socalTECH

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

Los Angeles-based FastPay , which offers up financial products specifically aimed at advertising driven businesses, said this morning that it has raised $15M in a funding round. The company, which is led by Jed Simon, said the funding came from Oak HC/FT. READ MORE>>.

Advertising 157

Advertising Web Los Angeles Mobile 157

socalTECH

AUGUST 6, 2012

Santa Monica-based Demand Media (www.demandmedia.com) has seen its share of ups and downs as one of the highest visibility technology and media companies to come out of Southern California's technology ecosystem in recent years. What is Demand Media doing nowadays? So, we're partnered with them on a couple of different levels.

Demand 240

Demand Media eHow Content 240

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 1, 2013

CreatorUp is the online web series school teaching the next generation of web series creators how to make and market their own new video projects on the web. Mike Tringe earned his BA in History and Science from Harvard, and his MFA in Film Production from USC. Who are its founders? What inspired you?

Web 93

Web USC Course Guide 93

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 26, 2009

Los Angeles- and New York-based PlaceVine , which operates a web-based service to connect brands and agencies to product placement opportunities in film, television, and new media, said Wednesday that it has scored a round of seed financing from a New York-based angel fund, NYCSeed. READ MORE>>.

Seed Funding 100

Seed Funding Funding Hollywood Web 100

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Scott, published a classic book that I still recommend, ” The New Rules of Lead Generation ,” highlighting the changes wrought by the internet and social media. For new product startups, search engine marketing (SEM) is still one of the most cost-effective and scalable lead-generation approaches. Social-media advertising.

Marketing 114

Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

socalTECH

MARCH 23, 2009

Santa Monica-based Total Beauty Media , which operates a user-generated beauty product reviews web site, said today that it has acquired competitor BeautyRiot , and scored a Series C funding round. The financial details behind the acquisition and funding were not disclosed. READ MORE>>.

Funding 100

Funding Santa Monica Acquisition Media 100

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. I have about 11 years in the technology sector including roles doing market research, sales and product development. My focus has been marketing strategy and product development.

Los Angeles 179

Los Angeles Product Angel Startup 179

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Very few people fund individuals. Product : You should build a product or a prototype. You cannot be just a biz dev type, salesperson, marketing genius or whatever and divorce yourself from product. Great companies are built by having great products. And a great product starts with the founder.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Santa Monica-based ShopNation has raised $800,000 in a seed funding, and launched a new fashion discovery site today. The firm, co-founded by Travis Schneider and Luke Kervin, said it aggregates and normalizes product data from fashion retailers, and allows users to find fashion products from their favorite stores. READ MORE>>.

Sites 168

Sites Mahalo Santa Monica Seed Funding 168

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. How did it help you?

Product 150

Product Entrepreneur Social Media Google 150

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Every company and startups needs marketing experts, who are skilled and knowledgeable in the development of marketing programs, content creation, lead generation, and the utilization of social media. This world changes rapidly, and needs a professional with experience in digital and conventional media to keep up. Staffing Professional.

Startup 106

Startup Social Media Course Entrepreneur 106

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 22, 2019

We had met previously when Trevor was a product manager at YouTube and Upfront had funded the largest video producer on YouTube, Maker Studios. They had worked together as senior product manager and senior engineering leads at Twitter and identified a problem they saw in visual communication of information. Yeah, this sucks.

Startup 191

Startup Social Media Slides Design 191

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Not all of these products & companies came from Silicon Valley but the overwhelming majority did. Web Services, led by Amazon’s AWS, which reduced the costs a further 90%. The “Three C’s” of the Internet … The infrastructure and web services phases of the Internet are built.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Capital Funding 390

Xconomy

JANUARY 7, 2019

Later that year, public concerns expanded to the core value of Internet company products themselves, following revelations about Facebook’s role in spreading false and divisive election-related messages and its sharing of millions of individual user profiles with outside companies.

Web 73

Web Product Artificial Inteligence Company 73

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 26, 2022

For an inventor , the product is everything, and managing cash flow in a business may be the least satisfying part. Working for a well-funded existing company, or pursuing your dream as a hobby, may be more satisfying and productive. Assess your own resources as well as funding sources.

Social Media 105

Social Media Writing Ideas Resource 105

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 20, 2020

Scott, published a classic book that I recommend, ” The New Rules of Lead Generation ,” highlighting the changes wrought by the internet and social media. For new product startups, search engine marketing (SEM) is still one of the most cost-effective and scalable lead-generation approaches. Social-media advertising. Trade shows.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Marketing Startup 146

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 20, 2019

I believe the days of the “job work” mentality are thankfully waning, with more people looking to get satisfaction by making the world a better place, rather than just tolerating brain-numbing work to fund enjoyment elsewhere. Funding for early-stage startups is more available than ever. Women are a growing force as entrepreneurs.

Startup 128

Startup Social Media Satisfaction Entrepreneur 128

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2020

Every company and startups needs marketing experts, who are skilled and knowledgeable in the development of marketing programs, content creation, lead generation, and the utilization of social media. This world changes rapidly, and needs a professional with experience in digital and conventional media to keep up. Staffing Professional.

