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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.
This is the mysterious and dreaded duediligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for duediligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. My best advice is to stick to the middle ground.
Investors are very focused on diligence, on business models that make sense, and those companies that have a definite competitive advantage and defensibility to what they're doing. The ideas and people seeking money are out there in quantity. Mike Napoli: We've revised the way we review companies at the prescreening stage.
The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless. Did anybody hold patents that would prevent us from using this technology? I seldom hire patent attorneys during duediligence but this was too important. We hired IP specialists to review prior art. Did the physics actually work? Was it safe? It was impressive.
Part I of this series describes the 360-review that I conducted at a growing, dynamic SaaS business which has recently graduated from the startup stage and entered the early-growth phase. One of the most compelling conclusions I drew from the reviews is that both Founders need delegate more of their day-to-day tasks.
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. Full on burger flipping mode.
Ideas are infinite, and in the absence of competent execution, they are worth nothing. Thus, if both ideas and money are abundant, what is the scarce constraint in the fundraising equation? Skilled entrepreneurs bring ideas and money together by building a bridge of trust. The same precept holds true today.
We caution all readers to review the source code of each test when interpreting the plaintext numbers. However, in some cases due to custom core components in a framework or implementation particulars, a framework may exceed 100%. Take a look at the list of test ideas we have collected to date. We are hiring.
so compelling (other than the fact that the CEO Sean Rad is a great young technology leader and his advisers – Brian Norgard , Dan Gould and Evan Rifkin - are some of the guys I respect most in the LA tech market.). Wordpress), video (YouTube), pictures (Flickr), review sites (Yelp) and collaborative content (Wikipedia).
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.
This is the mysterious and dreaded duediligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for duediligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. My best advice is to stick to the middle ground.
When Fred Wilson funded Twitter I guarantee you it wasn’t obvious that it was a billion dollar idea. When the early teams: angels, lowercase capital & first round capital funded Uber they had no idea it would be one of the most revolutionary ideas of our time. Far from it. It was an early and smart bet.
Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Professional investors and advisors, on the other hand, usually refuse to sign these agreements today due to the risk of litigation and administrative workload, and will walk away.
The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. There’s a guy in Los Angeles that I met at several tech networking events. He was a really nice and personable guy who had deep domain knowledge in an industry that he’d worked in for 10 years that is in need of technological advancement.
And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? And do I fit as a Part-Time CTO , Technology Advisor , CTO Founder , Acting CTO ? For me to do either of these, I certainly need to really believe in the idea and it has to be something that won’t consume all of my time. Go to user groups.
. “In order to create a successful new company, you have to find an idea that. (1) How many ideas like that are left? ” He gives a nice little 6-minute video interview on Bloomberg reinforcing these ideas. We once thought Microsoft was a monopoly on the Internet due to IE. Where David is Totally Right.
Nobody really knows whether or not the idea is yet going to be big, so I believe in not over capitalizing too early. If you’re creating truly innovative products, you often have no idea whether the proverbial dog will eat the dog food. We technology leaders also make this mistake. Rinse & repeat. You have a hunch.
All parties need to perform duediligence to ensure that the assumptions are correct, that neither partner has financial issues which could affect the partnership, and that the opposite partner has the skills to contribute to the partnership. Access to new technologies. Review financial statements – up to 3 years if available.
This is the mysterious and dreaded duediligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for duediligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. My best advice is to stick to the middle ground.
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.
It got me thinking about the tech industry. 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. They want to be ballers.
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.
Peter Pham, of Los Angeles technology studio/incubator Science Inc., Santa Barbara's Phone Halo pitches the idea of its GPS/Bluetooth wallet tracking device in this (kinda campy) video. Los Angeles MiniTime debuted its service this week to help families find reviews and information for their family vacation. SpaceX Grasshopper.
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.
Over my many years of mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs and business professionals, I often hear a desire to start a new business, with a big hesitation while waiting for that perfect idea and perfect alignment of the stars. So don’t wait for that “idea of the century” that no one has ever thought of before.
