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Today Twitter announced it had laid off around 336 jobs or 8% of its workforce. Nobody should celebrate, cheer or shout, “it’s about time.” This is about 336 people whose lives are altered and need to begin looking for work, saying goodbye to friends & colleagues and go on that journey of transition that most people dread. I wish all of them well and feel confident that anybody employed at one of the most innovative companies of the past 10 years will land on his or her fe
Let me tell you a few short hair-raising stories of entrepreneurs who have raised money and regretted it later. Here are some rules that entrepreneurs almost always ignore to their future peril. Don’t take money from relatives who can’t afford to walk away without remorse. Do take money from experienced family members only after you ask them if they are sure three or more separate times.
Earlier this week, the Disney Accelerator held the demo day for its second class. The Disney Accelerator takes ten, startup companies, and pairs them with mentors from The Walt Disney Company and elsewhere, to provide technical assistance, guidance, business advice, and other resources--and also helps those company link up with internal Disney resources that might help those companies succeed.
A version of this article previously appeared in Forbes. As a Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship at UC Santa Barbara , students ask me dozens of times each quarter, “What do you think of my idea?” My response is typically, “What I think of your idea is irrelevant. Tell me what you think of it.”. If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly JohnGreathouse.com articles!
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.
In this world of constant change, new technologies, and a thousand cultures, it’s evident and somehow comforting to me that the basic rules for business prosperity really haven’t changed in the last hundred years. Business success is still more about the people than the technology or idea involved. As an angel investor and a mentor to entrepreneurs I still see this every day.
L.A. tech has clearly hit its growth inflection point, but the City of Angels has yet to get its startup wings. Here’s the good news: In 2014 alone, we raised more than $3 billion, saw more than $5 billion realized capital across over 80 exits and became the fastest growing startup region in the U.S. Read More.
Let me start the post with three statements. 1. I have attention deficit disorder, it is a real condition , I have been diagnosed including having radioactive isotopes through my brain to map my development and yet I’m a leader, I have accomplished much, I did well in school and went on to earn a master’s degree and I can actually concentrate when I want to.
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Let me start the post with three statements. 1. I have attention deficit disorder, it is a real condition , I have been diagnosed including having radioactive isotopes through my brain to map my development and yet I’m a leader, I have accomplished much, I did well in school and went on to earn a master’s degree and I can actually concentrate when I want to.
Sometimes the end game or sale of the company is not a happy event for the early investors, including the entrepreneur or the founders. Especially when outside investors, venture capitalists or angels have put in substantial money, and the sales price is not enough to give them a reasonable return for the time and money invested, these investors can be – in a word – greedy.
Los Angeles-based Two Bit Circus , the producer of STEM-related, experiential entertainment led by Brent Bushnell, has raised $6.5M in a Series A funding. The funding came from Techstars Ventures, Foundry Group, and Intel Capital. The company--best known for its production of the STEAM Carnival, an carnival-themed event which features high tech games but provides science and technology learning opportunities for kids--said the new funding will be used to expand STEAM Carnival into a national bra
Excited about Oracle Open World? Me too. But what is it exactly? Just another one of those massive IT networking conferences? What can I possibly learn by attending? Who might I be able to meet and connect with? I’ve been invited to attend this year by Dun & Bradstreet to learn about how their data solutions power the Oracle Cloud Platform.
Entrepreneurship is all about leading – leading customers to a new product or service, leading a startup team to peak performance, and leading a new business to the market opportunity, while providing maximum return to stakeholders. Most entrepreneurs feel they have innate leadership talents, but struggle with how to nurture these abilities and measure their effectiveness.
If you’ve got even a modicum of grilling experience under your belt, then you know it only takes a few moments of inattention to totally ruin a good cut of meat. In my opinion, one of the best tools you can have aside from experience is a meat thermometer. The problem is that they’re unwieldy sometimes and don’t give the most accurate read out depending on what model you buy.
A while back when I was reading the press I saw a quote from Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins that was simple, yet profound. He was quoted as saying, “Being a great partner is as important as being smart or being right.”. I liked it so much I wrote it down and tried to think about what it meant to me and I promised myself I would write about that one day.
We come to the end of this cycle of insights with a thought about how you might view your successful exit from the company you have spent so much effort to build. You’ve worked hard for years to reach the payoff, and the money sure looks good as you contemplate the wire transfer to come, and then watch your bank account fill to a level you only dreamed of during those rough cash flow years.
For all of the promise and appeal of drone aircraft, the growing popularity of the unmanned aerial vehicles continues to cause unexpected problems--most recently, taking out the power to almost 700 customers of Southern California Edison in West Hollywood on Tuesday afternoon. The power outage came at around 1:15pm, and came as a result of an errant drone, which severed an overhead power line on Sunset Boulevard.
LA’s startup community is so hot, it is spilling over into Santa Clarita. One weekend, teams of newly formed entrepreneurs and who knows what products or big ideas can happen? Santa Clarita Startup Weekend is a grassroots event, organized by five volunteers who currently live in the Santa Clarita Valley. This is a unique opportunity for software engineers, designers, and business-minded entrepreneurs to team up and build several startups in just 54 hours!
Knowing all too well how hard it is to start a single new business, I’ve always wondered how several well-known entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson and Elon Musk , have managed to successfully lead dozens of startups to success, and thrive on the process. These special people are called serial entrepreneurs, because they have figured out how to do it over and over again.
Does an activity (be it a meeting, project, or decision…) bring you closer to achieving your goals or farther away? Asking this simple question before beginning a task has not only made me more productive, but it has helped me more effectively lead. I refer to this results-oriented approach with my team as: activity ≠ results. When you look at the most successful companies and thriving work cultures, there’s a common theme: they focus on output and results, as opposed to activity.
