socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

There''s been a lot of buzz about tech mogul Elon Musks''s idea behind "Hyperloop"--a concept to make transit between Los Angeles and San Francisco in only minutes, using 800 mph, aluminum pods. However, Musk''s idea has only been that--an idea--with no plans to actually implement the transportation system.

SpaceX

TechCrunch LA

JANUARY 17, 2019

Noone had gone on to take a job at SpaceX and Ellis at Blue Origin, but the two remained in touch and had an idea for building rockets quickly and cheaply — with the vision that they wanted to eventually build these rockets on Mars. The two had met in college at USC in their jet propulsion lab. space and missile defense program.

Sites

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 11, 2023

Savvy entrepreneurs start testing their ideas on potential customers even before the concept is fully cooked. They have enough confidence in their ability to deliver that they don’t worry about someone stealing the idea to get there first, and they don’t forget to listen carefully to critical feedback.

Ideas

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2013

Los Angeles-based Tongal , which operates a crowdsourced site for creating commercials, reported today that it has hit $1 million in current projects in its reward pool. The site said that so far, its users have earned $4M working on its various creative projects, with many earning more than $100,000 for their work on the site.

Hollywood

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 1, 2018

Peter Thiel’s vague idea to do something about Gawker, the site that had outed him as gay in 2007, was concretized into conspiracy on April 6, 2011. This is an excerpt from Ryan Holiday’s new book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, available now.

Ideas

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Online job and career sites still seem to be in another decade, when it comes to both design--and user friendliness. Can a startup gain a foothold in the competitive market by designing the right UX and user experience to make a job and career site for everyone? Los Angeles-based Workpop (www.workpop.com) thinks so.

Design

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 8, 2020

Savvy entrepreneurs start testing their ideas on potential customers even before the concept is fully cooked. They have enough confidence in their ability to deliver that they don’t worry about someone stealing the idea to get there first, and they don’t forget to listen carefully to critical feedback.

Ideas

TechEmpower

JULY 2, 2013

The results web site has been improved with test-type and hardware-type navigation, allowing you to share links to a specific results chart, such as Round 6, Fortunes on EC2. The results web site now includes a "framework overhead" chart inspired by comments from Hacker News user goodwink.

Framework

socalTECH

AUGUST 22, 2013

A new, Los Angeles area startup launched this morning, hoping to use the power of the crowd to help take ideas to launch. The startup--headed by Dirk Ahlborn--has created a system which lets the crowd provide feedback, ideas, and even crowdfunding to take ideas and research to market. READ MORE>>.

Research

socalTECH

MARCH 19, 2012

That's the idea behind HypeMarks (www.hypemarks.com), a new startup looking to tap into your social graph to guide you to the web. We help you turn you and your friends into personal tour guides to the web, ultimately making it easier to find new and awesome sites through each other. Where did the idea come from?

USC

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2023

In my experience, consummate entrepreneurs tend come up with more startup ideas than they can ever implement, and some of the ideas may not even make business sense. But how does any entrepreneur know which ideas to implement, and which ones are best left behind? Separate nice-to-have ideas from ones solving painful problems.

Ideas

socalTECH

AUGUST 30, 2013

There was a lot of hype earlier this month over the introduction of the idea for Hyperloop--a system for getting people to and from the Bay Area in only minutes , using 800 mile per hour aluminum pods. However, Hyperloop is just that--only an idea--and Musk isn''t planning to take it to market, just yet. READ MORE>>.

El Segundo

socalTECH

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Where'd the idea for Bragstr come from? So we sat down, came up with the idea on what's the most fair way to pick a game, and thought we'd use betting lines. We were not making a gambling site, but using those to prove your knowledge, using fantasy currency to show your confidence in your picks. It's all completely fun.

Sites

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 27, 2021

The entrepreneurs I see are always talking about “disruptive innovation” ideas, but the plans I read are more often linear extensions of a current hot offering, like one more social network with the best of Facebook and Twitter, one more dating site dimension, or another “must-have” accessory for smartphones. Marty Zwilling.

Ideas

socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2016

Los Angeles-based Loot Crate , which delivers monthly bundles of pop culture, gaming, and entertainment products to fans, launched a new fan commerce site, Loot Vault on Tuesday. The new site lets fans of the service snag some of the company's prior "crates", as well as special products. READ MORE>>.

Commerce

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ranker is a social site/platform for ranking anything, powered by semantic technology that aggregates opinions into ‘wisdom of crowds’ rankings”. I’ve checked out FindTheBest and I think it is a pretty incredible site, given how early stage they are. We get referring site traffic.

Google

socalTECH

AUGUST 6, 2012

At least six, Southern California companies -- Nimble , ParkMe , Quarterly , Beachmint , Chromatik , and Dollar Shave Club -- have been named as one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Brilliant Companies list today, a healthy share of the publication's annual look at the best ideas, hottest industries, and innovators. READ MORE>>.

Dollar Shave Club

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

The recently launched site lets users join but only after passing a series of coding "initiation" tests, by providing their coding abilities. Co-founder Nathan Doctor said the idea behind the site is to create a place for hackers to meet and interact with other talent, at no charge. READ MORE>>.

