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 (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

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. My best advice is to stick to the middle ground.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

socalTECH

JUNE 12, 2012

Santa Barbara, one of Southern California's technology centers, has a unique problem: how do you scale out your technology staff, despite intense competition from the firm's large number of technology companies, expensive cost-of-living, limited real estate, and a fairly long trek from the rest of the region for commuters?

Santa Barbara 145

Santa Barbara Technical Review Southern California Competition 145

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

socalTECH

MAY 21, 2012

San Diego-based Qualcomm has launched its third annual QPrize competition, the competition where the firm looks to vet and fund early stage technology companies from around the world. Qualcomm said entries are due by August 17th. READ MORE>>.

Competition 140

Competition Technical Review San Diego Funding 140

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

” Bill Gross, who is one of the Godfathers of the Internet, once told me, “ If you don’t design a product that is 10x better than the competition then you’ll never build anything truly big or amazing.” Tech Market Analysis Upfront Ventures makespace' 10x the experience. Full on burger flipping mode.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire Startup 380

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

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 26, 2010

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. 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?

Fractional CTO 225

Fractional CTO CTO CTO Hire CTO Coach 225

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. My best advice is to stick to the middle ground.

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

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Last week, the University of Southern California 's Viterbi School of Engineering announced that it had established a new, business plan competition, the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition ([link] specifically aimed at students in the engineering school. Why a business plan competition, and why in engineering school?

Competition 154

Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

We thought today for our interview, that we'd get an update on the angel investment environment here in Southern California from Scott Sangster , the incoming President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Tech Coast Angels , the biggest angel investment group in Southern California. Those are fundamentals that don't change.

Tech Coast Angels 182

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review Angel Southern California 182

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Many questioned whether it could survive under the fail whale, inevitable competition from Facebook, founder fighting, fights with 3rd-party developers let alone become a revolutionary business that could make money. Periodically we do portfolio reviews to evaluate whether we have enough diversified risk across the fund. Far from it.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

socalTECH

APRIL 2, 2021

Thousand Oaks-based Teledyne Technologies Incorporated says it has cleared antitrust reviews in both Canada and Canada for its ongoing acquisition of FLIR Systems.

Technical Review 113

Technical Review Acquisition Thousand Oaks Competition 113

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

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 16, 2014

The “span of control” for a growing tech startup is probably 6-9 people. You help them prioritize their objectives and review the results. If you hire truly talented people you end up definitionally with a lot of competitive peers who will inevitably jockey for resources and control. You set direction.

Entrepreneur 385

Entrepreneur CTO Hire Startup Sales 385

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

MARCH 30, 2011

It is often the fortuitous mixture of new technologies, customer awareness and then acceptance of the technology and then the slow adoption into our daily lives that leads to markets exploding. We technology leaders also make this mistake. I had my sales teams telling me we needed certain features to be competitive.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Startup Resource 374

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. they’ll flock to your channel with marketing budgets and tech prowess. I’d like to make the case that the article is wrong. I’d strongly encourage you to read it. Success begets success.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review SEM SEO Marketing 384

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

Industry reviews. So the “VC associate” is largely a launching pad job for exceedingly bright and hard-working young tech professionals. a really wide angle view of the tech industry since you see so many concepts / so many pitches and REAL data points on how startups perform financially. Deal screening.

Help 365

Help Invest Venture Capital Technical Review 365

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

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

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

XPRIZE , the nonprofit organization which has been using large dollar prize competitions to spur innovation in a wide range of areas, has booted up a brand new, $2M prize around ocean health, the group said this week. xprize ocean health carbon dioxide emissions competition prize' The XPRIZE Foundation said that. READ MORE>>.

Southern California 204

Southern California Technical Review Competition Organization 204

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

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

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

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

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. Tags: Tech Market Analysis VC Industry.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 4, 2013

But when you create a product for a large segment of users who previously couldn’t afford products due to price or complexity and if that product can work at “Internet scale” you have the chance to do something truly amazing. I have written this up before if you’re interested – I call it Deflationary Economics.

Startup 401

Startup Customer Custom Technical Review 401

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 8, 2019

Responding to Elizabeth Warren’s call to regulate and break up some of the nation’s largest technology companies, the venture capitalists that invest in technology companies are advising the presidential hopeful to move slowly and not break anything. This is not a new model, and it makes no sense,” says Narasin.

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Startup Chief Technology Officer Social Media 144

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 10, 2010

It’s an important film and the most important topic of our generation if we as a country want to remain competitive in a world that has globalized. I poured myself into planning and I won the class-wide competition. It’s the story of what’s broken with the education system in the US. Please go see the film.

Class 340

Class Education Technical Review Writing 340

socalTECH

JUNE 25, 2013

Los Angeles does not have a great track record when it comes to technology companies colliding with government; even such common sense things as opening up bidding for providing Wi-Fi at LAX to local companies has been wrought with political wrangling. angeles politics uber lyft sidecar technology rideshare transportation taxi'

Legalzoom 221

Legalzoom Los Angeles Glendale Technical Review 221

socalTECH

MARCH 27, 2013

Burbank-based eSolar is developing utility-scale, solar thermal power technology used for generating power on a large scale. Solar power--once the darling of the clean technology industry--has seen an intense shakeout due to extremely low cost competition from Chinese manufacturers. READ MORE>>.

Burbank 178

Burbank Idealab Technical Review Competition 178

socalTECH

MARCH 7, 2012

Energy Innovations had originally been targeting the residential market with its CPV panels, which it had expected to be more efficient and cheaper than conventional solar panels; however, the firm failed to deliver its products before prices for PV modules dropped due to economies of scale, plus competition from China and thin film modules.

Technical Review 145

Technical Review Idealab High Tech Pasadena 145

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. While many tech startups do this intuitively (say, SnapChat thinking it would be much better if our photos out partying disappeared) it still happens. So they’ll have to look for other competitive advantages for distribution.

Marketing 379

Marketing Startup SEM SEO 379