InfoChachkie

JUNE 25, 2012

This article originally appeared on Forbes HERE. Serial entrepreneur Seth Epstein recently gave a keynote address as part of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series. During his inspirational talk, Seth shared six hands-on exercises that entrepreneurs can use to harness their fears. Seth began his entrepreneurial career when he dropped out of the University of California, Santa Barbara at 19 years old to start a clothing company, which he eventually built int

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Tips Santa Barbara RSS Startup 276

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

How do you sort through all that social media activity you are driving, and figure out who really cares about what you're posting? Santa Barbara-based Likeabilitee (www.likeabilitee.com) has come up with a new, highly visual service which makes it very easy for you to analyze and understand how people are engaging with your social media posts on Facebook.

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Social Media Startup Tool HTML 203

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 23, 2012

Friday, June 29, 2012 -- Suits and Spooks Anti-conference. The purpose of Suits and Spooks is to bring together individuals from the U.S. intelligence community with innovative thinkers from a wide variety of disciplines to address hard challenges in the national security space.

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Conference 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2012

At some point in their life, hopefully everyone strives to be the best in their chosen profession. Most people think that being the best requires more intelligence, more training, and more experience. In reality, in business or even in sports, the evidence is conclusive that it is as much about how you think, as what you do. I saw this illustrated well recently in a sports excellence book called “ Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else ”, by Jon Gordon.

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Advertiser: Aggregage

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.

Company

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 25, 2012

As we continue this monumental year in the startup realm, we welcome a newcomer – Boston Startup School. Last week Boston Startup School officially launched and began with their inaugural class. The school aims to prepare recent college graduates for life working at a startup; and more specifically how to deliver and make progress in an environment filled with unknowns and various resource constraints.

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socalTECH

JUNE 26, 2012

Los Angeles-based Leads360 , which develops sales automation software, said this morning that it has named Mark DuVall as its Chief Technology Officer. DuVall joins the company from LiveOffice, which was recently acquired by Symantec. DuVall also has served at such firms as TRW, and has more than 29 years of experience in the industry. Leads360 develops software which is used to help manage sales leads for companies.

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Symantec Chief Technology Officer Sales Los Angeles 178

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 25, 2012

Money to build the business is the number one challenge for most startups. Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and professional investors will throw money at you. In reality, only 3 out of 100 companies who apply are successful with Angels, and the success rate with VCs is even lower. A large percentage of startups never apply to either.

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Steve Reich

JUNE 26, 2012

John Greathouse of Rincon Ventures told me the YouTube ecosystem was “the Wild West.” That was the understatement of the week, as I learned by attending YouTube’s Premium Partner conference, YouTube Access 2012. The event was last week in New York. It’s a huge ecosystem–YouTube has 800 million users, and 72 hours of content is uploaded every MINUTE.

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Southern California SoCal Content SoCalTech 69

socalTECH

JUNE 26, 2012

San Diego-based AirHop , the developer of software focused on small cell communications networks, has scored a deal with Texas Instruments , to incorporate its products into TI's small cell, System-on-a-Chip (SoC) products. The two companies aid that they are collaborating to integrate AirHope's eSON, advanced self-organizating network (SON) software on TI's KeyStone-based SoCs.

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Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 28, 2012

The first-ever Silicon Beach Fest attracted more than 2,000 attendees from LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Barbara, New York, Toronto, and London to celebrate LA startups and entertainment with panels, parties, pitch fests, hackathon, and beach games: volleyball, basketball and surfing lessons in Santa Monica and Venice on June 21-23, 2012. TechCrunch, Forbes, PandoDaily, and other national and local media covered the fest, centered in Santa Monica and Venice at venues with views of the beac

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Hollywood Technical Review Startup Rustic Canyon 67

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2012

Success in a startup is not possible as a “one-man show.” An entrepreneur has to engage with team members, partners, investors, vendors, and customers. In my experience, the joy of positive engagement is sometimes the only pay you get in an early startup. Amazingly, many successful startups are built on this basis alone, with almost no money. I will talk here primarily about building the internal team of a startup, but the same principles apply outside to your “extended team” and customers.

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Social Media Satisfaction Startup Entrepreneur 101

Steve Reich

JUNE 27, 2012

If you’re interested in crowdfunding, you need to read this PandoPost: Rally Funding. Ok, so they cheated a little. They already had major VCs in the deal. It’s still a huge step for crowdfunding. The money is in…now the real fun begins. Track this one.

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socalTECH

JUNE 29, 2012

San Diego-based ServiceNow has proven that the market for initial public offerings is still strong this morning, opening up at $23.08 in its first day of trading on the NYSE. The firm priced its IPO above estimates, at $18.00 per share, Thursday evening. ServiceNow is now publicly trading as NOW. The firm had earlier estimated an initial pricing range of $15.00 to $17.00.