Education

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

" In this case, he had a pretty compelling idea, had very little money, and didn't have the capacity himself to build it. Have a rough idea of what you are looking for in terms of talent. Ask around for ideas on where they hang out. Sites - There are a bunch of sites out there aimed at this or similar issues.

Guide

socalTECH

JUNE 13, 2011

Where did the idea come from? That allowed me to take a summer to develop the new idea, and transform it into a business. I developed the idea over the summer, articulated the vision, drew out the site, and then teamed up with other students at UCLA and started developing KarmaGoat. It has been really amazing.

UCLA

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Retention Science said the score looks at customer churn, customer engagement, customer sentiment, and repeat purchase rate to let businesses get an idea of how they are doing with customer retention, similar to what Klout has done on the consumer side with measuring the influence of users online.

Commerce

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

He had an idea for a startup that would help consumers better book service jobs and would take on Service Magic, which he believed had a business model that could be disrupted. Because I knew that Ethan was on to a powerful idea and one in which he had developed huge competence and domain knowledge in. He was seeking $500k.

CTO Coach

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Instead of using seniority, the program manager would have to convince others based on the merit of their ideas. Jeff Atwood is the person responsible for product and user experience across all of their sites. Within a small startup with 3 engineers, everyone will work on all aspects of the site. There is no perfect structure.

Software Review

socalTECH

MAY 28, 2013

The way it works, is you go to our site, find the product through either search, a dropdown menu, or filters, and you can find the products you want. I''ve actually been tinkering with the name your own price idea for a long time. The other thing is, it''s a much faster process, unlike a site like eBay. READ MORE>>.

Pricing

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

Today’s $24 billion storage market in the US has these same key disadvantages and that was the genesis of Sam Rosen’s initial idea for MakeSpace , which I initially funded 15 months ago. He had an idea to make it better. We then riffed on the idea of, “That’s interesting.

Technical Review

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2023

Here are some key drivers that will likely lead you to a fundable idea: A business crisis. I hear this term every day, wrongly applied to new social media site, or a new productivity tool. So why do I see some many funding requests for products along these lines? Truly “disruptive” technologies.

Ideas

socalTECH

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Los Angeles-based crowdfunding site Crowdfunder.com , the equity crowdfunding site led by Chance Barnett, has raised $3.5M Crowdfunder said its equity crowdfunding site has been used in such startups as GoCoin, Social Rewards, Bitvore, and others. in a Series A funding, the company said late Tuesday evening. READ MORE>>.

Clearstone

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

He knew he was an entrepreneur because he couldn’t stop thinking about ideas. On the east coast, the response is typically all the reasons why your idea is not going to work. On the west coast, generally the response is how to improve on an idea. Positive feedback feeds the idea. For Meebo 1.3%

Startup

socalTECH

APRIL 14, 2011

First of all, what's the idea behind StockTwits, for people who haven't used the service? Howard Lindzon: StockTwits is a verticalized community for people to share stock ideas and market ideas, 24/7. Through Howards investment in betaworks, he also owns early shares in Twitter. It's fun, I guess.

Ideas

socalTECH

OCTOBER 14, 2013

We caught up with founder and CEO Erik Adams to hear more about what is startup is up to, and how it''s trying to use the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo to raise money for its startup. Where''d the idea for the company come from? I had the idea that instead of a gray box, it would be great to change that to a beautiful flower.

Startup

socalTECH

DECEMBER 5, 2013

Despite the huge surge of content specifically being developed for the web--and for sites like YouTube--making that content profitable and sustainable continues to be an issue for content creators. How did you get the idea to start the company? Josef Holm: I had the idea to start Tubestart with my partner, Paul Shires.

Content

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Los Angeles-based video crowdsourcing site Tongal is making a big move into feature films, saying yesterday that it has begun crowdsourcing a documentary, feature film on the site. The company''s platform has been used to create many advertising campaigns, including those in the Super Bowl. READ MORE>>.

Hollywood

socalTECH

JUNE 13, 2013

We caught up with James DeJulio , the company''s President and one of its co-founders, to hear about how the crowdsourced video site works. Round one is for ideas, then there''s a round for storyboarding, and a round for execution. The idea round revolves around 140 character ideas. Explain how Tongal works?

Ideas

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2013

Because often these Conference Hos bring back their latest idea from the hot tub cocktail session with their favorite tech superstar. And the stay-at-home staff is left trying to implement the idea while the CEO is off at the next big conference. In conferences, in bars, at late-night food, touring the sites in China.

Conference

socalTECH

OCTOBER 3, 2014

In Los Angeles, it seems like everyone has either a script or a startup idea in their back pocket. How did the idea for this come about? We''ll also aggregate media, when those people Facetime about their job blog about their job, tweet on the job, and Instagram about it--we''ll aggregate all of that on the site.

Platform

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 28, 2012

People complete a short profile when they register on DinnerDate.com, where they can express interest in other people on the site. It's very low pressure, and allows you to just meet people for a meal, or connect if you've seen someone on the site and liked their profile. Where'd the idea for DinnerDate.com come from?

San Diego

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

" In this case, he had a pretty compelling idea, had very little money, and didn't have the capacity himself to build it. Have a rough idea of what you are looking for in terms of talent. Ask around for ideas on where they hang out. Sites - There are a bunch of sites out there aimed at this or similar issues.

Guide