Berkonomics
JANUARY 12, 2023
Some types of businesses generate more and more recurring revenues over time, often growing to a size where recurring revenues pay all of the overhead of the company – an enviable position. The surprising recurring revenue trap. There is a phenomenon I have observed time after time with mature companies receiving over 75% of their revenues from recurring sources.
TechCrunch LA
JANUARY 3, 2023
The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, or HACLA, has confirmed it is investigating a cybersecurity incident shortly after the LockBit ransomware gang claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the agency. HACLA, which provides affordable housing to more than 19,000 low-income families across Los Angeles, was added to LockBit’s dark web leak site on December 31.
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Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 30, 2023
Over my many years of mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs and business professionals, I often hear a desire to start a new business, with a big hesitation while waiting for that perfect idea and perfect alignment of the stars. From my own experience and from the best entrepreneurs I know, I always offer some basic business realities, and assure you that conditions will never be perfect.
socalTECH
JANUARY 10, 2023
La Jolla-based Personal AI, which is developing artificial intelligence software to help users draft personal messages, retain, and recall personal information, has raised $7.8M in a seed funding round. The funding came from Supernode Global, Differential Ventures, BBG Ventures, Beni VC, Village Global, Keshif Ventures, and Good Friends (founders of Warby Parker, Harry's, and Allbirds).
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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.
Startup San Diego
JANUARY 25, 2023
The post Building Bridges with the Tijuana & San Diego Startup Community appeared first on Startup San Diego.
Berkonomics
JANUARY 26, 2023
Can your contact solve real-world issues? I recently experienced an amazing effort of outreach by a vice president of a large national customer asking for a meeting with the product development team of a critical supplier, one of “my” companies. The goal, the VP stated, was to “see if these guys are battle hardened veterans that have dealt with the real-world product and delivery problems” of a nationally important customer.
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Berkonomics
JANUARY 5, 2023
Public companies looking to acquire your growing enterprise usually have a few financial measures that help them weed out those candidates that will be too expensive in terms of effort or of too little financial attractiveness. The first rule: 10/40: One of my company CEOs recently described his rule for acquisition success, and it resonated with me as a great goal for planning during acquisition exercises.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 21, 2023
The average length of a funding pitch to angel investors is ten minutes. Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. The biggest complaint I hear from fellow investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 13, 2023
Every business professional and entrepreneur believes they are good communicators, but how do they know? It’s really the perception of the recipients that counts, and poor communicators are almost always poor listeners, so they don’t hear the shortcomings. Warren Buffet once told a class of business students that better communication could boost their value by fifty percent.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 25, 2023
No matter how well your business seems to have worked for you up to this point, you can be certain that it will need to be heavily transformed for tomorrow’s new world-wide economy and no industry sector boundaries. New digital technologies, business models, and regulatory rulings are forcing all of us to think outside of our silos and rethink what it means to operate effectively.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 22, 2023
In my experience, the Silicon Valley startup model, focused on disrupting established industries, has treated the USA well and created some great global businesses. Yet many of you are telling me that we are all missing big opportunities by not recognizing the unique challenges faced by startups in developing countries , where infrastructure is lacking, and talent is not so concentrated.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 14, 2023
Investors will tell you that they love to put money into startups that are scalable, and ready to become the next unicorn. But what does that really mean? Simply stated, it means that your business has the potential to multiply revenue with minimal incremental cost. Ready to scale is when you have a proven product and a proven business model, about to expand to new geographies and markets.
socalTECH
JANUARY 10, 2023
San Diego-based CARI Health, which is developing a wearable, real-time mediation monitor, said on Tuesday that it has raised $2.3M in a seed funding round. The funding came from the San Diego Angel Conference, NuFund Venture Group, Cove Fund, Chemical Angel Fund, Medical Devices of Tomorrow, along with other individual investors. The company said the funding will go towards in-patient clinical studies.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 28, 2023
Why do a few entrepreneurs, like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, seem to come up with all the real innovations, while the majority of business leaders seem stuck in the rut of linear thinking? I have always wondered if innovation required some rare gene mutation, or whether I might be missing a simple formula for unlocking the ability in any intelligent business person to innovate.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 7, 2023
As an entrepreneur mentor and startup investor, I see with sadness the 50 to 90 percent that fail. If you ask them for a reason, most will insist that they couldn’t get funding, or they ran out of money too early. But I’m not convinced that it’s as simple as that. Many are just not facing the reality that their passion had a critical business flaw. As I was contemplating a classic book “ Dead Companies Walking ,” by Scott Fearon, who runs a hedge fund that profits from businesses headed toward b
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 9, 2023
Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. Being very visible in the startup community, I still get an amazing number of badly written emails, rambling executive summaries, and business plans with one paragraph per chapter.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 11, 2023
Successful entrepreneurs are the ones who think the most creatively, not only in their initial product or service, but more importantly all through the stages of growth from startup to maturity. But even the best of them can easily slip into some bad decision habits that limit or hurt their business, due to natural human tendencies and the pressures of business challenges.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 1, 2023
Welcome to another challenging new year ahead! You’ve probably already made your resolutions for 2023, but if not, I suggest a renewed commitment to finding happiness and satisfaction in your chosen business lifestyle. After all, most of us spend more hours in this role than any other, and life is too short to spend most of your life unhappy. As a mentor to entrepreneurs and business owners, and seeing their workload and challenges, it would be easy for me to conclude that starting a business is
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 6, 2023
Many passionate entrepreneurs fight to add more features into their new products and services, assuming that more function will make the solution more appealing to more customers. In reality, more features will more likely make the product confusing and less usable to all. Focus is the art of limiting your scope to the key function that really matters for the majority of customers.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 8, 2023
If you have a software development background like mine, I’m sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. The same applies to manufacturing and almost any process these days. Outsourcing is defined as contracting the work to another company, usually located in a developing country, like India, China, or Eastern Europe.
socalTECH
JANUARY 10, 2023
Mojave, California-based Virgin Orbit reported on Monday that its first attempted launch of a payload from the United Kingdom "fell short of reaching its target orbit". The company, which launched the rocket from its customized 747, the Cosmic Girl, said that at some point after launching its rocket, the "system experienced an anomaly", "ending the mission prematurely".
