Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

You took the risk to start your company. ” Your peer group is envious of your finally doing what they’ve always wanted to do but found it too hard to give up the golden paycheck and predictable future. So as a startup CEO you constantly have to suspend disbelief. I do believe in total transparency with your core.

Startup 417

Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2012

We’ve grown accustomed to a professionalism where we know when a work issue comes up we can count on each other for a quick Sunday call between family time. And that person has almost certainly chosen specifically to be a startup lawyer over serving other types of customers because he or she enjoys working with entrepreneurs.

Startup 363

Startup Venture Capital Coach Press 363

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2011

What could you learn from looking at your competitors or other tech startups in a different way? Are you cynical about their chances in the market just because they seem to be hot in the press and that bugs you? Or you think their startup is a passing fad and yours is the real deal? The topic of FourSquare came up.

Startup 313

Startup Press Writing News 313

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

If you’ve taken the roller coaster ride that is a startup – you know what I’m talking about. The truth is that in my experience very, very few people really enjoy the “pure&# startup environment: months with no salary, months with no live product and lots of trial, error & rejection. Get your press coverage.

Entrepreneur 384

Entrepreneur Startup Venture Capital Ideas 384

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy DiNunzio isn’t your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. And she didn’t start her company in Northern California. She leveraged herself and even sold many of her possessions to get started. She started her business from a personal need.

Startup 363

Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

She was leaving IAC to start a company. Somehow she was always on a flight up to Seattle or San Francisco. Didn’t I make myself clear about celebrities & startups ? She helps write press releases. Turns out she’s done this startup thing before. Kara called me on a Tuesday. Does that work for you?”

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

Very few investors understand this and even fewer startups. When you’re an early-stage business every dollar matters and because many startup teams these days are very product & technology centric they often miscalculate the importance of PR. PR is an insanely valuable activity in early-stage companies. They are silent.

Press 415

Press Google Course Writing 415

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

In a VC business when you raise additional capital you need to “level up” and act the round you are. I’d say 20% of startups I see level-up early after their A round. These are important leveling-up activities but the CEO is often still up at 10pm f **g around with QuickBooks entries.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development. Evangelical sales – Understanding startup sales people and process. Here is my recommended approach. Reminds me of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Sales 346

Sales Startup Technical Review Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Partisan rancor aside, we had just come off a boom decade – especially in tech – and many people at the start of the election thought Al Gore was a shoe in. 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. Before that he was a US senator.

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

It’s very common for startup companies to have COO’s. But … Startups don’t need – shouldn’t have – COOs. I have this conversation with every startup that comes to see me and has a CEO & a COO. I think usually a COO title at a startup is an ego thing. CEO’s run things.

Startup 325

Startup Technical Review Sales Report 325

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. As startup entrepreneurs we all want to work with them because having their name as reference clients makes it so much easier for marketing, PR, selling to other customers, fund raising and even recruiting. Large companies can be strange sometimes. Sometimes it actually does.

Startup 298

Startup Sales Slides Metrics 298

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. Obviously press releases only work if the employee isn’t junior.

Press 341

Press Startup Email Sales 341

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

It’s a conversation that creeps up from time-to-time. For a combination of reasons I didn’t end up talking with the CEO in time and the company quickly became over subscribed. And my “point A&# is only determined by what I read in the press since we never had our initial meeting. That’s OK, too.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2009

This is part of my series on How to Raise VC but could equally be filed under Startup Advice more generally. He started the call by telling me he had exciting news. Entrepreneurs get so used to friends and family congratulating them on their press coverage that they forget sometimes that this isn’t real.

Venture Capital 291

Venture Capital Press News Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2011

So I’m not suggesting to startups that you define bad market positions to get noticed. As long as you don’t care about getting any press. A way to tell the press and customers what you stand for. The ad ends with a really strange, close up of Herman Cain staring at the camera and then a long, slow smile.

Startup 289

Startup Press Software Marketing 289

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 14, 2010

Yesterday I wrote a post about top-down versus bottom-up thinking. So they create a task list of all the marketing activities an organization can do: press releases, web site updates, customer case studies, blog posts, daily Tweets, Facebook fan page, attending conferences, etc. You have a marketing department with three people.

Startup 323

Startup Press Development Team Review SEM 323

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 19, 2011

I recently sat down with Matt Coffin , the founder of LowerMyBills, which sold for $400 million but was very nearly a bankruptcy only a few years early, and talked “startups.&#. Matt is one of the most transparent, focused & honest startup guys you’ll meet. Or read the quick, informative summary below the image!

