TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Capitalism is fundamentally about timing, since market competition is about finding opportunities before others. Anyone who has worked in a large company further knows that timing a product launch or a new marketing strategy has more to do with internal politics than reading market forces. When should you start a company?

Venture Capital 202

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Invest 202

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 2, 2020

His challenge is to focus on one market, with a specific design, cost, and price. Bill was initially the idea person and technologist, while Steve had the business and marketing experience from Proctor & Gamble to close the business equation. Create a written plan, with target milestones and metrics.

Ideas 126

Ideas Writing Examples Outsource 126

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

We all know that funding markets have changed for startups. The trends are well understood: more angels, more seed funds, more crowdsourcing and so forth. We are doing what we do – writing larger checks and playing an active role at the company. What is less understood are the consequences of these changes.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Yet, in the interest of full disclosure, and an honest intent to save future entrepreneurs some grief and money, I would remind you that starting any business has key dependencies on at least five major elements, including product design and delivery, the right people on the team, adequate funding, a sizable market opportunity, and marketing.

Startup 131

Startup Entrepreneur Examples Custom 131

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2019

Even if it’s only a few PowerPoint slides or typed paragraphs, writing something down is the first step toward making it real. Always write in the future tense, what you will do, and name yourself as the key person responsible. Set target date milestones and metrics to gauge progress.

Ideas 99

Ideas Slides Writing Startup 99

socalTECH

JUNE 11, 2018

For our interview this morning, we caught up with Scot Lawrie , the President and technical Co-founder of Los Angeles-based Coverfly (www.coverfly.com), and John Rhodes , Coverfly's head of Marketing and Business Development, to learn a bit more about the early stage, bootstrapped startup focused on Hollywood script writers. What is Coverfly?

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Hollywood Platform Competition 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Often board members themselves don’t do the work to say “what metrics would we like to see.” Any great board member should tell you, “please don’t create any performance metrics or materials that analyze the business that you’re not already creating for your own management’s use.” Sometimes they don’t even know.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

Because at least while the VC spigot is open and flowing for high-potential individuals that fit a pattern that some VCs seem to favor they can access cheap capital that isn’t terribly dilutive and can use the to fund development and swing for the fences with limited focus on monetization. Should I write off my $2.5

Venture Capital 412

Venture Capital Startup Funding Snapchat 412

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. We funded one in 2005 and lost a lot of money. A $1 trillion global market. CEO transparency. It almost sounds uncontroversial.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

Let me start by saying that Clayton is one of the most influential people on my thoughts about markets that led to both the concept behind my first startup and my main theses in investing. In many ways I think general purpose writing & thinking skills are as valuable as math skills. Internationalization of Technology.

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

There is much talk these days that startup valuations have decreased and may continue to do so and that the amount of time it takes to fund raise may take longer. months for fund raising start to finish and make sure you have at least 6 month’s of cash if it takes longer. Who are Your Existing Investors?

Startup 150

Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 14, 2013

They cite sources like a recent BusinessWeek story, “ Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans ” and this NY Times article. In fact, they are probably in such a hurry to give you money that they don’t want you to waste time writing anything down and passing it along to new investors. You need money, and plan to do crowdfunding.

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Technical Review Writing Slides 100

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 16, 2018

Without taking a dime of outside capital, the company has achieved impressive success in a competitive, SaaS market segment, landing companies such as Nike, Intuit, NASA, AutoDesk and PBS. Most companies have a roadmap describing what they’re planning to build, deliver or market. That causes friction internally.

Venture Capital 115

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Santa Barbara SaaS 115

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 9, 2012

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 97

Summary Writing Competition Sample 97

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Why you should set up a board at the seed round of funding I know these days with SAFE documents and rolling convertible notes many founders prefer not to set up a board early on. How does control start to change at the B-round of funding? If your metric move immediate up-and-to-the-right? But it’s quite rare.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 30, 2012

Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach , tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients. then you can start writing a recipe.

