Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

Maxwell Wessel, in a classic article in the Harvard Business Review on this subject, points out the exception successes of Zappos in Las Vegas, Sendgrid’s massive growth in Colorado, and RightNow’s $1.5 Today, Silicon Valley is the consumer and enterprise software capital of the world. The list goes on and on.

Sites 59

Sites Startup Technical Review Oracle 59

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2022

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Apply for contests and business grants.

Tips 104

Tips Startup Technical Review Equity 104

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 6, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Startup 128

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 128

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2019

Many aspiring entrepreneurs are looking to the Internet as an opportunity to get rich quick, instead of a place where you can start a business you love, for very little capital and minimal technical expertise. Take advantage of software tools to automate routine business functions, like taking and delivering orders.

Technical Review 97

Technical Review Case Study Software Review Startup 97

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. As a startup in this phase you often raise capital, get press, hire staff and everything feels possible. How long does it take me to pay back my original customer acquisition costs?

Startup 286

Startup Technical Review Customer Custom 286

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 11, 2016

Many aspiring entrepreneurs are looking to the Internet as an opportunity to get rich quick, instead of a place where you can start a business you love, for very little capital and minimal technical expertise. Take advantage of software tools to automate routine business functions, like taking and delivering orders.

Startup 107

Startup Technical Review Case Study Software Review 107

socalTECH

DECEMBER 1, 2008

In what looks to be a challenging funding climate for entrepreneurs, we thought it would be interesting to talk to one fund which is still making investments--Saban Ventures (www.saban.com)--a new, digital media focused venture capital fund located in Los Angeles. For those not familiar with Saban Capital, tell us about the fund?

Capital 100

Capital Southern California Media Venture Capital 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

It allows you to share private and confidential information about your company, and have a dialog with your investors, within a walled garden where you can put the documents you need for diligence. For entrepreneurs raising capital, the tool makes it easier to be transparent and share information. Who would find this most useful?

Southern California 243

Southern California Entrepreneur Software Review Yammer 243

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 30, 2019

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Apply for contests and business grants.

Startup 87

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 87

socalTECH

JULY 22, 2016

Rufus Labs is one of a number of hardware startups which have started to proliferate in the community, due to low cost hardware, 3D printing, and crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Plus, they don't collect data, and use really old, limited software. When we talk to customers, we hear about these pain points.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Startup Software Review CTO Hire 100

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 7, 2013

Many aspiring entrepreneurs are looking to the Internet as an opportunity to get rich quick, instead of a place where you can start a business you love, for very little capital and minimal technical expertise. Take advantage of software tools to automate routine business functions, like taking and delivering orders.

Entrepreneur 105

Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review Case Study 105

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 8, 2015

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Apply for contests and business grants.

Entrepreneur 105

Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review Equity 105

socalTECH

MARCH 20, 2015

Ross Weber: I was at Virtual Tourist with JR Johnson, where I was in charge of on-site monetization of Virtual Tourist. Who are your customers? We didn''t have any European customers two years ago, because back then US traffic converted better and made publishers more money. What''s the story behind the company?

Advertising 100

Advertising Startup Software Review Platform 100

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 9, 2014

Perhaps it’s time to raise a round of Venture Capital funding and want a pitch presentation a bit more composed than the dusty Keynote you put together last year for your friends and family round. Due Diligence. “Other platforms and freelancing sites lose the transparency aspect. Marketing & Branding.

Outsource Development 105

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review Outsource 105

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 14, 2014

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Use crowd funding. Apply for contests and business grants.

Entrepreneur 113

Entrepreneur Funding Startup Technical Review 113

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Use crowd funding. Apply for contests and business grants.

Startup 123

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 123

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 8, 2012

Many aspiring entrepreneurs are looking to the Internet as an opportunity to get rich quick, instead of a place where you can start a business you love, for very little capital and minimal technical expertise. Take advantage of software tools to automate routine business functions, like taking and delivering orders.

Technical Review 99

Technical Review Case Study Startup Software Review 99

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Only one-third make it past their tenth anniversary.

Startup 53

Startup Technical Review Equity Incubator 53

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 1, 2017

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Commit to a major customer. Apply for contests and business grants.

Develop 70

Develop Development Product Startup 70

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

It included one firm who I asked not to call Salesforce.com as a reference (they were our largest pilot customer) and in their kindness they called Marc Benioff (the CEO) and asked his opinion. On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

It says that selling an airplane ticket for $500 and getting paid a $5 fees by the airlines (1% gross margin) is not the same thing as selling $500 of software that you built (>90% gross margin). Marketing with long payback is precisely what requires venture capital. That is how great businesses are built.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 5, 2012

Your goal is “ coopetition ” - to find a way to partner with your competitor in such a way that both parties can substantially benefit from the other's resources - without stealing customers or damaging anyone's credibility. As an example, a few years ago I worked for small software company selling an expensive enterprise workflow product.

