Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “ Startup = Growth ” three or four times now. And of course on Twitter I’ve seen the Tweets, ReTweets and superlatives on what a great post it is. Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” And when you read the article carefully it allows for a period of discovery in your business.

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SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

A major hack on domain name registrar GoDaddy appears to have taken out a huge number of internet sites -- including local startup Goodreads. GoDaddy hosts millions of domain names, as well as provides web hosting services itself, but it's unclear how many sites were affected by the outage. The outage has been blamed on hacking activity. It's unclear how many of Southern California's startups were affected; Goodreads was simply one of the few web services which posted a status on Twitter to info

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InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

From a venture capitalist’s point of view, there are no “trick” questions. However, certain questions can be tricky for an entrepreneur to answer. Below are five common questions an entrepreneur will encounter when seeking venture funding. These questions, which manifest themselves in numerous forms, all share a common underlying objective: to divine your motivations, expectations and desires.

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Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Who is responsible for the vision that drives the company? This is arguably the primary job of the CEO, with agreement from the board. Many entrepreneurs after taking outside investment defer to their board for matters of direction that include setting the vision, as well as executing the plan. Here is a general rule: The CEO sets the sails and points the ship, creating the vision for the company.

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Advertiser: Aggregage

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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SoCal Tech Calendar

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

Saturday, September 22, 2012 -- Bootcamp for Aspiring TEDx Speakers (and others) in SoCal. The popularity and virality of TED Talks has raised the bar dramatically for any and all presentations. Whether you're preparing to speak at TED, MindShare, TEDx, or another industry event, you need to up your game. Your competition certainly has! If your goal is only to improve the way you present at group meetings or on sales calls, learning the TEDx format is going to put you in a different league.

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

When my friend’s small business was struggling a while back, I suggested he add some social media marketing initiatives, and his answer was that he was “too busy.” His business has since closed, but his mindset is still out there. According to a recent Harvard Business Review article , only 60% of companies today use social media for marketing, and only 12% of those feel that they are using it effectively.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

These days, it's not unusual for a handful of tech and startup mixers and events to be going down on the westside. Still, there was something special about the Nextspace @ Amplify Grand opening on Wednesday night. Something very, established about it. I've lived in Los Angeles for ten years now. And when you live in a city that long, you're bound to find yourself at a Hollywood, celebrity-driven party.

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InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

The following guest post is from some of my former UC Santa Barbara students. I thought this post might be of interest to some of my readers, as it offers a glimpse into my approach to teaching entrepreneurship. . Fall quarter of Sr. year proved to be a crucial time for the progression of brightblu – Ben, Sid, and Taylor see this as the period that sparked their entrepreneurial passion.

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Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

This one comes straight from football. From experience and from information about the competition, a coach creates a playbook that contains detailed plans for actions or plays that the entire team must know without question and execute without pause in order to win games and advance toward the playoffs. What is different about you as a manager? If you manage with your team knowing the intended results of each action, and if the members of the team have not honed their skills at execution of th

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SoCal Tech Calendar

SEPTEMBER 29, 2012

Friday, October 5, 2012 -- Startup Weekend Santa Clarita. Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

This article initially appeared on TechCrunch - with a minor update highlighted in red below. Ah. We’re back to discussing convertible debt again. This time by the efforts of Adeo Ressi to introduce a new kind of structure called “ convertible equity.” I applaud all efforts by people to take on this issue and especially be Adeo who – let’s be honest – was really the first champion of trying to make the VC world more transparent by launching TheFunded, which d

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

You know the old saying about trust … “It takes years to build and seconds to destroy.” And once destroyed it is very difficult if not impossible to repair. You need to be the guardian of your own reputation. You need to constantly ask yourself whether your actions in rapidly scaling an online community are worth the potential downsides of destroying trust amongst your users.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

If you were on Twitter on Saturday you might have noticed a lively discussion with Dave McClure, Fred Wilson, Chris Dixon and myself. And a few others. Luckily there are tools like Storify – so you can actually see a synopsis here. I recently wrote about my views that startups rounds should be priced. If you do an uncapped note it’s bad for the investor.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

