Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 3, 2021

I’m a big fan of mentoring in business, and have been at different times on both the contributing and receiving end of the process. These days, I seem to often hear from entrepreneurs who are struggling to find a mentor, or complaining about their lack of effectiveness. When you meet with a mentor, you should lead the discussion.

Mentor

socalTECH

APRIL 15, 2015

Los Angeles-based venture capital investor Karlin Ventures is hoping to help develop rising, technology executives--particularly those at the VP level--with a new program it is launching today called Karlin Fellows. karlin ventures mentor mentoring mentorship product management' READ MORE>>.

Help

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

The “what” is well known in LA circles – Troy discovered a little known young singer named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga and helped her launch her career. And whom you know is really just about who is willing to go to bat for you, break through filters, and vouch for the quality of your product and of you.

Mentor

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Operating experience (Helped run parts of CitySearch & UrbanSpoon, tons of product management experience, Board of Hatch Labs which helped spawn Tinder). Helped merge company with Seedling – on track to do $20 million combined revenue in 2015 – will now become Chairman).

Venture Capital

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Why is it that only the most successful entrepreneurs , including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson, admit to having a mentor and actually use them? Obviously, I’m a big fan of business mentors based on my own experience, since I have been at different times on both the contributing and receiving end of the relationship.

Mentor

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. She took an operating role helping run Citysearch and Urbanspoon. On paper she’s more qualified than Yves or myself so with that out of the way can we now just focus on her skills and how you help me recruit her?” She had all of the skills and traits we sought?—?leadership,

Venture Capital

socalTECH

OCTOBER 18, 2011

The accelerator said that it is aiming at helping entrepreneurs--particularly in the social and mobile technology space--in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County with pre-seed funding and mentoring. READ MORE>>.

Orange County

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

According to the school, it has launched the The LMU CBA Business Incubator , a brand new startup incubator focused on companies in the technology and consumer products area. Choi--is launching with nine student and alumni companies, and provides space, advisors and mentors, and connections to startups. READ MORE>>.

Incubator

SoCal CTO

MAY 13, 2014

Here’s the other aspect that both Tony and I preach: get help. But, advisors, coaches, and mentors can often fill the bill. Getting someone who’s fully employed somewhere else to work with you on a limited basis to help close the gap is hugely important for the non-technical founder.

CTO Coach

TechEmpower

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Finally, OpenSource helped a lot having realistic feedback from production, even if the project and the associated FreePascal compiler are maintained by a small number of developers, and object pascal as a language is often underestimated. tew_cta text="Want to learn how TechEmpower can help make your web application faster?"]

Framework

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

To give visibility to these companies to: Sources of funding (angels / VCs), business development partners, mentors who have themselves built successful companies, the press and potential employees to hire. One senior mentor to Launchpad LA recently said, “I got more out of Launchpad LA than I even put in.

Venture Capital

socalTECH

JUNE 20, 2012

There is a large menu of startup accelerators in the Los Angeles, but one of more established efforts in the area is LaunchpadLA ([link] The effort actually started as an informal mentoring program, but has grown and expanded to follow the accelerator model. It was really just something built for the community to help support entrepreneurs.

Class

socalTECH

MAY 2, 2014

In a bid to boost the Los Angeles economy and create new jobs in the city, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday that he has created a new "Entrepreneur-in-Residence" program, which will help the city in developing initiatives and policies aimed at growing, assisting and sustaining entrepreneurs in Los Angeles. READ MORE>>.

Entrepreneur

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. I acted as the occasional mentor, advisor and coach to Ethan.

CTO Coach

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2022

The challenge in to know when and how to ask for help, and not let bravado and ego mask anxieties. The best people know when they don’t know, and know how to find the right help. Unfortunately, too many entrepreneurs I know are terrible at finding and accepting help. Seek help or get out. You start playing the blame game.

Help

socalTECH

JULY 13, 2020

who is based in Los Angeles--has launched a brand new startup accelerator called Product Club , which is aiming itself at accelerating a small class of product-focused startups. A former Tinder VP, Jeff Morris, Jr.--who Morris is currently a venture investor at Chapter One Venture Capital. READ MORE>>.

Product

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

Working with early-stage teams : coaching, mentoring, setting strategy, rolling up sleeves: 9/10. Helping companies get to next financing round successfully: I was just beginning this phase in Sept 2010 and said so. “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. Sourcing high-quality leads : 9/10.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

It was a software platform for allowing advertisers to purchase brand integration (product placements) as a standardized unit through a marketplace. Hamet came up with this idea after 3 years consulting for Nielsen Media helping them to figure out the value of branded integration and trying to define ways to measure efficacy of the unit.

Invest

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2020

In my own experience as a startup advisor and mentor, I find that entrepreneurs who can’t attract and maintain a highly motivated team rarely even get off the ground. There are many ways to add levity to a tough challenge, and engaging the team occasionally in some fun activities will work wonders for your team’s productivity and motivation.

