October, 2023

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How to Use Generative AI and LLMs to Improve Search

TechEmpower

Artificial Intelligence (AI), and particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), have significantly transformed the search engine as we’ve known it. This presents businesses with an opportunity to enhance their search functionalities for both internal and external users. With Generative AI and LLMs, new avenues for improving operational efficiency and user satisfaction are emerging every day.

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A heartbreaking story about time and money.

Berkonomics

First, think about your time as money! We’ll get to my heartbreak in a minute. But first… There is a relationship between time and money that is more complex than most managers think. Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues.

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Robotaxi pushback grows in Los Angeles as Cruise loses permits

TechCrunch LA

Less than a month after Waymo’s Los Angeles County expansion, labor organizers and an LA lawmaker are calling for new autonomous-vehicle regulations. On Tuesday, the office of LA Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said he will introduce a motion “urging officials in the state to address public safety concerns around autonomous vehicles and reign in the expansion […] © 2023 TechCrunch.

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What Is Claude AI and Anthropic? ChatGPT’s Rival Explained

Tech.Co

You’ve probably heard of both Bard and ChatGPT by now. However, another highly capable chatbot burst onto the scene earlier this year called Claude. It comes courtesy of Google and Amazon-backed startup Anthropic, which was only founded in 2021. Claude is definitely one of the most impressive chatbots to be launched in the last 12 months. More than 350,000 people signed up to the waitlist to use Claude 2, the most recent version of the language model.

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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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4 Keys To A Successful Integrity Check With Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. In reality, it is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of the business and the team.

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Lightweight Intercollegiate & Founders Fight Club Competitors and Judges Official Announcement

Startup San Diego

After weeks of deliberation and 100+ applications, our San Diego Startup Week judging committee has determined the 18 startups that will compete in the Lightweight Intercollegiate Pitch Competition and Founders Fight Club Tournament. These local startups will compete for $15,000 in cash prizes and bragging rights! Give a warm welcome to this year’s Lightweight Intercollegiate […] The post Lightweight Intercollegiate & Founders Fight Club Competitors and Judges Official Announcement ap

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Are you or your business “time bankrupt?”

Berkonomics

Time bankruptcy results from the deliberate over-commitment of core resources. You’d know the symptoms, if not the name. You’re fighting to put out the fires from customer complaints, or incomplete work, or are suffering from an inability to focus upon new development or new customers before cleaning up the mess inside your organization. Why use this term?

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Robotaxis ‘do not belong in the city of Los Angeles,’ lawmaker says

TechCrunch LA

Robotaxi oversight is now a priority at Los Angeles City Hall. At a press briefing on Wednesday, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez told Waymo and Cruise that their robotaxis are not welcome. “The purpose of this press event is to send a very clear message about robot taxis, and say that they do not belong in the […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved.

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A personal story about quality control

Berkonomics

So, I tell personal stories to show that we all should look for lessons learned by others. Here’s one that is “on me.” As my enterprise computer software company which produced innovative lodging systems for hotels and resorts grew quickly, we found ourselves straining to keep up with the hiring and training of good customer support representatives, a critical part of the equation then and still so today in the 24-hour environment of hotel front desk operations.

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They say “haste makes waste” but…

Berkonomics

Let’s examine the relationship between time, quality and competitiveness. If you are getting the impression from these many insights that complex relationships cause simple problems, you are right. We have heard the “haste makes waste” ditty since childhood. There is little need to reinforce the obvious. On a larger scale, there are epoch stories of giant companies eating massive losses in a recall of product, often based upon limited testing before release.

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10 Strategies For Finding More Work Hours In Your Day

Startup Professionals Musings

Every entrepreneur I know can’t find enough hours in a day to do the good things they want, and yet they often find themselves saying yes to new requests. Perhaps because they are optimists by nature, or they just hate to disappoint others, they end up hurting their health, credibility, and effectiveness by not being able to deliver on everything they promise.

