Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Many first-time entrepreneurs find themselves unable to bootstrap their startups, and also unable to find early funding at the venture capital level or even with angel investors. The average amount per startup has been $23,000, usually in the form of a convertible loan, rather than an equity investment.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 5, 2021

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a long time ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth. Develop viral content. Seed viral activity.

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Marketing Startup SEM Blogging 139

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened? It was 1991.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2020

As a frequent advisor to new entrepreneurs and startups, I often hear your frustration with being treated differently from other startups by investors, on expectations for valuation , traction, and market size. On the other hand, if the market is super-hot, many will be willing to jump in to make your case.

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Marketing Startup Artificial Inteligence Technical Review 174

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Luckily, not all investors are looking for the same thing, so it pays to know what type of investors are most interested in what your startup brings to the table. The key is understanding how potential investors see you, and especially how they view the maturity stage of your startup. Congratulations!

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TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

Last week, we talked about about the “de-stonkifying” of the market. The company’s stock tanked by more than 26 percent, representing a $230 billion reduction in market cap and a $31 billion drop in Zuckerberg’s personal net worth. Crypto startups are making it easier to build crypto clubs. other things.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. Is Funding a Worthy Announcement? There are reasons you may delay funding announcement but rarely reasons not to announce.

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TechCrunch LA

MAY 25, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s most noteworthy venture deals, fundraises, M&A transactions and trends. Let’s take a quick moment to catch up. Haus, like any good consumer startup in 2019, is shipped directly to your door. IPO Corner.

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Startup Venture Capital Newsletter Tips 223

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Solicit funds from friends and family. Use crowd funding to build reserves.

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Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 136

TechEmpower

JULY 24, 2023

At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. Background Questions Let’s start with some background questions about the business and product. How are you funding this? What level of funding do you currently have? Wireframes?

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Develop Development Technical Review SEO 520

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing.

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Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Harry was gracious enough to invite me back so this past week we recorded an episode discussing the current market environment. if you listen you’ll pick up much more than my quick notes below). We talked about what startup CEOs should do in these situations and how to think about these renegotiations.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 16, 2023

None normally work for or provide funds for early-stage startups. That would be almost any bank that provides checking accounts, savings accounts, and money market accounts to businesses, and also makes loans to businesses. Many investment banks even call themselves “boutiques.”

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

One of the myths I often hear as an advisor to many entrepreneurs is that their lifestyle would somehow be better if they could more easily find other people’s money to build their startup. Usually it pays to move a startup slower rather than risk relationships. Many times friends and family have been broken by failed investments.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

I made every textbook mistake at my first startup, which is why I believe I was much more effective at my second one. The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. I worked with an entrepreneur who was to appear at a startup networking event where he was to talk about his company’s plans.

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Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

On Funding?—?The The Denominator Effect I recently wrote a post about funding for investors to think about having a diversified portfolio , which I called “shots on goal.” The thesis is that before investing in an early-stage startup it is close to impossible to know which of the deals you did will break out to the upside.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2021

If you are a passionate technologist , it’s easy to forget that marketing is required to sell even the most compelling solution, to cut through the information overload everyone sees today on the internet. If marketing is not your thing, then you need to find a partner or outside expert to help you.

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Technical Advisors Tips Marketing Case Study 154

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

A proliferation of startups is now trying to devise applications for this new class of language model , where the machine is capable of creating new text, images and videos based on simple human input. The platform is going after marketers with a Canva-style drag-and-drop interface. “We are doing what Jasper and Copy.ai

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Generative AI Marketing Artificial Inteligence Template 182

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

A common pain of startups after an exhilarating first surge of early adopters is a long and frustrating plateau of slow growth, where it seems like nothing you do will get your business to profitability. Continually add new marketing and distribution partners. Real growth always requires real marketing.

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TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

But LA-based performance marketing agency MuteSix didn’t wait that long to build its business around scaling DTC brands. Created in 2014 and acquired by Dentsu in 2019, MuteSix was recommended to TechCrunch by Rhoda Ullmann, VP Consumer at Sense, a Boston-based startup building a home energy monitor. Image Credits: MuteSix.