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San Diego Equity Pricing Invest 176

SoCal CTO

JUNE 26, 2012

I've done four Free CTO Consulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. They didn't feel they had visibility into timelines and costs for development of their software. They couldn't plan their business. Investors and early customers were becoming worried about the ability of the founder to deliver.

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Outsource Development Software Development Develop Development 254

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2012

I’ve long believed that entrepreneurs are different. We all know successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of school, and people with high IQs that cannot manage a business. I used to call this “street smarts,” but recently I found a better explanation, called multiple intelligences. Successful entrepreneurs always seem to have several good intelligences.

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socalTECH

JUNE 26, 2012

Aliso Viejo-based CitizenHawk , the venture backed developer of online brand protection services, said today that it has launched a social media monitoring tool. The firm, which is backed by Maveron, said that its new tool allows companies to monitor what people are saying about them and their brands, on popular social networking sites. Cost of the new tool was not announced.

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Social Media Media Social Network Tool 170

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

Santa Barbara-based Make It Work , the in-home, information technology support firm headed by Eric David Greenspan, has shut down. The firm told its customers and partners that as of June 25th, the firm has halted operations and is in the process of closing the business. Make It Work was known for its fleet of bright red Mini Coopers. Make It Work was backed by Frontera Capital, Somera Ventures, and the Tech Coast Angels.

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Tech Coast Angels Santa Barbara Pricing Capital 166

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

Are you a frequent visitor to the Getty Center or Getty Villa, the prominent Los Angeles museums run by the J. Paul Getty Trust? If so, you might make sure you have Google Goggles , the free Android and iPhone app from Google, loaded on your phone. According to the Getty, it has now increased its Google Googles coverage to 60 percent of the objects on display at the museum, making it easier for visitors to identify artwork, pull additional related information, and audio related to those objects.

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Google Sites Los Angeles Mobile 164

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

Los Angeles-based OnGreen said this morning that it has partnered with the China Beijing Environmental Equity Exchange (CBEEX), an online trading platform for carbon credits. Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed, however, OnGreen said the deal will give its members with greater access to cleantech projects throughout China. OnGreen explained that CBEEX is an online platform created by the Chinese government to exchange cleantech assets and reduce carbon emissions.

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Platform Equity Los Angeles Technology 164

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2012

San Diego-based Eventful , the online website which helps consumers find live entertainment and local events, reported this morning that it has reached 20 million members on its site. The firm claimed that the milestone makes it the largest, aggregated audience for local entertainment seekers in the world. Eventful lists local events, concerts, music, movies, family activities, and more.

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Draper Entertainment San Diego Activity 159

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

Yammer , the business focused micromessaging site patterned after Twitter, and spun out of Hollywood-based genealogy site Geni , has been acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion in cash, Microsoft confirmed Monday. Yammer, which was headed by David Sacks, will become part of the Microsoft Office Division. Yammer had been started in Los Angeles in 2008, but later moved to Silicon Valley.

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Yammer Geni Hollywood Sites 159

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

Do you have a wallet full of rewards credit cards, but don't have any idea how to best earn enough points to take advantage of those rewards? A few days ago, Wallaby ([link] the latest startup out of Los Angeles technology incubator MuckerLab unveiled itself, to solve just that problem. We spoke with founder Matthew Goldman about the startup. What is Wallaby?

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Help Social Media Incubator Services 157

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

A new startup, Instaprints , headed by Fine Arts America's Sean Broihier, said Monday that it has launched a new marketplace which allows users to buy canvas prints of Instagram photos. The new, Los Angeles startup allows Instagram users to sell photos as canvas prints, framed prints, acrylic prints, greeting cards, and posters. The new service allows users to import photos from their Instagram account, and set a price for their prints.

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Los Angeles Pricing Sites Services 157

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

The Tech Coast Angels , the largest angel investment group in Southern California, has backed a developer of treatments for the flu., According to Gemmus Pharma , it raised an angel funding round led by the Life Science Angels, and also including the Tech Coast Angels, BlueTree Allied Angels, Wilmington Investor Network and The Angels Forum. Size of the round was not announced, but a regulatory filing says the firm recently raised $1.45M in a $1.8M funding round.

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Tech Coast Angels Develop Development Angel 157

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

What kind of audience can you possibly get with posting content to YouTube? Apparently, a very, very large one. Los Angeles-based Maker Studios , which produces content for publishing on YouTube, reports today that is has just reached more than one billion monthly view for the month of June, 2012. Maker Studios says it is producing and distributing content for 1,000 channels.

