Both Sides of the Table
JULY 10, 2012
Like many I read the headlines about Pinterest moving from Palo Alto to San Francisco and thought about the trend it portends. For those not familiar with the local geography, Palo Alto is the north end of what most consider “Silicon Valley” although nobody local calls it that. Palo Also is about 35 miles south of San Francisco. Palo Alto is home to Stanford.
socalTECH
JULY 16, 2012
With the proliferation of social media, how do you--as a brand--manage all of those various websites, content, and media? Los Angeles-based Fliptu (www.fliptu.com), headed by Jeremy Gocke , thinks it has this figured out, by providing a central place to access a brand's content, across social networks. The firm already has seed funding from such investors as Kelly Perdew, Sugarmaker Media, and support from talent agency ICM Partners.
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SoCal CTO
JULY 23, 2012
I received a great question via LinkedIn: I'm the founding engineer and working hard to launch my startup. I seem to encounter a lot of people who want to attach a CTO label to me as I'm the only programmer on the founding team of three. While I do fill that role at the moment, I'm a little hesitant to refer to myself as a CTO as we still haven't launched a product, acquired a single user, or turned or a penny in profit.
Eric Greenspan
JULY 3, 2012
11 years and 8 months of commitment, my life savings, every available dollar on every credit card, line and loan, and a promise to my children of a future, gone. The real story behind Make It Work’s demise isn’t exciting. It’s simply about a team of dedicated individuals that failed. We failed because the industry we were in changed over the years.
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InfoChachkie
JULY 23, 2012
This article originally appeared on Forbes HERE. Serial entrepreneur, venture investor and startup accelerator pioneer Brad Feld has notoriously mocked traditional marketing throughout his career. Rejecting the paint-by-numbers approach to corporate communications deployed by most marketing executives, Brad has embraced unconventional guerilla marketing tactics to help establish his venture capital firm, Foundry Group, as a thought leader in early-stage tech investing.
Berkonomics
JULY 6, 2012
If only newspaper publishers, book publishers, record companies, and movie producers would have had the vision to see their future as we now see it, we might have become a digital society with much less disruption and loss of jobs than we have experienced these past years and continue to experience. Did the proprietor of the neighborhood bookstore or national rental chain not see this coming?
Southern California Tech Central brings together the best content for technical professionals in Southern California from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
socalTECH
JULY 18, 2012
In a mobile world, what's a unique way to reach out to your friends and others? One way is to create your own, custom video clip which you can share via email, text message, or through a social networking site like Facebook. Los Angeles-based SnapCuts (www.snapcuts.com) does just that, allow users to tap into a wide collection of clips, which can be re-mixed, combined with text, and sent to your friends.
Tech Zulu Event
JULY 13, 2012
Join TechZulu on a tour of some of the hottest Silicon Beach tech companies. Why not stop by for a quick beer, game, snack or just say hi at one of the many Silicon Beach tech companies on July 26 th from 6pm to 11pm Have a free beer or beverage, drop off a resume, see the office space or just kick back. The Deets. When: July 26, 2012 6-11pm. Where: Santa Monica, CA (Silicon Beach!).
Eric Greenspan
JULY 9, 2012
As I write this, the articles and comments about my company’s demise continue. Thankfully, for every angry investor or customer, there is someone amazing who says something supportive and kind. Someone called my company a scam today. Do they really believe that? After 11 years and hundreds of thousands of satisfied house calls, 39,000 glowing testimonials, our hearts and souls and hundreds of employees, a scam, really?
InfoChachkie
JULY 16, 2012
Coull Offers Advertisers Video Skimlinks. Apologies: an incomplete draft of this article was inadvertently sent out previously via RSS. This article originally appeared on Forbes HERE. As noted in YouTubers Come Of Age – Google Scores A Solid Return On Its Video Development Fund , many YouTube personalities are sensitive to the nature of the ads associated with their content.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 9, 2012
Every startup founder knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Yet we always dream that we are the exception to the rule. So once in a while it’s good to look at some facts to temper our imagination. I was reading an article written by marketing guru Seth Godin a while back where he mentions that “it takes about six years of hard work to become an overnight success”.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 9, 2012
My pal Dave has blogger Tourette’s. He has it on stage, too, at conferences. He can’t help himself: He’s Dave. My pal Dave has problems. Not the ones you’d imagine. His biggest problems are with language, colors, fonts and spacing. Not much more. I think he could say “no” a bit more. I’ve told him that if a vet just clipped his wings a little bit I think it would be good for his health.
socalTECH
JULY 11, 2012
What does social networking have to do with the stock market? According to Vinny Jindal , the CEO of Los Angeles-based startup Stockr (www.stockr.com), everything. Vinny talked with us about his start, which allows users to discuss and collaborate on their stocks and finances in a social way. What is Stockr all about? Vinny Jindal: Stockr's mission is to help people invest better.
