This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Fred Wilson wrote two posts in 2010 that were very influential with the startup community. The titles were: Mobile First, Web Second. Mobile First, Web Second (continued). If you’re in the minority that never read them – you should. I know that they really impacted an entire cohort of startups because every company that was coming to pitch me businesses was (is) saying, “I’m a ‘mobile first’ company.” Part of the beauty of blogging that in two sittings F
As part of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series, serial entrepreneur and noted venture capitalist Mark Suster recently shared his advice with a large crowd of emerging entrepreneurs. Mark is a Partner at GRP Partners and authors one of the most widely read startup blogs, BothSidesOfTheTable. Mark framed his comments around the major mistakes he made during his early ventures.
Santa Monica-based GraphEffect , the venture-backed developer of social marketing software, said today that it has hired both a Sales and Marketing VP. The firm said it has appointed David Pollet as Vice President of Sales, and named Jennifer Cooley as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. Pollet joins from [x+1], and also served at Bankrate.com and Andover.net, along with Bank of America and LendingTree.com.
Aggregage , the platform that powers StartupRoar has added a powerful personalization engine. That means that the site now allows users to sign-up and have their content personalized based on their interests. You can sign-up via the "Personalize Your Content" button on the right side of the interface shown to the right of the red arrow below.
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.
What if you are the seller of a previous business or shares amounting to more than an insignificant percentage of a previous business? Certainly the buyer’s asset purchase documents included a non-compete clause, usually valid for two years from the date of the closing. And because there was consideration paid to you in the sale, that clause is binding upon you and is effective almost everywhere.
Thursday, January 19, 2012 -- MongoLA. Mongo Los Angeles is an annual one-day conference in Los Angeles, CA dedicated to the open source, non-relational database MongoDB.
Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. The first day of 2012 seems the perfect day to do so. One of the most important articles I read during the entire year was David Brook’s op-ed article on “ The Haimish Line.” In it Brooks talks about his recent trip to Africa with his 12-year-old son.
Sign up to get articles personalized to your interests!
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. The first day of 2012 seems the perfect day to do so. One of the most important articles I read during the entire year was David Brook’s op-ed article on “ The Haimish Line.” In it Brooks talks about his recent trip to Africa with his 12-year-old son.
Note: This is an installment in the Iconic Advice series. Other installments include: Jeff Bezos , Steve Jobs , Richard Branson , Walt Disney and Michael Dell. 1) Get A Mentor. "I started the site when I was 19. I didn't know much about business back then." [Tweet this quote]. If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for. free weekly Infochachkie articles!
Los Angeles-based Phorus , the startup headed by former PhatNoise founder Dannie Lau, has unveiled its first products at CES, a new, wireless audio streaming speaker which ties directly into Android devices. Phorus said its PlayCast product connects to Android phones or tablets, and allows users to stream lossless audio-quality music over Wi-Fi. The new product--aiming at the popularity of similar systems from Sonos--can be linked together to stream audio to multiple rooms.
An "elevator pitch" is a concise, well-practiced description of your startup and your plan, delivered with conviction and enthusiasm, that your mother should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up an elevator. Everybody knows about these, but few people seem to deliver a good one. A good elevator pitch is not just for an elevator discussion.
Professional investors want to live by this rule. With the first round of funding, there should be milestones to be achieved. If they are not achieved within the expected time, the reasons must be analyzed and acted upon to avoid loss of capital beyond plan or expectation. And if the vision of the entrepreneur is flawed, or the product impossible to create within cost and time expectations, or the demand impossible to quantify, or revenues never close to plan, then it is time to rethink the pla
Thursday, February 2, 2012 -- Business and Financial Outlook 2012. GABA, German American Business Association. The German American Business Association (GABA) invites you to our Annual Business and Financial Outlook Event to discuss the current state and the 2012 outlook of the economy, financial markets, trade, funding climate and real estate market both in the US and Europe.
Over the holiday I became aware of a new tech blog that aims to have deep insights into the next generation of technology, which they call The Hypernet. Why should you care? Well, it is established by some of the industries more successful investors – Mike Maples and Roger McNamee. My favorite post was this one (image above) in which they talked about their 10 hypothesis for technology investing.
