InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Jim Semick: I’ve been launching and managing software products for 15 years now, going back to when you and I worked together at Expertcity before it was acquired by Citrix. We build product roadmap software – it’s a SaaS company based here in Santa Barbara, California. Who is Mr. Semick and what is ProductPlan all about?

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2014

Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the deal, they don’t want to write another check themselves, etc.). I seek out great entrepreneurs. End of story.

Venture Capital 337

Venture Capital Invest Ideas Entrepreneur 337

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Nobody will be immune because in a bull market executives are paid to “innovate” so they sign software contracts and run projects. It takes time to sell in your software, get it implemented, prove the value, build a business case, gain executive support and then roll it out more broadly. What Do You Need to Prove to Raise an A Round?

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Writing 263

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

At Upfront, our partners have been fortunate enough to be part of 18 companies that have reached north of $1 billion and the average tenure of an investment that exits at this scale is more than 10 years. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 15 million first checks but we also have three growth funds.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

This is a very common scenario when entrepreneurs pitch VCs and frankly is a very common scenario when VCs try to raise money from LPs. At night I had a group dinner where I met 6 new entrepreneurs and hung out with some old friends from law firms, banks and other VC funds. What do I do now? A few weeks have slipped by.

Software Review 381

Software Review Startup Email Conference 381

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

“The climate-oriented investment in Biden’s new plan would be roughly ten times what came through ARRA,” wrote Shayle Kann, a partner with the investment firm, Energy Impact Partners. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

The best entrepreneurs in our industry focus on it year-round as opposed to just once every 18 months. Let’s say you have built a SaaS company where a large part of the early revenue comes from a few big customers or a large part of the revenue is services based vs. software based. Let me give you an example. Remind me why I love you?

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ). Naturally I’m excited about this investment or I wouldn’t have done it.

Mobile 282

Mobile Invest Company Companies 282

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. “My Brad on blogging.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

Among those funds is TYLT Lab (www.tyltlab.com), which recently announced a new, $20M early stage investment fund specifically focused on companies here. We spoke with Rami Rostami and Gerard Casale , who are behind TYLT Labs, and who told us a bit about their new fund, its investment criteria, and where it sees the promise here.

Seed Funding 220

Seed Funding Santa Monica Funding Startup 220

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. What is the investment focus for this fund? It's all about the entrepreneur.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. Here I make the case that entrepreneurs must stay focused on the prize, not the doubters. Entrepreneurs. ” **. It can be one of the strongest motivators.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Course Software Review 417

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. This is wrong.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Creators and influencers like Bernstein are forging a path from content creator to full-fledged business, with multiple revenue streams via podcasts, licensing deals, branded merchandise and even software products. “A 2020 will be a watershed year for investment in businesses around the creator economy,” Neil Robertson tells TechCrunch.

Platform 170

Platform Marketing Tool Venture Capital 170

socalTECH

MARCH 2, 2020

Croquet is developing software for collaborative applications, which has applications in virtual worlds and augmented and virtual reality. The big win is, first of all, since it looks like a single computer to the developer, they just have to program their software as a single computer. It's all on the client side. It's all working.

Platform 168

Platform Startup Web Examples 168

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

This has led VC & entrepreneur bloggers alike to similar conclusions: start raising capital early and be careful about having too high of a burn rate because that lessens the amount of runway you have until you need more cash. I’m surprised how few entrepreneurs have this open conversation with their investors.

Startup 150

Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 31, 2018

Editor's note: As we head into the new year, we've been featuring reflections on 2018 from notable investors, entrepreneurs, and others from Southern California's technology community. We do, as of the writing of this in early December, seem to be seeing a correction at this time. The massive explosion of the Smart Speaker.

Southern California 100

Southern California News Class Writing 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. Back to regular writing this week so check back in. He does not bring his Blackberry to meetings and hopes to give entrepreneurs the same respect he wanted. Startup after Iron Planet? (6:00

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Southern California--despite the lack of huge, name brand firms-- has a significant number of enterprise software companies, of which Network Automation is just one. The traditional way to handle that is to write code. Gary Bishop: The founder of the company is Dustin Snell, who is a classic, bootstrap entrepreneur.

Networking 214

Networking IBM IBM Pacific Palisades 214

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

To hear about the firm's interest in Los Angeles, and Southern California investments in general, we spoke with Fouad ElNaggar , Principal at the firm, to hear about where the firm is nowadays and what kind of investments it is making locally. We can also write checks as large as $35M out of the Omega Fund.

Redpoint 154

Redpoint Southern California Cornerstone OnDemand Invest 154

socalTECH

JANUARY 18, 2011

We caught up with Julie Schoenfeld , the firm's CEO, to hear about how the firm's offerings have evolved, an interesting comparison of the firm's software to what Demand Media is doing, and what this new funding will go towards. Right now, news organizations write off the news cycle. Congrats on funding. That's what we are finding.

Marketing 232

Marketing Funding Content Writing 232

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2011

Those programs--epitomized by YCombinator in the Bay Area, and TechStars in Boulder, Colorado--attract newly minted entrepreneurs with a mixture of cash and mentoring, and a program which rapidly takes ideas and turns them into viable, executing businesses. Typically, venture backed companies, always entrepreneur led.

Startup 221

Startup Mentor Southern California Incubator 221

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. I will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. So here is what I have been telling entrepreneurs privately for the past 6 months. What a bubble means for each entrepreneur. I believe that. But it will end.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2018

I have sold companies of my own, companies I have invested in, and helped companies I've run or invested in with corporate development partnerships to help their business. For example, some entrepreneurs might now know that sometimes it's better to say no to a deal, for many reasons that make sense, and it's the right thing to do.

Startup 147

Startup Technical Review Entrepreneur Software Review 147

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2010

It's our pleasure today to feature an interview with Yossi Vardi , one of Israel's best known high tech entrepreneurs. We know, very well, that first and second generation of immigrants have an exceptionally high percentage of entrepreneurs. In the consumer internet, writing software for the end user is another form of self expression.

High Tech 150

High Tech Southern California Writing Conference 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2014

Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, lawyers, venture capitalists, or Angels. The next step in complexity is building a software product that you can offer as a service to your customers, or a mobile smartphone app. Then there are full-featured software sites like Facebook.

Startup 100

Startup Commerce Blogging Sites 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Traditional software vs. SaaS. Fred Wilson wrote perfectly about sticking with struggling investments. and I realized that without years of experience it is tough to answer this question. Most VCs are book smart.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 8, 2017

If you are an entrepreneur today, and not using social media to promote your business, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Most social media outlets don’t require a subscription charge, but they certainly require an investment to be hard hitting – in people, in technology, your reputation, and your time.

Social Media 58

Social Media Media Platform Tool 58

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

The software does most of the job of vetting the tutor, but once that tutor is visible and our team knows they are interested in the job, that's where the hands-on touch comes into play. We were able to boot strap the company on only $800, and scaled it to millions in revenues without investment, because of the efficiency of our marketing.

Startup 113

Startup Venture Capital Beverly Hills Acquisition 113

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2009

Mark has also been quite active mentoring entrepreneurs, We caught up with Mark to hear about what kinds of investments GRP is looking at nowadays, his view on the software-as-a-service market, and how best to approach him with a pitch. We invested in Overture, which was sold for $1.2

GRP Partners 157

GRP Partners Southern California Santa Barbara Rustic Canyon 157

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

I spoke a lot about the need for “personal branding” which I plan to write about soon. My mom was an entrepreneur – she was kind of my inspiration for entrepreneurship. And no one could see me as anything but a startup guy, so I started a second company and called myself a serial entrepreneur.

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market. ” The Details.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, venture capitalists, or Angels. The next step in complexity is building a software product that you can offer as a service to your customers. Any credible software developer should be willing to tackle this kind of tool for a couple of thousand dollars.

Commerce 99

Commerce Startup Sites Tool 99

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

otherwise I prefer to invest less and risk less). In a world where the economy only heads in one direction (read: 2009-2014) most investors & entrepreneurs forget to pay attention to gross burn. But software companies often take longer to scale top-line revenue than retailers so it takes a while to cover your nut.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. Writing a book will be fun. I started working with David when I was an entrepreneur and he was an associate with a VC firmed called … wait for it … GRP Partners (now Upfront Ventures)! You REALLY know.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

I often ask entrepreneurs to consider, “What’s your objective? The first company represents a normal software company that sells its products directly (either via sales staff or directly off of the internet). Many software companies have 85–90% gross margins, which is why it has historically been a very attractive industry.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 10, 2013

Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, venture capitalists, or Angels. The next step in complexity is building a software product that you can offer as a service to your customers. Any credible software developer should be willing to tackle this kind of tool for a couple of thousand dollars.

Sites 78

Sites Commerce Startup Tool 78