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10 Keys To Success Despite Accelerated Market Change

Startup Professionals Musings

Most experts agree that the pace of business change is increasing , and all the business owners I know are struggling to keep up, much less surpass the wealth of global competitors now entering the market. Based on my own experience as a business executive, I believe it’s time to be more proactive in preparing for change, rather than just reacting to the latest growth crisis.

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4 Key Components Of Every New Business Financial Plan

Startup Professionals Musings

Most aspiring entrepreneurs understand that you can’t build a business if you won’t commit to delivering a product or service, but many are hesitant or refuse to commit to any financial forecasts. Yet every business requires revenue and volumes, as certainly as it requires a product to sell. Thus, financial projections for up to five years are a necessary element in every business plan.

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6 Ideas To Recover From Business Resource Challenges

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneur that fail are quick to offer a litany of constraints that caused their demise – not enough money, time, customers, or support from the right players. Ironically, as a startup investor and mentor, I have seen too many failures caused by just the opposite – too much money spent too soon, taking time to get product perfection, and assuming customers will wait.

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8 Key Human-Centered Leadership Elements In Business

Startup Professionals Musings

With today’s rapidly changing environment, I see many business leaders reverting to the “ command and control ” leadership model, in an effort to be more responsive, rather than leading with their heads and heart. Yet I find in my mentoring practice that more and more team members prefer the human-centered approach and respond with more engagement and commitment.

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6 Mindset Factors Turn Constraints Into Opportunities

Startup Professionals Musings

Most new business owners I know feel the challenges of not enough time, money, and resources, and see these as problems rather than a competitive advantage. In reality, based on my experience as a startup advisor and investor, these constraints lead the best entrepreneurs to the most innovative solutions and new markets otherwise overlooked by their peers and competitors.

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What to Expect at This Year’s San Diego Startup Week 2023

Startup San Diego

We’re only a couple of weeks away from this year’s San Diego Startup Week, and we’re excited to have the startup community reunite for the 11th annual event. This year, we’re taking over San Diego, from Carlsbad all the way down to Tijuana, Mexico. With over 1,800+ community members expected to attend, 5 days spanning […] The post What to Expect at This Year’s San Diego Startup Week 2023 appeared first on Startup San Diego.

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6 Keys To A Winning Business Model For Your Customers

Startup Professionals Musings

How do you convince investors that your business model will really work, before you have a revenue stream that exceeds your expenses? Even if you are bootstrapping your business, and you are the only investor, you should be asking yourself the same question. Too many founders have learned that passion and free beta products do not imply a sustainable business.

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8 Expectations Of Investors Who Risk Their Own Money

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneurs have found by now one or more of the many popular crowdfunding sites , and have the name and contact information for at least one of the big venture capital firms. But many have no insight or connections to the ethereal angel investment community, which In the U.S. contributes more than $25 billion to fund 70,000 startups every year.

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Don’t Underrate The Value Of A Startup Plan Document

Startup Professionals Musings

If you sold your last startup for $800 million, you probably already know how to build a business, and even conservative investors won’t worry about the quality of your next business plan. But, for the rest of us, don’t believe the Silicon Valley myth that all you have to do is sketch your million-dollar idea on the back of a napkin, and investors will line up to give you money.

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6 Funding Resources For Ideas Needing More Validation

Startup Professionals Musings

Angel investors and venture capitalists are looking for startups with real products and a proven business model, ready to scale. Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow.

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6 Guidelines For How And When To Use Non-Disclosures

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Professional investors and advisors, on the other hand, usually refuse to sign these agreements today due to the risk of litigation and administrative workload, and will walk away. How can you make this a win-win opportunity?

