Sat.Mar 24, 2012 - Fri.Mar 30, 2012

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The Berkus Method: Valuing an Early Stage Investment.

Berkonomics

For those of us who’ve invested in early stage companies, especially technology startups, we have confronted a universal problem. There are many ways to project the value of a company for purposes of pricing an investment, but all rely upon the revenue and profit projections of the entrepreneur as a starting point. Many formulas then discount those projections according to some set percentage or by assigning weight to elements of the enterprise.

Invest 321
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More Startup Tips From The Beatles

InfoChachkie

This part two of a series; you can access part one HERE. Note: This is an installment in the Iconic Advice series. Other installments include: Jeff Bezos , Steve Jobs , Mark Cuban , Richard Branson , Walt Disney , Mark Zuckerberg , Michael Dell and Larry Ellison. I recently reviewed Richard Courtney and George Cassidy’s published business book, Come Together – The Business Wisdom of The Beatles in the first entry of this series. .

Tips 252
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Mogreet Ramps Sales, Marketing Team

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based Mogreet , the provider of video-based, mobile marketing services, is in the midst of and expansion, including the hiring of two executives to its sales and marketing team. The company, which is headed by James Citron, said today that it has hired Serena Ehrlich as Director of Marketing, and Anthony Ward as Director of Sales for the firm.

Mogreet 228
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Inventors Alliance Los Angeles Inventors and Entrepreneurs Conference

SoCal Tech Calendar

Saturday, March 31, 2012 -- Inventors Alliance LA March 2012 Full-Day Conference 6 Speakers: Stephen Key, Shahid Naeem, Damon Kali, Susan Casey, John Connors and Andrew Krauss.

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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

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.

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Entrepreneurs: The Funding Landscape Has Changed.

Berkonomics

Guest post by Sara Mackey. Dave’s Note: This is the first time we’ve had a guest author on the BERKONOMICS site. Sara focuses upon another side of small business financing not typically considered in the angel and venture world, financing from sources for companies that will probably never be attractive to those niches. . So, you’ve been thinking about starting your own firm for the past ten years.

Funding 192
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10 Mental Toughness Fundamentals for Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

In sports, mental toughness is defined as the ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity. If anyone in business ever needed mental toughness, it’s an entrepreneur. Investors tell me that startup success is all about execution, all while facing determined competitors and overcoming customers’ resistance to change. Dr.

More Trending

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Insider's Guide: How to Raise Startup Capital

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, April 5, 2012 -- Insider's Guide: How to Raise Startup Capital. Comprehensive 2 1/2 hour workshop on everything you need to know about how to raise capital for your startup, taught by Jon Funk, one of LA's most experienced and successful vc's.

Guide 113
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Next Generation Hardware | Miselu Presents Musical Democracy at SXSW

Tech Zulu Event

“The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities,” writes Swedish documentary filmmakers, David Dworsky and Victor Köhler, when describing their 2011 SXSW debut film Press, Pause, Play ; documenting the technological shift recently allowing a creative democracy in music.

Press 100
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Ten High Risk Drivers Every Entrepreneur Faces

Startup Professionals Musings

You have probably heard plenty of times that being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and investors talk all the time about reducing the risk. Yet everyone seems to have their own view of key risk drivers for startups, and I’m no exception. I don’t agree, for example, that the first priority is to avoid startups with a high attrition rate, like trendy restaurants and entertainment.

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Jessica Alba's The Honest Company Scores $27M

socalTECH

Online, eco-family products company The Honest Company , started by celebrity Jessica Alba and Los Angeles e-commerce master Brian Lee, said late Friday that it has raised $27M in funding. The funding was led by General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). The retailer is offering up subscription e-commerce products focused on parents, including diapers, wipes, baby bath, skin care, and home cleaning products.

Legalzoom 210
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OCTANe Firsty

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, April 5, 2012 -- OCTANe Firsty. Firsty is heading towards the South Pacific.South Orange County/Pacific Ocean that is! Join OCTANe, CHI, OCRA on April 5th for a night of dynamic networking in the Dana Point Harbor at the Wind and Sea. Although this Firsty will be biomedical-industry focused, all industries are welcome. Make sure yours is well represented!

OCTANE 113
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Web 1.0 Entrepreneurs: we are roadkill unless we learn to run as fast as today’s founders.

Steve Reich

New companies are being created at stunning speed by today’s founders. If you can’t keep up, you are dead. As you may have gathered from my blog, I’ve spent the last couple of months visiting with companies and incubators. My key takeaway–companies are being created faster and more cheaply than I would have believed possible.

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10 Ways to Make Your Customer Experience Stand Out

Startup Professionals Musings

A while back, I wrote about the value of Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework for analyzing the competitive environment, and using every opportunity to highlight and emphasize your relative advantages, whether they be price, features, or bargaining power. But once you start selling products, all of these pale in comparison to the level of customer experience you provide.

