TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. The vast majority of those are nowhere up to modern codes. ” Climate resiliency .

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2019

Image via Flickr by Phil Gyford Starting a new venture still costs real money, even though the entry price has come down dramatically in last few decades. For example, I come from a software background, and back in the early PC days, it could easily cost half a million dollars for a team of professionals to produce a commercial product.

Startup 105

Startup Software Review Technical Review Social Media 105

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.

Startup 150

Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

socalTECH

OCTOBER 4, 2010

Last week, Santa Monica-based Revolution Prep announced its first, institutional round of funding, worth $15M, from Kennet Partners. The company provides SAT, ACT, and other similar test preparation courses and related software. I had worked as a tutor for Princeton Review, and Jake for Kaplan. We started in 2000.

Software Review 178

Software Review Technical Review Education Startup 178

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

JULY 29, 2010

on the entrepreneur side of the table) when I raised at too high of a price. So don’t raise money at a cheap price, but don’t get too far ahead of yourself either. Pricing high also takes exit options off the table. But if you do this early (pre VC) then the price points are pretty low. This is wrong.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

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 will write more about this in the next 2 weeks. But that doesn’t mean that people are paying rational prices as investors based on intrinsic value.

Pricing 309

Pricing Marketing Startup Venture Capital 309

socalTECH

APRIL 29, 2014

We were looking at it, and saw that if we could take all these off-the-shelf sensors, and put it all together, and write some code, and make a user interface, it''s basically done. Unfortunately, those providers decided the gold leads were expensive, and decided to use a Chinese vendor which would provide them at half price.

Startup 262

Startup Competition Software Review UCLA 262

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

It’s what signals to existing investors how quickly their teams need to be fund raising and the level of risk the company is facing and also it signals to potentially new investors both how quickly you need to raise (ie you have less leverage if you’re in a rush) as well as how much cash you’ll need if they fund you.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

For a high-volume seed fund that adds many portfolio companies every year (such as our friends at 500 Startups who invest in over 100 distinct companies annually), the cost of a bad affirmative decision (a false positive) is quite low, since it accounts for a relatively small portion of their total fund. Unicornless.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2010

Writing down your weight from your scale is obviously a manual process and it’s tedious. My favorite new software tool is DailyBurn. Problem is – Weight Watchers software TOTALLY SUCKS. And the starting price for WW is $18 / month … DailyBurn is free. We’ll see. Enter Withings.

Technical Review 278

Technical Review Software Review Startup SoCal 278

socalTECH

MARCH 12, 2013

The company--which is in the business of operating a content delivery network (CDN) to accelerate the delivery of web graphics, multimedia, applications, and more to end users-- recently disclosed it more than doubled its revenues in 2012, and has grown to over 230 employees--all due to a huge amount of demand for CDN services by its customers.

CTO Hire 248

CTO Hire Content Networking Web 248

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 19, 2012

The industry had seen unprecedented growth in the past decade due to a combination of factors, one of which was the United States’ economic recession. Due to the combination of these factors, marketers began to more heavily fund digital platforms. As the combination of the three provide the ultimate benefit.

Mobile 85

Mobile Software Review Statistics Technical Review 85

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

It says that selling an airplane ticket for $500 and getting paid a $5 fees by the airlines (1% gross margin) is not the same thing as selling $500 of software that you built (>90% gross margin). The questions that a VC mulls before writing a check are precisely the questions you should be asking yourself. Market Size.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

For parents, if you're interested in how your kids are doing, you can find out what their schedule is like, what homework is due when, what their grades are, and how they are progressing, plus you can communicate with their teachers. In the meantime, I was getting frustrated with the software being used at my son's school.

Education 124

Education Startup Course Tool 124

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

We didn't wanted to create new project management software--everyone uses Microsoft Project--but we wanted to make it more collaborative. So, our software takes a Microsoft.mpp file, and allows a whole team to manipulate it. Every company that did try it or buy it gave rave reviews, and said that this was what they wanted.

Startup 100

Startup Software Review Technical Review Software 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

This can include: Fund raising, product development choices, sales, marketing effectiveness, competition, business development, M&A … whatever. You can write this as a narrative in 3–5 key bullet points. There is limited way for board members to read them, digest them, compare them to the last board meeting, write up questions.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network) - 500 Hats , November 1, 2010 I've held off writing this post for a long time, because I couldn't quite get my head around all the issues. The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. But I didn’t write it for you; I wrote it for myself.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

Many people will write the history on why Ring became an enormously successful company and why it became a real-world unicorn in a world when many startups are anointed that merely on paper. We funded the seed round, the A round, the B round, C round, D round and E round. we were sold on the concept immediately.

Startup 247

Startup Pricing Product Marketing 247

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Chris Devore & Andy Sack have created Founder’s Coop with the goal of funding, incubating & launching more early-stage ventures in Seattle. Consider just how much exposure the Austin community gets every year due to SXSW. I don’t write about LA but I write from LA. It’s awesome.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software Blogging Startup 285