Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 25, 2014
'Tom Perkins is one of the founding members of the venerable venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins. He just had his Mitt Romney moment and his name will forever be etched in the collective consciousness of the tech community for this terribly insensitive and tone deaf letter to the Wall Street Journal. The headline of Mr. Perkins letter to the WSJ?
Berkonomics
JANUARY 9, 2014
'By Richard Sudek. Dave’s note: Our guest insight this week is by Richard Sudek, an associate professor of entrepreneurism at Chapman University Graduate School of Business. He is Director of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurism and Business Ethics, and Chairman Emeritus of the Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel group in the United States.
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InfoChachkie
JANUARY 20, 2014
'A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. How much will social media fame cost you in 2014? At $6,800, it is probably cheaper than you thought. This money will buy you a million Twitter followers, get you a million YouTube views and 20,000 Likes on your Facebook page. As a bonus, you''ll also enjoy a robust number of Pinterest, Tumbler and Instagram followers and you''ll still have room in your budget for 250 comments on your blog and about 100,000 views on Vimeo.
socalTECH
JANUARY 9, 2014
'The online coupon search industry is very crowded, with dozens of sites, players large and small, and is a very confusing landscape for consumers. Is there an opportunity to rise above the crowd, and become a leading player in the industry for a startup? One local startup, Chippmunk (www.chippmunk.com), hopes so, and believes that focusing on user interface design will help it win over its competitors.
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Eric Greenspan
JANUARY 7, 2014
'Every day my website gets hit by someone looking for Chef Eric Greenspan of the Foundry on Melrose and of Food Network fame. Sometimes I get hits from someone looking for Eric Greenspan the LA attorney who has represented Christina Aguilera and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And every once in a while, someone is looking for me, Eric Greenspan, the serial entrepreneur, dad and closet chef, chief consultant at Greenspan Consulting and Chief Storyteller at schoolofbookkeeping.com.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 12, 2014
'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. Yet very few achieve that great aspiration of really driving economic, social, and environmental changes on a global scale. What does it take to get to that level?
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Berkonomics
JANUARY 23, 2014
'Some businesses are built around a single idea. And sometimes that idea is just too small a slice of the big picture to be interesting to investors. There was a recent investor event where I was keynote speaker, on stage only after several panels of experts had wowed the audience with their predictions and observations. One of the panelists made a point that resonated with me.
InfoChachkie
JANUARY 6, 2014
'A version of this article previously appeared in The Wall Street Journal. The money you pay your intellectual property (IP) lawyer should be judiciously spent. However, the potential costs associated with an IP mishap can be catastrophic. An invalidated patent or one deemed to infringe the rights of another party can devastate a startup. As such, save money buying used office furniture, not by selecting an inexpensive IP lawyer who lacks the appropriate level of experience in your technical do
socalTECH
JANUARY 17, 2014
'Southern California''s venture capital investments totaled a little more than $598.4M in the fourth quarter, according to the latest number from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, in its MoneyTree report. The investments were a drop from Q4 of 2012, $711.8M was invested in the region. There were 84 venture capital deals for the quarter.
Eric Greenspan
JANUARY 10, 2014
'It was 2008. My home had peaked at value and my business was slowing. My mortgage payment was $14,400/month. I of course paid only the negative amortization amount of $8,000 per month tacking the difference back on to the principal each month. When I bought house, this was a non-issue as the value had increased a tremendous percentage from when I bought back it in 2005.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 19, 2014
'Too many entrepreneurs confuse actions with momentum and results. We all know someone who repeatedly tells us how “busy” they are, when it’s hard to see what they get done. Momentum is moving things forward (mass x velocity). Founders or employees in constant motion, but with no momentum, will never get off the ground. It is true that motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all.
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 11, 2014
'There’s an article making the rounds in tech circles titled “ Growth Hacking is Bull ” written by Muhammad Saleem. I’d like to make the case that the article is wrong. I’d strongly encourage you to read it. I actually really enjoyed many of the points Muhammad made about marketing in general and I found myself nodding through the entirety of the article except for it’s core premise.
Berkonomics
JANUARY 2, 2014
'My dad was a smart businessman, even if not formally trained. He occasionally gave me advice that turned out to be more than wise, looking back at subsequent experience and events. His personal teaching event was a typical experience, as I reflect now upon the tens of partnerships I have counseled over the years. Most often, one partner remained active as another partner drifted away from the business, no longer carrying the weight anticipated at start-up.
InfoChachkie
JANUARY 27, 2014
'A version of this article previously appeared in The Wall Street Journal. Entrepreneurs typically embrace celebrity investments, while most sophisticated investors prefer to avoid famous entertainment or sports personalities on the cap table. What’s the cause of this incongruence? If you haven''t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly JohnGreathouse.com articles!
socalTECH
JANUARY 6, 2014
'Los Angeles-based ranking and polling website Ranker , the startup led by Clark Benson and backed by Draper Associates, Rincon Venture Partners, Siemer Ventures, Lowercase Capital, BullPen Capital, Data Collective, TenOneTen Ventures, Tech Coast Angels, and Pasadena Angels, said today that it hit 11.5 million unique visitors in December. According to Ranker, it generated over 150 million pageviews on the site, which lets users create and browse rankings of all kinds of things, vote on polls, an
Eric Greenspan
JANUARY 13, 2014
'I’ve spent tens of thousands on Facebook ads for my companies and for clients’ I have built and manage many pages. I often have issues that need Facebook’s attention. They have the worst customer service of any company I deal with. Facebook doesn’t seem to care. If you have an issue renaming or merging a page, you get an email that says “denied.” Can you appeal or even respond?
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 18, 2014
'I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries , called “nail it then scale it” (NISI).
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 12, 2014
'Yesterday I wrote a post about “ growth hacking ” and why I thought it was wrong that people were hating on the term unnecessarily. It’s worth a quick read. My argument is pretty simple. If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. But being best-in-class at online marketing is also a sine qua non to standout from your peer group.
Berkonomics
JANUARY 16, 2014
'By JJ Richa. Dave’s note: Our guest insight this week is from JJ Richa. JJ is a successful entrepreneur and technologist giving back to the entrepreneurial. community in many ways, including his weekly Internet TV program on entrepreneurism, and participation in several mentoring programs. . Business partnerships have their advantages and disadvantages.
InfoChachkie
JANUARY 13, 2014
'Tracy DiNunzio, Founder and CEO of Tradesy , recently shared her insights as part of UC Santa Barbara''s Distinguished Lecture Series. Her story is especially inspiring, as she was told as a child that she would never walk, due to a birth defect. (Note: I am an investor in Tradesy via Rincon Venture Partners.). If you haven''t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly JohnGreathouse.com articles!
socalTECH
JANUARY 28, 2014
'Think Southern California''s tech industry is all about fashion, Hollywood, and content? If you look at the last few weeks of deals here, you might be surprised: it''s almost been entirely enterprise software. Yesterday, TigerText , a developer of enterprise, secure texting tools, raised a big $21M funding and last week, the big funding round was for Kareo , which raised $29.5M for its cloud-based medical offices software.
Eric Greenspan
JANUARY 15, 2014
'Schools in the U.S.A. require the teaching of a foreign language. I took four years of French. I read Les Miserables in French and I’ve seen the theater production over 20 times. I’ve learned much about French history as a result. This is wonderful, but I can’t say its helped me in my career much. I didn’t take a single course on computer programming in school.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 11, 2014
'Change is about the only thing constant in the world of startups. Despite their own focus on changing the world, they often forget that they too have to change rapidly and often as the market evolves. Too many find that out too late, and are left chasing a rabbit that is long gone. The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness.
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 8, 2014
'Happy official New Year’s, all. It’s that time of year where we think about new beginnings. And there’s none that makes me happier than to announce that Jordan Hudson has been promoted to a Principal at Upfront Ventures. Please help me congratulate him by Re/Tweeting this post (and following him if you don’t already). What is a principal at a VC firm and how does it work at Upfront Ventures?
Berkonomics
JANUARY 30, 2014
'You’ve surely heard the variations on this theme. “Ready, fire aim” was popular in the 1990’s, accredited to any of several authors. I used the term to describe my efforts in the artificial intelligence field, experimenting with new devices, the lisp programming language, and our first trial installations. It seemed an ideal way to describe a scrappy, entrepreneurial activity.
