InfoChachkie
APRIL 24, 2012
Article first published as Why A Prominent Start-up Executive Wants You to Get Fired and Fail on Technorati. Kim Kovaks, Founder and CEO OptionEase , recently spoke to a class of emerging entrepreneurs at UC Santa Barbara. With over 700 customers, OptionEase has become the leading enterprise class SaaS solution for stock option and equity compensation tracking and compliance.
socalTECH
APRIL 27, 2012
Six companies started by students at the University of Southern California's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC Marshall have been awarded a total of $50,000 in seed funding, after competing in the center's New Venture Seed Competition held this week. According to USC Marshall, it awarded $15,000 in seed funding for two first place winners, and four $5,000 seed prizes to companies.
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Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 27, 2012
When you work inside a startup with lots of clever and motivated staff you’re never short of good ideas that you can implement.
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 27, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012 -- USA - ISRAEL - AIMA - BioMedTech Conference. Keynote Speaker. Ms. Carla Mann Woods, CEO of Mann Healthcare Partners. American Israeli Medical Association.
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.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 21, 2012
One of the toughest decisions for a startup is how to price their product or service. The alternatives range from giving it away for free (like Twitter), to pricing based on costs, to charging what the market will bear (premium pricing). The implications of the decision you make are huge, defining your brand image, your funding requirements, and your long-term business viability.
socalTECH
APRIL 27, 2012
Hawthorne-based commercial spacecraft developer SpaceX said Friday that it will be webcasting its test firing of its Falcon 9 rocket, as it prepared for its upcoming launch to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX said it will be conducting a static fire test of the Falcon 9 on Monday, April 30th, at 2:30 P.M. The entire test will be webcast on the SpaceX site.
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 27, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012 -- An Opportunity to Present Your Technology to Nokia and Microsoft. MarketLink is a unique and powerful program that provides the opportunity for companies to initiate and develop strategic relationships with leading multi-national corporations. Through a series of business and social meetings, selected companies are introduced to top level executives from multi-national corporations focusing on new products and technologies, all at NO CHARGE to the applicant.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 22, 2012
A few angel investors have slipped or fallen from their lofty perch, so entrepreneurs must take great care to validate the character and reputation of every prospective investor. The entrepreneur’s tendency to be in a huge hurry to obtain the funding can end up being disastrous, and play into the hands of these less scrupulous investors. Many entrepreneurs believe all money is created equal.
socalTECH
APRIL 26, 2012
Los Angeles-based startup accelerator MuckerLab is booting up its first Demo Day later this afternoon, debuting nine new startups out of its incubator focused on Internet software, services, and media. The accelerator--which is headed by Erik Rannala--had earlier announced Surf Air , an airline-travel-by-subscription startup, and Lifecrowd , a startup which helps people find local social activities.
Tech Zulu Event
APRIL 23, 2012
One thing Internet technologies have brought us over time is the increasing ability to create customizable or personalized content for ourselves. It started as basic as signing up for a newsletter from your favorite site to customizing a profile to display particular topics. Then we took a giant leap with social media integration. We could now not only see content we were aware of but we could discover new content via our friends and their friends.
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 27, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012 -- The Purchase Funnel is Dead: The Future of Shopper Marketing. Longboard Media, the leading provider of digital advertising across premium shopping sites, will host a one-of-a-kind lunch seminar and panel for Los Angeles thriving advertising community. The Purchase Funnel is Dead will be held on Thursday, May 3, at The SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 27, 2012
Creating and building a business is not a one-man show. It requires a team effort, or at least the ability to build trust and confidence among key players, and effectively communicate with partners, team members, investors, vendors, and customers. These actions are the hallmark of an effective leader. Behind the actions are a set of principles and characteristics that entrepreneurial leaders, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, seem to have in common.
socalTECH
APRIL 23, 2012
How do you find the best and brightest engineers and web developers? Santa Monica-based BetterWorks , the developer of software and services to help companies manage their fringe benefits for employees, has an interesting one: have those software developers compete to build the best, LEGO. creations. BetterWorks said it would hold a Silicon Beach LEGO Challenge --open to only 60 software and web developers--to compete for prizes.