Acquisition 304

Acquisition Startup Customer Custom 304

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? I am a VC.

Marketing 389

Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons”. I’m not going to cover in this post the obvious post-show marketing tasks such as following up on all those business cards you grabbed, communicating with all those people who registered at your site and leveraging your new found fame to score venture capital.

Startup 310

Startup Venture Capital Press Journal 310

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 22, 2014

It’s a fantastic startup that has had a amazing impact on society. It’s not just about people like me who can (and do) turn up in nearly any city in the US and immediately book a ride. They were a little too fierce in their competitive practices against Lyft to sign up drivers. Is Uber evil? That’s silly.

Press 418

Press Journal Startup Training 418

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 29, 2014

I often describe “chutzpah” as being able to skate right up to the line of acceptability without crossing over it. Years ago I started using the term “politely persistent” to remind people that you still need to be likable even if you have gumption. It’s your job to persist.

Venture Capital 389

Venture Capital Email Startup Conference 389

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

Launchpad LA today announces it will accept applications for its third class of Los Angeles-based tech startups. To give visibility to these companies to: Sources of funding (angels / VCs), business development partners, mentors who have themselves built successful companies, the press and potential employees to hire.

Venture Capital 287

Venture Capital Funding Startup GRP Partners 287

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. Startup Advice'

Startup 371

Startup Press Product Blogging 371

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

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 27, 2013

I’ve started a recent series on PR at startups since I get asked for advice on this topic so often. The start of this series was, Should Your Startup Announce Funding ? After that a meme developed amongst many startups (and the advisors that coached them) that, “TechCrunch didn’t matter.

Blogging 309

Blogging Journal Press Startup 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2010

I know that this will sound like a random post topic for startup advice but I promise it’s relevant. When I started blogging I had an idea. I would take all of the one-on-one conversations that I have with entrepreneurs from the things I’ve learned and just write them up for anybody to read. Tomorrow if possible.

Startup 294

Startup Press Course Writing 294

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 16, 2011

For starting relationships today that won’t pay off for a year. It is a piece of actionable advice that if you put into practice starting next week will start paying dividends in the near future. If you want to read more about hiring at a startup check out: 1. Preferably at startup HQs. Wake up early.

Startup 410

Startup Writing Press Venture Capital 410

socalTECH

MARCH 28, 2014

A new, San Diego startup-- Chef''s Roll , thinks it has the answer--a social network specifically aimed at chefs. The site said it has created a place where chefs can promote their talents, their career achievements, and more, whether they are just started up or are a celebrity chef.

Startup 240

Startup Summary San Diego Social Network 240

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

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 was telling him that it was much easier when I started because there were fewer deals, life was less public and somehow the world seemed to be spinning more slowly. I don’t.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

I even prefer to fund entrepreneurs who have experience some level of set-backs in their careers or startups because I think it brings a humility to decision-making that I find healthy. In London when founders failed they were ostracized in the press and culturally I believe it became harder to raise capital.

Startup 261

Startup Press Blogging .Net 261

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2012

I recently read Brad Feld’s thought provoking piece encouraging founders to sit on the board of another startup company. I found it thought provoking because I’ve always believed startup founders need extreme focus on only their company to succeed. So I’m going to follow Brad’s advice.

Startup 294

Startup Carson Summary Press 294

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

Tech solutions for such pressing issues as the climate crisis and social inequality have seen a 280% increase in global VC investment from 2015 to 2020, while investment in this space more than doubled in both cities over the past five years. More than 5,000 startups were surveyed to create the data. times) since 2015, compared to 3.1

Venture Capital 357

Venture Capital Press Invest Research 357

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

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. Even bigger is the desire to stick one’s middle finger up at all of the people who doubted you all along. Startup Lessons'

Technical Review 417

Technical Review Startup Software Review Course 417

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2012

He is now involved with an acceleraotor called Brandery in Cincinnati who focuses on helping local startups get off the ground and figure out how to get access to the huge brand dollars unlocked by working with big ad agencies and with brands directly. But I found resonance in meeting the local investors and startups. Or a Skype.

Press 364

Press Course Startup Email 364

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

Let’s start with the fund. If you’ve been following the press about VC funds you’ll know this is no small feat. Santa Monica is the place where the highest concentration of early-stage startups are created if you consider also the contiguous geography of Venice Beach. What’s up with that?

Funding 343

Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital Startup 343