Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 4, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. I know I didn’t. But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements: 1.
SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 6, 2009
Great post by John Shiple. He talks about a bunch of the different networking events that occur in Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California. In his post, he mentions the following events / event organizers, and you should visit his post for a bit more on each of them. LA CTO Forum Dealmaker Media Digital Family Reunion Startups Uncensored Social Media Club, LA Twiistup Mindshare LA LA Hadoop Meetup Dorkbot Geek Dinners LA Cloud Computing LA Web Application Developers LA PHP Developers
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InfoChachkie
OCTOBER 13, 2009
What do Warren Buffet, Martin Luther King, John Wayne, Walt Disney, Harry Truman and Wayne Gretzky all have in common? In addition to all of them reaching the pinnacle of their chosen professions, they also all started their careers performing the same job. All of these extremely successful individuals were paperboys*. At its peak circulation in 1969, the weekly newspaper Grit had a circulation in excess of 1.5 million.
socalTECH
OCTOBER 27, 2009
Irvine-based Fisker Automotive , a venture backed startup developing electric vehicles, said today that it has acquired a dormant GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware, to build its plug-in hybrid cars. According to Fisker, the new plant will support the firm's Project NINA, affordable plug-in hybrid sedan. Fisker said production is scheduled to begin on the new car in late 2012, and will support 2,000 factory jobs and more than 3,000 vendor and supplier jobs by 2014.
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Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.
Eric Greenspan
OCTOBER 30, 2009
As promised, today’s blog entry will be about our culture at Make It Work… Make It Work is a very unique company. Employees first, customers next is one of concepts and I recently learned that Virgin and Sir Richard Branson share this philosophy. Nice to know. Simply put, if your employees love their jobs, they will love your customers.
SoCal Tech Calendar
OCTOBER 31, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009 -- Emergency Management - Incident Management, Resource Management, and Supply Chain Workshop. Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See https://www.enstg.com/signup/passthru.cfm?ConferenceCode=WOR77476. (more).
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 8, 2009
A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core.
InfoChachkie
OCTOBER 20, 2009
Note: This is Part I in a three-part series on The Perfect Business Model. Click here for Part II , and Part III. Authentic, hand-crafted Persian rugs always include intentional imperfections. They are said to be, “Perfectly Imperfect, and Precisely Imprecise.” The same is true with many crafts and architecture created in Muslim cultures. I am not a Muslim scholar, but a layman’s interpretation of this tradition of intentional errors is that it arises from the belief that attempting to emulate G
socalTECH
OCTOBER 21, 2009
This morning's interview is with Gil Elbaz , founder of Factual (www.factual.com), a new startup based here in Los Angeles focused on open data sharing and accuracy. Gil is one of the founders of Applied Semantics, the firm acquired by Google for its AdSense technology. We spoke with Gil about the purpose of Factual, and what it's trying to do. What's your new startup all about, and why did you start the company?
Eric Greenspan
OCTOBER 30, 2009
As promised, today’s blog entry will be about our culture at Make It Work… Make It Work is a very unique company. Employees first, customers next is one of concepts and I recently learned that Virgin and Sir Richard Branson share this philosophy. Nice to know. Simply put, if your employees love their jobs, they will love your customers.
SoCal Tech Calendar
OCTOBER 30, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Technology Forum 2009 - Southern California. The 'must attend' TECH event of the year, immerse yourself in business changing technology for the day with professionals from across the industry. See [link] (more).
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 25, 2009
Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. If you pick the wrong spouse at least you can get divorced.
SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 15, 2009
It was great to hear from a long, lost colleague the other day. Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. Remind me about your background Steve?
Jason Nazar
OCTOBER 14, 2009
This month’s Startups Uncensored will be on the “Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation talking about what it takes to build a successful business and how to distinguish yourself as an entrepreneur. We are joined this month by Jason Calacanis the CEO of Mahalo , co-founder of Weblogs Inc and publisher of Sillcon Alley Reporter.
socalTECH
OCTOBER 1, 2009
San Diego-based OpenCandy , which is developing products to help software publisher increase downloads and sales of their products, said Thursday that it has signed up PDF software firm PrimoPDF as a customer. According to OpenCandy, PrimoPDF is using the firm to help users discover other compelling applications when their software is being installed.
Eric Greenspan
OCTOBER 29, 2009
If you’ve ever received an email from me, you’d know that I always sign my emails with “to the moon.&# Borrowed from the Honeymooners, I’m shooting for the moon in my business venture. There really isn’t much else to it. Just a reminder to myself of my goals and ambitions. I’m the CEO of Make It Work, Inc. We make stuff work “from computers to iPods to home theater.&# Our fleet of Mini Coopers are cruising all over Socal.
SoCal Tech Calendar
OCTOBER 30, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Emergency Management - Incident Management, Resource Management, and Supply Chain Workshop. Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See https://www.enstg.com/signup/passthru.cfm?ConferenceCode=WOR77476. (more).
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 29, 2009
Advertising has driven the majority of Internet innovation. My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly that is an “in-stream advertising&# company currently focused on monetizing Twitter. This has prompted many people to question whether advertising “in stream&# and on Twitter is a good thing or a bad thing.
SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 13, 2009
I'm hoping you can help me figure out who I should be connecting with on this. I find myself speaking at various venues in Los Angeles to tell people (most often service providers) about how I've used social media and particularly my blogs, LinkedIn, twitter and topic hubs as part of my own services business. These presentations always inspire people to do more with LinkedIn, create or improve their blog, and maybe do more with Twitter.
Daradiction
OCTOBER 29, 2009
My good friend and Roadtwip compani0n Jolie O’Dell took some time to interview me at the Read Write Web Real Time Summit a few weeks ago in Mountain View. It’s a good overview of what we’re doing with CitySourced. -. CitySourced Brings Real-Time Tech to Enterprise & Government. The real-time web isn’t just for social apps.
socalTECH
OCTOBER 21, 2009
Aliso Viejo-based online retailer Buy.com has made a major move into the international market today, and has opened up stores in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The e-commerce retailer said that the firm will also sell its items through eBay in those four countries, and has plans to open up sites in Italy and Spain--and eventually, worldwide.
Eric Greenspan
OCTOBER 29, 2009
So, I’m starting to get the hang of this bloggin thing. I have to say, that it feels great to put my thoughts down in a place where I can get some critical feedback and hopefully not anger anyone in the process. I will keep it brief, but I wanted to add some more color to the week…here we go… I saw U2 this past Sunday night with the wife.
SoCal Tech Calendar
OCTOBER 30, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- 7th International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, Exhibit and Workshops. The annual International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, Tabletop Exhibit, and Workshops has become the premier event for the engineering communities that are involved in new SoC, ASIC, ASSP, and FPGA-based designs or are working with Foundry Services on a worldwide basis.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 19, 2009
On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. My blog was wiped out. I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org.
SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 26, 2009
Kurt Daradics ( Facebook , @KurtyD , FriendFeed , MySpace , LinkedIn , Delicious ) (pronounced dare-a-dix) is a great guy to know. He recently co-founded CitySourced and I think Ben Kuo nailed him when he describes him as "a connector. someone who makes things happen, and knows everyone, and does his best to make the world a better place." Kurt has a great background in sales and marketing.
Daradiction
OCTOBER 12, 2009
So one of my all time musical heros is the producer from Montreal named Dan Lanois. Come to find out, Dan and I share same birthday (Sept 19th), which will be even more of a trip by the time you finish reading this post I presume. Dan has produced some of my favorite records, for example: The Unforgettable Fire – U2 , 1984. So – Peter Gabriel , 1986.
socalTECH
OCTOBER 6, 2009
Los Angeles-based PC-postage provider Stamps.com is looking to edge into the market for electronic postage on eBay, saying that it will waive service fees to eBay sellers signing up for its services between now and December 31st. Stamps.com said that it now supports retrieving orders, printing shipping labels, and posting back tracking numbers and other information back to eBay stores for sellers, a new feature of its latest version of software. eBay's own Internet postage service is powered by
Eric Greenspan
OCTOBER 28, 2009
ujx ch vh,lzh. Boss is Carson’s son, our next VP of Finance. He wrote this all by himself and he’s only one year old! Goes to show you that the younger they are, the better they are with technology.
SoCal Tech Calendar
OCTOBER 30, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Wherever you go, there you are. Innovative Methods and Applications that Use Location Positioning and M2M Technologies to Monitor and Manage Assets and Events. CommNexus. See [link]. (more).
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 1, 2009
In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. In the second post I argued that as of September 2009 the pace of VC investments has increased rapidly (at least for software / Internet investments – the only sector on which I’m competent to comment), but only for those remaining VCs who have new enough funds and aren’t plagued by “the triage problem.&# This is a direct result of innovat
SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 26, 2009
I'm beginning my final preparation for my presentation at eLearn 2009. As I did for my keynote at ASTD TechKnowledge in January, I'm using what I described in Twitter Conference Ideas. Particularly I'm using TweetLater to plan out my presentation and hopefully provide value to participants and people who are not attending but who might be interested in what I'm presenting.
Daradiction
OCTOBER 3, 2009
Peter is a legendary figure. I’ve had the pleasure to meet Peter recently, he was on our EXCELLENT PANEL (worth the 40 mins!) at the Digital Family Summit #DFS09. I am totally inspired by who he’s being and what he’s up to, and I’m delighted that he’s taken an interest in the mobile 311 app we produced called CitySourced (powered by FreedomSpeaks ).
socalTECH
OCTOBER 7, 2009
Santa Barbara-based RightSignature , online, software-as-a-service for collecting electronic signatures, took "Best of Show" at VentureNet Wednesday, after a day of presentations by thirteen Southern California startups. VentureNet, which is put on by the Technology Council of Southern California, included keynotes by Kelly Perdew of Rotohog and Zorik Gordon of ReachLocal, plus capital presentations from Cyber-Rain, FlipGloss Media, Viewdle, Social Approach, Ad.ly, Zadspace, RightSignature, Cogi
Eric Greenspan
OCTOBER 28, 2009
How the hell do I work this thing? Posted in Daily Diary. Tags: Daily Diary.
SoCal Tech Calendar
OCTOBER 29, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 -- "Gaining Traction for What's Ahead: Achieving Product Development Outcomes for Commercial Success" PDMA Annual International Conference. See [link] (more).
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 1, 2009
In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be fund raising. This post highlights some of the reasons why the market is moving again and what entrepreneurs should do about this.
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