TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

Reducing consumption by expanding the notion of the rental economy and giving people access to tools and equipment has been something of a startup holy grail for some time. Unlike Home Depot, The Shed touts its presence in eight categories. The Los Angeles-based startup Joymode was attempting to do much the same thing.

Startup 285

Startup Product Demand Los Angeles 285

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 10, 2022

By most definitions of the term, an entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business, incorporating innovative changes to existing products, services, business models, and creating new markets. One way of identifying the right characteristics and approaches is to take a hard look at entrepreneurs who have done it.

Examples 131

Examples Entrepreneur Technology Resource 131

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Joining Initialized in the round is the serial entrepreneur Moise Emquies, whose previous clothing lines, Ella Moss and Splendid, were acquired by the fashion holding company VFC in 2017. “We partner with the investment groups at the agencies,” said company founder and chief executive, Ari Bloom. The Honest Co.

Incubator 184

Incubator Develop Development Los Angeles 184

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 24, 2020

As a frequent advisor to new entrepreneurs and startups, I often hear your frustration with being treated differently from other startups by investors, on expectations for valuation , traction, and market size. For many years, startups featuring all-electric vehicles fell into this stage of the business lifecycle.

Marketing 174

Marketing Startup Artificial Inteligence Technical Review 174

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

When entrepreneurs introduce new products to the market, their passion and conviction often leads them to assume that every potential customer will see the immediate need and value, and will quickly adopt the solution. They are devastated when their business growth never starts or stalls, and they have no idea how to get it moving again.

Case Study 174

Case Study Startup Customer Custom 174

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2020

If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Yet everyone has limits, and every investor implicitly has similar limits on what makes a startup investable, or one to avoid at all costs. A strong team has one or more executives who have run a startup before in the current business domain.

Startup 126

Startup Sites Technical Review Social Media 126

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. You can grow organically, or stretch out with big capital investments for volume and reach.

Entrepreneur 107

Entrepreneur Marketing Customer Custom 107

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 30, 2015

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. You can grow organically, or stretch out with big capital investments for volume and reach.

Entrepreneur 103

Entrepreneur Startup Marketing Customer 103

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2023

Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” Make your focus and priorities clear.

Tips 91

Tips Funding Startup Invest 91

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2010

This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. I had to say it. I know I do.

Competition 296

Competition Entrepreneur Startup GRP Partners 296

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

There are certain topics that even some of the smartest people I talk with who aren’t startup oriented can’t fully grok. It’s common cocktail party chatter to hear people confidently pronounce that some well known startup is sure to blow up because, “How could they succeed when they’re not even profitable!”

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2023

The most valuable assets of a new startup are the people on the team, and the most challenging task of the entrepreneur and team leaders is to spend their leadership time and energy productively. Most new startup founders start out by assuming they need to spread their leadership efforts evenly across all team members.

Resource 107

Resource Entrepreneur Startup Guide 107

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 2, 2022

Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. You can grow organically, or stretch out with big capital investments for volume and reach.

Entrepreneur 153

Entrepreneur Marketing Customer Custom 153

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). Many people start companies arse backwards. I write about some of the lessons in my post on Startup Mistakes. the link is here.

Startup 318

Startup IP Southern California Entrepreneur 318

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. It starts as a debt instrument (e.g. a loan) that is later converted to equity at the time of the next financing.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

This is the fourth article in a series on what it takes to be a great angel investor (and why this should matter to entrepreneurs). The first three skills I espoused were: access to the highest-quality deal-flow, domain knowledge of the topic area in which you’re investing and access to VCs to help fund the next stages of development.

Invest 283

Invest Angel Startup Marketing 283

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

I often talk about what I’m looking for when I meet with an entrepreneur. Above all else I’m looking for a genuine passion for what the entrepreneur is doing. You can sense when it is a “mission” for this entrepreneur to succeed and she will continue the journey even if success isn’t easy or immediate.

Venture Capital 373

Venture Capital Startup Course Entrepreneur 373

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. It’s still considered high risk for investment, since manufacturing and quality issues are likely. Specialized VCs start to jump in at this stage. Product verification and clinical trials.

Resource 102

Resource Ideas Funding Research 102

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2022

One of the quickest ways to become an entrepreneur these days is to develop and publish a smartphone app. This is a tough one to accomplish, but it has paid off handsomely for the first to win in other categories, such as Amazon Kindle and Netflix. According to Tim Cook at Apple, there are over 34 million registered developers in 2022.