Tech Zulu Event
JULY 20, 2012
Last week, I attended an event hosted by The Los Angeles User Experience Meetup at Cross Campus in Santa Monica. World renowned speaker and author, Eric Reiss presented the teachings of his new book, Usable Usability: Simple Steps for Making Stuff Better. He is the Content Strategist and CEO of FatDUX, headquartered in Copahagen, Denmark, a global company specializing in user experience with offices worldwide in Los Angeles, Budapest, Zagreb and Prague.
Frank Addante
JULY 20, 2012
If you want to manage a hyper-growth company, start with a great product. Here’s how. The best product wins. Period. With a great product comes great customers, and with customers comes revenue and profit, which in turn can be used to build more great products. It’s a continuous cycle. That’s why I believe so strongly in a product-driven organization.
InfoChachkie
JULY 25, 2012
The following guest post is from Molly Greathouse, a blogger for RingRevenue. RingRevenue's unique technology allows online and offline advertisers and publishers to consistently increase revenues from mobile, print, search and email campaigns by tracking the phone calls generated by such ads. I am a Board Member and an investor in RingRevenue via Rincon Venture Partners.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 28, 2012
If your first startup fails, you are about average. Most entrepreneurs fail on at least one attempt. Investors agree that an entrepreneur who has never failed probably hasn’t pushed the limits. What investors look for is not that you never fail, but that you learn from the failure, maintain a positive attitude, and work with integrity on the next one.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 24, 2012
I wrote a blog post on how to work with lawyers at a startup nearly two-and-a-half years ago. It was very widely read. If you don’t have much experience in working with law firms at a startup it’s a good primer. In that post I talked about how to select a law-firm for a startup. It should be: Local; Right-sized; and. Startup-focused. I specifically called out some of the best people I had personally worked with.
socalTECH
JULY 23, 2012
There's been a surge in startup accelerator activity in Los Angeles in the last year, as interest in starting a company in the region has grown, and a wide range of experienced entrepreneurs and investors have pitched in to help companies get to the next level. But, how are those accelerators doing so far in terms of attracting capital and attention to Southern California startups?
Tech Zulu Event
JULY 28, 2012
For those who haven’t heard of what Startup Weekend is all about, it’s building a company on STEROIDS! From visualization to conception, and actually taking the product to market, a company usually takes about 1-2 years to create. We had exactly 54 hours! This story highlights my experience at the event as a participant. . Pitch and form teams! Friday Night, people started trickling in at Coloft at 6pm.
Frank Addante
JULY 15, 2012
When you lead a business, moving forward and achieving results are always more important than being right. Maybe it’s because I’m part-Italian. Nothing boils my blood more than when I feel I’ve been wronged. I always try hard to take the high road. But it’s often far easier said than done. I’ve learned that feeling wronged doesn’t necessarily mean that I am being wronged.
InfoChachkie
JULY 2, 2012
Some People Are Indispensable, But No One Is Irreplaceable. Reginald Martinez Jackson was also often referred to as a “hotdog” for his self-promotional antics and lackadaisical on-field play. In addition to his reputation as a showoff, Reggie was renowned for deriding his teammates in the press and initiating clubhouse fights. While it is not uncommon for losing teams to squabble, Mr.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 15, 2012
Potential startup founders are always looking for ideas to implement, when they should be looking for problems to solve. Customers pay for solutions, but there is no market for ideas. I’m often approached by people with a “million dollar idea,” but I haven’t seen anyone pay that for one yet. Equally often, I see startups who are on the road to implementing an idea, but haven’t figured out what problem it solves – the business plan waxes on eloquently for 20 pages about how great this product and
socalTECH
JULY 31, 2012
One of the most anticipated IPOs of a Southern California technology firm, LegalZoom is expected to hit the markets Friday, with pricing expected Thursday evening. The firm--which recently set its expected IPO pricing range of $10 to $12 per share--is one of two IPOs expected this week by technology companies. The company is aiming at the New York Stock Exchange, hoping to trade under the symbol LGZ.
socalTECH
JULY 17, 2012
You've just spent millions developing your own rocket to launch to space, created your own space capsule, convinced NASA to let you launch it into space, and have astronauts connect it to the International Space Station. What do you do next? Create a highlights video, set to music -- of course. SpaceX sent out a link to its music video on Tuesday afternoon, highlighting the launch of its last mission, the first time a privately developed, commercial vehicle docked with the ISS.
