Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

Francisco Dao came up with the idea of letting 10 companies that weren’t selected for Twiistup to do a presentation the night before to a group of people and let the audience pick one company to win the final slot at Twiistup. So I thought I’d write a piece on how to not suck when you give a presentation.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

When convertible debt first started being introduced as a “faster, cheaper way to get startups funded” they didn’t have pricing built into them. In fact, most early investor work hard to help their startups get to the next level so it makes no sense for the angel investor and founders to be at odds.

Startup 354

Startup Pricing Equity Venture Capital 354

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2013

It’s the first EIR that we’ve had in the years that I’ve been with the firm and I hope will be the start of our investment in this program. I became aware of Sam several years ago as I started noticing his name repeated in the comments section of my blog. Sam later decided he wanted to do a startup.

Startup 372

Startup Course Ideas Invest 372

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I would love to see Tara follow up with blog posts on: why she believes this is the case & what we can do about it. The truth is I have been thinking a lot about the topic, I just haven’t been writing about it. She encouraged me to take acting classes as a child, which gave me confidence as a public speaker.

Entrepreneur 341

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Blogging 341

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. It turns out it actually takes time to build a high-growth business with differentiated intellectual property and roll out large, enterprise-class marketing solutions. 5 years ago. 5 years ago. The monkey on my back.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Brad wrote up his answer here – you should read it because it’s very instructive for how I believe communities ought to think about naming conventions. I recommend that you start by writing down the attributes you would want people to think about when they think about your brand. This is the list I would start with.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

socalTECH

OCTOBER 28, 2010

How do you take a business you started as your own personal web site, and turn it into an online powerhouse, completely bootstrapped, from the little town of Ojai, California--not exactly known as a technology town? Tell us the story about Lynda.com, and how it all started? So, that's how I got started teaching computer skills.

Startup 242

Startup Web Design Writing Web 242

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The poor performance of the asset class (this analysis has largely been wrong as I pointed out here –> most analyses were clumsy rear-view mirror looks at the data). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. On the surface the narratives have been. Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2013

So I thought I’d write a piece on how not to suck when you give a presentation. You’re not lecturing to a college class, you’re not at a cocktail party and you’re not chatting with a small group in a board meeting. Stories have starts, middles and ends. I They all start to blend together.

Slides 399

Slides Startup Conference Writing 399

InfoChachkie

APRIL 16, 2012

Article first published as Steve Blank Discusses Origin And Future Of Lean Startup Movement on Technorati. I recently spoke with Steve Blank, author of the new book The Startup Owner’s Manual. He is credited with pioneering the Lean Startup Movement in 2005 via the publication of his bestselling, Four Steps To The Epiphany.

Startup 229

Startup Class Press Custom Development 229

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

This does not mean you shouldn’t solve big, complex problems or write complex code. 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. Before that he was a US senator. WTF does that even mean? Al Gore was not.

Entrepreneur 370

Entrepreneur Startup Press Venture Capital 370

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Do you need a board when you first start you company? If you haven’t raised any money or if you raised a small round from angels or friends & family I would suggest you avoid setting up a formal board unless the people who would join your board are deeply experienced at sitting on startup boards.

Startup 236

Startup Venture Capital Tips Capital 236

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

MARCH 3, 2013

Let me start by saying that Clayton is one of the most influential people on my thoughts about markets that led to both the concept behind my first startup and my main theses in investing. Startup Grind was a truly awesome conference and Derek the consumate host. .” Who else does Clayton pray for?

Venture Capital 403

Venture Capital Education Offshore Outsource Development 403

InfoChachkie

MARCH 4, 2013

Business Lessons From The Dark Side Of The Moon. • Obtain Customer Feedback Before You Release Your Product - Musicians spend their entire youth writing songs and performing them in front of live audiences, which ensures that their initial album is validated by their fans before they enter the recording studio. Any time will do."

Startup 269

Startup Cloud Computing RSS Writing 269

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2012

I told him only 2 weeks ago when we were in London together that I wanted to write a blog post that has been in my head for 2 years. And so are most startup CEOs for that matter. He picks up the phone when he wants to discuss a deal with you. When my pal Dave started his venture fund, 500 Startups, he was ridiculed.

Startup 309

Startup Venture Capital Email Writing 309

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds? Do investors always take up their prorata rights in later rounds? The simple answer is “No, investors don’t always take up their prorata rights.” Finally, some early investors specifically like NOT taking up their prorata.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

TechEmpower

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

. */. private static E [] getUniverse ( Class elementType ) {. There is a single backing array instance of those Month constants living in memory somewhere ( a private field in the Class object for Month ), but it wouldn't be safe to pass that array directly to every caller of values(). return SharedSecrets. getJavaLangAccess ().

Java 330

Java Class Ideas Writing 330

Berkonomics

APRIL 3, 2014

There are three classes of equity investors for early stage businesses that we have not yet considered. If you are starting a virtual company with your employees working from home locations, as many startups do, it should be the location of the founder. This class of investor typically writes checks from $50,000 to $250,000.

