Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. If you don’t believe in your bones that you’re amazing then it’s no wonder you don’t want to sell them on making the investment.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2023

Then I learned that these banks really negotiate investments and collect fees on the transactions, sort of like commercial banks do with loans to businesses. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. For these fees, they will develop a business plan, solicit investors, and negotiate term sheets to a closing.

Funding 72

Funding Startup Invest Venture Capital 72

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2015

Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow. They believe in you above all else. Business commercialization.

Develop 102

Develop Development Product Funding 102

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And they need it because nobody senior at Stripe, Discord, Coinbase or for that matter Facebook, Google or Snap is leaving without a ton of incentives to do so. And they need it because nobody senior at Stripe, Discord, Coinbase or for that matter Facebook, Google or Snap is leaving without a ton of incentives to do so.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Startup 106

Startup Capital Equity Funding 106

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 16, 2020

Milken is taking the plunge into institutional investing, joining Norton as a partner in Watertower Ventures just as the firm prepares to close on a $50 million new fund. With that in mind, the Watertower Ventures group, which launched in 2017 with a small, $5 million fund, is a return to those roots. “I see two things happen.

Funding 230

Funding Southern California Los Angeles Invest 230

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2021

Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow. They believe in you above all else. Business commercialization.

Help 165

Help Research Startup Funding 165

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. In fact, as one Twitter commenter observed to what do board do, “Often, not much.” The administrative work we actually do at board meetings?

Startup 217

Startup Technical Review Equity Report 217

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2016

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Funding 107

Funding Startup Equity Examples 107

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Then I learned that these banks really negotiate investments and collect fees on the transactions, sort of like commercial banks do with loans to businesses. None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. For these fees, they will develop a business plan, solicit investors, and negotiate term sheets to a closing.

Invest 144

Invest Entrepreneur Venture Capital Funding 144

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

Even if you work every day in the world of new-venture funding, as I do, the options are confusing, and their meanings seem to change on a regular basis. Crowdfunding is rapidly becoming the major source of funding for seed-stage startups. These funders often offer convertible notes, rather than the traditional priced equity.

Funding 104

Funding Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding 104

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

The AR/VR world is increasingly proving to be a tough place to do business. The point is, this stuff is hard, and the people who have been building in public are hurting even as they spend billions to develop the tech. Large technology companies are growing at amazing rates and startup funding is at an all-time high.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 12, 2014

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Startup 113

Startup Entrepreneur Funding Equity 113

socalTECH

JANUARY 22, 2013

Last week, Carpinteria-based Lynda.com announced one of the biggest investments in the region in the last few years--a $103M, growth equity investment in the company, which came from Accel Partners and Spectrum Equity. To get the story behind the new funding, we spoke with Eric Robison , the firm's President and CEO, last week.

Funding 164

Funding Calabasas Course Platform 164

socalTECH

JANUARY 22, 2013

Last week, Carpinteria-based Lynda.com announced one of the biggest investments in the region in the last few years--a $103M, growth equity investment in the company, which came from Accel Partners and Spectrum Equity. To get the story behind the new funding, we spoke with Eric Robison , the firm's President and CEO, last week.

Funding 164

Funding Calabasas Course Platform 164

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2012

If you're a startup business owner, how do you get to the next step, and build your first product? One way is getting funding from your potential customers. Wil Schroter: We're a crowd-funding platform for startups. We allow startups to raise money, both based on equity, as well as rewards. What's Fundable?

Startup 223

Startup Equity Venture Capital Ideas 223

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

in a funding led by Orange County's Okapi Venture Capitalis looking to help direct to consumer brands use better data to direct their marketing and other efforts. What does your startup do? How we do hat, is we've built an analytics platform, Daasity, for data-as-a-service. Dan LeBlanc: Daasity is about two years old.,

Startup 113

Startup Platform Commerce San Diego 113

socalTECH

APRIL 10, 2018

We do that by galvanizing the community to help out. We charge zero, and take no equity, and really there are very small operational costs for us to support startups. other companies, which are already off and running are ready for aceclerators and seed funding. How did Startup Boost start? That was Startup Next.

Startup 172

Startup Seed Funding Mentor Ideas 172

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Maybe you are wondering if you have a Weak Development Team ? Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? How Does it Work?

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2018

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Entrepreneur 96

Entrepreneur Startup Equity Funding 96

SoCal CTO

MARCH 3, 2011

Many of the founders of these companies are surprised to learn that I'm willing to review what they are doing (maybe an hour) and get on the phone for an hour with them and provide free advice. Maybe you are wondering if you have a Weak Development Team ? Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? How Does it Work?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

To learn more about how women are looking to change the investment climate--and get involved in investing themselves--we caught up with one of the Pipeline Fellowship''s local mentors, the CEO of Beyond Capital Fund (www.beyondcapitalfund.org), Eva Helene Yazhari , who is here in Los Angeles. What is the Pipeline Fellowship?

