Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

It’s why the first company I ever invested in as a VC – Invoca – just announced a $20 million funding by Accel Partners. It’s why opt-in marketing databases can be so incredibly valuable for companies like Gilt Groupe, One King’s Lane and AdoreMe. Much more data in the full post. THE FULL STORY.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. AngelList 101 : As you know, AngelList is a platform where angels can invest in semi-screened tech deals. million round I might write $1.8 – 2.2

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. The “more traction&# feedback is a very typical scenario is a down market economy like the one we’re in. Fund raising is an ongoing process and not an event on a workplan.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2016

It’s more like writing a Tweet vs. sending a Direct Message (DM) in Twitter, which feels more intimate and intrusive or a FB post vs. a Private Message. The starting screen every time is the camera. Look at the top of your screen in the middle and you’ll see the Snapchat ghost. So, too, Snapchat. Open Snapchat.

Snapchat 150

Snapchat Screening Venture Capital Guide 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

You’re writing a freaking blog post! I had a pre breakfast with a CEO of a company in which I invested talking about his next fund raising round. I called another about his fund raising (DUDE – you never called me back! ). Fund raising. I never get grumpy that people write. Marketing. Operations.

Email 314

Email Product Startup Writing 314

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

And it’s the latest in a series of investments we’ve made in building out our practice as the LA technology market continues to grow robustly and attract entrepreneurs and investors. He found creative ways to politely stay on my radar screen. I told him that he needed to ship product before we could fund it.

Startup 372

Startup Course Ideas Invest 372

socalTECH

MARCH 21, 2014

For Friday''s interview, we spoke with Terry Kay ithe new Chairman of the Pasadena Angels (www.pasadenaangels.com) on the group, and its relevance in the technology funding world today. How is an angel group like the Pasadena Angel relevant in today''s world of accelerators, incubators, crowd funding, and more?

Pasadena Angels 162

Pasadena Angels Pasadena Angel Startup 162

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

socalTECH

OCTOBER 30, 2008

to the business of script writing, and is looking to combine a free online tool for writing scripts with matching those scripts with content producers. That target market is huge, and includes sites like YouTube, you also have Revision3, and other sites doing short videos. You mentioned funding--you're raising a round?

Content 138

Content Writing Software Review Hollywood 138

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

For those who still don’t know the origins, the Harlem Shake started as a small skit from a YouTuber named Filthy Frank (10 million views as of this writing) on January 30, 2013. As of this writing nearly 50,000 versions have been created and uploaded and watched by some 200,000,000 people. I repeat – free marketing.

Startup 380

Startup Media Content Platform 380

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

I’ve heard it many founders of VC backed companies in LA who tell me that in their NorCal VC meetings they are told, “we might be interested but we’d want you to relocate to the Bay Area if we funded you.&#. In my LA I often see computer screens open with entrepreneurs talking about digital media. Los Angeles.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

So, I switched to a degree in business and marketing. After college, I didn't go into engineer, I went into the marketing and entertainment side. I actually spent a decade working in advertising and marketing. How did you go from marketing and advertising to a hardware startup? That's how we got our start. READ MORE>>.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 7, 2013

As I write this article, Crash Course stands at 83% of its pledge goal, with nearly 10,800 fans funding the show''s production costs for its upcoming season. Filling The Screen. Border Run. Next up was Nick Tran, Taco Bell''s "Social Media Lead." This sponsor-driven presentation had the makings of a boring, self-serving talk.

Course 190

Course Advertising Social Media Content 190

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to. Walk into any Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Southern California and you can’t miss their digital screens. And of course we had, TheMan.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

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

Xconomy

JUNE 10, 2016

The results give the company confidence it can expand its tests to screen for early cancer in high-risk people who are otherwise healthy. Guardant is funding a series of trials around the country in people whose genetic or lifestyle profiles put them at high risk of five types of cancer. The full data set has yet to be released.

Incubator 67

Incubator Thousand Oaks Screening Pricing 67

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What price?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

I ran program and marketing for MySpace for a little over three years. Prior to that, I was at a marketing company, Fanscape, one of the early guys in the online marketing space. Prior to that, I was at a marketing company, Fanscape, one of the early guys in the online marketing space. Let's talk about funding.

Email 218

Email Startup Ideas Burbank 218

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What price?

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 26, 2011

I’m not arguing that no screening is required. And just as my gut feel about the likely success of startups is often determined by looking at their velocity of product development and market progress of their product, so too is recruiting a factor in my assessment. But here’s the thing. Only Hire A+ People. Hiring at a Startup.

Startup 335

Startup Technical Review Framework Entrepreneur 335

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2010

Writing down your weight from your scale is obviously a manual process and it’s tedious. I got so excited about this company that I reached out to the CEO to enquire about fund raising. There are some competitors in the market such as MyZeo , but I love my wife too much to wear a headband to bed. We’ll see.

Technical Review 278

Technical Review Software Review Startup SoCal 278

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I talked about this in the TWiVC video but I didn’t do a good enough job of writing it up in the summary notes in the post. I funded them 8 weeks later. Something like, &# I was thinking about jumping into the demo first before discussing the market. How big is the market? Just jump into the demo after intros.

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 11, 2012

The multi-tiered platform allows for money to be transferred between Facebook friends, the ability to click and purchase any item that you see on Facebook and through the published API’s, developers can integrate and write their own applications on top of the ZunguZ platform. This stimulates additional marketing and revenue for merchants.

Software Review 92

Software Review Social Network Platform Technical Review 92

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

A huge shout out to Ricky Wong of NYCSteals for helping me with the write-up. Seth raised $100k in angel funding to fuel operations. Unlike those IM clients with a small (ineffective) footprint, Meebo experience is a website and a full page screen. Meebo’s current focus is US market.&#. For Meebo 1.3%

Startup 286

Startup Venture Capital Web Ideas 286

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Either it’s a bunch of pictures or screen shots or it’s a bunch of words. We have a theme we call Protocol, which are technology protocols and markets built around technology protocols like SMTP for email and RSS. Or, as always, summary notes available below.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 30, 2012

For those who still might be wondering what Spotlight: LA Tech is all about, It’s a screening room for new technology homegrown in our region. We write and create our own content for the game. Everything happens in the browser (no software to download) and the finished product looks amazing on large screens! Diamond Sponsor.

CalTech 91

CalTech Company Companies Idealab 91

socalTECH

APRIL 30, 2010

Plus, there's always shoulder surfing--when people write them down, and are grabbing for your daytimer or spreadsheet for passwords--that's treating passwords like it's the 1950's, and leaving your front door key under a door mat. That might be a car, boat, or an airplane. That enables a truly unique login every time.

Technology 124

Technology Web Sites Orange County 124

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 22, 2014

Today’s digital health consumer has so many choices on the market. And our target market is different than others in the space. We had a pretty simple screen, and it had a circle, and it told you how many minutes you were active. And the funding for this study came through the PhD program at USC?

USC 104

USC Southern California Activity Study 104

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

There are hundreds of entrepreneurs here in Los Angeles who are building awesome companies, writing awesome books, making awesome movies and are trying to solve important problems to help make this world a better place. Goodreads raised a Series A round of funding from True Ventures in the summer of 2009.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78