Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

She was leaving IAC to start a company. Somehow she was always on a flight up to Seattle or San Francisco. She was everything I was looking for in an entrepreneur to back. Didn’t I make myself clear about celebrities & startups ? Turns out she’s done this startup thing before. ” Kara came.

Startup 398

Startup Design Downey Activity 398

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2010

I wrote several of the characteristics when I did the Top 10 (11) Attributes of an Entrepreneur. By definition tough decisions produce winners and losers. There’s no place for that in a startup. The effed up on the launch of Beacon – they realized it and killed off Beacon – at least for now.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Yahoo Startup Technical Review 330

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

I have never been more optimistic about the impact that the tech startup community is having on cities in America or about the role that cities outside of San Francisco / Silicon Valley can play in our future. Changes in the Startup Ecosystem. Open source computing, which reduced costs to start a company by 90%. And on and on.

Startup 390

Startup Venture Capital Capital Funding 390

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

I recently wrote about the 12 tips to building successful startup communities. I lived in London from 1997-2005 and for 6 of those years ran my startup based out of London. At this time I can tell you that the Brits definitely didn’t have a culture of failure. I remember this lesson well. What brings you to LA?

Startup 350

Startup Ideas Education Class 350

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. Most of what I think about startup communities came from mentorship by Brad Feld through hours of private discussion and debate.

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Press San Diego 378

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. ” We talked about my influences as a younger person and what got me started in technology and entrepreneurship. And of course we talked about many of my views of building startups.

Startup 337

Startup Entrepreneur Ideas Venture Capital 337

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

Most technology startups seem to be founded by three types of people: product managers, engineers or biz dev types (MBAs and the like). Very few of them are started, in my experience, by sales people and very few early stage companies really understand sales. Here’s mine: Let me start with a few biases. Yeah, kind of.

Startup 350

Startup Sales Framework Organization 350

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. I was interested in learning more.

Startup 360

Startup Venture Capital Invest Slides 360

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

By definition, you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? People often ask me why I started blogging. It really started simply enough. Or “I’m a new entrepreneur, why would I offer advice on how to run a startup?&#.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Everyone seems to be in such a rush to get shacked up these days. This sometimes frustrates entrepreneurs who just want to “get back to running the business.&# But if you understand it you’ll see that it is perfectly rational and it should also influence how you form relationships with investors. Quick coffees, whatever.

Invest 411

Invest Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 411

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

The conversation centered around a founder who's key question is "Where Do I Find a Developer for My Startup?" The situation is pretty common it got us to riff a bit around how to get programmers to help him build out a proof-of-concept version for his startup. Or ask me Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions.

Guide 349

Guide Startup Mobile Framework 349

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 28, 2010

That’s the classic definition of Grin Fucking. I grew up in the US but lived in England for so long I can never remember from which country my slang comes. But then I started to see it happening internally. So we (and by we I mean “they&# ) at Accenture decided to come up with our own bull shit.

Startup 378

Startup Framework Slides Coach 378

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

If you don’t already read Chris’s blog you should – it’s very well written, often takes a strong POV and speaks from an entrepreneur’s perspective but with a huge knowledge of the technology investors as well. I covered this a bit in my post about the market definition slide in fund raising. He is both.

Product 348

Product Startup Design Blogging 348

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I said both in the article but felt compelled to provide a statement up front for the skimmers.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Equally, I encouraged entrepreneurs to spend time getting to know their future VCs early because getting a feel for your chemistry is far more important than how the VC is ranked in some survey. Equally, I encouraged entrepreneurs to thoroughly reference check their VCs – you’ll learn much more from this than anything else.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Marketing Venture Capital Hulu 330

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

The era of VCs investing in successful consumer Internet startups such as eBay led to a belief system that seemed to permeate many enterprise software startups that hiring sales or implementation people was a bad thing. If you’re an early-stage enterprise startup services revenue is exactly what you need. We like software.

Startup 403

Startup Sales Software Review Technical Review 403

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Article first published as Eleven Startup Tips From Mark Cuban on Technorati. Mark Cuban is a lifelong serial entrepreneur, launching his startup career with a variety of teenage schemes, including buying and selling collectable stamps to pay for college. Mark’s Startup Tips. Entrepreneurs are constantly selling.

Tips 274

Tips Startup Entrepreneur Ideas 274

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. I’ll put up the video when they post it on their website. Stories have starts, middles and ends.

Startup 362

Startup Twiistup Slides Screening 362

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

The conversation centered around a founder who's key question is "Where Do I Find a Developer for My Startup?" The situation is pretty common it got us to riff a bit around how to get programmers to help him build out a proof-of-concept version for his startup. Or ask me Free Startup CTO Consulting Sessions.