Tech Zulu Event
JANUARY 24, 2014
'Online dating is a curious thing. As an industry that’s grown in undeniable user adoption and public approval , it also serves as a subject that ranges from hilarious to highly lucrative. With that, there remains an uncertain stigma about technology-enabled romance. The conversation’s moved well past the point of black or white acceptance into grayer areas – specifically from “would you use it” questions to its viability to yield lasting, meaningful connections, (t
socalTECH
JANUARY 2, 2014
'It''s never a great time: you figure out you have a legal problem, and need to find a lawyer. But, how do you start? The old way was difficult, time consuming, and often expensive; referrals, calling up lawyers, going through initial consultations. To shortcut what has been an antiquated way of connecting consumers with attorneys, Los Angeles startup LawKick (www.lawkick.com) has created an online, easy way to match up clients with lawyers, through a set of simple questions and answers about di
Eric Greenspan
JANUARY 5, 2014
'I grew up with a stepfather. He taught me manners and taught me to cook. At 13 I moved to Ohio to meet and live with my dad and my new stepmom. Then I came to Santa Barbara after high school and got married, three times. I had a son with my 2nd and another with my 3rd. Today, I’m with a new woman that I’ve fallen in love with. We each have two kids.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 6, 2014
'You have to be extra tough mentally to be an entrepreneur. While thinking about it, I realized that it’s really not that different from the toughness required and trained into America’s elite military force of Navy SEALs, who are known to be cool under fire, able to sense danger before it’s too late, and never give up on achieving their objective. I just finished a new book “ The Way of the SEAL ,” co-authored by Mark Divine, who spent many years with the SEALs, and has since started and built
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 22, 2014
'Picking a VC is hard. You don’t really have much to go on to decide who would make a good fit. Reputation of firm? Of partner? Deals done in your industry? It’s a bit of all of these. I had an enjoyable conversation this morning with a young team straight out of college this morning and they were calling to ask advice on how to approach fund raising (angels vs.
SoCal Delicious
JANUARY 9, 2014
'Medium site navigation Cancel Home Search Collections Sign in with Twitter 10 min read Photo from the Happy Startup Summercamp Next in trending 10 ways you’ll probably f**k up your startup Here I highlight some common early-stage mistakes I come across working closely with startup teams (and how you can avoid them) Laurence McCahill in Spook Studio 10 min read 10 ways you’ll probably f**k up your startup Here I highlight some common early-stage mistakes I come across working closely with startu
Tech Zulu Event
JANUARY 15, 2014
'One simple idea: “Getting online should not be that difficult.” Last year, I was introduced to Karma’s company and services from a friend. It was Thursday morning and we were on a 150 mile route from NYC to Albany. He’d needed to do some work and brought out the Karma hotspot. Immediately the smooth white surface and boldly abstract orange logo prompted attention to the little device. “What’s that?
socalTECH
JANUARY 15, 2014
'Venice, California-based startup incubator Amplify LA , the startup accelerator headed by Paul Bricault and Richard Wolpert, disclosed today that it has raised $8M in a second investment fund for its companies. The funding came from such companies as Accel, Greycroft, Siemer Ventures, Karlin Ventures, Deep Fork Capital, and others. READ MORE>>.
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 4, 2014
'Yesterday I wrote a post about “ the politics of startups ” in which I asserted that all companies have politics, which in its purest sense is just about understanding human psychology. I think as a tech industry we have bred a culture that places more emphasis on product excellence than managing human behavior. Of course it makes no sense to have great people management and a crappy product.
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 14, 2014
'If you follow the tech media you would be subject to a lot of narrative biases that are completely off base – and this includes the value of email and phone calls. TL;DR. Tech news keeps proclaiming “phone calls are dead,” which is useful except that the data suggests the exact opposite. Calls are changing but not dying. All the data actually suggests with the growth of mobile, inbound sales calls will double from 30 billion to 60 billion in 3 years (source: Kelsey).
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 18, 2014
'In my recent post “ Why Am I So Lucky? Why You Need to Be Sure You’re Not the Sucker ” I talked about how VCs (or other investors) get deals sent to them and how to interpret a referral. I tried to make a simple point: People have motives when they send you a deal. Sometimes those motives are positive (they really want the chance to work with you, they think you have unique skills) and sometimes they are less positive (their first-tier of “go to” referrals passed on the
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