Develop 138

Develop Development Platform Mobile 138

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I invested in LA-based Gogii , one of the fastest growing, most exciting mobile social networking companies you’ve never heard of and maker of a product called textPlus. I only recently invested and I only got here through persistence. I only recently invested and I only got here through persistence. But I never gave up.

Gogii 310

Gogii Invest Blogging Startup 310

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2020

Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” Make your focus and priorities clear.

Startup 134

Startup Invest Social Media Examples 134

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

Almost every early-stage startup who has approached investors for funding has heard the innocuous sounding rejection “I love your idea, but come back when you have more traction.” A graph that shows a hockey-stick “up and to the right” curve with at least three data points per key indicator is a great visual assist.

Startup 121

Startup Metrics Customer Custom 121

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2009

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. Well obviously that’s meaningless if your startup idea sucks.

Entrepreneur 306

Entrepreneur Startup Outsource Development Customer 306

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. But of course Google eventually became the massive winner in this category.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Because entrepreneurs often went to lawyers at their earliest stages to get their company registration done. Entrepreneurial lawyers like Don Lee , Dave Young or Ted Wang are good at sussing out which entrepreneurs are high potential. I asked for intro’s from entrepreneur friends. start-ups are overvalued.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

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!” Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!”

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 27, 2013

Many new startups and small businesses are shooting to crowdfund their campaign. Kate Drane, hardware category lead at IndieGoGo joins us and talks about IndieGoGo and crowdfunding. Do you believe in crowdfunding over the traditional ways of investing? One of the hardest times we had was getting access to capital.

Startup 74

Startup Funding Capital Help 74

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2021

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. It’s still considered high risk for investment, since manufacturing and quality issues are likely. Specialized VCs start to jump in at this stage. Product verification and clinical trials.

Help 165

Help Research Startup Funding 165

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 8, 2011

Amarillo’s advice is consistent with my comments in the Startup Competition ; get to know your competitors on a personal basis, while appearing as innocuous as possible. At your startup, maintain a poker face, stay out of your competitors’ crosshairs, and keep them guessing as to whether or not you have a winning hand.

Startup 207

Startup Entrepreneur Competition Guide 207

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Many entrepreneurs I know don’t realize that the language they learned in the corporate world, or even their recent MBA class, won’t get them ahead in the startup world today. Even if you have heard some of the new terms, but can’t explain how, when, and why they are relevant to your startup, you may be in jeopardy.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Startup Web Equity 109

socalTECH

AUGUST 12, 2019

The Vinetta Project (www.vinettaproject.com), a group which is focused on helping to accelerate the growth of female-led startups, announced a few weeks ago that it is working with P&G Ventures, the internal "startup studio" of Procter and Gamble on an effort to help female-led companies in Los Angeles.

Entrepreneur 124

Entrepreneur Metrics Los Angeles Help 124

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Continuing my series of posts that I’ve been collecting that live at the intersection of Startups and being a Startup CTO : Startup CTO Top 30 Posts for April 16 Great Startup Posts from March here are the top posts from May 2010. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. It is to out friend. Enjoyed this post? Disruptive.

Startup 248

Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2015

*. If you are a 20-something tech entrepreneur you could be forgiven for thinking that seed-stage investors, Angellist Syndicates and widely available angel money always existed. I was out to raise my first seed money in my second startup of $500,000. I was out to raise my first seed money in my second startup of $500,000.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Invest Cloud Computing 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 12, 2014

Most entrepreneurs believe they are “different,” but they can’t quite understand how. A recent book, “ Hunting in a Farmer''s World: Celebrating the Mind of an Entrepreneur ,” by serial entrepreneur and business coach John F. Dini makes the case that entrepreneurs are hunters, while the rest of us (large majority) are farmers.

Entrepreneur 109

Entrepreneur Startup News Slides 109

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2016

This continues to solidify Los Angeles’ place as a major player in the global tech ecosystem and while any one success doesn’t define a city — the number of high-profile startups and exits has definitely increased. Frankly, it’s awesome to see a VC articulate a vision for the kind of company they would back in a given category.

Dollar Shave Club 150

Dollar Shave Club Venture Capital News Snapchat 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

The best entrepreneurs in our industry focus on it year-round as opposed to just once every 18 months. Rather than overwhelm you with a super long Suster post I thought I’d break it up into a series of 13 (or so, might expand) posts. Below is the outline Upfront. Let me give you an example.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

Whenever a VC assesses a potential investment opportunity, they attempt to match the entrepreneur(s), their solution, and intended markets with a pattern they have previously encountered. Conversely, even if a venture is pre-revenue, the operational risk is reduced if the entrepreneurs have a relevant track record of success.

Technical Review 244

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital RSS 244