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 15, 2023
Almost every entrepreneur starts their journey by developing a solution, based on their idea of a new technology or required service. These idea and developer skills are necessary, but not sufficient, to build a business. A real business requires leadership – thought leadership to attract customers and mind share, as well as people leadership around a team, partners, and investors.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 2, 2023
Whether you are an entrepreneur managing a startup, or a corporate executive with thousands of employees, it’s hard to ignore the evidence of big value from happy employees. According to a classic study from Deloitte , happy employees have been shown to be up to 20 percent more effective in the workplace than unhappy employees, as well as far more loyal and productive.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 18, 2023
Customer service has traditionally been focused on the resolution of complaints , primarily after a transaction. With the advent of social media, and instant communication via the Internet, that definition has been expanded to include all aspects of the customer experience , from finding you and what they need, to the ease of completing the transaction, as well as all follow-on support.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 29, 2023
Every startup founder rightfully starts out as the single leader of the startup, but as the business grows, many entrepreneurs struggle with relinquishing any control, or fail to recognize and allow other leaders to emerge. The result is that the business becomes dysfunctional as growth stagnates, and entrepreneur health and happiness decline. The right alternative is to focus on finding and delegating some control to the hidden leaders in your startup.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 27, 2023
In business, you can never win every battle, but you must win the critical ones for your own longevity and the success of your business. Picking the right ones is more than half the battle. In my experience as a business advisor, I find that many people spend most of their time on the wrong problems , usually due to ego, daily pressures, or emotions.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 20, 2023
After years of working in small businesses as well as large ones, I’m convinced that you shouldn’t expect to get it all right the first time , and learning how to run any business is more a result of practice and experience than just academics. Therefore, I often recommend to entrepreneurs and business professionals that they not get too frustrated with initial failures or give up too soon.
socalTECH
JANUARY 16, 2023
Mojave-based Stratolaunch, the aerospace development firm which originally was founded by late Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, said late last week that it has completed its second "captive carry" flight with a test vehicle. The company--which is now under new ownership, and focusing its efforts on hypersonic flight testing rather than space launch--said its completed its second captive carry flight with the Talon-A separation test vehicle, TA-0, the ninth flight for its massive Roc launch ve
socalTECH
JANUARY 13, 2023
Camarillo-based Semtech said late Thursday afternoon that it has completed its acquisition of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Sierra Wireless. The deal was worth approximately $1.2 billion, and was an all-cash transaction. According to Semtech, the deal is expected to add approximately $100M of high-margin IoT cloud services to its recurring revenues.
socalTECH
JANUARY 13, 2023
Los Angeles-based electric vehicle charging network operator EVgo said this week that it is launching a program to "replace, upgrade" and even "retire" hundreds of its stations. According to the company, the move will go to enhance its charger availability and will help with "building range confidence" for EV drivers. EVgo said said it has been installing its charging stations fore more than a decade.
socalTECH
JANUARY 13, 2023
Singapore-based Crypto.com--the cryptocurrency company which owns the naming rights to the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles--has cut 20 percent of its staff, citing "economic headwinds" and "unforeseeable" events in the crypto industry. The cuts. reportedly impacted more than 2,000 people. Crypto.com blamed the collapse of FTX. Crypto.com bought the naming rights to what was the Staples Center, the home of the Lakers and the Sparks, back in 2021; the company agreed to pay $700M in that naming rig
socalTECH
JANUARY 12, 2023
Los Angeles-base Cosm, which develops immersive media, said on Thursday that it has acquired C360, a developer of immersive video products based in Pittsburgh, PA. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. According to Cosm, C360's client included sports media companies and leagues, plus various governmental agencies. Cosm said it was the lead investor in an early 2022 round of investment in C360.
socalTECH
JANUARY 11, 2023
San Diego-based National Resilience, a provider of biopharmaceuticals manufacturing, said on Tuesday that it has received an equity investment from adala Investment Company PJSC (Mubadala), one of Abu Dhabi's sovereign investment funds. Financial details of the investment were not announced. National Resilience said it will construct a new manufacturing facility in Abu Dhabi, UAE, as a result of the investment.
socalTECH
JANUARY 10, 2023
Irvine-based Telesair, a medical equipment developing developing a mobile medical respirator that the company says helps get patients out of the hospital sooner, has raised $22M in a Series A funding round. The funding was led by Pasaca Capital and also included Honeywell, ZhenCheng Capital, Shangbay Capital, Device of Tomorrow Capital, Berkeley Catalyst Fund and Ultrastar Ventures LLC.
socalTECH
JANUARY 10, 2023
San Diego-based CRISPR QC, a startup developing data and analytics tools for the gene editing market, announced on Tuesday afternoon that it has raised $1.6M in a seed funding round. The funding was led by Serra Ventures, and also included CaerusX Ventures, the investment company of George Bonaros. CRISPR is led by CEO Ross Bundy.
socalTECH
JANUARY 9, 2023
Los Angeles-based private equity investor Lone View Capital said this morning that it has made an investment in Trend Health Partners, a developer of products in the credit balance management and payment accuracy market. Fnancial details of that investment were not announced.
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