This morning Clutter.io announced they raised $9 million from Sequoia , arguably the best venture capital firm that exists. Congratulations. Sincerely. Conventional wisdom says I shouldn’t tell you this because I invested in their main competitor, MakeSpace. I know my MakeSpace friends will forgive me because I just don’t believe the conventional wisdom is right.
The first rule for raising money is to do it on good news – right when sales are increasing at an increasing rate. Or when a major customer signs a significant deal. Or when something happens that makes an investor think this company is about to break out. Unfortunately, the longer you wait without significant upward news, the harder it is to get attention.
Los Angeles is the capital of on-demand apps, for just about anything you want. One of those areas that combines LA's passion for on-demand apps, and its active lifestyle, is Fitspot (www.fitspotapp.com), which brings athletic trainers to you or your local fitness center. We spoke with Jonathan Kohn , the founder and CEO of Fitspot, on what the startup is all about.
This is a guest opinion piece written by Jeff Tinsley, CEO of MyLife.com. . I have a confession: I think a “Yelp for People” is a fine idea. That’s right; in fact my only issue with the announcement of the Peeple app last week was that the company isn’t taking the concept far enough. Already, the founders have buckled under criticism, turning what may have very well been a useful service into a pointless “positivity” app without a real purpose.
Many entrepreneurs forget that their success is more about helping other people than about personally becoming famous, or overcoming the odds and getting rich. A successful business has to satisfy customers with a strong team, by helping them solve problems, save money, or experience more pleasure. That means more focus on helping others achieve their goals.
Does an activity (be it a meeting, project, or decision…) bring you closer to achieving your goals or farther away? Asking this simple question before beginning a task has not only made me more productive, but it has helped me more effectively lead. I refer to this results-oriented approach with my team as: activity ≠ results. When you look at the most successful companies and thriving work cultures, there’s a common theme: they focus on output and results, as opposed to activity.
Like many of you I read the Is Web Summit a Scam article making the rounds this week. I have attended Web Summits three times – it is not a scam. Let me get that out of the way. It’s a big conference and all big conferences charge money, make money and serve a diverse set of needs. I even wrote about my experiences attending Web Summit , something I rarely ever write about.
Taking money from professional investors such as angels or VCs usually requires that you agree to seek an exit for those investors in your plan, often targeting five to seven years as the ideal period for growth before a liquidity event. Of course, even though that is your contract with the investors, way over half of those implied contracts never work out that way.
Calabasas-based Ixia said this morning that it is expanding out its lineup of products for the cybersecurity market, with a new product called ThreatARMOR. According to the company, the new product is aimed at enterprise networks, and specifically blocks known bad traffic from malicious IPs, hijacked IPs, and unassigned or unused IP spaces and addresses, all at line speed.
Startups and SMBs have been able to take advantage of the cloud, and all of the speed and flexibility it offers, long before large enterprise companies due to strict security and privacy standards, as well as regulations for major industries like banking, healthcare, and financial services. The cloud has proven itself invaluable for businesses to be agile, yet finding a secure way to access applications while protecting the corporate firewall remained a major barrier to entry for many enterprise
By definition, every startup is predictably unpredictable, since new solutions have no proven track record, startups are usually building a new market, and the world around them is changing faster than ever. Yet, as an advisor to startups, I see some common disasters, and recommend some anticipation and recovery moves that can save every entrepreneur some painful time and money.
People often ask me to define my management style. It’s interesting because I would say I wear many hats, but the word that comes to mind is “adaptive.” Whether you are a Founder, CEO, Chairman, or senior executive… you not only have to wear a number of different hats, but you have to become adaptable about constantly changing from one role to the other.
Rental cars. I have never met a person who loved their rental car company or the experience of turning up at an airport, waiting in line, paying a huge fee and then dealing with returns, airport shuttle buses and so forth not to mention half-washed and smelly cars. I think the closest parallel I have is the feeling I had for taxi cabs (inconvenient, smelly, expensive) before Uber.
A version of this article previously appeared in Forbes. On a micro level, you can do your part to fix tech's gender problem by recruiting people with diverse backgrounds and place them in a company culture that rewards those who challenge the status quo. Like all important social movements, the change begins with you. If you haven't already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly JohnGreathouse.com articles!
Santa Barbara-based Ice Energy , the developer of energy storage devices which use ice to offload electric grids of peak loads, said Wednesday that it has launched a new, bundled solution which combines both its energy storage and photovoltaic solar energy. According to the company, it has created a Solar + Ice bundle, which uses rooftop solar PV and its Ice Bear thermal energy storage products, to help utilities with their clean energy efforts.
TZ Tech Crawl is back this month and heading to Downtown Los Angeles as part of Silicon Beach Fest & Los Angeles Innovation Week ! Come take a tour of some of the hottest LA Tech companies located in Downtown LA! So on Friday October 16 why not stop by for a quick beer, game, snack or just say hi at one of the many Downtown LA tech companies from 6pm to 10:00pm?
Even if you work every day in the world of new-venture funding, as I do, the options are confusing, and their meanings seem to change on a regular basis. I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Yet, knowing this distinction is important. Remember, you have only one chance to make a great first impression, so it helps to know the lingo when dealing with investors.
People often ask me to define my management style. It’s interesting because I would say I wear many hats, but the word that comes to mind is “adaptive.” Whether you are a Founder, CEO, Chairman, or senior executive… you not only have to wear a number of different hats, but you have to become adaptable about constantly changing from one role to the other.
There is a lot of uncertainty about the state of the private, high-growth technology markets and the venture capital markets that underpin them. On the one hand innovation is clearly at an all time high unleashed by smart phones, fast telecom networks, social networks that spread commerce and the fact that we are all one click away from buying things on Amazon, Apple, Google or PayPal.
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