Berkonomics

DECEMBER 20, 2018

Since I am a proponent of using equity as a tool and he is so much opposed, this week it is his turn to make the case. Do it myself? They will be more willing to pay a royalty fee if your product gets them to market earlier or is protected by patent to create a barrier to their competition. Would I hire a broker?

IP 120

IP Product Equity Tool 120

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, product prototype setups etc. I am thinking of taking full cash and slowly easing myself out.

CTO 167

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 167

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2011

I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, product prototype setups etc. I am thinking of taking full cash and slowly easing myself out.

CTO 150

CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach Equity 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2018

If you are one of the thousands of entrepreneurs who need equity funding to get your startup going (no loans to repay), you are probably overwhelmed at the prospect of finding, contacting and pitching to the huge number of qualified angels and investment groups around the country. Prepare a slide deck to highlight product and business.

Platform 94

Platform Equity Invest Technical Advisors 94

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

These are the only people likely to believe in newbies, with only minimal product evidence or business experience. The average amount per startup has been $23,000, usually in the form of a convertible loan, rather than an equity investment. Their logic is that if your family won’t invest in you, then why should they?

Startup 109

Startup Funding Equity Invest 109

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 27, 2021

and OMERS Growth Equity. Newton said his vertical SaaS company helps legal professionals be more productive, grow their firms and “make legal services more accessible.” The company plans to do more acquisitions with the capital, according to Newton. Clio also plans to, naturally, do some hiring. Rowe Price Associates Inc.

Platform 244

Platform Equity SaaS Los Angeles 244

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2020

The short answer is that some banks will help, if you do your homework. The first thing to remember is that banks only do loans – they don’t do equity investments like angels and venture capitalists (and vice versa). If you don’t have that, there are things that you can do to compensate. An impressive team.

Technical Advisors 162

Technical Advisors Tips Startup Equity 162

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. They believe in you above all else.

Resource 102

Resource Ideas Funding Research 102

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And they need it because nobody senior at Stripe, Discord, Coinbase or for that matter Facebook, Google or Snap is leaving without a ton of incentives to do so. And they need it because nobody senior at Stripe, Discord, Coinbase or for that matter Facebook, Google or Snap is leaving without a ton of incentives to do so.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 21, 2023

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Startup 106

Startup Capital Equity Funding 106

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. In fact, as one Twitter commenter observed to what do board do, “Often, not much.” The administrative work we actually do at board meetings?

Startup 217

Startup Technical Review Equity Report 217

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2021

These are the only people likely to believe in newbies, with only minimal product evidence or business experience. The average amount per startup has been $23,000, usually in the form of a convertible loan, rather than an equity investment. Their logic is that if your family won’t invest in you, then why should they?

Funding 138

Funding Startup Equity Invest 138

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. If you don’t believe in your bones that you’re amazing then it’s no wonder you don’t want to sell them on making the investment.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2021

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. They believe in you above all else.

Help 165

Help Research Startup Funding 165

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2015

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. They believe in you above all else.

Develop 102

Develop Development Product Funding 102

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 29, 2020

One of the most frequent questions I get as a mentor to entrepreneurs is “How do I find the money to start my business?” For example, professional investors put great priority on your previous experience in building a business, and they expect to own a portion of the business equity and control for the funds they do provide.

Funding 174

Funding Startup Equity Examples 174

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 6, 2020

It seems that most of you entrepreneurs I meet in my role as business advisor are convinced that starting a new business requires equity investors, exponential growth, and a plan to go public via IPO. You want to be your own boss, and do things your way. Personal income is related to operations versus equity.

Statistics 124

Statistics Equity Satisfaction Entrepreneur 124

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

In fact, the cost may be minimal, if you do your networking and build a relationship with an experienced business executive or two in your domain who are willing to share and give back for a nominal retainer, perhaps one percent of your new startup equity. The cost of a co-founder is usually fifty percent of your equity.

Startup 142

Startup Technical Review Equity Entrepreneur 142

socalTECH

MAY 30, 2012

If you're a startup business owner, how do you get to the next step, and build your first product? That's the idea behind a new startup, Fundable , headed by serial entrepreneur Wil Schroter , which allows you to use rewards -- product, company schwag, an even equity -- as a tool to get your startup to the next stage.

Startup 223

Startup Equity Venture Capital Ideas 223

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2023

Then I learned that these banks really negotiate investments and collect fees on the transactions, sort of like commercial banks do with loans to businesses. Most retail and commercial banks offer investment services to their customers, but these services have nothing to do with investing in your business.