Customer 104
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Interview with Aigerim Duiseneyeva and Shana Zheng, TripTrotting

socalTECH

Have you ever traveled to a foreign country, and wish you had a local friend who could show you around? Tired of packaged tours where you really don't get to experience the local culture? That's what TripTrotting (www.triptrotting.com) is hoping to fix. The Los Angeles startup is looking to help connect travelers with local guides and hosts. Aigerim Duiseneyeva and Shana Zheng are the co-founders of the firm, and told us more about the service.

Startup 199
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LA CEOs

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, April 5, 2012 -- LA CEOs, an education and support group for CEOs presents: Protecting Brand and Image: Reputational Risk Management While todays business climate presents an array of challenges for corporations, the risk of damage to the companys good name and reputation is one of the most difficult risk areas to minimize.

Education 113
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Do’s and Don’ts of a Job Interview

Alon Schwartz

Credit: Fotolia. Like most people who have lead teams and companies for many years, I have interviewed hundreds of people. It always amazes me to see the same mistakes repeated time and time again. Sometimes I just want to tell the person sitting in front of me what to say, or what not to say so that I can end the interview. But I don’t, because I want to give the interviewee a chance.

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How to Integrate a Company You Acquire: 6 Steps

Frank Addante

Merging a business into your own is like rebuilding a plane while in flight. Here’s how to keep flying. Acquiring other companies can be a great strategy to grow your company. It can help expand your product, team, market share, revenue, or geographic presence. Having overseen a number of acquisitions in my career, I’ve learned that it’s just as much art as it is science, and the devil is in the details.

Company 61
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Punchcard Links With Pasadena Chamber of Commerce

socalTECH

Pasadena-based Punchcard , the startup headed by Andy Steuer which is developing mobile applications to enable local businesses to run punchcard-based loyalty programs, said today that it has linked with the Pasadena CHamber of COmmerce to enable local Pasadena businesses to use its service. The startup--which is backed by Idealab--said the effort will help Pasadena area merchants increase revenues and help communicate and reward customers of their businesses.

Pasadena 199
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TEDxAFC

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, April 5, 2012 -- TEDxAFC will be presenting an evening simulcast of TEDxChange 2012. This is a TEDx event co-organized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and TED. Convened by Melinda French Gates and hosted by Chris Anderson, TEDxChange will focus on issues surrounding global health and development. TEDxChange type events are TEDx events hosted around the live webcast of TEDxChange, and also feature local speakers.

San Diego 113
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Microsoft Windows 8. Is it Game Changer?

Alon Schwartz

Like all of us, I’ve been using Microsoft Windows forever, thank to Bill Gates, Windows became a fact of life. We know that a computer is built from parts like a CPU, memory and a Hard disk, which you must have in order for the computer to work, that’s hardware. Microsoft made sure that you also must have its Windows operating system for it to operate.

Web 2.0 74
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A Taste of the LaunchPadLA Experience with inLife

Steve Reich

Tuesday, I joined Charles Buhler and Matt Nishiguchi, the founders of inLife ( www.inLife.co ), for a quick tour of the LaunchPad accelerator and a visit with Sam Teller. The quick takeaways… the space is very cool, and Sam has more energy than any other 3 people I know. First, the space. Very Santa Monica…you enter off the alley, follow a series of miniature signs to find the space and Sam.

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DFJ Frontier Gets Exit At ClearAccess

socalTECH

Los Angeles- and Santa Barbara-based DFJ Frontier , the venture capital firm founded by David Cremin and Scott Lenet, has scored an exit at one of its portfolio firms, ClearAccess. According to networking giant Cisco , it has acquired ClearAccess to bolster its network management capabilities for the service provider market. Financial details of the buy were not disclosed.

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So You Want to be a CleanTech CEO?

SoCal Tech Calendar

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 -- So You Want to be a CleanTech CEO? Experiences and stories from the trenches with a panel of cleantech company CEOs. CleanTechOC and OCTANe. California companies continue to bring in the majority of cleantech venture capital dollars, raising $2.8 billion in 2011. With this much money in the system, it would seem that being a cleantech CEO would be an easy assignment.

OCTANE 113
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Set Achievable Goals; You’ll Win

Frank Addante

Here’s why, if you want to get to $500 million, you should set your goal at $450 million. I have a non-standard philosophy on goal setting. I believe that if you hire the right people (winners), they naturally want to succeed. Goals themselves are not motivators. Goals are a tool to help winners measure, improve, and adjust their course and then, upon achievement, celebrate their wins.

