Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 30, 2019

In my experience as a business advisor, one of the best ways to get all of these, is to publish a book on the technology, the journey, or some relevant lessons learned. In addition, the discipline of producing it, like writing a business plan, will help you immensely in understanding the key elements that drive you and your business.

Writing 19

Writing Technical Review Entrepreneur Advertising 19

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

And of course we help with business development introductions and with fund raising events. Sometimes it comes because investors believe the company needs more experienced leadership to run the company or more often to help run the company. I will work evenings or weekends to help a founder in need. What prompted this post?

Startup 217

Startup Technical Review Equity Report 217

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. For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%).

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

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. So I spend much time with them and trying to help.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

I’m sitting at my computer now at 9.00pm writing this – which is an hour earlier than I normally write (there are about 8 women at my kitchen table having a book club (aka excuse to drink wine & gossip so I’m locked in another room writing. It will help you in your lunch time conversations.

Email 287

Email Blogging Venture Capital Writing 287

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2014

” I have been weighing in slowly on the topic over the past few weeks on Twitter but have avoided writing a blog post about it until now. But my job is to understand technology and therefore you must use it to understand it. And we’re promoting apps like this in the tech press and funding it. So so funny.

Technical Review 329

Technical Review Blogging Examples Startup 329

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I tapped my friends at big tech companies (Salesforce, Google, Oracle). Before I tell you my reasons for never doing a deal that a banker intro’d I have to preface by where I think bankers are enormously helpful on VC deals. They do this because they have amazing skills at writing business plans. I attended events.

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Tech Zulu Event

JUNE 28, 2012

He kicked off the fest with his opening keynote, saying LA is a unique city of mash-ups, where tech, startups and entertainment – plus creativity, cultures, and passion – mix with successful results. RT @OEInnovation #SBF why I live in #LA: intersection of #beach #tech #entrepreneur #entertainment. & Women 2.0:

Hollywood 67

Hollywood Technical Review Startup Rustic Canyon 67

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I tapped my friends at big tech companies (Salesforce, Google, Oracle). Before I tell you the reasons I’m concerned about investment banking intros, I should start by saying I think bankers are enormously helpful for entrepreneurs in raising money. They do this because they have amazing skills at writing business plans.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

Good news: a quick review of TechCrunch’s March 2015 List of Top 20 U.S. Obtaining funding is a key milestone, but equally important is helping fledgling companies build institutional mass once they leave the relatively safe confines of an accelerator. Provide High Impact Exposure Beyond Your Hometown Press.

Startup 100

Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. While many tech startups do this intuitively (say, SnapChat thinking it would be much better if our photos out partying disappeared) it still happens. It’s worth a quick read. My argument is pretty simple. But it wasn’t to be.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

InfoChachkie

MAY 5, 2011

Relinquish Press Release Capabilities. Insisting to be compensated for your time will also help elicit the necessary respect from the BDC. In one instance, we were paid $50,000 and the Pilot was never implemented due to the fact that the BDC was acquired after the Pilot Agreement was finalized. Press Release Rights.

Outsource Development 244

Outsource Development Entrepreneur Resource Press 244

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Seattle should be the envy of any non Silicon Valley tech community in the country. It really wouldn’t take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. Who’s going to help you with improving your marketing / positioning to become a clear platform category leader like Twilio?

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317

InfoChachkie

APRIL 9, 2012

One of the most repeated statistics trumpeted by the popular press is that “Four out of five businesses fail”. When high-tech businesses, founded by appropriately educated entrepreneurs who received money from sophisticated investors are considered, the survival rates are even more encouraging. Keep your write-ups to a single page.

Startup 243

Startup Ideas Entrepreneur Statistics 243

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2010

Journalists don’t know enough about your company before the show, don’t have time for proper research, and you will be competing for their time afterward with 49+ other companies that want them to write about you. - But more broadly it got me thinking to one of the biggest mistakes tech executives get into in the first place.

Tips 307

Tips Startup Press Blogging 307

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A Visualization is so important to help yourself & others conceptualize ideas. The key is channeling what you learn when you drive onto paper for retention purposes so you have to write it down soon afterward. For others they swear by music.

Writing 356

Writing Startup Ideas Summary 356

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

I remind founders that the no’s come early because it’s super easy to qualify out a deal that you know is unlikely due to stage, focus, geography, competitive deal you’ve done or even just the fact that you’re too busy right now. When you read about the funding in the press it sounds like it was a walk in the park. What gives?

Press 232

Press Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 232

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 1, 2011

We were invited to play with double Grammy winners Arrested Development and got great reviews, but when it came to marketing our shows and our album, we found that the tools out there for artists were a disaster. Plenty of companies have helped solve the problem of distribution for artists. That’s a great thing.

Startup 80

Startup Design Advertising Search Engine Optimization 80

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

That’s certainly one function of every board but if your board is your “brain trust” and the people you can most use as a sounding board to help you make the toughest decisions in your company and if its the one group truly privy to your most confidential information and your hardest choices then it’s a shame if you don’t get more value.

Startup 226

Startup Slides Metrics News 226

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

You do a startup and decide you want somebody to step in and run the company so you can focus on technical excellence. They often are very good at getting information out of people, helping create a framework for making decisions and pushing for support amongst the organization from those that back the decision and those that do not.

CTO Hire 363

CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 9, 2010

For decades the “layering&# of technology has allowed us to develop IT systems and networks in a specialized way that let’s best-of-breed technology solutions to emerge at each layer of the stack and to allow people with different skill sets to specialize in key areas without having to have competence in every technology arena.

Startup 343

Startup Technical Review S3 Services 343