Funding 72

Funding Startup Invest Venture Capital 72

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

By way of a definition, a business or startup incubator is a company, university, or other organization which provides resources to nurture young companies, usually for a share of the equity, hoping to capitalize on their success, or at least strengthen the local economy. Learn by doing. The reality is far different. Initial funding.

Incubator 146

Incubator Technical Review Entrepreneur Mentor 146

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 14, 2019

What does your startup do? Maybe they might be using a platform like Shopify to sell their products and power their website, and they might use Facebook for advertising, and maybe they're using paid search with Google. How we do hat, is we've built an analytics platform, Daasity, for data-as-a-service. founded in summer of 2017.

Startup 113

Startup Platform Commerce San Diego 113

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Then I learned that these banks really negotiate investments and collect fees on the transactions, sort of like commercial banks do with loans to businesses. Most retail and commercial banks offer investment services to their customers, but these services have nothing to do with investing in your business.

Invest 144

Invest Entrepreneur Venture Capital Funding 144

socalTECH

APRIL 10, 2018

We do that by galvanizing the community to help out. We charge zero, and take no equity, and really there are very small operational costs for us to support startups. The model that came up after Startp Weekend, is how do we support startups coming out of those weekends? That was Startup Next.

Startup 172

Startup Seed Funding Mentor Ideas 172

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. Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Is there some key Homework you need to do? How does the product solve a pain?

CTO Hire 264

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 264

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. Do you have a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Is there some key Homework you need to do? How does the product solve a pain?

CTO Hire 259

CTO Hire Startup Technical Review Development Team Review 259

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. Like many product managers, my background is fairly eclectic. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products. Tell me a bit about your background.

Product 150

Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

socalTECH

MARCH 31, 2014

There are lots of products that might look for any mention of a product name or company name, and yes, we do that--but more importantly, we are also analyzing situations that arise. I was hired to head up strategy, marketing development, and product management. It''s pretty amazing what you can do in the cloud.

Orange County 245

Orange County Startup News IBM 245

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 4, 2014

I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior. Of course it makes no sense to have great people management and a crappy product. One who wants to commercialize his product and start charging while the other prefers to not charge.

Startup 340

Startup Technical Review Course Press 340

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

When I first read Paul Graham’s blog post on “High Resolution&# Financing I read it as a treatise arguing that convertible notes are better than equity. As I’m generally a believer in ‘pricing rounds’ I initially didn’t agree with the premise of the post. I’ve always believed this.

Venture Capital 286

Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review Startup 286

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. But how do you actually get the right people to be your mentors? previously explained that it usually requires some equity, but here is some more step by step practical advice. What Does a CEO Do, Anyway?

Startup 191

Startup Product Technology Venture Capital 191

socalTECH

APRIL 13, 2020

Grega longtime veteran of venture investingalso shared his thoughts on the current pandemic, how investors are viewing the current market, and what startups can do now to survive through these unusual times. If you think about our product, there are basically three use cases. We have a really elegant solution to do that.

Startup 113

Startup Paramount Invest Capital 113

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2009

I believe that you should always hire people are are looking to “punch above their weight class,&# which means to hire people who want to be one league above where they are today. I’m a big believer in only hiring A+ team members. I’m talking about what most of you are tempted to do. Your solution?

Startup 327

Startup Sales Class CIO 327

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

That cohort decides to make the investment together, and in doing so, they receive hundreds of applications for investments, particularly since there''s not much money for impact investing. We do the same kind of analysis, and provide the same rigor in our investing process as a traditional venture capitalist would.

Angel 276

Angel Invest Mentor Technical Review 276

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He’s thoughtful about markets, investors, products and is always very well reasoned in his arguments. He is the CEO of Hunch , company that I believe is solving a very big problem that I have been telling entrepreneurs needs to be solved for the past 2 years. I’ve also found him to not be dogmatic either. West Coast”).

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

socalTECH

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Next year, we plan on building it into a bigger business and in April 2017, we'll be doing it again, but this time in New York. Alon Goren: I am loving all of the ai products out there and use x.ai Finally, what do you think will have the biggest impact on the technology industry in 2017? Alon Goren: Delegate!

Invest 124

Invest Startup Southern California Conference 124

socalTECH

JULY 27, 2020

What is MomentFeed doing p>now? Today's consumer is making a decision on what to do, where to buy things, where to get services based on their mobile phone. How many places online do you need to update that data -- is that just Google and Apple, or are there really that many other places? Those are proximity-based searches.

Google 113

Google Santa Monica Networking Software 113