Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

I am super excited to announce that today is a day of lots of new things for my partners & me: A new fund, a new office and a new brand. Let’s start with the fund. We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million), 2000 ($400 million) and 2008/9 ($200 million). This month we closed our 4th fund of $200 million.

Funding 343

Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital Startup 343

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

The press around the raise & company was fantastic and the promise of their technology – wireless charging that works as easily as WiFi – would positively affect many of our lives. uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. Now they are partners.

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

How could Bird really be worth the reported $2 billion valuation that I read about in this press? People said this about Ring (which went from startup to selling to Amazon > $1 billion in around 5 years), Facebook, YouTube, Airbnb, Uber, Twitter, Instagram and many other great behemoths of the technology industry. Not really.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

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 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” He or she has worked at some very successful big technology or media companies and went to a great school. I saved my main point for last.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 27, 2012

For the last week of the year, we're featuring the thoughts and reflections of some of the movers and shakers of Southern California's high tech community. We asked the same four questions of a variety of top technology entrepreneurs, investors, and others, to hear what they're thinking about, and are sharing it here over the next week.

Dollar Shave Club 272

Dollar Shave Club Technical Review Santa Monica Southern California 272

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 7, 2013

Stained Glass Labs (SGL), the first Glass and wearable technologies accelerator has launched the world’s first comprehensive app directory and a self-service app publishing portal for Google Glass pre-launched applications. Comprehensive App Directory. SGL says the Comprehensive App Directory launched is a simple 2 step process.

Google 87

Google Technical Review Press Software Review 87

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Most newspapers are written at a third-grade reading level, White House press releases average a fourth-grade reading level and the New York Times is easily digestible by the average fifth grader. No VC Fit - Match your venture with appropriate funding source. If a valuation has been established, what is it? Financials. Contact.

Venture Capital 211

Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

socalTECH

JUNE 23, 2017

The insurance industry today is one of the last industries to fully jump into adopting technology for offering up their products, says Wayne Slavin , CEO and founder of SURE (www.sureapp.com), and just needs some help in getting there. We're here to serve, as a technology distribution platform, to help those insurance carriers become digital.

Southern California 244

Southern California Technical Review Startup Commerce 244

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 18, 2010

Full press release with more details is here. Applications are due April 6th, 2010, the form is on the website and the Twitter address is @launchpadlad. Encourage the most successful LA tech entrepreneurs who had previously started companies to get involved as mentors, instructors or just informal advisors. We connected.

Technical Review 259

Technical Review Venture Capital Southern California Tech Coast Angels 259

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

In case you don’t know – as VCs we have have 2 sets of customers: LPs (limited partners) who invest money in our funds and entrepreneurs (who we in turn give money to and help support them in building businesses we hope will be valuable). The press don’t get your financials.

Customer 341

Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

And of course we help with business development introductions and with fund raising events. But unlike the popular press reporting of this conflict — 80% of the time it is founder-to-founder conflict and not investor-to-founder conflict. Often we are asked to get involved in executive-level recruiting. Those seldom get reported.

Startup 217

Startup Technical Review Equity Report 217

InfoChachkie

MAY 6, 2013

This is due to a fundamental disconnect between the increased activity of high-volume seed investors (that fill out lots of Seed rounds) and the relatively small number of Series A investors, who only make 1 or 2 investments, per partner, per year.". A from a new outside lead. Turtle Eggs And Startups.

Entrepreneur 246

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Capital 246

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. As always a balanced perspective is in order.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

It is often the fortuitous mixture of new technologies, customer awareness and then acceptance of the technology and then the slow adoption into our daily lives that leads to markets exploding. I recently read this anecdote in the press (withholding company name because I actually really love the concept).

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 16, 2018

As the rate of change continues to increase in business and technology, the more I’m convinced that marketing is the primary key to success for a new venture. Yet I find that many technical founders don’t feel they need it at all, or at best point to one person on the team who is marketing.

Marketing 71

Marketing Tips Technical Review Social Media 71

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

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 13, 2012

A tweet by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer on August 9th caused a stir in the tech scenes. A new venture fund had been launched, not because it was her husband’s but it was a totally unique and different fund and a timely move. She tweeted; So proud of my husband @zackbogue for the launch of his new fund, DataCollective ( @dcvc ).

Technical Review 74

Technical Review Entrepreneur Oracle Software Review 74

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

We jockey to make sure the press release has our names on it. That would mean that the increased number of new business startups will lead to a “funding gap&# of deals that can’t get financed. I believe that huge financial, productivity and technical gains come from new innovation rather than derivative thinking.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

It influenced a generation of tech marketers. The book popularized the technology adoption lifecycle curve that originally came out of Iowa State University shown below. So the early part of a technology company is about finding your hard core group of early adopters and making them passionate about your products.