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 26, 2022

Many grocery delivery startups begin small, in one city, building up locations to cater to a certain neighborhood. Food Rocket has taken an unconventional route, striking a funding deal with Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. On-demand grocery startup Food Rocket launches in the Bay Area, goes up against delivery giants. “We

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Funding Demand Los Angeles Competition 246

TechCrunch LA

MAY 19, 2018

In startup-land, however, the presumptions about where housing demand is going looks a bit different. A Crunchbase News analysis of residential-focused real estate startups uncovered a raft of companies with a shared and temporary housing focus that have raised funding in the past year or so. This isn’t a U.S.-specific

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series called “ Start-up Lessons.&#. I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I paid up for the diploma but can’t say that I saw better results. So back to MBAs.

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Startup Venture Capital Study Course 337

socalTECH

JULY 16, 2020

Los Angeles-based PocketList , a new startup which is starting up a rental marketplace driven by feedback from current and past tenants, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $2.8M in a seed funding round, and officially launched. Nick Dze is the co-founder and CEO of PocketList.

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Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2022

In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions. For maximum value with the least effort, focus on only the “what ifs” that are the highest priority in your mind for your own startup.

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Startup Pricing Sample Customer 147

TechCrunch LA

MAY 3, 2022

” She grew up in Houston and went on to attend Stanford and major in engineering. The company Winters was working for sponsored her MBA to Harvard Business School, and it was there that she came up with the idea for Upgrade. One of Britney Winters’ goals is to “live a less tangled life.” Remember Mary J.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Lessons. I started my first company in 1999 in London at the height of the dot com craze. Buzzsaw (owned by Autodesk) raised $90 million and was making weekly noise in the market. It didn’t add up to me. Bad morale is the enemy of any company let alone a start up.&#.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. Wait, didn’t you just raise a fund? We raised $280 million.

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TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 7, 2021

An edtech startup called Entity Academy — which provides women with training, in areas like data science and software development; mentoring; and ultimately job coaching — has raised $100 million on the heels of strong growth of its business, and an ambition to improve that ratio.

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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. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow. Specialized VCs start to jump in at this stage. Commercial product prototypes.

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Resource Ideas Funding Research 102

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 28, 2022

With over 305 million start-ups being created every year globally, standing out from the crowd is a huge challenge. Only companies with cutting-edge concepts and crystal-clear market strategies stand a chance of surviving through their first year, let alone making a profit. Sign up to Tech.co's weekly newsletter today.

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Startup Artificial Inteligence Platform Newsletter 119

socalTECH

JANUARY 25, 2018

Santa Monica-based Freenfly , a startup that helps brands tap into a network of content creators and brand advocates on social media, has raised $8.5M in a Series B funding, the company said today. According to Greenfly, the funding round was led by Alpha Edison, and also included Iconica Partners, Elysian Park, and Corazon Capital.

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TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 19, 2019

The startup has raised $1 million in seed funding from RXBAR founders Peter Rahal and Jared Smith, CXT Investments, and Lean Luxe founder M. Mullenax told me he became interested in this market after working as a finance and operations analyst at Bonobos, where he “fell in love with the [direct-to-consumer] model.”

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture. The “A Round” of my startup in 1999 was $16.5 What gives?

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 2, 2021

As I work with aspiring you new venture leaders, I always wish I had a definitive checklist of all the right attributes that I could share with you, encourage you to develop and highlight in your efforts with potential investors, and guide your own actions in starting the next billion dollar company.

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Funding Startup Ideas Resource 152

socalTECH

APRIL 23, 2021

Hawke Ventures, a new, venture capital fund that is part of marketing company Hawke Media, said Friday that it has raised $5.6M for its first, venture capital fund. The new fund is being managed by Erik Huberman, Tony Delmercado, and Managing Partner Drew Leahy, along with angel investor Paige Craig.

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