Startup 96

Startup Writing Metrics Marketing 96

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!” To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We both felt that the critical reasoning skills and writing skills were critical to our career development. BookRenter – plus a discussion about Chegg … what is going on in the university book market? We talked about the analogies between what NetFlix achieved in movies and whether this is relevant to the book market.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Capital Metrics Competition 217

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

This is part of a series on sales & marketing. As a company you need to invest in ROI calculators (spreadsheets) that are easy for sales reps to plug in basic customer metrics and pop out with an expected benefit. The original post of this article on appeared on GigaOm in a more concise version here.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

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 27, 2010

The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. We need people at all stages of the funding lifecycle and not just VCs. We need venture debt, factoring companies and public markets. That’s a good thing. We all know that.

Venture Capital 308

Venture Capital Training Startup Entrepreneur 308

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 90

Summary Writing Competition Sample 90

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2014

Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Funding process. entrepreneur funding hobby investors startup' Develop your business plan.

Startup 107

Startup Outsource Development Training Outsource 107

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

You are writing about the essentials of business. Any thoughts on my recent post Startup Metrics ? The Startup Metrics post is a good example of what I call “holocognics.” Startup Metrics discusses what a Startup needs to consider before “going live.” And how it relates to what you are talking about in [link] ?

Startup 150

Startup SEO Pepperdine Blogging 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2011

Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach , tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients. then you can start writing a recipe.

Entrepreneur 91

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Metrics 91

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2015

Not the successful companies themselves but the entire b t culture of swash-buckling startups who define themselves by hitting some magical $1 billion valuation number and the financiers who back them irrespective of metrics that justify it. Our firm has funded many of them. That’s how markets go. At least for now.

Technical Advisors 150

Technical Advisors Startup Writing Blogging 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

Jody didn’t exactly have an easy time fund raising because he’s not one of the prototypical Silicon Valley funded entrepreneurs. He was raising money initially in the worst market in a decade (we met in 2008), he’s in his mid-40′s, is doing a mom’s site (he has no kids) and he has a JewFro.

Startup 292

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Summary 292

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Even when your startup is a one-man show, you will soon find that you are “out of control,” unless you start organizing and writing down how and when key things need to get done. Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. Funding process.

Startup 102

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 102

Tech.Co

APRIL 11, 2018

. “It is inconvenient and the parking is very difficult to find, but along with peers who also drive this long commute; we have to do it because the area is too congested to be able to live in full time,” Sacramento marketer Christina tells me. If they leave, they take their massive influence and venture funds with them.

Report 70

Report .Net Template Writing 70

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 20, 2007

skip to main | skip to sidebar SoCal CTO Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Innovation and Geography I ran across a post in Read/Write Web - Does Location Matter in Web Innovation? Early Stage Marketing and Branding – Farida Fotouh. Marketing, Startups and Networking in Los Angeles. eHarmongy) as an acting CTO.

CTO Coach 150

CTO Coach Southern California CTO Hire Social Media 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Lately I’ve been having to say things I thought I’d never have to remind people, like, “getting to positive gross margin in several territories is a very low bar to claim success” or “profitable excluding marketing costs” is not actually a real thing. Market Size. MakeSpace provides physical storage.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Modern investors love to first read a two-page summary of your business plan, formatted like a glossy marketing collateral sheet, with text well laid out in columns and sidebars, and a couple of relevant graphics. You may have already found several articles, web pages, or books about writing the perfect executive summary.

Summary 55

Summary Writing Competition Metrics 55

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2010

Even when your startup is a one-man show, you will soon find that you are “out of control,” unless you start organizing and writing down how and when key things need to get done. Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. Funding process.

Startup 95

Startup Outsource Development Writing Training 95

Steve Reich

AUGUST 15, 2015

If you can’t raise from a few strong angels, from seed funds or from a VC then raising from a ton (let’s say 20+) angels is a perfectly acceptable strategy. ” Everyone has a vision that one or two “Super Angels” will write million dollar checks and all will be well. How many Angels do you want in your cap table?

Angel 40

Angel News Pasadena Angels Seed Funding 40

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 31, 2013

Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. Write down the key elements of your business plan very early, and keep it current as things evolve. Funding process. Develop your business plan.

Outsource Development 92

Outsource Development Training Outsource Metrics 92

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why. Take a look at the chart below.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217