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Southern California Content Los Angeles Report 157

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

Santa Monica-based TrueCar said Monday that it has named an automotive industry executive to its board. The firm said that Tom Gibson, the former Chairman, President, and CEO of Asbury Automotive Group, has joined the firm's board. Gibson also has served at Ford, Chrysler, and Subaru, including serving as President and COO of Subaru of America. TrueCar operates an online site which allows users to get detailed quotes on new automobiles from dealers, and also provides information on automobiles a

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socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

Santa Monica-based Kuapay , a developer of mobile wallet software for the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry, said Thursday that it has raised $4M in a funding round. Name of the investor in the company was not announced. KuaPay, which is headed by Joaquin Ayuso de Paul, said the funding will go towards expansion in New York, Europe, and Asia. Kuapay did not say if the funding announced by the firm includes the $2M disclosed by the company in April.

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socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

San Diego-based ServiceNow priced its IPO on Thursday, at $18.00 per share, above its estimated initial offering range of $15.00 to $17.00. The firm is set to trade as NOW on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. ServiceNow is venture backed by JMI Equity, Sequoia Capital, and Greylock Partners. The firm's IPO performance is being closely watched, as it is the first, technology IPO to hit the markets since the Facebook IPO debacle.

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Pricing Marketing San Diego Equity 150

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2012

Los Angeles-based Rubicon Project , the online advertising optimization technology firm headed by Frank Addante, said that it has been ranked second in terms of unique visitors in online advertising reach, second only to Google. Rubicon said the ranking was released in the comScore Media Metrix monthly ranking of Ad Focus properties for May 2012. Rubicon said it is now reaching 200 million unique visitors in the United States and 650 million global unique visitors.

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Advertising Google Media Web 150

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2012

Venice-based Mogreet , the developer of mobile messaging and marketing related products and services, said today that its moShare web-to-mobile sharing services has partnered with ShareThis. The firm said the deal will enable users across 1.4 million websites to share web content to mobile devices via a text message. Financial details of the integration deal were not disclosed.

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Mogreet Venice Web Mobile 150

socalTECH

JUNE 29, 2012

Two Southern California venture investors have re-upped their investment in a Northern California maker of spin repair devices, Benvenue Medical. Benvenue said it raised $25M in a Series D funding yesterday, led by its existing ivnestors, which include DeNovo Ventures, Domain Associates, Technology Partners and Versant Ventures. The firm will use the funding for commercialization of its products, which are used to treat degenerative disc disease (DDD) with spinal fusion and vertebral compression

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Southern California San Diego Startup Funding 145

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2012

San Diego-based ServiceNow , the developer of software-as-a-service for enterprise IT management, is expected to price its IPO Thursday, as the first, technology-focused IPO since the Facebook debacle. The firm, which has set initial pricing range of its IPO at between $15.00 and $17.00 per share, is backed by JMI Equity and Sequoia Capital. The IPO is being underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Barclays, Credit Suisse, UBS Investment Bank, Pacific Crest Securities

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Pricing San Diego Equity Invest 145

socalTECH

JUNE 26, 2012

Hollywood-based Big Frame , a new startup focused on providing content programming and marketing of YouTube talent, has raised $3M in a funding round, the firm said Tuesday. The round came from Anthem Venture Partners, Daher Capital, DFJ Frontier, LaunchPad LA, New World Ventures, The Media Farm and Social Starts, and angels Diego Berdakin, Dave Goldberg, Peter Gotcher, Clark Landry, Adam Lilling and Dan Murray.

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Anthem Hollywood Entertainment Content 145

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

Los Angeles-based FastPay , which provides receivables financing for digital media businesses, said this morning that it has raised $25M in funding. The funding included a senior credit facility from Wells Fargo Capital Finance and a subordinated debt and equity investment from SF Capital Group. FastPay, which is led by Jed Simon, helps companies deal with the extremely long payment cycles online sites deal with when using online advertising networks and others--usually, longer than 60 days.

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socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2012

Amazon Studios , the content development effort being run out of Amazon.com's Los Angeles arm, the People's Production Company, has set the first four projects being developed by the company. According to Amazon, it has selected one children's show and three comedies as the first four content development efforts at the company. Amazon said it will provide $10,000 as option extensions to the creators of The 100 Deahs of Mort Grimley (Angel Castlilo), Doomsday (Nathan Thomas), Magic Monkey Billion

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Content Los Angeles Media Angel 145

socalTECH

JUNE 29, 2012

Laguna Hills-based Sonnendo , a firm developing medical devices for the use in root canals (endodontic therapy), said Thursday that it has raised $9.2M in an initial close of a $20M equity funding. e firm said the round was led by OrbiMed Advisors, and also included NeoMed Management and Fjord Ventures Management. Vince Burgess of Orbimed and Erik AMble of NeoMed have joined the firm's board with the funding.

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