October, 2009

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Who Should you Hire at a Startup?

Both Sides of the Table

Only Hire A+ People Who Punch Above Their Weight Class. This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. There are people who tell startups that they should hire the most senior people that they can find. I’m not one of those. I believe that you should always hire people are are looking to “punch above their weight class,&# which means to hire people who want to be one league above where they are today.

Startup 327
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Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California

SoCal CTO

Great post by John Shiple. He talks about a bunch of the different networking events that occur in Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California. In his post, he mentions the following events / event organizers, and you should visit his post for a bit more on each of them. LA CTO Forum Dealmaker Media Digital Family Reunion Startups Uncensored Social Media Club, LA Twiistup Mindshare LA LA Hadoop Meetup Dorkbot Geek Dinners LA Cloud Computing LA Web Application Developers LA PHP Developers

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Fisker Automotive Buys GM Plant

socalTECH

Irvine-based Fisker Automotive , a venture backed startup developing electric vehicles, said today that it has acquired a dormant GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware, to build its plug-in hybrid cars. According to Fisker, the new plant will support the firm's Project NINA, affordable plug-in hybrid sedan. Fisker said production is scheduled to begin on the new car in late 2012, and will support 2,000 factory jobs and more than 3,000 vendor and supplier jobs by 2014.

Invest 196
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Pour And Stir I – In Pursuit Of The Ideal Business Model

InfoChachkie

Note: This is Part I in a three-part series on The Perfect Business Model. Click here for Part II , and Part III. Authentic, hand-crafted Persian rugs always include intentional imperfections. They are said to be, “Perfectly Imperfect, and Precisely Imprecise.” The same is true with many crafts and architecture created in Muslim cultures. I am not a Muslim scholar, but a layman’s interpretation of this tradition of intentional errors is that it arises from the belief that attempting to emulate G

Customer 153
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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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Flip Flops Required

Eric Greenspan

As promised, today’s blog entry will be about our culture at Make It Work… Make It Work is a very unique company. Employees first, customers next is one of concepts and I recently learned that Virgin and Sir Richard Branson share this philosophy. Nice to know. Simply put, if your employees love their jobs, they will love your customers.

Blogging 113
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Emergency Management

SoCal Tech Calendar

Friday, November 6, 2009 -- Emergency Management - Incident Management, Resource Management, and Supply Chain Workshop. Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See https://www.enstg.com/signup/passthru.cfm?ConferenceCode=WOR77476. (more).

Resource 100

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Startup Metrics

SoCal CTO

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core.

Metrics 225
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Interview with Gil Elbaz, Factual

socalTECH

This morning's interview is with Gil Elbaz , founder of Factual (www.factual.com), a new startup based here in Los Angeles focused on open data sharing and accuracy. Gil is one of the founders of Applied Semantics, the firm acquired by Google for its AdSense technology. We spoke with Gil about the purpose of Factual, and what it's trying to do. What's your new startup all about, and why did you start the company?

Startup 190
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Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs with Jason Calacanis - Startups Uncensored #12

Jason Nazar

This month’s Startups Uncensored will be on the “Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation talking about what it takes to build a successful business and how to distinguish yourself as an entrepreneur. We are joined this month by Jason Calacanis the CEO of Mahalo , co-founder of Weblogs Inc and publisher of Sillcon Alley Reporter.

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Flip Flops Required

Eric Greenspan

As promised, today’s blog entry will be about our culture at Make It Work… Make It Work is a very unique company. Employees first, customers next is one of concepts and I recently learned that Virgin and Sir Richard Branson share this philosophy. Nice to know. Simply put, if your employees love their jobs, they will love your customers.

Customer 100
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Technology Forum 2009 - Southern California

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Technology Forum 2009 - Southern California. The 'must attend' TECH event of the year, immerse yourself in business changing technology for the day with professionals from across the industry. See [link] (more).

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Should Your Startup Have an Advisory Board?

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. It’s mostly done by first-time entrepreneurs who want to persuade (bribe?) prominent industry luminaries to be closely associated with the company. It’s done partly in hopes of gaining their wisdom but it’s also done to portray the company in a positive light through association.

Startup 306
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Social Media for Service Professionals

SoCal CTO

I did a presentation about the use of Social Media to a great group of people who mostly are different kinds of service professionals (attorneys, accountants, consultants, etc.). I promised that I would do a follow-up post with some thoughts out of the presentation and providing links. This is that post. Value of Blogging I started the presentation talking about the value of blogging.

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OpenCandy Links With Software Publisher

socalTECH

San Diego-based OpenCandy , which is developing products to help software publisher increase downloads and sales of their products, said Thursday that it has signed up PDF software firm PrimoPDF as a customer. According to OpenCandy, PrimoPDF is using the firm to help users discover other compelling applications when their software is being installed.

Software 188
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Read Write Web Video Interview with Kurt Daradics: CitySourced Brings Real-Time Tech to Enterprise & Government

Daradiction

My good friend and Roadtwip compani0n Jolie O’Dell took some time to interview me at the Read Write Web Real Time Summit a few weeks ago in Mountain View. It’s a good overview of what we’re doing with CitySourced. -. CitySourced Brings Real-Time Tech to Enterprise & Government. The real-time web isn’t just for social apps.

Writing 49
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To the Moon!

Eric Greenspan

If you’ve ever received an email from me, you’d know that I always sign my emails with “to the moon.&# Borrowed from the Honeymooners, I’m shooting for the moon in my business venture. There really isn’t much else to it. Just a reminder to myself of my goals and ambitions. I’m the CEO of Make It Work, Inc. We make stuff work “from computers to iPods to home theater.&# Our fleet of Mini Coopers are cruising all over Socal.

