Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 18, 2022

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Look how many social media ‘likes’ my site has generated.”

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Startup Statistics Social Media 109

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2010

I wrote the following answer: “I have always believed that UGC (user generated content) website users fall into three categories that follow the 1/9/90 rule. Most UGC sites try to spend time converting lurkers to contributors. Ming Yeow Ng asked, “Would you consider Facebook a UGC site?&# Great question.

Technical Review 294

Technical Review Writing Content Sites 294

Tech Zulu Event

AUGUST 27, 2013

IndieGoGo and other crowdfunding sites have been on the rise on becoming the new medium to gain capital for businesses and projects. Kate Drane, hardware category lead at IndieGoGo joins us and talks about IndieGoGo and crowdfunding. IndieGoGo is a global site, helping people create capital from anywhere in the world.

Startup 74

Startup Funding Capital Help 74

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

He had an idea for a startup that would help consumers better book service jobs and would take on Service Magic, which he believed had a business model that could be disrupted. And I had been telling my partners for a couple of years that I thought Ethan was one of the more talented entrepreneurs I had come across in San Francisco.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Last month, Santa Monica-based ThisNext announced that it was acquiring Stylehive, an online site focused on fashion and beauty. That realization set forth our current business strategy, which is to create a portfolio of vertical shopping sites which allow consumers to discover and be passionate about categories they are interested in.

Content 165

Content Demand Sites Media 165

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2020

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Look how many social media ‘likes’ my site has generated.”

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Statistics Startup Social Media 124

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. One of my goals in doing the show was not only to educate entrepreneurs but also to put a human face on many of the VCs in our industry as VCs can be hard to get to know. (5:00 5:00 – 5:55).

Capital 265

Capital Venture Capital Veoh Startup 265

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

The new hot topic for entrepreneurs the last couple of years is crowd funding, which is anticipated to at least supplement, if not replace, the slow and mysterious process of current Angel and venture capital investors. Example sites include StartSomeGood and the Facebook Cause page. Good-cause crowd funding. Debt-based crowd funding.

Funding 99

Funding Satisfaction Sites Outsource Development 99

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2016

If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs. New drugs usually fall in this category, due to side-effect testing.

Startup 104

Startup Entrepreneur Sites Technical Review 104

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 2, 2019

Since most small business owners are justifiably proud of the service they deliver, they don’t even anticipate a negative online review or threat to their reputation, until it happens. Even worse, many entrepreneurs don’t even take the time to monitor what people are saying about them to others.

Customer 86

Customer Custom Examples Sites 86

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2018

If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs. New drugs usually fall in this category, due to side-effect testing.

Sites 81

Sites Technical Review Social Media Entrepreneur 81

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2012

The new hot topic for entrepreneurs these days is crowd funding, which is anticipated to at least supplement, if not replace, the slow and mysterious process of current Angel and venture capital investors. Example sites include StartSomeGood and the Facebook Cause page. Proceed at your own peril. Good-cause crowd funding.

Funding 96

Funding Satisfaction Sites Outsource Development 96

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2014

If you aren’t willing to take some risk as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect any gain. Here is my perspective on the highest risk elements, from my years of working with investors and watching startups come and go: All the co-founders are first-time entrepreneurs. New drugs usually fall in this category, due to side-effect testing.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Sites Technical Review Social Media 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2013

You have probably heard plenty of times that being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and investors talk all the time about reducing the risk. Here is my own priority list of key risk drivers that every entrepreneur and every investor should evaluate and minimize in starting a business: Team experience and depth risk. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 104

Startup Examples Entrepreneur Social Network 104

SoCal Delicious

MAY 6, 2012

where entrepreneurs share their stories. 63 Los Angeles Entrepreneurs To Be Proud Of By mario on May 2, 2012 in Features , grid. Free Corporations For First-Time Entrepreneurs. Right now they’re setting up 500 free corporations for first time entrepreneurs. Here are 62 63 Los Angeles entrepreneurs we can be proud of.

Los Angeles 78

Los Angeles Entrepreneur Angel Fractional CTO 78

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2013

We''ve put lots of money into areas we know well, such as technology for the financial services industry, technology for retail services, and technology for digital media. Those are all categories we know well. Being so open, when entrepreneurs think about capital, we want to be top of mind.

Funding 196

Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Social Media 196

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based LifeCrowd (www.lifecrowd.com) unveiled its service to help connect people with real life activities. We break it down by a number of vertical categories, including Indulgent--all about food, wine, and alcohol; Active--outdoor athletic endeavors; and Creative, which is arts and crafts.

Startup 271

Startup CTO Coach Activity Software Review 271

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

I mean, that''s what entrepreneurs do every day. But that''s what entrepreneurs do everyday. He quickly realized the power of the Internet when he came across a relatively obscure site, called Yahoo! But there was this one site that somebody told me about or maybe I read about and it was called Yahoo! I’ve got the list.

Startup 223

Startup Yahoo Santa Barbara Slides 223

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Look how many social media ‘likes’ my site has generated.”

Technical Review 109

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Statistics 109

socalTECH

MAY 11, 2010

Last week, Los Angeles-based EcoMom (www.ecomom.com) launched its "green" parenting site, with backing from Dave McClure. Jody Sherman: We are a site for eco-conscious, health minded parents. How long has the site been around? In February of this year, we bought EcoMom, a community and content site.

Software Review 200

Software Review Commerce Startup Sites 200

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2018

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Investors are buying part of the business, not the product or service. Look how many social media ‘likes’ my site has generated.”

Funding 62

Funding Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup 62

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Online travel sites are great for getting you to the location, but they don't give you any good ideas for when you get there. You might find our site searching for the keyword "jet skiing", but when you come to the site, you'll see in the same vicinity gondola cruises, electric duffy boat tours, kayaking, or surfing.

Activity 164

Activity Startup Sites Web 164

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

You have probably heard plenty of times that being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and investors talk all the time about reducing the risk. Here is my own priority list of key risk sources that every entrepreneur and every investor should evaluate and minimize in starting a business: Team experience and depth risk. Marty Zwilling.

Startup 89

Startup Examples Entrepreneur Social Network 89

SoCal Delicious

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Ten Tech Entrepreneurs Who Are Putting LA on the Map. Tech startup accelerators dot the landscape, feeding investments into the waiting arms of the nation’s most intelligent and driven entrepreneurs. Adam Miller transformed his company into one of the world’s leading software-as-a-service companies, specifically in the HR world.

Technical Review 75

Technical Review Entrepreneur Riot Games Southern California 75

Tech.Co

MAY 31, 2023

Launching and growing a startup is one of the biggest missions an entrepreneur can undertake. is a decent security solution, startups should be aware that ‘freemium' VPN services tend to profit by displaying ads and tracking your data. While Hide.me For many internet users, this trade-off may not be worth it.

Tool 128

Tool Startup Software Review Technical Review 128

socalTECH

DECEMBER 16, 2009

One of the perpetual themes of the technology news sites and blogs this year has been fairly nonstop coverage of Twitter, the microblogging site. Aside from constant coverage of whether the service is up, or down, or somewhere in between, there's also been a lot of attention given to how the service plans to make money.

Advertising 189

Advertising Content Startup Social Network 189

Jason Nazar

AUGUST 15, 2013

Search Engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK redirect billions of searches everyday.Search engines have the potential to drive millions of visitors to a given site.Wikipedia and About are two of the most popular sites on the web, but the majority of their traffic comes from referrals from search engines, not people going directly to their site.To

Web 61

Web Social Media Content Sites 61

socalTECH

JULY 21, 2011

Rob Reed: The position of MomentFeed, is that it is essentially a layer in the location based services stack. They have an interest in all of the data being generated through location based services apps, which give them an opportunity to connect with consumers. Could you give an example of how a customer might use your service?

Social Media 248

Social Media Zumbox Media Startup 248

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

One of the firms launching this week there is Los Angeles-based NativeTung (www.nativetung.com), which is developing tools to help web sites translate and create multilingual versions of their sites. It's in the automated translation category of the industry. Who would be the typical customer for this service?

Startup 133

Startup Technical Review Social Network Content 133

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. We discussed whether investing in the second largest player in a category makes sense given that Groupon is 10x the revenue, 3.5x LivingSocial. AppDynamics.

Clearstone 236

Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

socalTECH

JUNE 9, 2010

Last week, Los Angeles-based HauteLook (www.hautelook.com), an online private sales site, scored a major round of funding--raising $31M from Insight Venture Partners. We work on behalf of brands, as a web site that has a membership base of over 2.5 Adam Bernhard: We're a platform that does flash sales.

Sales 224

Sales Email Startup Sample 224

socalTECH

MARCH 6, 2009

We talked with Sean McCleese, CEO and Founder of the firm, about what it offers, and how it's looking to stand out from the many other tutoring sites out there. Tell us a little a bit about the service, and what it provides? It's a site, where people can come on and get help with the individual problems they need help with.

Class 150

Class Sites Altadena Pricing 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 1, 2011

We all now visit UGC sites to learn about products & services before we use them. I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past two years and bending the ears of any entrepreneur who will humor me to hear what I think the solution needs to look like. My Wish List: I want at least three slices for any UGC sites.

Help 309

Help Santa Barbara Technical Review Orange County 309

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 7, 2014

Your business name should match your business in order to remind customers what services you provide. Your company name and Internet domain name should probably be the same, so check out your preferred names with your State Incorporation site, Network Solutions for the domain name, and the U.S. Make sure the name is available.

Google 117

Google Customer Custom Sample 117

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 18, 2011

Andrea and her team are awesome and provide such a great service for those who want the right type of shopping experience. I enjoyed it there, but they eliminated the apparel category so I decided to worked for a family owned apparel company. Kyle: How did you get started in the entrepreneur world? That was half-true.

Startup 99

Startup Social Media Media Sites 99

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 13, 2013

Matt Lucido wanted to help with everyone’s daily life by creating a service app called Porter. Porter is a service app that provides daily services to your door, hassle-free. Services such as house cleaning, dry cleaning, wash & fold, and pet care. How did you find all the people to do all these services?

Technical Review 87

Technical Review Mobile Startup Los Angeles 87

socalTECH

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Los Angeles-based Lensabl (www.lensabl.com) recently launched a new service to help people with just the prescription lenses you need. It's really a space we saw that there was more opportunities in, because, frankly, prescription lenses inside the total vision market is the largest category. It's significantly larger than sunglasses.

Customer 100

Customer Custom Pricing Services 100