmatic channels. We've taken all of the logistics and headache out of defining a campaign for our customers. We build on those audiences, and find others that look alike.

CTO Hire 100

CTO Hire Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Marketing 100

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 18, 2012

ExplorerB2B is a free to join exclusive network of experts who share information that matters to you and make sure you expand your professional network, interact with a relevant audience and present your expertise. The result was a social platform especially built to serve the needs of Business-to-Business interaction and networking.

Networking 71

Networking Help Social Media Platform 71

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

.&# They know instinctually how customers buy and how to excite them. They spot opportunities that aren’t being met and the design products to meet these needs. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer&# when they’re presenting their concept. He was at a startup that was in a super hot sector.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

socalTECH

JANUARY 17, 2017

In emerging markets and the developing world, access to banking, capital, and financial resources is fare more difficult than here in the U.S., Shivani Siroya: Tala is a data company that is working in emerging markets. What we've developed, is an Android app that allows us to open up financial access to customers in emerging markets.

Startup 100

Startup Santa Monica Customer Custom 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. Gogii is the creator of the 36th most downloaded application in the history of the iPhone app store – a product called textPlus.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

socalTECH

MARCH 9, 2017

In an age where topics like Russian hacking, CIA hacking tools and the stability of the power grid and industrial networks has suddenly become important, there are only a few companies tackling industrial network security directly. Paul Myer: Veracity Industrial Networks is a startup in the industrial network security segment.

Networking 124

Networking Startup Incubator Orange County 124

socalTECH

AUGUST 7, 2009

Binary Pulse Technology Marketing (www.binarypulse.com). Custom Insurance Programs for Technology Companies. Cox Communications - Orange County - Looking for Product Marketing Manager. Pixelgate.net (www.pixelgate.net) - Internet Access, Web Hosting, Network Services. An on-line community for entrepreneurs.

SoCalTech 100

SoCalTech Orange County Southern California IP 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 18, 2014

Early-stage ideas fall in the same category. According to a Harvard Business Review article, many people in history, famous for their inventions, such as Thomas Edison, were entrepreneurs who only later were remembered as inventors of the products they commercialized. You need a viable business model and customers.

Ideas 106

Ideas Technical Review Patents Entrepreneur 106

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2017

You can jump into social media with a poor brand definition, poorly focused content, unrealistic expectations of customer service, or be killed by malware or viruses. Assess social media relevance to your product or service. If your business is industrial B2B products, social media should be low on your list.

Social Media 66

Social Media Media Tips Platform 66

socalTECH

MAY 21, 2013

Before that, I was running product at Spotrunner. I''ve grown from driving part of the technology within the company, to driving all of the product development side, and also picking up product management and business development, around traffic acquisition and third party products. How big is YP? Louis and Atlanta.

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Glendale Advertising Google 223

socalTECH

MAY 21, 2013

Before that, I was running product at Spotrunner. I''ve grown from driving part of the technology within the company, to driving all of the product development side, and also picking up product management and business development, around traffic acquisition and third party products. How big is YP.com? Louis and Atlanta.

Technical Review 211

Technical Review Glendale Advertising Google 211