Course 49
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Synergy Incubator in Santa Barbara

Steve Reich

The MIT event mentioned in my last post was held at the beautiful new Synergy Business Technology Center ( www.synergybtc.com ) in Santa Barbara. Michael Holliday, architect who conceived the incubator and designed the space has built one of the most inspired environments I have seen in a very long time. Take a look at these photos: Click to view slideshow.

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Mobile Roadie Powers New Madonna iPad App

socalTECH

Another high profile, celebrity app has rolled out from Los Angeles mobile app developer Mobile Roadie today--this time, from Madonna. In conjunction with the launch of her new album MDNA, Madonna debuted her new iPad app in the iTunes App Store, which Mobile Roadie said was developed using its self-service mobile app platform. The free app features photos, videos, music, fan posts, and news from Madonna fans.

Mobile 183
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ACG 101's Annual MandA Update

SoCal Tech Calendar

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 -- ACG 101's Annual MandA Update. Total merger and acquisition deal volume in 2011 increased 24% from 2010, with over 16,000 transactions aggregating to $1.1 trillion in value. Multiples for middle market companies remained relatively strong in 2011, at an average of 8.2x EBITDA. With capital gains taxes expected to increase, corporate profits at all-time highs, and private equity firms sitting on a lot of cash, what will the MandA environment look like throughout 2012?

ACG 113
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5 Dysfunctions That Make Your Startup Unfundable

Startup Professionals Musings

Every investor I know can tell you at least one story about a great startup team that failed, even though it was well-funded and staffed with qualified and smart people. The reason almost always given is that the team didn’t work well together (dysfunctional). What does that really mean? In my experience, genuine teamwork is hard to find, and even harder to predict in a new team.

Startup 106
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TeleSign Partners For Improved Security

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based TeleSign , the developer of two-factor, phone authentication services which are used by Internet retailers and web sites to protect against online fraud, has linked with a provider of device identification and fraud prevention serviecs. According to TeleSign and fellow security firm iovation , the two are offering up a combined solution which uses a service from iovation to trigger verification phone calls and SMS messages from TeleSign, when iovation detects that a device bein

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eHow Launches Technology Channel

socalTECH

Looking to attract more consumers interested in learning more about technology, Santa Monica-based eHow , the online how-to site run by Demand Media, said today that it has launched a new Tech Channel as part of the site. eHow said the new channel will provide user-friendly, reliable advice about consumer technology and tech-related tasks and projects.

eHow 180
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Report: UCLA Among Top Schools For Googlers

socalTECH

That giant sucking sound you hear? That might be Google picking up a bunch of new employees from the University of California, Los Angeles --at least, according to a new analysis from the Business Insider. In an informal analysis of Apple and Google, looking to pick apart the culture of the two dominant tech firms, UCLA is identified as being among the top five universities of Google employees.

UCLA 178
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Skype Co-founder Backs FreedomPop

socalTECH

A new, Los Angeles startup, FreedomPop , has recently emerged, looking to provide free, high speed 4G wireless access to iPhone users--and has the backing of one of the co-founders of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom. FreedomPop said it is planning to launch later thi syear, to offer user sof At&T and Verizon iPhone users with free, broadband internet access.

Tarzana 170
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TrueCar Tops 500,000 Cars Sold

socalTECH

Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the online automotive purchasing program and technology developer, has just topped 500,000 cars sold on its platform, the firm reported this morning. The company, which is disrupting the automotive sales industry with its upfront pricing software, said that 100,000 of those vehicles were sold in just over the last four months.

Truecar 169
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StockTwits In Deal With MSN Money

socalTECH

San Diego-based StockTwits , the stock-focused, micro-messaging site headed by Howard Lindzon, has inked another distribution deal, this time with MSN Money. The two said today that users visiting MSN Money's ticker pages can see conversations about those specific stocks from the StockTwits network. Financial details of the deal were not announced. StockTwits is already providing its streams to Bing Finance, Yahoo Finance, CNN Money, TheStreet, and other sites.

Yahoo 168
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Quarterly Gets $1.25M

socalTECH

In yet more money for the subscription e-commerce sector in Los Angeles, Quarterly , a startup which delivers monthly, curated gifts from cultural influencers via subscription, has raised $1.25M in a funding round. The funding was first disclosed in a regulatory filing this week. The funding included True Ventures and Collaborative Fund. Quarterly--which currently has closed its subscription services "due to high demand", delivers interesting gifts to people every three months, based on the styl

Commerce 166
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FindTheBest Partners With SeatGeek

socalTECH

Looking to connect its users with concerts, sports, and entertainment events, Santa Barbara-based FindTheBest , the comparisons startup headed by Kevin O'Connor, the former founder of DoubleCLick, said Tuesday that it has partnered with seat search engine SeatGeek. According to FindTheBest, it has relaunched its Ticket comparison service, allowing users to find, filter, and compare events by event name, venue, location, and other information.