TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

Josh Kaplan and Dee Murthy, both founder and co-CEO of the Los Angeles–based company, started Ghost in 2021 after previously working together at Four Five Group, a men’s apparel business. Over the past decade, they saw the differences in relationships as brands began to start more online. Last week, Syrup Tech raised $6.3

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy DiNunzio isn’t your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. And she didn’t start her company in Northern California. She leveraged herself and even sold many of her possessions to get started. She started her business from a personal need.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

She was leaving IAC to start a company. Somehow she was always on a flight up to Seattle or San Francisco. Getting involved with political events and fund raisers. Didn’t I make myself clear about celebrities & startups ? Showing me designs. She helps write press releases. Does that work for you?”

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 23, 2020

There’s also a relatively modest request (of only $4 billion) for funding devoted to pilot projects, startup companies, and public clean technology investment initiatives (like LACI). The funding would include $20 billion for utility upgrades. There’s $25 billion in money set aside for public transit and $12.5

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Start with a service you know and love. Capture your “secret sauce.”

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. Let me start out with my premise: “Data rooms are where fund-raising processes go to die.”

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Start with a service you know and love. Capture your “secret sauce.”

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TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have. Many people start companies arse backwards. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. ” We talked about my influences as a younger person and what got me started in technology and entrepreneurship. And of course we talked about many of my views of building startups.

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socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

There seems to a perpetual shortage of local venture capital investors in the region, despite the huge growth in startup activity here, particularly along Silicon Beach. Among those funds is TYLT Lab (www.tyltlab.com), which recently announced a new, $20M early stage investment fund specifically focused on companies here.

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 7, 2019

While current technologies are not quite advanced enough to make Westworld a reality, startups are attempting to replicate the sort of human-robot interaction it presents in virtual space. I think in this age and time, that’s not what we want to get into,” Xinjie Ma, who heads up marketing for rct, told TechCrunch.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

You race back to the office to tell everybody how well it went and you wait for the follow-up call to have a partners’ meeting or talk about term sheets or at least dip into due diligence. It’s predictable, there is no reason to get mad about it and with a well-designed play book you can overcome this much of the time.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Brad wrote up his answer here – you should read it because it’s very instructive for how I believe communities ought to think about naming conventions. I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. This is the list I would start with.

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socalTECH

OCTOBER 12, 2020

We chatted with Matt and Joey on what they're up to. How did you come up with the idea for the company? Matt Knox: The idea came up, because most people have their own method of figuring out what they want to watch next. I had my own list on my iPhone, writing down what I wanted to watch, and where those shows are.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2011

What could you learn from looking at your competitors or other tech startups in a different way? Or you think their startup is a passing fad and yours is the real deal? Albert Wenger from Union Square Ventures wrote a great post the other day that reminded me I’ve been meaning to write about this topic. Eff you guys!

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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. When to start PR? I’m generally not a believer in too much PR until you have a product built or at least well designed.

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socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. What is the investment focus for this fund? That's when you start meddling in the company.

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 12, 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Make sure you go through the 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder. Here's an example of that kind of email.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Today Upfront Ventures is announcing that we’ve backed Rebecca Kantar ’s startup Imbellus , a company designed to assess human potential and ultimately change the way we teach children. I speak a lot on college campuses and entrepreneur events and amongst the most common things I’m asked to talk about are: What do VCs fund?

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. But the reality is that I engage with about 5 new startups each year which means that I end up working with less than 5% of the startups where I provide these free consulting sessions. Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

When should you start a company? What company should you start? Most startups die. We can miss the round of financing, we can start a company a year or two behind someone else and lose the first-mover advantage. Start writing down predictions about people, companies, and markets. When should a VC invest?

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Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

socalTECH

MARCH 21, 2014

In a world with a rash of startup incubators and accelerators, super angels, crowdfunding sites, and more, what''s the relevance of organized angel investments groups? He started the group because he wanted to help companies succeed. First off, for those not familiar with the Pasadena Angels, talk about the group?

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

I talk to roughly 2 or 3 new startups every week who need advice from an experienced CTO. But the reality is that I engage with about 5 new startups each year which means that I end up working with less than 5% of the startups where I provide these free consulting sessions. Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

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CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2016

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Start with a service you know and love. Capture your “secret sauce.”

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Services Startup Training Writing 61

socalTECH

OCTOBER 28, 2010

How do you take a business you started as your own personal web site, and turn it into an online powerhouse, completely bootstrapped, from the little town of Ojai, California--not exactly known as a technology town? Tell us the story about Lynda.com, and how it all started? So, that's how I got started teaching computer skills.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

I told him only 2 weeks ago when we were in London together that I wanted to write a blog post that has been in my head for 2 years. I would love for prospective investors in Dave’s fund to call me personally to learn about “the real Dave.”. And so are most startup CEOs for that matter. How can anybody do 500 startups?”.

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Startup Venture Capital Email Writing 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Many startup businesses – tech or otherwise – fail. Trying outrageous new things or even trying mundane things but in new ways but with extreme quality & innovation is what fuels the tech startup industry. But today I want to give you advice on how to decrease your odds of failure in a startup. Market Size.

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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 Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Start with a service you know and love. Capture your “secret sauce.”

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Services Startup Training Writing 72

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

That's the idea behind Focus@Will (www.focusatwill.com), a new Los Angeles music startup headed by Will Henshall. We caught up with Will to learn more about the company and how it hopes its service and music can help people improve their concentration. And how did the company start? Explain what Focus@will is all about?

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2014

Sponsored by VISA Business If you have a unique product or service, and you are not selling it around the world on the Internet, now is the time to start. In the early days (20 years ago), most new e-commerce sites, for example, cost a million dollars to set up. Start simple. business ecommerce entrepreneur startup'

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Before I tell you the reasons I’m concerned about investment banking intros, I should start by saying I think bankers are enormously helpful for entrepreneurs in raising money. start-ups are overvalued. And I’m seeing this even at some really well run startups. And for the record, GRP has funded YC alum.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Even when your startup is a one-man show and lots of fun, a “business” needs some discipline and controls to keep it from being defined as a hobby by investors, and assure some financial return. Here are eight key business tasks that relate to almost every startup, generally prioritized by criticality. Funding process.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I think my mentality to banker pitches was best summed up in this article about Y Combinator in which Paul Graham apparently made the following quotes. start-ups are overvalued. The other quote from the article is this: “The other thing they say is that they can’t tell on Demo Day which are the good start-ups.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

One of the hardest things to know when you’re new to fund raising is what you’re supposed to send to an investor, when and will they keep your information confidential. This is part of a series on how to improve your fund raising game. As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. I recommend sub 10MB.

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