Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 11, 2015

Product Hunt. It seems out of nowhere it has become the go to website for startup companies to launch their new products or businesses. I strong showing on TechCrunch created initial product demand and if you could sustain that it led to buzz overall in the tech community. It reminds me a lot of how TechCrunch felt in 2006.

Product 150

Product Startup Press Social Media 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2015

Yesterday I saw two biopic films: “ Amy ” about the life of Jazz sensation Amy Winehouse who died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 and “ Montage of Heck ” about the life of Kurt Cobain , the grunge-rock generational voice who died of an overdose of heroin and valium at the age of … 27.

Press 150

Press Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

Only naive people believe that but for inexperienced entrepreneurs you can be fooled into the narrative by the press who sometimes write stories without the actual data. It’s why I wrote this article about Invoca (formerly RingRevenue) that the most obvious mobile Internet ad unit is, in fact, a phone call. PHONE CALLS.

Email 339

Email SaaS Venture Capital Google 339

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

We did know about Snapchat as early as anybody. But that narrative was fresh in my head when I first had the discussion about Snapchat. 6 months later the company was in the press because predators had used the app to rape and molest three children under the age of 15. Another firm funded them. Many seem plausible.

Snapchat 214

Snapchat Invest Technical Review Dollar Shave Club 214

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 26, 2010

And even then Microsoft has substitute products as anyone who has taken Econ 101 will tell you. The “competition slide&# of your investment deck is such a great opportunity to talk about how you’re positioned (premium product vs. economical product? It is a great place to talk about your future roadmap.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Slides Competition Education 313

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. I have thought a lot about anonymity over the years and actually have enjoyed debating the topic with those passionate about anonymity’s benefits because of course that’s how I learn.

Technical Review 329

Technical Review Blogging Examples Startup 329

TechEmpower

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

If having an LLM write the whole blurb seems like too much, we could also fill our empty textbox with a writing prompt: I know writing about yourself can be tough. State Your Career Goals: You're passionate about guiding young minds in mathematics. Think about text boxes that have stymied you in the past.

Generative AI 295

Generative AI Artificial Inteligence TechEmpower Tips 295

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

recently wrote a post talking about how some VCs meddle in operating company decisions or some executive teams are too reliant on VCs to jump in and make hard calls for them. Here is where I see this really play out: Product Management. Most CEOs fancy their own product skills and like to weigh in on priorities. I did this.

Startup 150

Startup Sales CTO Coach Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

less than 18 months from when the company was created so I thought it was probably a good time to weigh in on the questions I get asked most frequently and why we’re so excited about Bird. How could Bird really be worth the reported $2 billion valuation that I read about in this press? That’s what we all thought about Uber, too.

Santa Monica 256

Santa Monica Funding Startup Course 256

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. They use products because the products solve a need they have. He is both. Blah, blah, blah.

Product 348

Product Startup Design Blogging 348

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? I’m not saying that lawyers were my screening process – simply that they knew about deals early on and they had voted with their time and pocketbooks so I knew I had a degree of filtering. What stage?

Startup 361

Startup Venture Capital Pricing Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2013

TechCrunch interviewed me and asked me to talk about failure. So I spoke for 12 minutes about my own failures. Stop reading their press releases or hearing their founder talk about he is crushing it. We all know that people who truly are crushing it rarely talk about it. getting too much press before we were ready.

Startup 412

Startup Press Course Entrepreneur 412

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2015

For survival, entrepreneurs need to be all about accomplishing results that matter for themselves, their team, and their customers. That’s productivity. That is a huge hit on productivity. Practice productivity planning with your key team members. That’s extraordinary productivity. Why is this so hard?

Product 111

Product Entrepreneur Framework Social Media 111

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

It is the bane of every startups existence because it takes up so much time, it is so competitive to sign people and it feels like unproductive time because it’s not moving the ball forward on product, engineering, sales, marketing, biz dev, fund raising. I’d want to secure permission from the employee to issue a press release.

Press 341

Press Startup Email Sales 341

L.A. Business Journal

AUGUST 18, 2017

Aldi, which mainly sells products with its own label, has almost 1,700 stores in 35 states, according to a press release. About 15 of its stores are in L.A. German discount grocer Aldi Inc. announced Monday that it plans to debut a grocery delivery service through Instacart in Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta later this month.

Press 120

Press Los Angeles Services Product 120

Tech.Co

MAY 9, 2024

Learn more about the SBIR grant, and how to apply here. Learn more about the STTR grant, and how to apply here. Learn more about WOSB, and how to apply here. Learn more about the 8(a) business development program, and how to apply here. million for products and services, and $5.5

Outsource Development 192

Outsource Development Technical Review Research Writing 192

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Creating awareness for your brand and products is one of the lifebloods of technology startups yet in a world where so many companies are being created it becomes difficult to rise above the noise. Ever notice how some companies tend to be in the press all the time and your big new product launch struggled for inches?

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 27, 2013

The problem with the TechCrunch bounce was that it often led the the TechCrunch free fall, as in your website’s precipitous decline in traffic and your products fall in users as that same 60-70,000 rushed to try the next product. Sure, some products were amazing and the crowds stuck around.