Angel 276

Angel Invest Mentor Technical Review 276

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 19, 2013

Silicon Valley’s 9+, an accelerator founded by serial entrepreneur and company builder Peter Relan is investing $110,000 into game developers to quit developing games and shift to consumer, mobile, Big Data and wearable apps. 110,000 to quit developing games for wearable apps. 2 million raised. 2 million raised.

Startup 79

Startup Develop Development Incubator 79

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

When I first read Paul Graham’s blog post on “High Resolution&# Financing I read it as a treatise arguing that convertible notes are better than equity. As I’m generally a believer in ‘pricing rounds’ I initially didn’t agree with the premise of the post. I’ve always believed this.

Venture Capital 286

Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

I often advise startup companies not to try and pin all of your brand equity into an announcement. And as a result I thought it was a good time to reflect on how we were doing with our own brand relaunch. At a big Hollywood fund raiser this past weekend a well-known entrepreneur pulled me aside to thank me for hiring Hamet.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Startup Blogging Platform 324

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

After listening to hundreds of startup pitches, and reading even more business plans, most new venture investors develop their own favorite list of “red flags” that signal the beginning of the end of their interest. Even non-profits need money to scale, but their pitch should be to philanthropists, not equity investors. Skip the hype.

Funding 98

Funding Startup Innocal Entrepreneur 98

socalTECH

AUGUST 6, 2019

We develop a mobile app and website, and a platform which makes it easier for customers to one, discover events, two, reserve VIP tables, and three purchase presale tickets, and lastly and most popular on our platform, sign up for free and discounted guests lists to go to clubs, pool parties, and concert venues, How did you get started on this?

Startup 113

Startup Equity Customer Custom 113

socalTECH

JULY 1, 2013

I then started another project, based on an invention out of the USC biomedical engineering department, a company developing an ultrasound device used for cardiac monitoring. I think we''re doing this the right way with this incubator, as opposed to what I had tried many years ago. It''s not easy, that''s why people don''t do it.

Incubator 217

Incubator Startup USC Tech Coast Angels 217

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

Those who know how to lead are those who have an easier time doing all the things that feel like such a struggle. Those who know how to lead are those who have an easier time doing all the things that feel like such a struggle. We want to invest in early-stage technology enabled startup businesses – upfront in the funding cycle.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 12, 2013

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based web hosting and cloud computing provider DreamHost (www.dreamhost.com) raised a big, $30M funding round for the company--the first in the company''s long history. Our target market is entrepreneurs, creatives, and developers. What''s the story behind the big round, and why now for some funding?

Software Review 238

Software Review Cloud Computing Technical Review Platform 238

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2010

But I have my own shit to deal with – believe me. if we don’t solve it I fear we might lose some of our best tech talent as 5 of our 8 developers are currently underpaid and have been with us for 2+ eyars. with the pickup in tech hiring we’re seeing a lot of our developers getting calls from other startups.&#.

Slides 342

Slides Help Ideas Venture Capital 342

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2012

Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and professional investors will throw money at you. Self-funding is the preferred source of cash for your startup – if you can do it. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups.

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Equity Incubator Venture Capital 103

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. And as Rob points out – if you email members with short updates more frequently they are more up to speed when you do need them to weigh in.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

In case it’s not obvious it’s a play on the Nike slogan, “Just Do It.&# ) I believe that being successful as an entrepreneur requires you to get lots of things done. Good entrepreneurs have a penchant for doing vs. over-analyzing. I learned quickly that I needed to just do things.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Technical Review Slides CTO Coach 414

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

So eventually you have your company funded but only 2 of the 5 people who started the company are still around. You never got around to agreeing exact equity splits but you had many conversations about it. Your contractor wrote a great V1 of the product and it helped you get angel funding. Here’s a hack for you.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 1, 2010

Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and people will throw money at you. Self-funding from your savings is the preferred source of cash for your startup – if you have it. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups. Startup incubators.

Funding 59

Funding Startup Technical Review Equity 59

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

o Their strong skill was online media buying and optimization – they rarely would do CPA deals – mostly buying CPM. o Their strong skill was online media buying and optimization – they rarely would do CPA deals – mostly buying CPM. Once he got connected to CMO of Coca Cola which said to him “people do not want to lower their bills!!!”

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304