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Fundraising in Today’s Startup Market

SoCal Tech Calendar

Tuesday, October 10, 2023 -- Fundraising in Today’s Startup Market. Are you looking for guidance on raising capital for your venture? We invite you to our upcoming in-person Founder’s event in Santa Barbara, “Fundraising in Today’s Startup Market." ​Join us for this exclusive event to hear from how Santa Barbara-based founder, Woody Sears at Autio, raised his latest funding round. ​The event will also include investors Julie Henley McNamara (Entrada Ventures), Mike Tucker (ScOp Venture Capit

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10 Strategies To Find That Rare Complementary Partner

Startup Professionals Musings

A common challenge faced by every entrepreneur is that they don’t have the bandwidth, interest or skills to do everything that is required to build their startup. Of course, they can outsource part of the work or hire employees, but that approach means more time and money to manage the work, which they don’t have. The right answer is to find a co-founder with complementary skills.

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8 Steps To A Satisfying And Successful Business Exit

Startup Professionals Musings

Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. Although many won’t admit it, true entrepreneurs can’t wait to exit their current startup, and build a new and better one with their next great idea. In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years.

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7 Steps To A New Business From An Innovative Solution

Startup Professionals Musings

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Businesses require an equally elegant business model, with the right price, messaging and delivery channel to the right target customers to keep the dream alive and growing. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

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Startup Day for Early Stage Startups & Entrepreneurs – Day 4 of SDSW at SDSU – Recap & Pictures

Startup San Diego

Day 4 of San Diego Startup Week was hosted by our day sponsor, San Diego State University, in Conrad Preby’s Aztec Student Union. With over 450+ attendees, we held workshops in entrepreneurship, branding, marketing, sales, and metrics. We had our keynote, “From First-time Entrepreneur-to-Founder Transformation,” by Cody Barbo, Founder and CEO of Trust & Will […] The post Startup Day for Early Stage Startups & Entrepreneurs – Day 4 of SDSW at SDSU – Re

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Startup Day for Early Stage Startups & Entrepreneurs – Day 4 of SDSW at SDSU – Recap & Pictures

Startup San Diego

Day 4 of San Diego Startup Week was hosted by our day sponsor, San Diego State University, in Conrad Preby’s Aztec Student Union. With over 450+ attendees, we held workshops in entrepreneurship, branding, marketing, sales, and metrics. We had our keynote, “From First-time Entrepreneur-to-Founder Transformation,” by Cody Barbo, Founder and CEO of Trust & Will […] The post Startup Day for Early Stage Startups & Entrepreneurs – Day 4 of SDSW at SDSU – Re

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Over 120+ San Diego Startup Week Attendees Come for Day 2 in Tijuana, MX – Recap & Pictures

Startup San Diego

The San Diego/Tijuana binational region hosts thousands of talented engineers, developers, startup founders, and entrepreneurs. Through the partnership with Arkusnexus, Jelp Delivery, and ENBC, Startup San Diego hosted Day Two of San Diego Startup Week at the Arkusnexus Mindhub in Tijuana, Mexico, successfully celebrating the binational community and the thriving SD/TJ startup ecosystem.

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Sip N’ SaaS – Day 3 of San Diego Startup Week Recap & Photos

Startup San Diego

Day three of San Diego Startup Week took place at The LOT in Liberty Station, and we held the Sip N’ SaaS networking event Powered Logicboost Labs. This night focused mainly on celebrating the B2B SaaS community. We held a quick lightning round of “Ask/Offer,” with attendees writing down what they’re asking for (ex. funding, […] The post Sip N’ SaaS – Day 3 of San Diego Startup Week Recap & Photos appeared first on Startup San Diego.

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San Diego Startup Week Takes Over Carlsbad Village for the 11th Annual Conference

Startup San Diego

When San Diego Startup Week first came to Carlsbad in 2022, the conference was held in an abandoned auto garage on State street. Even though the space was tight, the team completely renovated the area to accommodate more than 30+ exhibitors, 300+ attendees, and 25+ speakers for the kick-off event. Fast forward to this past […] The post San Diego Startup Week Takes Over Carlsbad Village for the 11th Annual Conference appeared first on Startup San Diego.