How do you convince guys to start playing social games? For Wedge Buster (www.wedgebuster.com), you do it by pulling together a huge collection of sports-related social and mobile games. Wedge Buster just raised a $2.2M round from the NFL's Drew Brees, skating's Rob Dyrdek, and a number of local venture and angel investors to create what the company hopes is the dominant provider of social and mobile sports game.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

What do you get when you take the creative minds behind JibJab.com , the Venice-based online humor content developers--known for its hilarious videos of everything from politics to everyday life--and apply that to kids entertainment? You get Storybots , a brand new, online service with the sensibility of JibJab's comedic content cross pollinated with kids educational entertainment.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

A new, Santa Monica-based startup, AMP , is hoping that crowdfunding will bring its bookmarking site and file exchange site for those interested in sustainability to life. The startup--started by Sarah McKinney and John Lehnert--said it turned to IndieGogo for fundraising as a way to scale its site past beta. The site--in part, inspired by sites such as Santa Monica's DocStoc--hopes to become a place where people working on environmental and social progress can connect with others and other info

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SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

Have a legal question? A new, Los Angeles startup, myRight , is hoping to help users with some basic legal questions, through a new service geared around asking users questions-and-answers about their legal questions. The startup, part of the StartEngine accelerator, asks users a series of questions around different topics -- things like security deposits, wills, gun control -- helping users to learn more about different topics, and also referring them to more detailed information sources and la

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

In a world where we are overwhelmed with social updates ("had a turkey sandwich for lunch", "just went for a walk"), how do you cut through all that noise and actually learn about important things going on in your personal networks without spending 100 percent of your time on Facebook or other sites? A new, Los Angeles startup, EverySignal looks to be tackling that problem with its new service.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

What would Sesame Street look like, if it was created in the world of smartphones, tablets, and YouTube? It might look a little bit like StoryBots (www.storybots.com), the new kids educational and entertainment service just launched by JibJab (www.jibjab.com). We caught up with Gregg Spiridellis, one of the founders of JibJab, to hear about Storybots.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Online e-commerce giant Amazon.com will start collecting sales taxes from California residents at midnight today, as a result of a deal the firm made with the State of California last year. The move--which has been widely reported to have spurred a last minute buying binge from Californians--comes as a result of aggressive move by the legislature to recoup lost taxes from out-of-state e-commerce sales.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

One of the most interesting things about the Wall Street Journal's list of top startups in the U.S.? The number of IPOs of companies on the Journal's list from 2011 from Southern California matched the number of IPOs of Silicon Valley companies. Of the list of 50 startups, both San Diego's ServiceNow and fellow San Diego firm Active Network has IPOs last year, out of only a total of six IPO exits from the WSJ's list.

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SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

Los Angeles-based NationBuilder , a startup developing an online set of tools for political candidates, said over the weekend that it has tied in with a tool which does a background check on candidates. The firm said it has integrated Candidate Check , a service which allows political candidates to show their own, "Candidate Trusted Seal" showing they've been vetted by a third party source, including information on employment history, military records, criminal background, and more.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

San Diego-based Zui , the kids friendly Internet portal which runs KidZui, has been acquired by Saban Brands , Saban said this morning. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Saban Brands said the buy will strengthen its position in kids entertainment. As a part of the acquisition, Saban said it will establish a new physical presence in San Diego, and add 12 employees to its organization.

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SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

Insteegram , the online service which lets users buy high quality t-shirts imprinted with their favorite Instagram photos, said this morning that it has launched version 2.0 of the service, and opened up the ability of some of its users to sell their T-Shirts from the site. The Los Angeles startup, which was founded by Edward Park, said it is letting select number of users activate their store and start selling T-shirts to their friends and others, while earning money on the side.