Blogging 100
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Emergency Management

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Emergency Management - Incident Management, Resource Management, and Supply Chain Workshop. Science and Technology Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. See https://www.enstg.com/signup/passthru.cfm?ConferenceCode=WOR77476. (more).

Resource 100
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Startup Founders Should Flip Burgers

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. When you’re an early-stage startup that hasn’t raised any institutional money you end up doing almost every job function of the company yourself. But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence.

Startup 299
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Product Management for Startups in Los Angeles – Steve Gilison

SoCal CTO

It was great to hear from a long, lost colleague the other day. Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. Remind me about your background Steve?

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Stamps.com Eyes eBay Sellers, Again

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based PC-postage provider Stamps.com is looking to edge into the market for electronic postage on eBay, saying that it will waive service fees to eBay sellers signing up for its services between now and December 31st. Stamps.com said that it now supports retrieving orders, printing shipping labels, and posting back tracking numbers and other information back to eBay stores for sellers, a new feature of its latest version of software. eBay's own Internet postage service is powered by

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Peter Hirshberg of Technorati & The Conversation Group

Daradiction

Peter is a legendary figure. I’ve had the pleasure to meet Peter recently, he was on our EXCELLENT PANEL (worth the 40 mins!) at the Digital Family Summit #DFS09. I am totally inspired by who he’s being and what he’s up to, and I’m delighted that he’s taken an interest in the mobile 311 app we produced called CitySourced (powered by FreedomSpeaks ).

Startup 49
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To the moon (part 2)

Eric Greenspan

So, I’m starting to get the hang of this bloggin thing. I have to say, that it feels great to put my thoughts down in a place where I can get some critical feedback and hopefully not anger anyone in the process. I will keep it brief, but I wanted to add some more color to the week…here we go… I saw U2 this past Sunday night with the wife.

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7th International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, Exhibit and Workshops

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- 7th International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, Exhibit and Workshops. The annual International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, Tabletop Exhibit, and Workshops has become the premier event for the engineering communities that are involved in new SoC, ASIC, ASSP, and FPGA-based designs or are working with Foundry Services on a worldwide basis.

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Choose Your VC Investor Carefully

Both Sides of the Table

Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. If you pick the wrong spouse at least you can get divorced.

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Los Angeles Social Media Starters

SoCal CTO

I'm hoping you can help me figure out who I should be connecting with on this. I find myself speaking at various venues in Los Angeles to tell people (most often service providers) about how I've used social media and particularly my blogs, LinkedIn, twitter and topic hubs as part of my own services business. These presentations always inspire people to do more with LinkedIn, create or improve their blog, and maybe do more with Twitter.

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RightSignature Takes VentureNet Prize

socalTECH

Santa Barbara-based RightSignature , online, software-as-a-service for collecting electronic signatures, took "Best of Show" at VentureNet Wednesday, after a day of presentations by thirteen Southern California startups. VentureNet, which is put on by the Technology Council of Southern California, included keynotes by Kelly Perdew of Rotohog and Zorik Gordon of ReachLocal, plus capital presentations from Cyber-Rain, FlipGloss Media, Viewdle, Social Approach, Ad.ly, Zadspace, RightSignature, Cogi

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Kurty D’s Birthday Jam 9/19/2009

Daradiction

It’s a tradition. We jam out on my birthday. Click here to view the embedded video.

49
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The Boss’ first posthhhhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Eric Greenspan

ujx ch vh,lzh. Boss is Carson’s son, our next VP of Finance. He wrote this all by himself and he’s only one year old! Goes to show you that the younger they are, the better they are with technology.

Carson 100
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Wherever you go, there you are.

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, November 5, 2009 -- Wherever you go, there you are. Innovative Methods and Applications that Use Location Positioning and M2M Technologies to Monitor and Manage Assets and Events. CommNexus. See [link]. (more).

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Is it a Good Idea to Have Ads in Tweets?

Both Sides of the Table

Advertising has driven the majority of Internet innovation. My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly that is an “in-stream advertising&# company currently focused on monetizing Twitter. This has prompted many people to question whether advertising “in stream&# and on Twitter is a good thing or a bad thing.

Ideas 286
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Los Angeles Technology Connector – Kurt Daradics

SoCal CTO

Kurt Daradics ( Facebook , @KurtyD , FriendFeed , MySpace , LinkedIn , Delicious ) (pronounced dare-a-dix) is a great guy to know. He recently co-founded CitySourced and I think Ben Kuo nailed him when he describes him as "a connector. someone who makes things happen, and knows everyone, and does his best to make the world a better place." Kurt has a great background in sales and marketing.

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Hulu Launches Publishing Tool, Linux Support

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based video streaming firm Hulu told its users today that it has launched two new, experimental projects in its Hulu Labs section. According to Hulu, it has launched a new publishing tool-- Hulu Publisher Tool --which helps reporters, bloggers, website editors, and others to find and embed premium video content from the site and elsewhere.

Hulu 178
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Follow CEOFlow on Twitter

CEO Flow

Here: www.Twitter.

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My first blog post!

Eric Greenspan

How the hell do I work this thing? Posted in Daily Diary. Tags: Daily Diary.

Blogging 100
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Gaining Traction

SoCal Tech Calendar

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 -- "Gaining Traction for What's Ahead: Achieving Product Development Outcomes for Commercial Success" PDMA Annual International Conference. See [link] (more).

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VC Seed Funding is Dead, Long Live VC Seed Funding!

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital. This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri who wrote me an email in response to Chris Dixon’s blog post (link below) from August, which recently re-ran on Business Insider and has generated much Twitter chatter. A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding.