Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2014

When second place isn’t good enough because we live in winner-take-most markets. This blog started from a series of conversations I found myself having over and over again with founders and eventually decided I should just start writing them.It Leadership Tech Market Analysis' I absolutely loved the film. Zuckerberg.

Competition 394

Competition Startup Writing Marketing 394

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

VC's love to talk about their successes. Yet most VC's bury their failures under six feet of denial. In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. In retrospect, our decision was both perfectly rational and completely lame. > -jeff. . <Note:

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. In the original version of his post, Andy writes. “This essay is dedicated to the great VC’s on my board who I am lucky to work with: Sameer Gandhi from Accel, Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed, and Kirsten Green from Forerunner. . Their data looks at tech VCs. Because they know him or her.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 5, 2010

Last week at an angel investor forum I was privileged to meet Stephanie Spong, who is a Principal with EPIC Ventures, an increasingly rare early stage VC firm. Stephanie: I am a venture capitalist currently based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, with EPIC Ventures. Stephanie also speaks Spanish and Japanese. Marty Zwilling.

Venture Capital 65

Venture Capital Capital Entrepreneur Competition 65

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

When you raise money from investors you produce information that you are told they want and care about: A fund-raising deck that articulates your company strategy, plans, team, market, competitors and so forth. So what does a VC do when he or she isn’t ready to say “no” or perhaps might like to talk with you in a year but not now?

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2010

He stood up, grabbed the mic and gave a heartfelt overview of his experiences in experimenting with new technologies to build relationships with his audience, get feedback on his product quality and to market his music all the way to the top of iTunes. He studied the errors that other people had made and tried to improve on them.

Entrepreneur 356

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Email 356

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches - A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks , July 11, 2010 I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. So, I’ve had about 4 years on the “inside” of a fast-growing, venture-backed B2B SaaS startup. Most were on paper and video; 20 were invited to pitch in person.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. In today’s market, so much focus is placed on transacting business online. 10) Rob, why does the world need RingRevenue? . “In

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

While many of my friends bragged about their 5 condos in Florida I kept talking about how the real estate market was in a bubble – their gains an illusion. above inflation yet in many markets in the US & Europe prices were rising at 10-25% per year. “Yeah, but there is a shortage of supply.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

It’s actually very easy to spot when a founder has decided to focus on a concept because he or she has “spotted an opening in the market” or building a derivative business that is “Uber for X” or “Airbnb for Y” or “Dropbox for Z.” Incumbents launch products, VCs throw cash at other competitors, team members quit, the economy dips — whatever.

Design 150

Design Ideas Startup Writing 150

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

The company recently raised a round of funding from Santa Barbara-based ScOps Venture Capital. In terms of where we offer to our customers, we have 250 different areas, from early childhood to studying for an MCAT or the bar. However, because of our marketing and how efficient we are, we're able to make it work.

Startup 113

Startup Venture Capital Beverly Hills Acquisition 113

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

Lately I’ve been having to say things I thought I’d never have to remind people, like, “getting to positive gross margin in several territories is a very low bar to claim success” or “profitable excluding marketing costs” is not actually a real thing. Market Size. MakeSpace provides physical storage.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

“Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator.

Guide 293

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 293

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up. Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. We have a theme we call Protocol, which are technology protocols and markets built around technology protocols like SMTP for email and RSS.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Startup Technical Review Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. You cannot be just a biz dev type, salesperson, marketing genius or whatever and divorce yourself from product. Market validation – This one is optional but important. At an angel round you can get away with no market validation. They might be as hard as raising VC.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 2, 2014

For example, a startup may hire you as an accountant, but you may also be asked to do social media marketing content gearing towards finance for the company blog. Now, you’re handling payroll and doing writing as well. You may even discover that you enjoy writing more than crunching numbers. Startups are hiring.

Startup 102

Startup Social Media Writing Google 102

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

There have been many studies done on the topic including looking at twins raised in separate families. There have been studies of adopted children to their natural parents versus the parents that raised them. I have also seen studies on “birth order.&#. I’m now a VC that funds entrepreneurs.

Startup 289

Startup Statistics Entrepreneur Study 289

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 4, 2012

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. Market need and size validation. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process.

Technical Review 94

Technical Review Startup Writing Competition 94

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

You have no choice but to jump into solution mode for a bit to see if your case studies on a successful implementation at other customers opens up the person you’re meeting a bit. Pitching a VC – As I said in a previous post – the best VC meetings are discussions and not sales pitches.

Sales 314

Sales Startup Venture Capital Customer 314

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. We can now write $20M, $25M, and $30M checks to existing, breakout companies in our portfolio.

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

We wrote up a business plan, and won a USC business plan competition, which allowed us to get funding from the University and raise venture capital we needed to begin development on the plan. At that point, we realized we needed more money to get things to market, and that's when we went out and raised a round from the Maverick Angels.

USC 207

USC CPC Sites Startup 207

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

Part 1: Inside the mind of an angel investor and how it differs from professional seed investors and VC. A” round investors or late-stage seed investors will take a market risk (they want to see the product, vision and maybe even the first customers, and they bet on there being a big enough market). “B” Hope you all enjoy.

Angel 302

Angel Startup Ideas .Net 302

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

I asked him if he’d be willing to allow me to interview him for This Week in VC and we filmed it in the offices of Stack Overflow – his new company. Background: Joel Spolsky studied Computer Science at Yale University (class of 1991). It was the first internet company to lose money on its first day on the public markets.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software Blogging Startup 285

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2010

After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. Market need and size validation. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process.

Technical Review 90

Technical Review Writing Competition Tips 90

socalTECH

JULY 20, 2011

It came about, because we saw a gap in the market around entertainment news written for the 18-34 consumer segment. We thought it was a real opportunity to bring in some taste-maker editors, who could write specifically for that audience, and break news. We're going after a large and fast growing market. Everyone knows this.

News 173

News Entertainment Startup Bertelsmann 173

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. I commented briefly on his blog and made a mental note to write a blog post. At the time he granted me permission to write about his story. Tags: Tech Market Analysis.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Startup High Tech Software Review 282

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Some investors are team focused, others market focused, others seems to look for product / market fit. Only then can I even care about product, market or their nebulous “fit.&#. I’ll write that post one day – it is a very interesting story. Me: “I love your market. ON SUCCESS.

CTO Hire 363

CTO Hire Technical Review Startup Demand 363

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

As of writing, my twin and I serve as the Co-CEOs and Co-Presidents at LAGbook. We read up and many-a-times our experience teaches us the best and bad practices in engineering a social corporation, both technical, financial, and marketing. LAGbook is based in Lagos-Nigeria, with operations in Yaba and Festac Town.

Social Network 100

Social Network Networking Advertising Startup 100