Startup 164

Startup Social Media Course Entrepreneur 164

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

The critical success factors for a product business are well known, starting with selling every unit with a gross margin of 50 percent or more, building a patent and other intellectual property, and continuous product improvement. Low cost and low margin products can be winners, if the volume is high enough.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

socalTECH

AUGUST 19, 2014

We recently spoke with co-founder and CEO, Justin Wu to learn more about the company, which so far has received a small seed funding from Warner Bros. as part of that company''s Warner Media Camp accelerator. With our backend tools we can push products to the front of videos, allowing content providers to drive shopping activity.

Commerce 153

Commerce Content Downey Media 153

Tech Zulu Event

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Last fall, Mingly released their first product last fall to help users manage their endless webs of connections. After an initial round of seed funding of $500k led by Pasadena’s Idealab, Mingly saw great success as they built up their Gmail user base. Finally, some solid relief.

Web 74

Web Social Network Email Networking 74

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy built her company, Recycled Media , out of necessity. This was the first in her string of web properties. Danny became a small investor in Recycled Media (the parent company of Recycled Bride) and became one of Tracy’s lead advisors. She’s a painter and a self-proclaimed Bohemian. She focused on her customer.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

socalTECH

OCTOBER 7, 2009

For this morning's interview, we sat down and talked with Nick Desai , CEO of Global Fitness Media , which runs FitOrbit (www.fitorbit.com), an online site looking to help users put together a fitness and connect with fitness trainers. Nick Desai: Jack Steinfeld--which everyone knows as Body by Jake--is the founder of Global Fitness Media.

Media 168

Media Pricing Sites Training 168

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Los Angeles-based Clicker Media , the firm developing online video programming guides for the Internet, said today that it has raised $11M more in a Series B investment round. The new funding was led by JAFCO Ventures, and also included prior investors Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures. Series A funding round, in September.

Redpoint 145

Redpoint Guide Venture Capital Web 145

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

The service--currently only available on iPhone and Android--allows users to find reviews and information about consumer electronics products. We set up a digital media fund, which had the goal of investing in new digital media properties, ideas, and concepts. That's where our initial database of products is coming from.

Incubator 239

Incubator Startup Web Technical Review 239

socalTECH

JANUARY 9, 2013

Chromatik has developed web and iPad applications which let musicians upload, record, annotate, and share their sheet music; record a performance; give feedback to other musicians; and much more. Miso Media. The firm's products are an example of what applying technology, and smartphones and tablets, can do for music education.

Southern California 254

Southern California Startup Sherman Oaks Venice 254

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 25, 2023

It’s only been in the last decade or two, that social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, have achieved market valuations in billions of dollars (unicorn status), while clearly sacrificing revenue to gain users. High customer loyalty and high team passion.

Organization 94

Organization Invest Customer Custom 94

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

The firm, which did not disclose financial details of the investment, said the digital media fund established by Best Buy and Fuse Capital are backing its launch of a product information, pricing, and shopping mobile application.

Services 188

Services Santa Monica Google Incubator 188

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

My point was that Amazon continues to dominate the web services business because AWS continues to cut prices & margin in the same way a hypermarket does to control market share. Every politician in the country knows this as well as every consumer brand, every retailer, every restaurant and every media company. I wasn’t.

Invest 291

Invest Content Media Networking 291

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2020

It’s only been in the last decade or two, that social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, have achieved market valuations in billions of dollars (unicorn status), while clearly sacrificing revenue to gain users. High customer loyalty and high team passion.

Organization 173

Organization Invest Customer Custom 173

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

I know it’s easier to write “horse race&# stories about who’s signing up more users, raising more funding or who’s “hot&# lately. Not just the fact that you Tweet publicly versus privately, but also that they’re open in letting their Tweet stream flow into other products & services.

Social Media 274

Social Media Google Media Startup 274

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

The trend of funding anything from the first $25k to funding $50 million at a billion+ valuation is unlikely to last as the skills and style to be effective at all stages are diverse enough to warrant focus. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. These are very different.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software Capital Startup 334

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2019

When you are starting a new business, every resource is precious, including time, funding, and people. It’s always tempting to think that more product variations will satisfy more customers and lead to new sales. Lack of attention to team and process productivity. Most challenges you have are not unique to your business.

Outsource Development 122

Outsource Development Outsource Metrics Technical Review 122

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I had just left Salesforce.com where I was VP, Products, after they had acquired my second startup. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. But here’s the big “aha.”

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 28, 2010

Michael Jones , CEO of MySpace and former founder of Userplane, has another exit under his belt today, as AOL announced it has acquired Thing Labs , a San Francisco maker of web-based, social software. Thing Labs makes the Brizzly web-based software for sharing and discovering content. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed.

Userplane 133

Userplane Acquisition Venture Capital Web 133

socalTECH

MARCH 4, 2009

Los Angeles-based Steamboat Ventures has set its sights on the celebrity web space, and is the lead investor in a new round of funding for Fanzter , which operates the celebrity products site Coolspotters.com. Coolspotters is a web site which highlights which products celebrities are buying and wearing.

Sites 133

Sites Steamboat Ventures Invest Venture Capital 133