Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. Entrepreneurs. ” **. . ” **.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2012

Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. I refuse to go to demo days. Not just TechStars but any demo day, really. So I promised the guys that I would come and hang out with companies well before their demo days. Entrepreneur Dinners. We’ll see.

Startup 319

Startup Organization Entrepreneur Blogging 319

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

For extroverted people I recommend that entrepreneurs have an “executive summary&# slide up front that cuts to the chase. Can we do a really quick run through your deck so that we save tons of time for a product demo & questions at the end?&#. Most entrepreneurs are. It’s in their personality type.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that funding is something you do in “funding season,&# some mythical 2-month period when you’re ready with a great Powerpoint deck and you hit up all of the VC’s at the same time so that you can quickly raise money and get back to the job of building a business.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2016

I LOVE writing. But writing takes more time and some days I don’t have that. Now here is the important thing for you to understand — many of my target customers — entrepreneurs between ages 21–35 — are on Snapchat! I’m simply pointing out that by numbers more startups are founded in that younger demo).

Snapchat 200

Snapchat Blogging Venture Capital Writing 200

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. And I would rather, even before the executive summary, have something to play with (a demo)…” It falls in the category of show don’t tell. If you have time check out the video (or download on iTunes – Episode 27 - and listen at the gym or on your commute!). was starting.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

I know you’re thinking that you have your head on straight but I promise you the experience of finding yourself in this maelstrom will leave any first time entrepreneur spinning. Just don’t believe what they write about you. Write a blog post or a journal about how you feel while you’re there. I had a plan.

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." You may have to build something out to show it working for someone to evaluate whether it really works better than what else exists.

Metrics 264

Metrics Venture Capital News Product 264

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 7, 2019

The eight-people team is led by Cheng Lyu, the 29-year-old entrepreneur who goes by Jesse and helped Baidu build up its smart speaker unit from scratch after the Chinese search giant acquired his voice startup Raven in 2017. Let AI write the script. ” Our 9 favorite startups from Y Combinator W19 Demo Day 2.

Startup 235

Startup Artificial Inteligence Los Angeles Software 235

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 10, 2012

We’re a tool for hackers, designers, and entrepreneurs - effectively everyone who reads Hacker News. Hacker News encourages entrepreneurs to solicit feedback by using the "Show HN" prefix in a post's title. Michael offers the follow general tips regarding how entrepreneurs can obtain meaningful engagement on social news sites: 1.

News 198

News Sites Startup RSS 198

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you’re raising a round where a new lead investor would invest $5 million the VC fund must have no less than $100 million and if you’re looking for them to write $15–20 million as the lead their fund realistically should be at least $400 million. Remember, I was an entrepreneur for 10 years before a VC).

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Hours after the panelists debated the future of content distribution at the Silicon Beach @ USC conference, across campus at the Annenberg Innovation Lab a remarkable product demo was taking place by Coincident.TV. came to engineer and serial entrepreneur David Kaiser (Founder and CEO) in 2008 while surfing on his laptop while watching TV.

Screening 109

Screening Content CTO Hire Platform 109

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2010

Most advisors will tell you to write the business plan first (20-30 pages), then distill the key points into a set of Microsoft PowerPoint slides for standup presentations to potential investors. Offer to do a demo later, but don’t try to squeeze it in the presentation. What is the rate of return expected for the investor?

Slides 94

Slides Competition Sample Sales 94

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

I taught a somewhat crazy course about writing and deploying a scalable website in Ruby on Rails and deploying it in EC2. When you began your teaching career, did you plan on eventually being an entrepreneur? What guidance can you give to anyone in a financially safe career who longs for the exciting life of an entrepreneur?

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

We write and create our own content for the game. 8:00 – 8:35pm – 5 five-minute demos, followed by brief Q&A for each company. Start Engine offers a team of mentors who have proven themselves as successful entrepreneurs – not professional investors – ensuring that its startups are guided by the right people for the right reasons.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 28, 2012

From LA Demo Day to Silicon Beach Fest to Crowdstart LA to hackathons to Startup Weekends, companies and entrepreneurs alike have joined forces to feed the startup ecosystem. THIRD TIME’S A CHARM: On Sunday we presented to a panel of judges consisting of entrepreneurs and a VC investor. I got the same response from everyone.