These are hard things to initially comprehend until you see them in full force as local retailers get wiped out due to their albatross of high real estate costs leading to either higher prices to consumers or lower margins on their p&l statements. But can you really tell me MakeSpace is a tech company?
His ideas to date hadn’t totally resonated and of course ideas matter, too. His message was that he realized he needed to move his girlfriend’s stuff into a storage facility due to apartment flooding. He had ideas. Within a few weeks he was an EIR in our offices in LA working on the idea. I felt bad.
Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Professional investors and advisors, on the other hand, usually refuse to sign these agreements today due to the risk of litigation and administrative workload, and will walk away.
Industry reviews. So the “VC associate” is largely a launching pad job for exceedingly bright and hard-working young tech professionals. a really wide angle view of the tech industry since you see so many concepts / so many pitches and REAL data points on how startups perform financially. Deal screening.
Early-stage ideas fall in the same category. I have the greatest respect for inventors and idea people who think outside the box to envision and create solutions never before seen. Of course, it helps to have innovative technologies before you start building a business. Don’t get me wrong. Take a hard look at the alternatives.
They can read reviews, see pictures and even talk to the family before confirming. I then clicked on reviews, looked at pictures and read the owners descriptions of what they were looking for. I told her the story of Aaron, the company, the reviews, etc. He and his wife hatched the idea for DogVacay and decided to go for it.
I believe that huge financial, productivity and technical gains come from new innovation rather than derivative thinking. Yet nearly any entrepreneur who has an idea that other people aren’t doing will tell you that it’s hard to get investors excited. I’ve lived through two tech market corrections at close range.
Several times in our angel group, one of the largest in the United States, we have queried our group as to their motives in being active, risking their money, taking their time to research, perform duediligence and then coach entrepreneurs of young companies. The result of these surveys over time is universally the same.
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.
It''s too cumbersome, and most of the products are 360 reviews, corporate management type products, which are too expensive. In an industry which has a turnover ratio of about nine months, most companies do these one year reviews which don''t make any sense. It''s kind of a challenge in those businesses, so that they don''t even do it.
Dynamic, growing startups consistently identify more ideas and opportunities than they have the time or resources to pursue, including: entering into potential partnerships, developing new products and accessing emerging markets. Impact – The degree to which the ideas further the venture’s objectives.
I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior. Yet talk with people at Twitter these days and many seem to feel like they are part of a movement – and that doesn’t just come due to product success. Those are the easy cases.
Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review ! This writeup from industry analyst Karl Guttag showcases how Magic Leap has turned away from several of the key technologies it raised billions of dollars to develop with its latest hardware which he nevertheless believes will “blow away” the HoloLens 2 in image quality.
some came from our customer service, some were to improve performance / scalability from tech ops, some were bug fixes, etc.) They attended property management association meetings in Oregon outside of the technology echo chamber of California to get a sense for people’s daily problems. But they went one step further.
The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. Any longtime readers of this blog will know that I often try to simplify complex ideas into a simple parable that is easier to remember to set the tone of one’s behaviors.
After 10 minutes I felt like we were old buddies because we had both been through the trenches of startup tech land and had had similar experiences. If you think you’re on to a really big idea and everybody else thinks so, too, then most likely it’s already conventional wisdom and you’re too late. Dissent is fine.
One is obvious, without protection, such IP might prove to be of little worth, as other companies can mimic the technology without recourse. The very nature of formal IP approval process ensures that some level of vetting has been performed to assess whether the IP is infringing on another company’s technology. Provisional Approach.
As much as the idea of "Silicon Beach" wants to represent the whole of the local technology industry in Los Angeles, there are -- as one would expect in such a large metropolitan area -- many different neighborhoods and communities spread across the region, all with their own individual identities, companies, and technology focuses.
I knew Asana was getting rave reviews from friends but maybe there was something not quite working there for me. And I love the idea that I can then invite in my colleagues into certain co-working spaces and assign tasks, keep track of progress and have people assign me work to do. I found myself not really using it enough.
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