Blogging 309

Blogging Journal Press Startup 309

Berkonomics

MARCH 16, 2023

As an early-stage investor, the first test for me is whether “my” entrepreneur is flexible in both the plan and execution of their vision (since from experience almost everything about a business plan changes over time), and whether that person, no matter what age or experience, is coachable. Doctoral theses have been written on this subject.

Coach 156

Coach Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Resource 156

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a post about The Silent Benefits of PR in which I pointed out that most young companies I encounter don’t fully grasp the benefits of PR because they are less measurable than product milestones or customer acquisition analyses (like CAC/LTV). It super charges a business that is closer to product delivery.

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2013

It has even gone so far that we now have evocative headlines in the tech press such as “ Buy or Die ,” which is what got me thinking about this post. But the press (and I suspect many of the senior execs of these companies) don’t really explore the corrosive downside of these acquisition. We get the mechanics.

Press 357

Press Startup Yahoo Venture Capital 357

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Are you cynical about their chances in the market just because they seem to be hot in the press and that bugs you? Albert Wenger from Union Square Ventures wrote a great post the other day that reminded me I’ve been meaning to write about this topic. How about “agree” and “disagree” buttons? But I tape the shows.

Startup 313

Startup Press Writing News 313

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. But succinctly this press places a marker in the ground for your company. But first you need to know about Reg D filings.

Startup 355

Startup Funding News Press 355

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

I use George Bush vs. Al Gore as allegory and I’ve been using it with entrepreneurs for years to sink in a simple point about how to communicate with the market. But the narrative in the press about Al Gore was that he was a smarmy know-it-all. Bush had the opposite narrative in the press. Simplify Your Message.

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370

Tech.Co

MAY 6, 2022

The two companies are a great match, according to Shopify's press release about the deal. In the end, the benefit to the merchants who use Shopify is an easier, streamlined, and dependable way to get their products into buyers' hands. Easier two-day delivery and end-to-end control over the ecommerce process. Sign up to the Tech.co

Networking 123

Networking Press Newsletter Startup 123

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2013

I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base. But you’re a pragmatist.

Startup 371

Startup Press Product Blogging 371

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2022

They skimp on the design of their website, procrastinate on the rollout to make sure the product is perfect, and get so excited about technology features that they forget about creating value for customers. Working the circuit of big groups of strangers is minimally productive. Don’t waste your time following up.

Marketing 141

Marketing Startup Social Media Technical Review 141

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). I don’t. Co-founder discontent.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. Because market is such a broad topic, I’m restricting these lessons to PR marketing (as opposed SEO, SEM, product marketing, etc.). It means avoiding drinking too much at cocktail parties with other tech people and bragging about your plans.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

socalTECH

AUGUST 30, 2012

The big announcement party that e-commerce giant Amazon.com has set for Santa Monica airport's Barker Hanger looks to be all about the Amazon Kindle Fire, and Amazon Kindle Touch, as the firm bragged this morning that it had "sold out" of its Kindle Fire. Kindle Fire is Amazon's tablet PC, which is based on Android. READ MORE>>.

Santa Monica 133

Santa Monica Press Hollywood Commerce 133

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

There has always been tension between CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies and the retailers who sell their products to consumers. If a consumer will pay a fixed price for a product or service then the battle over who gets the margin in any sale is between the person who merchandises a product and the person who manufactures it.

Product 296

Product Course Customer Custom 296

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

WTF is she going on about? Remember, it’s about Lines, Not Dots. She learns how to ship product, how to deal with merchants, how to hire product managers. Always meeting her product ship dates. She was always able to get into the weeds on product or biz dev discussions. Or what she was working on.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

He was about to be featured in a major US news magazine as one of their “hot&# picks. Entrepreneurs get so used to friends and family congratulating them on their press coverage that they forget sometimes that this isn’t real. A positive news story means NOTHING about the core performance of your business.

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Press News Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

I talk about failure a lot because I think it can be tremendously instructive and I think that success without failure often masks underlying lessons. I have experienced many first-time entrepreneurs with too much hubris if fund-raising came easily and press was fawning and employees joined in droves and customer adoption has been rapid.

Startup 261

Startup Press Blogging .Net 261

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. You’d imagine that companies selling tons of shelfware would quickly meet their deserved fate in the market, yet the spin around a category of software can fool buyers into thinking they “must have this product to compete.”

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2011

I have written about this topic in regards in different ways before and if you haven’t read them I think they’re probably both worth a glance: 1. In today’s economy it is counter productive because the best employees have options.” ” but I cared more about the outcome and the lesson. VC Pitches.

Press 337

Press Venture Capital Doc Summary 337

TechCrunch LA

AUGUST 9, 2022

The funding, a Series C, will be used to continue expanding Boulevard’s product and engineering teams and to build out more tools targeting an ever-wider set of users in the bigger wellness and beauty sector (those product additions are typically big — it most recently added a whole new payments feature).

Help 195

Help Startup UCLA Tool 195