Startup 100

Startup Ideas San Diego Mentor 100

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Admittedly, that last part is an exaggeration but they were bad enough that I am writing this essay in the hopes that you will read it and not make these mistakes. So when we come across an entrepreneur who cannot resist using 20 words when 10 would suffice, it’s painful, really painful. Consider this a self-defense essay.

Tips 70

Tips Startup Statistics Metrics 70

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I’m comfortable with introductions and then getting into the demo.&#. I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. If you want to go quickly to the demo – knock yourself out. Just jump into the demo after intros. Mobile app?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. It became a huge kerfuffle with many VC partners writing to thank me for the post, which exposed those that gave their industry a bad name. And covered we did.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2014

Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the deal, they don’t want to write another check themselves, etc.). I seek out great entrepreneurs. End of story.

Venture Capital 337

Venture Capital Invest Ideas Entrepreneur 337

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

Oh, and Demo charges the startups $18,000. Journalists don’t know enough about your company before the show, don’t have time for proper research, and you will be competing for their time afterward with 49+ other companies that want them to write about you. - Robert’s article is worth reading. Deal with it gracefully.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

The TechCrunch team was judicious in its determination of qualifiers, insisting that the accelerators be, “fixed-term, cohort-based, with educational and mentorship components, culminating in a public pitch or demo day.” Yet to be a truly effective accelerator, the work must continue the momentum beyond Demo Day.

Startup 100

Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 2, 2013

I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t present at tech startup events like Launch, TechCrunch 50, DEMO or similar. And ever since then every year we are subjected to the tech press corps writing the annual, “What will the hot company at SXSW be? These are tech launch events designed to see new startups unveiled.

Startup 332

Startup Conference Summary Press 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

Your product demo crushed. This is a very common scenario when entrepreneurs pitch VCs and frankly is a very common scenario when VCs try to raise money from LPs. At night I had a group dinner where I met 6 new entrepreneurs and hung out with some old friends from law firms, banks and other VC funds. The dialog was great.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence. I always encourage young entrepreneurs now to flip burgers for as long as they can. Fast forward 5 years to my second company.

Startup 299

Startup Venture Capital Technical Review Training 299

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How To Pitch A Product - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , August 4, 2010 I've said a bunch of times on this blog that the perfect pitch is a very short intro to provide context followed immediately by a demo. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

And a few teams of super talented, educated and bright entrepreneurs make a few mill. Get yourself in a big demo day competition. I look for entrepreneurs who set out on their journeys to do exactly that – build big businesses. I don’t blame entrepreneurs who go for an early exit when it comes up.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2020

The other nice thing about that, is as things are happening on the same computer, there is no server code to write. It's really simple to write an application, compared to the complexity of an application that is multi-user. If you have a bunch of bouncing balls, they all bounce identically, and you don't have to exchange information.

Platform 168

Platform Startup Web Examples 168

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 28, 2012

Panels were based at hubs including Leadership, Branding / Advertising, Social Media, Entrepreneurs, Community and more. RT @OEInnovation #SBF why I live in #LA: intersection of #beach #tech #entrepreneur #entertainment. & Demo Day / Angel Pitch. Tons of info and tons of fun!” ” Attendees love the SBF energy.

Hollywood 67

Hollywood Technical Review Startup Rustic Canyon 67

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

But the status symbol of this milestone is driving investors, entrepreneurs, the press and everybody into thinking you magically can achieve this status in a matter of a few years with a great team and an astounding idea. My concern is that culture of unicorns has created a generation of entrepreneurs & investors looking for short cuts.

Technical Advisors 150

Technical Advisors Startup Writing Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2016

Let me first address VCs or anybody else who is likely above the age where they “get” Snapchat but whose customers are likely in the age demo who use it religiously. I do regular (almost daily) “Snapstorms” of content around one topic for entrepreneurs and VCs. Stories is the place to find your sea legs.

Snapchat 150

Snapchat Screening Venture Capital Guide 150