Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2019

What every entrepreneur needs more than anything else, after they have built an innovative new product or service, is visibility, credibility, and trust by customers, potential employees, and future business partners. If you use a publisher, they may add more visibility with press releases and book-signing events.

Writing 19

Writing Technical Review Entrepreneur Advertising 19

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

I actually like finding entrepreneurs who are more circumspect, less braggadocios and generally more planned about their actions. Where Stealth is Bad – I do meet entrepreneurs who clearly fall on the other side of spectrum and are totally closed. That’s fine if entrepreneurs are your target market. They come and go.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

InfoChachkie

MAY 5, 2011

Just as Batman repeatedly avoids Poison Ivy’s kiss of death, so too must entrepreneurs avoid the Kiss of Death provisions which BDCs attempt to include in their agreements. Relinquish Press Release Capabilities. However, avoid writing contracts that may contractually hold the other party to an economically infeasible deal.

Outsource Development 244

Outsource Development Entrepreneur Resource Press 244

InfoChachkie

APRIL 16, 2012

Steve is also a Stanford Professor and noted marketing entrepreneur. This was exactly the approach Steve took when he self-published Four Steps via Café Press, at the behest of his then star pupil, Eric Ries , Co-Founder of IMVU and the author of The Lean Startup. I have to thank him for that.”. That was the implicit statement.

Startup 229

Startup Class Press Custom Development 229

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%).

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 26, 2011

Each new customer, each mention in the press or online adds to the feeling of early accomplishment. This moment is to celebrate every action, including shopping for supplies, furniture and technology to support the newly minted enterprise. And it is more satisfying because it is yours, from idea to execution.

Press 149

Press Hollywood Writing Startup 149

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As noted in Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Pitch Their Ideas To Venture Capitalists , most sophisticated investors place their bets on people rather than opportunities.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

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 Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2010

I would take all of the one-on-one conversations that I have with entrepreneurs from the things I’ve learned and just write them up for anybody to read. It might be a VP of Sales, Marketing or Technology. You’re an entrepreneur – you’re allowed to be a bit of a control freak. No, of course not!

Startup 294

Startup Press Course Writing 294

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

I know you’re thinking that you have your head on straight but I promise you the experience of finding yourself in this maelstrom will leave any first time entrepreneur spinning. We had scrambled to get a product to market, built our first website, rapidly hired a technology team, raised our seed round of capital ($1.5

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

I get paid (well) for interesting people to come in and tell me how they want to change the world – Being an entrepreneur is like having blinders on. At least for the best entrepreneurs. Some people do the conference circuit too much, get involved in lots of side projects and attend every entrepreneur dinner. I love it.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. The best VCs don’t try to help entrepreneurs. I read Andy’s post with a knowing smile on my face.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. I asked for intro’s from entrepreneur friends. Real life entrepreneurs are messier.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. I asked for intro’s from entrepreneur friends. Real life entrepreneurs are messier.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

It’s a hard topic to write about because it’s almost an accepted norm that total transparency is good. They told you, “Yeah, man, I’ll gladly write the first $250,000. Have the breakthrough technology. CEO transparency. It almost sounds uncontroversial. A CEO should tell her staff everything! It was not.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

This is a post I’ve been dying to write for 18 months. OK, that sounds like an interesting business, but nothing to write a freakin’ blog post about? I know this category has gotten a lot of press. Mostly, I love writing. I know this because you’re not a young teenager. But wait, there’s more!

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

My Forbes co-contributor Geri Stengel concurs that something is happening in the Volunteer State, writing last month about that state’s emerging women entrepreneurs. Savvy entrepreneurs - seek out programs which incorporate these post-graduation activities. Provide High Impact Exposure Beyond Your Hometown Press.

Startup 100

Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

Tech Zulu Event

MARCH 26, 2012

Press, Pause, Play ‘s message of mediocrity is one that musical hardware device maker of this year’s SXSW, Miselu , plans to overcome. We can honestly say that it couldn’t have gone better for us with the phenomenal response we got from artists, press and potential partners. Yes, that is bold.