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SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Tired of that same-old, boring photo slideshow? How do you create a better, more exciting presentation of your photos? MYMUSAIC (www.mymusaic.com), a Los Angeles startup, thinks it has figured that out, and recently launched a service which automatically matches photos to the beat of music, creating an online video of your photos and music. We spoke with founder Alec Meikle to learn about what the service offers and how it's different than what's available from other software.

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

ParkMe , the provider of parking information and mobile applications founded by Sam Friedman and Alex Israel, has inked a deal to provide its parking database information to navigation provider TomTom. TomTom announced the deal Tuesday, saying the information will be used to provide location information for parking garages and lots, as well as contact information in its map products.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

How do you get help with that plumbing project you're working, or some minor assistance with that auto repair? A new, iPhone app-- FixUp --debuted today to try to help users with those kinds of questions, saying it will connect users to a network of skilled, service professionals via iPhone video. The app--the brainchild of Los Angeles-based StartupMinds--lets users connect with local professionals, such as plumbers, electricians, and others--to get expert answers to simple issues for a negotiat

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Help Los Angeles Networking Services 213

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

Business Plans are dead. Most sophisticated investors ignore them, focusing their attention on an entrepreneur's pitch and presentation materials, financial forecast and executive summary. As noted in Entrepreneurs Shouldn't Pitch Their Ideas To Venture Capitalists , most sophisticated investors place their bets on people rather than opportunities. As such, the primary goal of your executive summary is to open the door to an in-person meeting.

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Venture Capital Summary Technical Review Template 211

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

How early is too early to teach your kids a programming language? Never too early, apparently. A Los Angeles software developer has created a Ruby-based programming software package-- Kidsruby --which allows children to learn how to develops software in the Ruby programming language. The free software--which runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux--provides a visual tool which lets kids learn all about programming.

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socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

San Diego-based Telcentris , which offers up cloud communications services, said today that it has opened up a new data center on the East Coast. The company--which runs VoxOx and VoxOx In Business, two unified communications services--said the new data center is at an Equinix colocation facility in New York. The firm said the new data center is its first on the East Coast.

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InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

What American tech company is the coolest? A subjective, yet important question. The rest of the country may be in a recession, but hiring within the tech community remains highly competitive. Talented employees look for a number of tangible and intangible factors when deciding among multiple employment offers, including a company's cool factor. As such, a reputation as a cool company is a competitive advantage to be cultivated and coveted.

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

SpaceX , the privately held, Southern California developer of spacecraft and rockets, said Friday that NASA and the firm have announced October 7th, 2012, as the target launch date for its first resupply mission to the International Space Station. According to SpaceX, the launch of its Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft will be 8:34 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral.

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SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

San Diego-based Sense4Baby , a brand new starting spawned out of the West Health Institute, has licensed a wireless fetal monitoring system from West Health, and moved into that firm's new incubator. West Health Institute also said that Sense4Baby has received a "significant" funding commitment from the West Health Investment Fund. Sense4Baby is developing wireless, remote fetal monitoring systems, which are designed to allow an OBGYN to monitor the health of a mother and her baby remotely, avoi

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Funding Incubator San Diego Startup 204

InfoChachkie

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

In 2003, the lead singer of the country music group, The Dixie Chicks, criticized then-current President George Bush during a concert in London. The reaction among the group's American fans, who were largely politically conservative, was visceral and negative. One irate fan sent the group a death threat, which offered them "clemency" if they would, "shut up and sing.

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SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

It looks like all that bacon paid off. Los Angeles-based Scopely , the startup co-founded by Eytan Elbaz , Eytan Elbaz , Walter Driver and Ankur Bulsara, which is developing social and mobile games, said this morning that it has raised $8.5M in a new, seed financing round, from Anthem Venture Partners, The Chernin Group, Greycroft Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), as well as angels.

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SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

Los Angeles-based BeachMint , the online e-commerce and celebrity startup, has quietly let go of some staff this Friday, in what an insider called a "slight trim" of the firm's employee base. News of the layoffs first hit began circulating right before noon. BeachMint has not commented on the moves, which is believed to have hit around a dozen employees.

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