socalTECH
JULY 2, 2012
Calabasas-based Ixia , the developer of network testing equipment and software, announced this morning that it is in a definitive agreement to acquire BreakingPoint Systems , a developer of security testing tools. The deal is worth $160M in cash. Ixia, which is led by Vic Alston, said the deal will enable it to provide an end-to-end solution for monitoring, testing, and optimizing converged networks.
socalTECH
JULY 24, 2012
In a sign that the Los Angeles technology and startup world is starting to be taken more seriously by Silicon Valley, one of Silicon Valley's more prominent law firms has set up shop in Santa Monica. Cooley LLP said Tuesday that it has added four partners to a new, Los Angeles office, and also hired one of the most active and connected insiders in the region to head up business development efforts in Los Angeles.
socalTECH
JULY 19, 2012
A mobile app new project by a local, Los Angeles team has taken to Kickstarter to help fund its efforts to create an animated, interactive caveman for your iPhone and iPad. The team -- made up of veterans from local, Silicon Beach technology companies -- said it is developing Club Caveman , a mobile app that combines movie-quality animation with all the interactivity of an iPad or iPhone.
socalTECH
JULY 30, 2012
Santa Monica-based Docstoc , the online small business resources site led by Jason Nazar, is looking to bolster its video content with more content around small business subjects. In an email to supporters, Nazar said Monday that the company is looking to partner with experts, to shoot courses around such subjects as getting customers, learning online software, marketing, raising money, and other business topics.
socalTECH
JULY 10, 2012
Huntington Beach-based AnyMeeting , which provides free web conferencing and online meeting services, is announcing this morning that it is aiming at large "network marketing" firms with a new program. The company, which is backed by the Tech Coast Angels, Pasadena Angels and Maverick Angels, said its new "Quick Start" program will provide those network marketers with a free, company-branded web conferencing tool, which can be made available to all of those firms' distributors at no cost.
socalTECH
JULY 9, 2012
Southern California's largest angel investment group, the Tech Coast Angels , looks to be one of the lead investors nationally in angel-backed companies, according to a report released Monday by the Angel Resource institute. The group, along with Silicon valley Bank and CB Insights, released the 1Q 2012 Halo Report , which summarized Q1 angel investments.
socalTECH
JULY 27, 2012
How to you better convert web visitors into customers? That's exactly what Retention Science (www.retentionscience.com), the latest firm out of the MuckerLab acceleartor, helps e-commerce companies do. Jerry Jao, the CEO of Retention Science, tells us how the firm is using big data to help e-commerce firms convert more customers. Retention Science is venture backed by Baroda Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Double M Partners, as well as a long list of local angel investors (Paige Craig, Bong Koh
socalTECH
JULY 23, 2012
Los Angeles startup accelerator StartEngine has launched its third class, a new batch of fourteen startups which have set up shop in the incubator's Westwood Village space under the watchful eyes of Activision co-founder Howard Marks and investor Paul Kessler. According to StartEngine, the list of startups include Afterschool.me (social marketplace for kids activities); Contur (email software client); DormInk (printer ink delivery); Enplug (interactive TV box); FixKit (subscription nutritional s
socalTECH
JULY 16, 2012
Are you an Instagram user, and really wished you could print your favorite Instagram photo on a T-shirt? Well, now you can, thanks to Los Angeles startup Insteegram. Insteegram is offering up custom T-shirts made from the photos of Instagram users, printed on an American Apparel t-shirt. The service allows Instagram users to simply log into Instagram and select the photo they'd like to print on a shirt, and have it delivered to them via mail.
socalTECH
JULY 2, 2012
Los Angeles-based SodaHead has tapped a digital advertising and marketing agency to represent its inventory on a real time bidding platform. According to engage:BDR, which operates the First Impression real-time bidding platform, SodaHead is adding its more than 10 million monthly unique visitors to its platform. engage:BDR said that SodaHead's largest demographic is in the 18-24 range. engage:BDR says it has a reach of 109 million monthly unique users.
socalTECH
JULY 24, 2012
Venice-based startup accelerator Amplify LA has added a new startup to its portfolio, personalized wine recommendation site Club W. The two companies said that they are in a strategic partnership, which will provide Club W with the resources to keep up with stronger-than-anticipated consumer demand for its services. The addition of Club W is an interesting one for Amplify, which is headed by Paul Bricault and Richard Wolpert, in that Club W is already generating cash.
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