Note: This is an installment in the Iconic Advice series. Other installments include: Jeff Bezos , Steve Jobs , Richard Branson , Walt Disney and Mark Zuckerberg. 1. Degree? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Degrees. "As important as school was, I found that it could be very disruptive to a steady income." [Tweet this quote]. According to a January 2012 article in Forbes Magazine , nearly 16% of the 400 most affluent Americans do not have a college degree.
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said over the weekend that Elon Musk , the technology mogul who founded SpaceX and Tesla Motors, and co-founded PayPal, will deliver this year's commencement address in June. Caltech said Musk will deliver the commencement address for the school on June 15th at its campus in Pasadena. The school said that Musk will talk about how "brilliant, big ideas can and will have a positive impact in the world.
Entrepreneurs are all about firsts, and the most important is you making a great first impression – on investors, customers, new team members, and strategic partners. Poor first impressions can be avoided, but I’m amazed at the number of unnecessary mistakes I see at those critical first introductions, presentations, and meetings. The key message here is “preparation.
Entrepreneurs tend to remain in the business arena they came from. Some are alumni from companies that would be a competitor to the enterprise being created or joined. And some are former selling shareholders of just those businesses. What is the rule about those pesky non-compete agreements signed upon discharge or sale of the previous company? The good news is that if you were not a significant (usually 5% or more) selling shareholder of a previous company, many states specifically exempt n
Thursday, February 2, 2012 -- DOMAINfest Global. DOMAINfest is a conference series that brings domain industry and Internet professionals together to learn, network, and do business. Attendees include online advertising experts, domain publishers, domain monetization experts, SEO and SEM specialists, website developers, online marketers, ad or affiliate network suppliers, search advertising providers, venture capitalists, bankers and trademark/legal advisors.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Steve Blank, author of Four Steps To The Epiphany , Stanford Professor and noted entrepreneur. Steve was very generous with his time, allowing us to cover a variety of topics during our Skype conversation. The subject discussed in the video below is Steve’s belief that Venture Capitalists should begin their careers as operational entrepreneurs.
What do you do when a new industry, which serves the same customers as you do, suddenly appears and starts to grow astronomically? In the case of Los Angeles-based SkuLoop (www.skuloop.com), what you do is you shift your focus to that new industry--in this case, flash sales and daily deals--and figure out how to apply your technical know-how to that rapidly growing market.
Santa Monica-based Convertro , the venture backed, advertising analytics and optimization firm run by Jeff Zwelling, said today that it has hired Armen Avedissian as its Chief Operating Officer. Avedissian was most recently Chief Revenue Officer at MyLife. Zwelling said that Avedissian is "the biggest hitter" in the area of attribution and media optimization.
The love affair between Los Angeles startups combining e-commerce and celebrity continues unbated today, as a new, Santa Monica-based startup headed by actress Jessica Alba --and backed by Brian Lee , the founder of LegalZoom and ShoeDazzle--unveiled itself to the world. The Honest Company says that it will provide eco-friendly products such as diapers, bath and skin products, and household cleaning products to subscribers via a monthly subscription, following the popular model pioneered by Shoe
Los Angeles-based Invested.in , which is headed by Alon Goren, is one of a number of companies that debuted at the startup accelerator Amplify LA this week. Invested.in provides a platform which can be used for crowd funding projects, and can also be white labeled by other companies. Amplify is one of a number of accelerators which have cropped up in Los Angeles in the last six months or so.
San Luise Obispo-based Shopatron , the developer of e-commerce software for brand manufacturers, reports today that it added a total of 85 new clients in the sporting goods industry during 2011. The firm said those clients included K2, Rossignol, Powderhorn, Quickpoles, Academy Snowboard, and Bolle, among many others. The firm did not detail how those clients influenced its financials, but did say that the clients came from a range of sports including cycling, watersports, snowsports, action spo
Last month, just before the holidays, Los Angeles-based PartyEarth (www.partyearth.com) raised $4.0M in capital for its online service for connecting people with nightlife venues. We caught up with Sam Altman, the firm's founder, to hear more about the company, and how we went from working in private equity to heading up a company all about finding nightlife.