Companies 96

Companies Company Startup Examples 96

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2011

Your goal is “ coopetition ” - to find a way to partner with your competitor in such a way that both parties can substantially benefit from the other's resources - without stealing customers or damaging anyone's credibility. As an example, a few years ago I worked for small software company selling an expensive enterprise workflow product.

Startup 90

Startup Examples Customer Custom 90

socalTECH

MAY 27, 2009

In terms of sectors, it's going to be Internet, Consumer Internet, Software-as-a-Service--though in that area, not enterprise as a Salesforce, but along the lines of business productivity tools and customer acquisition--and also digital media. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Los Angeles venture capital market.

Southern California 113

Southern California Venture Capital Startup SoCal 113

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US. 10x the experience.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

socalTECH

DECEMBER 1, 2008

In what looks to be a challenging funding climate for entrepreneurs, we thought it would be interesting to talk to one fund which is still making investments--Saban Ventures (www.saban.com)--a new, digital media focused venture capital fund located in Los Angeles. Richard Yen: Saban Ventures kicked off early this year. where he is Chairman.

Southern California 100

Southern California Media Venture Capital Invest 100

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 20, 2015

Instead, expeditiously pick a reasonable moniker and then get back to work delivering value to your customers. Google was not descriptive of the company’s initial core competency (search) nor was it particularly easy to pronounce or spell when the site was first launched. Thus, do not obsess during the naming process.

Custom 100

Custom Customer Technical Review Software Review 100

Tech Zulu Event

OCTOBER 24, 2013

TechZulu & Gadget Review present REACH. A quarterly event series seeking to dive deep into what comes next in technology, and giving you the opportunity to experience it first hand with the gadgets on site. Custom ad deals and partnerships. Make sure to tune in! Sponsorship Opportunities for Events, and other channels.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Technology Activision Entertainment 76

socalTECH

DECEMBER 12, 2013

We''re very much a global footprint company, and we have customers from all over the world who fit that type of description. Right now, we have around 380,000 customers, with about a third of those outside the United States. Giving liquidity to one of the founders, and adding some growth capital capacity to go after our chosen market.

Software Review 238

Software Review Cloud Computing Technical Review Platform 238

SoCal CTO

MARCH 22, 2007

We have been using LinkedIn for both sourcing recruits and reviewing backgrounds for recruits. Technology Advisor Technology Roles in Startups Pricing Customer Acquisition Sunk Costs and More -. User Interface Beyond the Web Site ► November (7) Negative Customer Acquisition Costs - Creative Sta.

Blogging 150

Blogging CTO Coach CTO Hire Southern California 150

SoCal Delicious

JANUARY 15, 2010

this is not the case, you wont be able to do anything mentioned here without bringing your site down. You need to be able to check your sites raw web logs. The "User Agent string" is just the name thatthe program accessing your site goes by. Go to the top web directory ofyour site, where your home page is located.

IP 38

IP PHP Web RSS 38

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The United States is now a debtor nation to China and that the bill is about to come due. 20 Recommended Quora Threads for Startups - ReadWriteStart , November 1, 2010 The Q&A site Quora has become an indispensable trove of knowledge and expertise when it comes to the tech industry. One out of ten of Americans are out of work.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Startup Product Technology 175

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. Idris Manley: Essentially, what we do is we create a global layer for web sites, that supports multiple language content channels.

Startup 133

Startup Technical Review Social Network Content 133

SoCal CTO

JULY 13, 2010

10 Ways To Be Your Own Boss - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , June 18, 2010 The folks at Behance and Cool Hunting asked me to talk at their 99% Conference a couple months ago. had two occasions recently to review products which had clear market leadership. " The Bible Code predicted the Sept 11 attacks 5,000 years ago."

Startup 175

Startup Venture Capital Slides Blogging 175

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 8, 2011

Additionally, the site allows lawyers to market their legal services by sharing expert advice and engaging in discussion. andi also lets users share text, photos, videos, live panels, and soon even comprehensive queues consitsting of offline and online content in all of your popular social sites including Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

CalTech 100

CalTech Technical Review Companies Company 100

socalTECH

JULY 21, 2011

The firm announced a funding round last week, from DFJ Frontier, DFJ JAIC, Gold Hill Capital, and angel investors Gil Elbaz (Factual), Auren Hoffman (Rapleaf), and Walter Kortschak (Summit Partners), and many others. Could you give an example of how a customer might use your service?

Social Media 248

Social Media Zumbox Media Startup 248

InfoChachkie

APRIL 28, 2011

They often identify expeditious ways to make money in the early days of their adVentures, which allow them to reduce the amount of capital they must raise from outside investors. Perhaps in part due to its dominant market share, WebEx adopted telecom-style pricing, which effectively penalized their users. Exploring The Campus.

Entrepreneur 225

Entrepreneur SaaS Pricing Cloud Computing 225