Guide 296

Guide Startup Mobile Framework 296

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

of all statistics are made up. Here’s how I learned my lesson: I started my life as a consultant. I had to read each report, synthesis it and then come up with our best estimate of the markets going forward. I know it sounds like I’m making this sh*t up but I’m not. I say it deadpanned. OK, yes.

Statistics 415

Statistics Startup Report Research 415

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

There has long been a big debate about the best approach to starting a new business. Some argue the only way to start is to drop everything and jump in with both feet, while others recommend an overlapped approach to the lifestyle, including not quitting your day job until you have revenue and a proven business model.

Startup 128

Startup Entrepreneur Satisfaction News 128

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 7, 2013

The good news for entrepreneurs is that there have never been more office space options for early stage companies. The bad news is that it is often difficult to determine which of these alternatives is ideal, since the definition of "ideal" changes as your venture matures. Many Sizes, Many Fits.

Incubator 238

Incubator Startup News Entrepreneur 238

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 3, 2011

So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. Everything Is A Remix – Including Your Startup. Of particular interest to entrepreneurs, Part III discusses the creative process of technical innovations. Nobody starts out original.

Startup 255

Startup High Tech SaaS .Net 255

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2021

Once you are able to achieve some real “traction” with your business (paying customers, revenue stream), it may seem the time to relax a bit, but in fact this is the point where many founders start to flounder. All the skills and instincts you needed to get to this level can actually start working against you, and you can fail to scale.

Entrepreneur 169

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Mentor 169

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Almost anyone can start a company today on a shoestring budget, following these cost-cutting recommendations: Establish a solid legal structure for your business.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Startup Social Media Outsource Development 162

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2010

A friend calls me up from “you name it&# city: Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and says, “I’m thinking about moving to Los Angeles (or SF, NY, etc) and I’d love to start interviewing. Let’s start with the obvious. If she’s not up for transferring to UCLA – that’s fine.

Startup 326

Startup UCLA Los Angeles Entrepreneur 326

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

However, certain questions can be tricky for an entrepreneur to answer. Below are five common questions an entrepreneur will encounter when seeking venture funding. Handled appropriately, these questions provide investors a window into an entrepreneurs’ soul, which minimizes the chances of a future misalignment.

Entrepreneur 253

Entrepreneur Google Invest RSS 253

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. So this was definitely an introduction I was going to take. Andrew & Petri posed a question to me, “If Walt Disney were starting his company today, what kind of company would he build?”

Funding 373

Funding Technical Review Startup Screening 373

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 6, 2010

The topic I chose to speak about was “lessons on starting a company&# but I created the sub-title in class “a Silicon Valley heresy&# since my goal was to slay many of the myths I believe exist right in the heart of Silicon Valley! I grew up in NorCal and I formerly lived in Palo Alto. You can download the deck here.

Startup 312

Startup Class Blogging Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). I was telling him that it was much easier when I started because there were fewer deals, life was less public and somehow the world seemed to be spinning more slowly. Web Summit.

Venture Capital 374

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

InfoChachkie

JULY 28, 2014

The ability for people to turn their time, residences, cars and other personal assets into viable income streams is revising the traditional definition of "employment.". The sharing economy is also proving to be a significant source of bootstrap startup capital. Entrepreneurs using TaskRabbit earn an average of $60 per odd job.

Funding 223

Funding Startup Santa Barbara Entrepreneur 223

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 6, 2010

There are definitely times where a more narrowly defined question makes sense and where you want to guide the person you’re talking with to a narrow boundary to illicit a certain type of response. We started presenting our company and talking about our views of the industry. He started opening up.

Startup 311

Startup Invest Course Research 311

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2010

Anyone who works in the venture business or frankly just lives in Silicon Valley will be used to hearing a buzz word rise up out of nowhere to capture the technology zeitgeist and find its way into every entrepreneur’s product development plan or every aspiring entrepreneur’s pitch deck. That’s too late.

Startup 296

Startup Evite Web Ideas 296

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 8, 2021

These days I see a surge of new startups as businesses seem to be recovering from the pandemic. If you are not starting one yourself, the next best thing is joining one as a partner, or as an early employee. It takes much the same preparation to make you the best entrepreneur, or the best job candidate.

Tips 168

Tips Startup Coach Networking 168

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 3, 2014

In contrast, social networking sites drove a record number of clicks, up 20% over the prior year. In order to drill down on how entrepreneurs can leverage social commerce sites without alienating their potential customers, I spoke with industry expert Albert Wilson, who heads up Affiliate and Marketplaces for Deckers Outdoor Corporation.

Entrepreneur 210

Entrepreneur Commerce Sites Social Network 210

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

socalTECH

JULY 23, 2012

There's been a surge in startup accelerator activity in Los Angeles in the last year, as interest in starting a company in the region has grown, and a wide range of experienced entrepreneurs and investors have pitched in to help companies get to the next level. Image courtesy Bigstock. READ MORE>>.

Los Angeles 234

Los Angeles Angel Report Startup 234