Marketing 294

Marketing Customer Custom Technical Review 294

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. …But LPs Have Been Putting Out More Money Than They Are Getting Back. . That’s money that fuels our startup ecosystems.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

socalTECH

MARCH 24, 2016

How do you apply technology to help improve that industry? We want to handle everything from helping them with due diligence, making offers and making counteroffers, reporting to sellers, checking out analytics, figuring out how well deals are tracking, and everything to manage properties, to best and finals with buyers.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Mobile Marketing 100

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

I’m doing due diligence on a company of another entrepreneur in LA whose company was apparently doing very well. They want to merge with other and want to know if I’d fund the combined entity. I know, I know … technically they can be structured as mergers. &# My friend’s company was pre-revenue.

Technical Review 276

Technical Review Startup Press Pricing 276

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 16, 2013

Silicon Valley may still be the capital of technology with a mix of new (Google, Facebook) and old (Apple, HP) sprinkling the landscape. However, Silicon Valley isn’t the only place to grow technology innovators from the ground up. In other cases, it’s strip malls and shopping to generate foot traffic.

Social Network 111

Social Network Social Media Press Technical Review 111

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 18, 2019

This led to massive funding rounds at Bird, Lime and others. There was seasonality, theft, tough unit economics and slowing funding rounds. This is only true when: 1) there is funding available to finance short-term losses and 2) when there is a lucrative positive unit-economics business when you become the winner.

Santa Monica 250

Santa Monica Venice Competition Software Review 250

Xconomy

OCTOBER 7, 2016

coast bearing the brunt of Hurricane Matthew, we send our thoughts and more to those who have more pressing matters to worry about this week. military’s high-tech think tank DARPA described Safe Genes, a new program to fund safety measures that can be built into genome editing technology or counter its potential wayward effects.

Technical Review 77

Technical Review Study Layoffs San Diego 77

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

some came from our customer service, some were to improve performance / scalability from tech ops, some were bug fixes, etc.) But it seemed strange to me that we would openly talk about stuff rather than waiting for a big announcement to the press. Being transparent about our workload, our struggles, our fund raising, whatever.

Organization 280

Organization Customer Custom Tips 280

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

If I’m interested I get to spend more time with them, if I’m not I don’t have to – A few companies per month come in that have fascinating business ideas that warrant my spending more time trying to understand their people, company, technology and market. Tags: Tech Market Analysis VC Industry.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

He said, “They need an unbiased view of the fund raising environment because there is too much misinformation and everything seems to be changing fast.&#. I suppose I should have imagined that this line would get more press than all other comments combined. – you’re very well positioned as a fund. Fair enough.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Reviewing financial & operational performance. Planning and dealing with extra-ordinary events: M&A, fund raising, crises. Mentorship.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2014

This was in part due to a tremendously busy 30-day period for me (in which my overall writing has been down) and in part the inevitability of knowing that weighing in just tees me up to take abuse on one anonymous app called Secret. But my job is to understand technology and therefore you must use it to understand it. So so funny.

Technical Review 329

Technical Review Blogging Examples Startup 329

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development. This is probably because many founders are product or technology people. Most sales professionals start by carrying bags.

Sales 346

Sales Startup Technical Review Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I tapped my friends at big tech companies (Salesforce, Google, Oracle). And they have access to some of the most talented technology entrepreneurs so this is a worthy goal for them. And for the record, GRP has funded YC alum. I like to debate with them how they will land customers and how they deal with the press.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I tapped my friends at big tech companies (Salesforce, Google, Oracle). And they have access to some of the most talented technology entrepreneurs so this is a worthy goal for them. And for the record, GRP has funded YC alum. I like to debate with them how they will land customers and how they deal with the press.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

With top-ranked accelerators Lauchpad LA closing its doors and Y Combinator rebranding itself as a seed fund, it seems fair to ask the question, “Are Accelerators Dead?”. Good news: a quick review of TechCrunch’s March 2015 List of Top 20 U.S. Provide High Impact Exposure Beyond Your Hometown Press.

Startup 100

Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2010

Marc Friedmann: SciVee serves the STM - Science, Technical, Medical - market. It's a pretty established, mature market, which has existed since the beginning of the printing press, but has evolved forward for hundreds of years and has been going through a lot of changes in the last twenty years. How did you get involved in the company?

Journal 124

Journal Technical Review UCSD Web 124

InfoChachkie

JULY 18, 2012

The following guest post is from Eric Greenspan, Founder and CEO of MakeItWork, a consumer facing, in-home tech support service. We were certain the funding would come through. We were so close to getting the funding. Then came the weekend, our lease payment and payroll was due Monday. Days went by, we stayed focused.

RSS 170

RSS Technical Review Capital Email 170