Product

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

In a bid to change that, there are a few groups working on helping women entrepreneurs, investors, and others, including the Pipeline Fellowship (www.pipelinefellowship.com), which recently launched itself into the Los Angeles market. The program helps them learn the tools to become angel investors in female led enterprises.

Angel

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Beware of Mentors. In both cases, I was the mentor telling the person that the idea, as I understood it was "not great." " One was an enterprise software product. Would it take more work to sell the enterprise product than they could make on it? It was a top post on StartupRoar on Tuesday.

Customer

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

If I can help you avoid some of my first-time mistakes it would be a victory. Because market is such a broad topic, I’m restricting these lessons to PR marketing (as opposed SEO, SEM, product marketing, etc.). It’s a buggy product but pretty damn cool. And the anticipation of wanting to see the product will build.

Marketing

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

I think startup communities being simple cheerleaders doesn’t help anyone. Local mentors matter. I figured if we couldn’t fund every company locally we should at least embrace them as a community and show that we’re willing to mentor them whether they raise their money in town or not. Local capital matters.

Company

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

I will soon announce a few fundings (not yet closed, sorry) and I’m beginning to help them think about how to ramp up their engineering teams. Let’s say your a junior developer, marketer, product manager, biz dev person at a startup or well-established technology company. So I connected her with two CEOs and a CFO.

Networking

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2011

Those programs--epitomized by YCombinator in the Bay Area, and TechStars in Boulder, Colorado--attract newly minted entrepreneurs with a mixture of cash and mentoring, and a program which rapidly takes ideas and turns them into viable, executing businesses. Those mentors are not just Bruce and I, although we are full time on this.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

Greg was the first person to share with me the insights of mobile conversion and why with a simpler product selection and conversion funnel they would get higher conversion on mobile than on the web. The feedback was always universal, “that was the most helpful marketing meeting I’ve every had.” Community builders.

Venture Capital

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2020

In fact, some totally avoid it, assuming their product or solution will speak for itself later. Contributing to industry blogs, or starting your own, is an ideal way to express your positive values, and build a reputation that can save you later if your product stumbles, or you receive some negative challenges.

Product

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 27, 2020

Prioritize your tasks ahead of helping others with theirs. I’m a total believer in servant leadership and mentoring others, but nobody wins when you are in charge as an entrepreneur, and the business fails because you didn’t do your job. As a result, he missed opportunities, and the whole organization suffered.

Product

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

An occasional discussion with a mentor won’t do it. This is the stage where you move from building a product or solution, to building a business. Here you need a team, people with disparate but complementary skills bonded by your leadership, to ship product and go live. The place – finding a community where you can thrive.

Entrepreneur

Berkonomics

MARCH 24, 2016

Kirsten is the founder of ChickLabs , an incubator that focuses on helping primarily women entrepreneurs. Selling is required whether it is for sales of the company’s products or selling the business idea to investors. But culture will help you succeed and be one of the differentiators to also–rans. Teacher, tutor, and mentor.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2014

Many startups now go through accelerators and have mentors passing through each day with advice – usually it’s conflicting. Of course triangulation is a mathematics term that is used in sailing and other activities to help you better navigate when you don’t have your bearings. Improving startup productivity ?

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 23, 2022

In my experience as a mentor and advisor, I find that many of you expect these relationships will just happen , without any overt effort on your part. Actively seek out and attend key outside business conferences in order to meet and get to know people who can help you, and you can help in return. What goes around comes around.

Product

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2011

He founded the company, raised a bunch of money, built the product and established a good reputation and market position. He has built an amazing facility, has established a design-centric credo, has assembled great mentors and certainly gets access to great talent. We only ever came back and took one of the other products off the ice.

Startup

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 13, 2012

Running that effort is Kevin Hell , the founder of DivX, who we caught up with to learn more about EvoNexus and how the group is trying to help grow technology startups in San Dieog. They've provided a completely free facility, furniture, Internet access, mentoring, sponsorship--all of those things are provided for free.

Incubator

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 3, 2015

The rest of our partners, principles, associates and EIRs can weigh in with commentary on their views of the quality of the entrepreneur, the market, the product, competition and so forth. Other times she comes back with even more conviction about the founders, market or products. The can be downright negative and we welcome dissent.

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 20, 2020

As I was watching the investor show, Shark Tank , on TV the other night, I was struck by how quickly and how extensively the sharks focused on the background and character of the entrepreneurs, compared to time spent evaluating their products. Recognize natural leaders and seeks help from them.

Entrepreneur

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 6, 2013

It’s a great one about entrepreneurship, friendship and the collaborative economy that is helping families in need across the world. And there are a ton of dog sitters in Sacramento so I’m sure we’ll be able to help.” We proceeded to get one photo every day and it helped calm all nerves. The Background.

Venture Capital