Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

The market was down considerably with public valuations down 53–79% across the four sectors we were reviewing (it is since down even further). ==> Aside, we also have a NEW LA-based partner I’m thrilled to announce: Nick Kim. First in late-stage tech companies and then it will filter back to Growth and then A and ultimately Seed Rounds.

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

socalTECH

MAY 21, 2013

One of the largest concentrations of technical talent in Los Angeles is in Glendale, at YP -- staffed with a surprising number of Los Angeles startup vets. Our whole product and technology team is about 500 people. Talk about the technology behind your operations here? What''s your background and how did you end up at YP?

Technical Review 223

Technical Review Glendale Advertising Google 223

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

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2014

I could have listened to her for hours as many of her lessons were ones I hadn’t heard before such as how she used online gaming when she was younger as a way of both teaching herself tech as well as learning to lead remote teams. Nanea Reeves has a storied career in senior leadership roles at technology companies.

Technical Review 315

Technical Review Blogging RSS Organization 315

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for due diligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. Visit reference customers, partners, and vendors.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2010

If your startup is great enough to get a term sheet from angel investors or a venture capitalist, the next step for the investor is to complete the dreaded due diligence process. Some startups do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves.

Technical Review 91

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Summary 91

socalTECH

MAY 21, 2013

One of the largest concentrations of technical talent in Los Angeles is in Glendale, at YP (www.yp.com) -- staffed with a surprising number of Los Angeles startup vets. Our whole product and technology team is about 500 people. Talk about the technology behind your operations here? Louis and Atlanta.

Technical Review 211

Technical Review Glendale Advertising Google 211

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

Usually after a Monday partner meeting you get a pretty strong: Yes, term sheet coming No, sorry we’re passing Maybe, we need to do more due diligence / analysis / work I always counsel founders that “good news comes early” so if you haven’t heard by Tuesday at noon chances are it wasn’t likely a clean “yes.”

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 6, 2023

This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. Some entrepreneurs do very little to prepare for due diligence, assuming all the talking has already been done, and the business plan and results to-date tell the right story. Visit reference customers, partners, and vendors.

Technical Review 118

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 118

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 18, 2021

If your startup is great enough to get a term sheet from angel investors or a venture capitalist, the next step for the investor is to complete the dreaded due diligence process. Some startups do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves.

Technical Review 152

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Summary 152

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

Compelling in the sense that you solve a real problem a target group of potential customers has with a product that is significantly better than the alternatives on that market. The idea of “going deep” with customers has always shaped how I think. I found myself in violent agreement with Fred’s blog post(s).

Startup 401

Startup Custom Customer Technical Review 401

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

But if you level up , raise capital and grow customers, revenue and staff – life changes. The “span of control” for a growing tech startup is probably 6-9 people. You help them prioritize their objectives and review the results. Extremely talented people are ultra competitive. You set direction.

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 138

Technical Review Startup Innocal Offshore 138

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 tell people that they need to blog about their industry to drive customers and not blog to their egos to drive their peer group to their blogs. I’d strongly encourage you to read it.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review SEM SEO Marketing 384

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

Yet, as a business consultant, I often find minimal focus on improving employee engagement and assessing their customer-facing performance. For example, I commonly see metrics to keep track of revenue per employee, overtime, and absenteeism, but I don’t often see measures of overall customer satisfaction with individual employees.

Customer 147

Customer Custom Technical Review Metrics 147

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

In the initial phases of any new market you’re developing a product (hopefully with a minimal set of features), getting feedback from customers, refining your product based on user feedback and then re-launching your product. We technology leaders also make this mistake. Rinse & repeat. It seemed to be purely speculative.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

socalTECH

MARCH 10, 2015

Santa Barbara-based Resonant , which is developing radio frequency filer technology for mobile front-ends, said yesterday afternoon that it has signed a second customer for its technology. Name of the customer was not disclosed.

Technical Review 100

Technical Review Customer Custom Santa Barbara 100

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar As more people spent time at home last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the startup saw its contract revenue spike by 5x, Wu says. Eano, she said, offers competitive and transparent pricing so that homeowners aren’t surprised as a remodeling project goes on.

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2016

What they don’t realize is that about half the investment deals fail to close at this stage, including mergers and acquisitions , during the due-diligence process. Remember that investors at this stage have heard primarily from the founder, and only reviewed written business plans and collateral. Customer and market interaction.