Press 100

Press Ideas Product Activity 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

There have been a lot of entrepreneurs here in software and other industries, and interestingly enough there seem to be more self-funded, bootstrapped firms here, rather than those looking for venture capital to get off the group. Gary Bishop: My background, prior to Network Automation, was in the financial technology marketplace.

Networking 214

Networking IBM IBM Pacific Palisades 214

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

.” We talked about my influences as a younger person and what got me started in technology and entrepreneurship. 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. ” I said, “Why?

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337

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. I suppose I should have imagined that this line would get more press than all other comments combined. What a bubble means for each entrepreneur. Fair enough.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. Simply write a great book? It’s worth a quick read. My argument is pretty simple.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 1, 2016

We want to invest in early-stage technology enabled startup businesses – upfront in the funding cycle. ” They prefer to sit in front of a computer doing spreadsheets or coding or writing emails and working on marketing materials than they do investing time in human relationships. This only works if you win all the time.

Startup 150

Startup Coach Course Invest 150

Tech Zulu Event

MAY 16, 2013

It is meant to bring everyone together so that they can learn, network and leave with the sense that they now belong to a family of entrepreneurs, all trying to make LA a startup hub. Michael Carney , a tech reporter for Pandodaily , taught how to craft a compelling press release.

Rustic Canyon 74

Rustic Canyon Startup Los Angeles Class 74

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

When you’re an early-stage business every dollar matters and because many startup teams these days are very product & technology centric they often miscalculate the importance of PR. They don’t show up in a calculation that says I spent $7,000 and I got X-thousands inches of press. Press matters. They are silent.

Press 415

Press Google Course Writing 415

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” He or she has worked at some very successful big technology or media companies and went to a great school. And one that you get to write.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

Steve Jillings has a long track record of running successful startups in Southern California, ranging from such companies as FrontBridge Technologies (sold to Microsoft in 2005 for over $200M) and Vantage Media (acquired in 2007). In 2011, we had two of our patents approved. One was for our PhoneID product, which is extremely important to us.

Marina Del Rey 238

Marina Del Rey Startup IP Examples 238

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

I taught a somewhat crazy course about writing and deploying a scalable website in Ruby on Rails and deploying it in EC2. When you began your teaching career, did you plan on eventually being an entrepreneur? What guidance can you give to anyone in a financially safe career who longs for the exciting life of an entrepreneur?

Cloud Computing 188

Cloud Computing Santa Barbara EC2 Startup 188

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. We were based in London. I thought that, too.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Conference 308

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

I’m an entrepreneur at heart so I’m always inspired when I hear stories about innovation. It really wouldn’t take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. It’s why my investment philosophy is called, “ the entrepreneur thesis.&#. I’m in Seattle this week.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 25, 2013

Many first-time entrepreneurs have grown up digital natives so have a really good intuitive feel for technology & design but don’t yet have the business basics down. . Angels, entrepreneurs, VCs, bloggers and the like all get a ton of requests for “just 15 minutes” phone calls. How Can I Help?

Startup 364

Startup Writing Help Email 364

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 2, 2011

Thiel and friends will also agree to mentor these young entrepreneurs. In Poly Sci I learned critical thinking and writing. At least not as an entrepreneur. Here is their inaugural class. So is this a good idea? My 2 cents: 1. This is a worthy goal and I applaud Peter Thiel. As a country we need to address this.

Education 322

Education Startup Incubator Class 322

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

No rule is ever absolute no matter how it sounds when one writes a blog. I learned how to get press coverage when we were no longer “hot.&# I learned how to manage costs effectively. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Start-up Advice Startup Advice. Finally, I made clear that there are ALWAYS exceptions to the rule.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

the Rubicon Project (Internet Advertising Technology) Status: Pre-Launch Visit the Rubicon Project Website Startup 5.0: Wireless & Voice Application Software) Exit: technology acquired Lesson: Timing is critical. Wireless & Voice Application Software) Exit: technology acquired Lesson: Timing is critical. Zondigo, Inc.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2011

It is a must have if you’re building a technology product these days. I point all of this out because I believe it’s the main reason the press still focuses on whether or not they are a good development ecosystem. Read this story that is typical of many entrepreneurs with whom I talk. It is the town hall. is hot right now.

Platform 307

Platform News Startup Invest 307