Tech Zulu Event
APRIL 24, 2012
Google Drive is a cloud-service for files that offers 5GB of space to use however you wish right out of the gate for free. The first question that came to mind, personally, was “How do I get more if I need to?” The simplest answer isn’t “spam your friends on Facebook and Twitter to get’m to use your referral code”, it’s “show me the money” Apparently, Google just piggybacked the Google Drive storage space expansion off the already existing Pi
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 27, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012 -- LA CEOs, an education and support group for CEOs presents: Achieving Home-Run MandA and Financing Outcomes. Investment Banking veteran Kevin Covert will share insights into achieving home-run MandA and financing outcomes for digital media and technology companies. He will discuss current MandA and VC financing market dynamics, acquisition and financing interests of the large media and tech buyers and how to get on their radar.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 26, 2012
If you are an entrepreneur these days, or trying to grow an existing business, everyone is telling you that you need to use social media. There are many ‘experts’ out there telling you how to do it, or even offering their services. But very few are talking about how to measure your results, and the right metrics for optimizing your marketing environment.
socalTECH
APRIL 24, 2012
Zui.com , the kid's website focused on providing screened content and information to kids, is expanding its services today, saying that it has launched "Facetube", which combines the best social sharing aspects of Facebook with the channels of YouTube. The new, curated environment allows kids to socialize around age-appropriate content, and is aimed at providing a more appropriate environment for kids to socialize in, instead of Facebook.
Tech Zulu Event
APRIL 23, 2012
One thing Internet technologies have brought us over time is the increasing ability to create customizable or personalized content for ourselves. It started as basic as signing up for a newsletter from your favorite site to customizing a profile to display particular topics. Then we took a giant leap with social media integration. We could now not only see content we were aware of but we could discover new content via our friends and their friends.
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 27, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012 -- How to Raise Capital for Your Startup. An intensive 3-hour course on how to think about, plan for, prepare and execute a capital raise for your startup. Includes a detailed review of local incubators, vc's and angels. Taught by Jon Funk, a 25-year LA vc veteran.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 25, 2012
As the business economy rebounds, many entrepreneurs are thinking that life will soon get easier, and their opportunity can only grow. In reality, the business world gets tougher every day, with new entrants, new technology, and competitors more easily entering the fray from around the globe. Way back in 1979, Michael E. Porter proposed his Five Forces framework for analyzing the competitive environment which I think makes even more sense today.
socalTECH
APRIL 24, 2012
If you're a family with kids in sports, how do you share all those videos, photos, and other memories about your kids games? Where do you organize and share all the information about your team's games? Los Angeles-based WePlay (www.weplay.com) is hoping to be the site for all of that, and more. The firm--which is backed by such investors as Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, LeBron James, and Jennie Fince--is headed by CEO Lane Soelberg , who spoke to us a bit about what the firm's up to.
Steve Reich
APRIL 26, 2012
Tiffany Buchannan, aka “The Divine Hostess”, could use your help collecting market intelligence for the launch of her healthy foods business. You can it at Divine Survey. Help a young entrepreneur with her launch!
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 26, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012 -- Tech Coast Angels Open Forum. Listen to Angels, Investors, Venture Capitalists and Catalysts and what they have to say about investing and being investor ready. Pitch your business, idea or concept through live video feed and hear feedback from industry veterans. Ask questions and learn. Special Guest, Gary Phillips. Gary Phillips retired in 2003 after a 34-year career in Research and Development.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 24, 2012
It seems like many business people are becoming so technology addicted to their iPhones and email that they forget to listen to what their customers want, or even forget to ask. Attention spans have compressed to seconds, and face-to-face conversations, with the hugely important body language, are avoided in favor of texting and anonymous Internet surveys.
socalTECH
APRIL 24, 2012
Pasadena-based Punchcard , the developer of mobile loyalty applications which is headed by Andy Steuer, said today that it has signed an agreement with KDA Group , a local marketing agency. Punchcard said the agreement authorizes the agency--one of the largest in the U.S.--to sell, manage, and promote Punchcard's products. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Steve Reich
APRIL 27, 2012
You don’t know what slacklining is? You are showing your age! It’s like tightrope walking, but performed on a low-tension, 2 inch wide nylon strap. Sometimes it’s done in dangerous places, as you can see from the second photo. It’s a hip new sport…and one of the budding startups at CSULA, SlacklineXtreme, will supply everything you need to get into it.