Tal Siach is a life-long serial entrepreneur who has mastered social media as a guerrilla marketing tool. In my recent interview with Tal, he describes how his actions encouraged Intuit to play nice with Mint. He also describes how he used Digg to discover the ugliest person on Facebook. If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for. free weekly Infochachkie articles!
Dmitry Shapiro , the former founder and CEO of Veoh, and later head of MySpace Music and Facebook alternative Altly, said Thursday that he has launched Uberpaper , a new, online news reading service to help people read and navigate news. Shapiro announced the new site on his Google Plus stream, saying that the new service is looking to make news easier to navigate, and add social features and voting to help the "most relevant news to bubble to the top.
Los Angeles-based Gamzee , the HTML5 game development firm headed by Howard Marks, one of the founders of Activision, has shifted its staff as it rethinks how to approach the market. The startup develops the Skyscraper City social game, which lets users create and build a city, adding buildings, redeveloping neighborhoods, and more. According to Marks, the firm has decided to rethink the opportunity, and now sees that it's important to create smaller, rather than bigger games, due to the time it
Santa Monica-based Nimble , the developer of online, contact and relationship management software headed by Jon Ferrara, the former founder of Goldmine, said last night that it has raised $1M in a seed funding round. The round was led by Google Ventures and Mark Cuban. The funding also included Jason Calacanis, Don Dodge, Dharmesh Shah, and others. Nimble helps users manage their connections and customers, including integration with email software like Gmail and Microsoft Outlook.
San Diego-based Telcentris , which develops voice-over-IP and other voice systems for business, said this week that it has named Cliff Rees as President of the firm. Rees was most recently at Leading Edge Communications, XCast Labs, GlobalTouch Telecom, as well as Telegroup. The firm said Rees will oversee operations, sales, business development, and product management.
Los Angeles-based Mobile Roadie , the developer of branded, mobile applications, is powering another app release, this time from the band the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Mobile Roadie said that the Red Hot Chili Peppers released its free app earlier this week. The app is currently Mobile Roadie's number one app in terms of downloads this week. Mobile Roadie has not announced any details of the deal to develop the app; the company is behind a significant number of high profile apps for brands, musicia
Santa Monica-based TrueCar , the online auto buying site led by Scott Painter, said Monday that it is addressing compliance issues and concerns with its service with a change to its billing model. The firm said it will offer up a new, flat fee billing model in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a move which comes after a public complaint by the state, which was made public most recently in December, "reminding" the company that the laws of that state prohibit compensating anyone in connection with th
Santa Barbara-based RinvRevenue , the provider of pay-per-call marketing technology, said today that it has partnered with mobile ad network firm Tapjoy. The two said they partnership will deliver advertisers with more customers through inbound calls. Financial details of the partnership were not announced. RingRevenue's technology helps track the source of inbound calls from affiliate networks.
Looking to get a bargain on a domain name? Don't look for Bargain.com , which is one of the domain names being auctioned off at the Moniker domain name auction at next week's DomainFest , the domain name conference spearheaded by Los Angeles domain firm Oversee.net. In a pre-auction listing of domains to be auctioned off at the conference, Oversee.net, which owns both Moniker and SnapNames, put a $750,001 to $1M starting bid on the Bargain.com domain.
Santa Monica-based JewelMint , the jewelry service run by former MySpace co-founder Josh Berman and Diego Berdakin, said Thursday that it is launching an online "fashion film" series featuring Kate Bosworth , along with a national television commercial campaign. JewelMint said the new film, "The Look" features JewelMint co-founder and actress Kate Bosworth, and was filmed by Michael Polish.
San Diego-based KidZui , the developer of kids-friendly Internet browsers and online portal for kids, said today that it has officially renaming the company's name to Zui.com. The shift comes as the company has focused on creating a search engine and portal specifically aimed at kids, rather than its earlier browser efforts. Zui.com says it now is seeing around 2.2 million monthly uniques.
How do you leverage your years of experience manufacturing and designing furniture for stores like Ikea and Crate & Barrel into the online world, and harness the interest of consumers to purchase their furniture online? That's what Braden Richter , the CEO of Los Angeles-based LuxeYard (www.luxeyard.com) is looking to do with the new startup, which combines the world of home furnishings with the concept of flash sales.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 5,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
334 
Let's personalize your content