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. What product, market testing have you done so far, if any? You will get a response via email to schedule a time to talk. What Is This?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. The value of Pitch Decks; Brad’s personal preferences on deal presentation; and Brad’s practice of accepting cold approaches via email. Very few people can do a good job with a presentation that is emailable.”. You have said outloud anyone can send you an email, is that fair?

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

The “more traction&# feedback is a very typical scenario is a down market economy like the one we’re in. It is code word for “I’m not ready to invest for whatever reason … I need more proof.&#. They get positive product reviews on TechCrunch, GigaOm or Paidcontent.org. They hire key staff.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

. <Note: I edited a few comments from Jeff's email, none of which related to our meeting in 2008.> Despite our business model reservations, we were sufficiently intrigued by Jeff and the opportunity to seek technical and market feedback from a VoIP expert. Tech Diligence - Consider The Source. > -jeff.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

InfoChachkie

JUNE 11, 2012

Bill Gates – “The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. However, his first-hand knowledge of how to write, test and commercialize code facilitated his ability to lead Microsoft from startup to world dominance. Share and Enjoy.

Tips 279

Tips Startup Education Entrepreneur 279

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 23, 2010

And to give credit where it’s due (in addition to the content that Fred producers) a lot of the discussion works well because of the Disqus commenting platform. Fred talks about it here – he beat me to the punch because I always wanted to write about how awesome this is. It’s an awesome implementation.

Blogging 301

Blogging SEO Startup Writing 301

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2011

We actually built that about a year and a half ago, and are bringing that back due to overwhelming demand. That tool is being used to drive traffic and acquire emails, which is why it's a part of Deal Current. In April of 2010, we put up Dealcurent.com, and we started indexing number one on Google for daily deals software.

Platform 263

Platform Training Software Review Advertising 263

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

The A round was done in February 2000 (end of the bull market) and my B round was done in April 2001 (bear market). People buy companies for 3 primary reasons: 1) they want the management team / talent 2) they want the technology or 3) they want the market traction (revenue, customer base, profits, etc).

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

This entry focuses on how you can minimize your cost per customer acquired by systematically establishing the infrastructure necessary to track the results obtained from a variety of online and offline marketing vehicles. Ultimately, your overall customer acquisition costs should calculated as an average of a variety of marketing channels.

Custom 164

Custom Customer Advertising SEM 164

socalTECH

OCTOBER 28, 2010

Not too many people are aware of the success and story of Lynda.com (www.lynda.com), started by Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin , and how the firm's now grown to a double-digit, multimillion dollar business which is known as THE source for online training on such things as web design, graphics software, animation, video editing, and much more.

Startup 242

Startup Web Design Writing Web 242

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

It says that selling an airplane ticket for $500 and getting paid a $5 fees by the airlines (1% gross margin) is not the same thing as selling $500 of software that you built (>90% gross margin). The questions that a VC mulls before writing a check are precisely the questions you should be asking yourself. Market Size.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

socalTECH

MAY 18, 2010

For our interview today, we caught up with Al Eisaian , CEO of Pasadena-based IconApps (www.iconapps.com), which is developing mobile applications for the iPhone market. One of the most popular features of the application is the delegation feature, which with one tap allows them to email a grocery list to their husband to pick up.

Mobile 168

Mobile .Net Pasadena Software Review 168

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

In order to prepare for TechCrunch Disrupt 2012 I reviewed company bios via the official site and read taglines that said “cool” rather than what the company does. I first reviewed the “Alleys and Pavilions” company list provided by the TechCrunch site. Speaking of emailing, use the subject line to your advantage. 3 Be on time.

Press 97

Press Startup Technical Review Email 97

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

There’s one attribute (coming soon) that I need to have in order to write a check but I don’t believe is vital for success. I’ll publish the final post in this series this week and then move on to my next series – sales & marketing. It will be controversial – I know. version of their product was.

Entrepreneur 267

Entrepreneur Startup SaaS San Diego 267

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

The key here is to provide visibility to everyone along the process--not just at the start, when you put it on the wall, or email the project plan to everyone. We didn't wanted to create new project management software--everyone uses Microsoft Project--but we wanted to make it more collaborative.

Startup 100

Startup Software Review Technical Review Software 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

so compelling (other than the fact that the CEO Sean Rad is a great young technology leader and his advisers – Brian Norgard , Dan Gould and Evan Rifkin - are some of the guys I respect most in the LA tech market.). Wordpress), video (YouTube), pictures (Flickr), review sites (Yelp) and collaborative content (Wikipedia).

Ideas 286

Ideas Advertising Google Technical Review 286

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2010

It makes no sense to meet in August or December due to travel schedules of most investors. For the record, this is not a secret, coded messages to companies for which I am on the board! . They mostly understand your company, your customers, your competitors and your market but never as precisely as you do. That’s it.

Startup 301

Startup Venture Capital Software Review Email 301

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. But I didn’t write it for you; I wrote it for myself.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. Journalists don’t know enough about your company before the show, don’t have time for proper research, and you will be competing for their time afterward with 49+ other companies that want them to write about you. - Many other great companies are not. -

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

awards dinner on Thursday night I started reflected on what it would take to “change the trajectory&# for Seattle or for any regional market, really. Who’s going to help you with improving your marketing / positioning to become a clear platform category leader like Twilio? There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

We had email, instant messaging, group calendars, discussion boards, etc. They had a proprietary browser, their own search engine, their own content, chat rooms, email system, etc. But AOL brought online services, email, chat and discussion boards to the masses and thus educated a generation that paved the way for others.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Web 2.0 Startup 318

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Many people will write the history on why Ring became an enormously successful company and why it became a real-world unicorn in a world when many startups are anointed that merely on paper. But why did Ring succeed when the entire market kept saying that Nest was going to be the winner? Here are my views … 1.

Startup 247

Startup Pricing Product Marketing 247

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 21, 2010

If the recruiting manager’s job consisted solely of reviewing your resume it would be an easy task. I would then have as many pages of analysis as required to show the detailes of my review. One of the great developments over the past five years has been the simplification of software. I review many products every week.

Slides 346

Slides Software Review Blogging Venture Capital 346

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software Blogging Startup 285