Equity 232

Equity Startup Organization Invest 232

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 2, 2011

Several people have been asking me to weigh in publicly on the “20 under 20″ initiative announced by Peter Thiel in which he will award up to $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 20 who agree immediately to pursue entrepreneurship (the implication of which is that they’d drop out of university to do so). My 2 cents: 1.

Education 322

Education Startup Incubator Class 322

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2011

Experiences way beyond any hack-a-thon, startup blog or your current company engagement can enrich your thinking and challenge you to think more broadly about the solutions you offer in the market. But poly sci taught me critical thinking and writing skills that I didn’t get in my econ classes. But then the world changes.

Class 334

Class Writing Web 2.0 Offshore 334

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2010

Let me start by saying I’m a huge business book cynic. But Net had told me that he picked up some valuable lessons from the book, so I thought, “WTF? They can travel the world, take classes in interesting subjects, spend time with loved ones or start new hobbies. So I don’t read too many of them.

Startup 295

Startup Email Technical Review Course 295

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

There are very few people in Silicon Valley who have such a precise grasp on what defines success of early-stage startup companies than Eric Ries. Importantly we also discussed: should startups raise small amounts of money or large? how should you organize teams in a startup? And make sure to pick up a copy of his book.

Social Media 301

Social Media Startup Metrics Media 301

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

I even plan to use it in my upcoming UC Santa Barbara Entrepreneurial Selling class. As Guy notes in the accompanying video interview, his primary goal with Enchantment is to reach a broader audience, beyond the high-tech, startup world. Guy, how would your 2004 book, Art Of The Start , differ, if you were writing it today?

Santa Barbara 262

Santa Barbara Technical Review Social Media Startup 262

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

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. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

When the masses start all running one way without questioning “why?&# – and when it defies any logic I can figure out in my head – I call bullshit. They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. “ Question Authority.&#.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2010

It starts in a crowded room at a conference or networking event. We set up Formation Media to bring that experience to the Internet. We were off to the races and talking about how he had bought the CarAudio Magazine out of death and how he started by already having a subscriber base and fans. Sam stood up to ask a question.

Startup 315

Startup Content Conference Media 315

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

Startups are hard. You join teams that got good write-ups on TechCrunch, have great VCs, have star CEO’s, whatever. We tell startup stories. Our founder, Yves Sisteron, was my mentor and board member at my first startup. You’ve heard that a million times. Those that we survive with become family.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to. It was a great chance for the class to interact with the community in LA. They’ve already signed up headliners like The Improv. Watch this space.

Company 276

Company Companies Startup Southern California 276

socalTECH

JUNE 6, 2011

Although Los Angeles has become a hub for the high tech startup world, Surprisingly, one of the things which hasn't happened in the Los Angeles area is any huge, successful venture acceleration programs. Dan Dato: The quickest way to describe it is it's a Techstars-like, YCombinator-like startup accelerator.

Startup 221

Startup Mentor Southern California Incubator 221

InfoChachkie

APRIL 25, 2011

If you are a leader at a startup and you are reading a business book, you are not closing customers, raising capital, improving your product, or spending time with your loved ones. If you are curious as to why a serial entrepreneur who does not generally appreciate business books gives Enchantment a thumbs-up, read on…. Things I Loved.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Blogging Class Entrepreneur 279

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

I never implied that startups are all great and job hoppers are all at fault. No rule is ever absolute no matter how it sounds when one writes a blog. Most of what I learned about operating startups I learned from the really tough years at my first company from 2001-2003. Yes, I know that many employers are bad.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

I grew up believing that human behavior was 20% nature, 80% nurture. I wasn’t going to write about it since he had just covered the topic and echoed my point of view. of all data is made up. OK, not literally made up. So going into a startup scenario you bring these innate skills or you don’t.

Startup 289

Startup Statistics Entrepreneur Study 289

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

I have long advised startup companies that if you don’t control your messaging somebody else will and your potential customers will form impressions of you shaped by somebody else or by nobody at all. My starting salary was $27,000. I can’t make this up. I have published many of these PR Tips before. ” F**k.

Technical Advisors 385

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 385

socalTECH

JUNE 13, 2011

Jonathan Lehmann: I was awarded the Larry Wolfen Entrepreneurial Spirit Award at UCLA, after getting amazing coaching from Matt Ridenour in our business plan development class. Exatly a year ago was the very beginning of KarmaGoat, where I was trying to come up with something that would work as a marketplace donating items.

UCLA 256

UCLA Startup Ideas Help 256

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 10, 2012

Divshot's Founders conceived of their innovative web development solution, which automatically generates professional-grade code during the wire framing process, during a Startup Weekend event in Kansas City. No matter how you end up on the front page of a major news site, getting there is just the first step. Engagement.

News 198

News Sites Startup RSS 198