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

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. Prorata investments rights given investors the right to invest in your future fund-raising rounds and maintain their ownership % in your company as your company grows and raises more capital.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

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? All of that represents opportunity, as well.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

Warren’s plan called for regulators to be appointed to oversee the unwinding of several acquisitions that were critical to the development of the core technology that make Alphabet’s Google and the social media giant Facebook so profitable… and Zappos. — Balaji S. — Balaji S. ”

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). We all have one-click purchase power (Apple, Google, Amazon, eBay). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Every tech or major news journal in the country is preparing to write their Snap, Inc (creators of Snapchat, Spectacles, etc) stories and many of them seem to want a “How does it feel to have missed this investment story.” Another firm funded them. Of course that was a wrong narrative for both companies.

Snapchat 214

Snapchat Invest Technical Review Dollar Shave Club 214

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy is knowledgeable enough to talk tech and swap design & product stories with other founders, but she realized early that networking amongst this group and reading and writing in their journals would not bring her more customers. So Tracy began keeping a blog about … (what else?)

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

socalTECH

MARCH 16, 2017

Earlier this week, Derek Norton , a long time advisor to the media, Internet, and technology industry in Los Angeles, announced a brand new venture capital fund called Watertower Ventures (www.watertowerventures.com). We sat down with Derek to learn more about the new $5M fund and what it's all about. Tell us about the new fund?

Invest 145

Invest Funding Capital Startup 145

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Over the past 4 years LA’s tech fundings have growing at a 30% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) which is > 4 times the US average VC CAGR (7%). The monetization engine of the Internet that powers the most profitable business perhaps in history was invented and perfected in Los Angeles and is what you now know as Google Ad Words.

Entrepreneur 376

Entrepreneur Snapchat Startup Google 376

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

In fact 61% of all mobile searches where a customer contacts a business it is via a phone call (source: Google). It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. Google knows it. The quote comes from Google. THE FULL STORY.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

socalTECH

AUGUST 6, 2012

The company went from a venture backed high tech startup to an IPO as a publicly traded firm, and over its time has battled the perception of being a "content farm", suffered through Google and its Panda update, and now has emerged as a major content partner for Google, via YouTube. Can you explain that process?

Demand 240

Demand Media eHow Content 240

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2014

I know that finding time is hard, and good writing is simply not what most people do. Once you gain real traction as an expert in your space through the blog, investors will put you at the top of their funding list. Writing a blog is all about communication, and that’s your number one job as founder of a new startup.

Startup 101

Startup Blogging Writing Google 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2013

I know that finding time is hard, and good writing is simply not what most people do. Once you gain real traction as an expert in your space through the blog, investors will put you at the top of their funding list. Writing a blog is all about communication, and that’s your number one job as founder of a new startup.

Blogging 104

Blogging Product Startup Writing 104

socalTECH

DECEMBER 31, 2018

We do, as of the writing of this in early December, seem to be seeing a correction at this time. There is an all out ground war right now between Amazon and Google for control of voice in the home. I had expected a correction much earlier in the year and I was wrong.

Southern California 100

Southern California News Class Writing 100

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Google’s investment in Zynga. Beyond The Rack.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

Back to regular writing this week so check back in. The fund is organized into sectors and each VC forms forward looking themes within sub sectors. Google Ad Sense was just getting going. Highland has been around for 22 years currently investing the 8 th fund which is $400 million. 11:40-14:15). 42:00 – 43:50).

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

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. Your parents want to know why on Earth you’d leave a job at Google. They told you, “Yeah, man, I’ll gladly write the first $250,000. We funded one in 2005 and lost a lot of money.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

socalTECH

DECEMBER 17, 2008

In their case, people write their scripts on a web site, and when they're done, they can submit them to contests with a single click. If you're doing freelance writing, have a story you're trying to sell, there's a whole process of finding out where you're doing well, not doing well, and what responses you have received.

Writing 209

Writing Hollywood Startup Sites 209

socalTECH

AUGUST 27, 2014

In the Los Angeles startup world, there are lots of high profile, buzzy companies which have lots of attention and funding--but which haven''t earned a dime of revenue. We started looking at the landscape, and as I was getting my MBA at the time, ended up writing the business plan for ConsumerTrack.

Startup 239

Startup El Segundo Marketing Media 239

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. In fact, just a short Google search reveals that I’ve referred to him frequently through the years. Writing a book will be fun. “Getting the band back together” doesn’t stop for me with just our fund.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

socalTECH

DECEMBER 9, 2010

Last night, Santa Monica-based Factual (www.factual.com), the data provider and data tools firm, announced a big, $25M funding round from Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures. The firm is headed by Gil Elbaz , who is known for co-founding Applied Semantics, the firm which invented Google's AdSense product.