SoCal Tech Calendar
APRIL 26, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 -- Emerging Technologies in Aerospace and Defense. ACG101. Few industries change as quickly as the aerospace/defense sector. Technologies that sound like science fiction when new pilotless drones, carbon fiber jetliners, private flights into space quickly become routine. Supply chains span the globe. Markets change overnight because of shifts in national alliances or government policies.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 23, 2012
One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. The easy answer of splitting it equally among all co-founders, since there is minimal value at that point, is usually the worst possible answer, and often results in a later startup failure due to an obvious inequity. Another common “failure to start” situation I see is one where the “idea person” insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity).
socalTECH
APRIL 26, 2012
A report today says that Dmitry Shapiro , the former founder of Veoh and head of MySpace Music, and currently founder of alternative social networking site Anybeat , may be heading to Google to head up its Google+ efforts. The report , from PandoDaily, cited a single source for the information. Shapiro's AnyBeat has been attempting to create an alternative to Facebook, in part by focusing on helping people network around topics they're interested in, with anyone--not just they know personally.
socalTECH
APRIL 23, 2012
San Diego-based StockTwits , the investment and stock trading micromessaging service, rolled out a new feature this morning called Stocktwits Signals. The new feature creates a visual "heat map" of what users are talking about, allowing users to see what industries and stocks are seeing the most activity and interest and allowing users to click through to specific stocks they might be interested in following.
socalTECH
APRIL 26, 2012
Orange County is ramping up its business acceleration and incubation activity, according to a report today from the Orange County Register, which says there are three new accelerators/incubators launching in the county, including FastStart.studio , a incubator and accelerator in Irvine, Frost Venture Partners , aimed at the big data and cloud market, and Kimco Entrepreneurs Year Start , a program aimed at providing free rent and flexible leases specifically for first-time, retail entrepreneurs.
socalTECH
APRIL 25, 2012
SpaceX , the developer of commercial rockets and spacecraft based in Hawthorne, has delayed its launch--again--of its mission to dock its Dragon spacecraft with the International Space Station (ISS), according to NASA. NASA said that SpaceX has delayed launch of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft from April 30th to May 7th. The flight will be the first time a commercially developed spacecraft has docked with the ISS.
socalTECH
APRIL 25, 2012
Researchers at the University of Southern California report that they have developed new technology to create liquid, solar cells, which can be printed onto surfaces. The new technology--based on solar nanocrystals--were developed by chemistry researchers led by Richard L. Brutchey, assistant professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
socalTECH
APRIL 24, 2012
Los Angeles-based SocialAnnex , a startup helping online retailers to use social media to spur sales, has scored a round of funding from a who's who of Southern California technology angels, the firm said Tuesday. According to SocialAnnex, Kamran Pourzanjani of PriceGrabber.com, Brian S. Lee of Legalzoom.com and ShoeDazzle, Jody Mulkey of Shopzilla, and Lawrence Ng of Oversee.net have all invested in the site.
socalTECH
APRIL 26, 2012
San Diego angel investor Howard Lindzon , via his Social Leverage fund, has backed a provider of SMS messaging services, SendHub as part of an angel funding round for the company. SendHub said this morning that it has raised $2M in a seed funding round, which came from Kapor Capital, Menlo Ventures, 500 Startups, Howard Lindzon's Social Leverage fund, Bronze Investments, Start Fund, Y Combinator, Eric Ries, Jawed Karim, Paul Buchheit, among with other angels.
socalTECH
APRIL 25, 2012
Online stock audio marketplace AudioMicro is expanding its library of sound effects today, saying this morning that it has added 100,000 new sound effects to its service through a deal with Sound Idea, a company which develops sound effects for the broadcast, post-production, and multimedia industry. AudioMicro, which is run by Ryan Born, operates an online marketplace where multimedia producers can find music, sound effects, and other audio which can be licensed for royalty-free use on producti
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