Technical Review 55

Technical Review Help Innocal Startup 55

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 9, 2020

The venture is also one of the few e-motorcycle companies drawing engineering tips from competition. Technology from the track is transferring to production models, according to Cevolini. Energica credits the application of race tech to production e-motos for some of the increased order flow it saw early this year.

Technical Review 277

Technical Review Competition Demand Sales 277

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Most technology startups seem to be funded by product people or business people. Whenever I heard why we didn’t feel a sales process at an important customer was going well (or if we lost) I would get involved myself. They are as good at selling you as they are at selling your product to customers.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2011

I often hear the qualms of business-smart but non-technical entrepreneurs, wondering if they really have a chance in this high-technology marketplace. I tell them that if their idea or solution is technology intensive, they clearly need technology strength on the team. Outsource your technical requirements.

Technical Review 94

Technical Review Entrepreneur Outsource Development Outsource 94

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

Chris Dixon is one of my favorite people in tech and writes one of the few blogs I read religiously. If you don’t read it and you care about tech & entrepreneurship, you should. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you. West Coast”).

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

It should talk about how many customers you think you will acquire and how much you’ll charge for your product. Do you really want to spent $100k building a product to discover through Customer Development that the market is too small? What about your competition – how much do they charge? Going to charge less?

Web 2.0 334

Web 2.0 Venture Capital Web Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

If I’m interested I get to spend more time with them, if I’m not I don’t have to – A few companies per month come in that have fascinating business ideas that warrant my spending more time trying to understand their people, company, technology and market. I get paid to network – I love meeting people.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 20, 2014

According to a recent Forbes article , UC Santa Barbara''s Technology Management Program offers students a superior startup education over the University of Pennsylvania (home of Wharton), as well Harvard, Northwestern and even its acclaimed southern neighbor, the University of Southern California. Want to be an entrepreneur? Techpreneurs.

Santa Barbara 258

Santa Barbara Technical Review Startup Venture Capital 258

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

Exec Summary: Most companies (98+%) in the world (even tech startups) should be very profit focused. If you had huge customer growth but just didn’t focus on revenue that’s a different story. If you spent the 3 years perfecting some hugely differentiated technology IP that may also be different.

Startup 418

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 418

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Investor due diligence on a startup is not a mysterious black art, but is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.

Technical Review 103

Technical Review Innocal Offshore Entrepreneur 103

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Only one guy in the room knew – their tech lead. Once you churn a user due to stability or performance problems it can be hard to get them back. 4 times / 100 means if a customer uses your app frequently (say 10-20 times / day) then they are crashing nearly every day. Customer Acquisition. per customer!

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Custom 346

SoCal CTO

JULY 23, 2012

How do we need to structure the systems to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition? What are the biggest areas of technical risk? What technology research is required? What technologies will we use? What do we need to do to make sure we can survive technical due diligence by investors and partners?

CTO Coach 231

CTO Coach CTO Hire Outsource Development Develop 231

Tech.Co

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

From apps to hardware, to KickStarter successes and international startups, we’re inching closer to finding out who will take home the title of Startup of the Year competition at our annual Celebrate Conference in October. Among the dozens of participants that applied for the online competitions, only a few progressed into the semifinals.

Competition 110

Competition Mobile Startup Technical Review 110

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Every new business I know dreams of building momentum in their business, where growth continues to increase, customers become your best advocates, and employee motivation is high. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this isn’t possible, and it frustrates customers and the team. Focus first on finding more of the right customers.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2010

In the first part of this post I talked about how sales in a startup is often evangelical , requires as consultative sale and needs constant adjustments based on customer feedback. Or the sales decks will all be customized by your “feet on the street&# and won’t resemble the way you THINK your company is being positioned.

Sales 286

Sales Newsletter Technical Review Activity 286

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs have no trouble focusing on how to build a product, and the good ones know how to find and nurture those first critical customers. As the end of the year approaches, it’s a good time for every startup to assess the metrics, technology, and platforms they’re using to manage the business. Customer loyalty and retention.

Metrics 100

Metrics Technical Review Sales Custom 100

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Seattle should be the envy of any non Silicon Valley tech community in the country. It really wouldn’t take much to turn a great technology ecosystem into a truly electric one. He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving.

Venture Capital 317

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Press 317