Artificial Inteligence 203

Artificial Inteligence Century City Web Santa Monica 203

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

On myfab5, people rank their favorite places instead of giving them star ratings and write bite-sized reviews instead of writing long reviews. When talking to review site users, we found the top two reasons people don’t write reviews is because it takes too long and it is confusing. Any funding raised? Any competition?

Software Review 79

Software Review Technical Review Writing Startup 79

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

There is a battle between entrepreneurs who try to change the world and solve a meaningful problem and those who write take-down pieces with no apparent personal benefit other than attention. As you may know Google recently restructured so that Larry could spend more time on big innovations – on “moonshots.”

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

I had an enjoyable conversation this morning with a young team straight out of college this morning and they were calling to ask advice on how to approach fund raising (angels vs. VCs, how to select a VC, etc.) So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. FourSquare.

Venture Capital 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. I just cover the companies that were funded that week. Also, some of the deals I write about I have actually seen as part of their fund raising process. Others I have not.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

In the original version of his post, Andy writes. Most top tier VCs return about 3x invested capital and outlier funds (the best of a vintage) might return 6-8x. But the larger funds usually have lower returns because they are often investing bigger dollars at later stages with less risk and therefore lower returns. Yeah, true.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

So finding time is hard, and good writing is simply not what most people do. Once you gain real traction as an expert in your space through the blog, investors will put you at the top of their funding list. Writing a blog is all about communication, and that’s your number one job as founder of a new startup.

Blogging 93

Blogging Invest Startup Writing 93

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly Google’s AdSense) or some other form of ad. As John Battelle chronicles in his brilliant (and must read) book, The Search , Google thought this idea stunk. Advertising has driven the majority of Internet innovation. contextual text ads (e.g.

Ideas 286

Ideas Advertising Google Technical Review 286

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

What ShopZilla needed to do, was write a search engine which could crawl and build a structure around the web. Just like Google, we crawl 250 programs and create a structure around their terms and conditions, and turn that into a single experience. How is the company funded? That's what we've built at PointHub.

Startup 166

Startup Pricing Ideas Writing 166

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. He did it yesterday, “Mark, I’m going to write a blog post following on from your VC’s aren’t dumb. Rob does it. On steroids.

Tips 365

Tips Email Venture Capital CTO Coach 365

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I have talked extensively about “social proof&# in fund raising in the past. Lead investors and follow investors can both win equally but in each case you know why you personally are writing the check. Remember that you’ll be investing against people who have worked on the Google algorithm and REALLY know what drives SEO.

Invest 288

Invest Angel Web 2.0 SEO 288

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

When to get a lawyer - If you plan to be a venture or angel backed technology company (what I mostly write about) the best time to start meeting and getting to know lawyers is long before you ever start your company. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. Many people start companies arse backwards.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2012

…” I’ll write soon on my views of why I believe Instagram took off as a social network and what I think comes next. You’ve found yourself in a super hot category and – let’s face it – it’s still a very frothy venture capital funding market so you may have loads of VCs chasing you.

Venture Capital 316

Venture Capital Pricing Social Network Acquisition 316

socalTECH

OCTOBER 12, 2020

I had my own list on my iPhone, writing down what I wanted to watch, and where those shows are. Where are you in terms of funding the company? We'll be looking for additional funding down the line. Though, I probably see them more on Google Meet and Zoom than if I were in the office. We're excited to watching it grow.

Startup 113

Startup Netflix Ideas Content 113

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2011

Journalists write stories that have an appeal to readers whether the accusations have merit or not. Journalists aren’t going to write about you all the time unless you’re Facebook. Use it as an excuse to get a journalist to write about you. How do you lose that debate? Simple: he let other people tell the story.

Startup 329

Startup Press Training Media 329

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. The birthplace of sponsored search (Overture), semantic search (Applied Semantics which became Google AdSense), comparison shopping (ShopZilla, PriceGrabber) and many others. But consider the following: 1.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

socalTECH

DECEMBER 11, 2018

If I write back, and tell them to stay at the Marriott in Del Mar, we would detect the Marriott Del Mar in your message, whether that's on Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, in a text message, in an email, or whatever, and convert that into a link to one of our merchants who are part of the Wildfire network. What does that look like?

San Diego 159

San Diego Social Media Commerce Snapchat 159