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“It was running fine.” In our performance consulting work, we often hear variations of the following: “Our web application was running fine with a few hundred users. Now when we run a promotion with our new partner and get a thousand users coming in at one time, it grinds to a halt.”. We’ve heard this from startup founders, product managers, development team leads, CTOs, and others who see their product gaining traction, but simultaneously see performance falling off a cliff.
There is much discussion online and also in small, private groups, about why the price of technology companies – public and private – are falling. Valuing any company can be difficult because it requires a degree of forecasting future growth & competition and ultimately the profits of the organization. And two big changes have happened that are widely known – in the past quarter the value of some very high profile companies such as LinkedIn and Twitter have fallen substanti
A version of this article previously appeared on Entrepreneur.com. Did I passed on Uber’s seed round? No. It’s worse than that. I never even bothered to listen to Travis’ pitch, even though I was repeatedly offered the opportunity. I then passed on Uber’s A Round as well, which I thought was valued too high, in light of the company’s progress. Too bad, as the initial funding round has increased over 4,000 times in value, making a $250,000 investment worth more than $1,100,000,000.
Venice-based Snapchat might be the darling of the technology startup scene, but there are at least three, privately held startups--and maybe, more--in Southern California who recently passed $100M in revenues, according to a look through recent announcements. Snapchat had reportedly been on track to hit a $100M run rate--a longtime milestone--in 2015, however, has not announced yet if it hit that goal.
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.
Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity? There are always gate keepers whose job it is to filter out the inconsequential or inappropriate, and allow through those with most promise. That said, gate keepers can and do block some great opportunities before the decision maker even has a chance to use his or her expertise to evaluate.
By far the most popular post on this blog is 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder. It was originally written in 2011 and has had amazing staying power. While I’ve updated it a few times, it continues to get at important questions that startup founders need to be asking. I find myself sending it to startup founders all the time – maybe just slightly less than Free Startup CTO Consulting.
Round 12 of the ongoing Web Framework Benchmarks project is now available! A race against the clock. Recently, we were notified that the physical hardware environment we have used for Rounds 9 through 12 will be decommissioned imminently. This news made Round 12 unusual: rather than wait until we can equip and configure a new environment, we decided to conclude Round 12 while the current environment remained available.
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Round 12 of the ongoing Web Framework Benchmarks project is now available! A race against the clock. Recently, we were notified that the physical hardware environment we have used for Rounds 9 through 12 will be decommissioned imminently. This news made Round 12 unusual: rather than wait until we can equip and configure a new environment, we decided to conclude Round 12 while the current environment remained available.
MakeSpace , the leading provider of next-generation storage for consumers, today announced an additional $17.5 million in funding on TechCrunch led by Harmony Partners and Upfront Ventures to double its footprint of 3 cities (New York, Chicago & Washington DC) to 6 in 2016. We raised this capital in what has increasingly become a difficult market for fund raising so I’d like to share with you some details on how we get it done.
A version of this article previously appeared Forbes. Professional investors do not fund great ideas. Instead, they fund proven businesses. The reality is that most venture capitalists are not very venturesome. Thus, it is incumbent on entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into viable businesses before seeking venture funding. Entrepreneurs Are Never Stuck.
Venice, California-based Crexi , a new startup which operates an online, commercial real estate marketplace, has raised $4.3M in a seed funding round, the company said this week. The funding came from Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Freestyle Capital, TenOneTen Ventures, Founder Collective, Karlin Ventures, Leon Capital Group and angels. Crexi, which was founded and is led by Michael DeGiorgio, said it has created a marketplace aimed at commercial real estate brokers, which helps them with everything fr
Wouldn’t it be magic if we could find one (unique to us) question to ask people passing the booth or table as they pass in the aisle of the trade show? I asked a number of exhibitors that question recently, and received some surprising responses, along with tips for “reeling them in…”. “Is your mom OK?” was offered by one who said it always worked for him.
Entrepreneurs who are looking to attract investors need to develop and pitch a plan -- preferably written -- that answers every potential investor question about your startup before it is asked. You may be quick on your feet with answers, but if investors have to ask any of these questions, you raise the specter of hiding something, or of not being astute enough to know what’s important.
We love this! If you've not been watching the ASP.NET team's community standups , you have missed some surprisingly transparent, interesting, and oftentimes funny updates from a major web application framework development team. Every time I watch one I marvel, this is Microsoft? Clearly we're seeing a new Microsoft. If you're not watching, you would have also missed how much emphasis the ASP.NET team is putting on performance.
Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We try to look at the sources of capital, the valuations, exits and trends. We use this try to draw some context that informs our funding decisions. Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad. In venture our goal is to fund companies over a 10-year+ time horizon, which is the time it takes to build truly transformational companies.
TechCrunch sat down with Mark Suster, managing partner at Upfront Ventures. One of the most active investors in Los Angeles, Suster spoke of how local startups are able to draw upon the city’s creative talent to bring content, commerce and communication platforms to the next level. He also commented on falling tech valuations. “By any definition we’ve been in a funding… Read More.
Los Angeles-based Overnight , a brand new travel booking app startup which aims to connect last minute travelers with local hosts, has raised $2.5M in a seed funding, the company is announcing this morning. The funding was led by Accomplice and CrossCut Ventures, and also included Paul Bricault (Greycroft/Amplify) and Elliott Bisnow (Summit Action Fund).
We once measured our audience using demographic buckets, especially with the use of age groups, gender, and financial ability as keys. Classic marketing teaches us that this is the best way to define our audience, and to make appropriate pitches that will elicit favorable response from the target audience. Still true, but with a big twist. Using big data that has been mined for specific information, we can now market to individuals within classes, some of whom will not fit the stereotype and wo
What will be the next big thing that everyone talks about? I’ve been asking around and looking at companies, trends, and what else is going on to put together the following list of startups worth watching in 2016. Read at Venture Beat.
Digital Summit Los Angeles is a premier digital strategies forum transforming the future of the digital commerce ecosystem – including Marketing, UX & Design, Search, Content, Mobile, and more. Every company with a customer base faces the same challenge – how do we keep up with our competition amidst the myriad of digital channels and peer-to-peer communication available to consumers?
Much has changed in the past four months of the technology startup world and how outsiders value the business. Of course it’s too early to predict whether this is a trend or an aberration but the smartest people I know in the industry are predicting the former. The startup industry may be “resetting,” which doesn’t mean a “crash” but rather just a resetting of valuations, timescales, winners/losers, capital sources and the relative emphasis of growth rates vs.
“The theme of LA is diversity.” That is what DoorDash’s Kevin Huang told me in our conversation about how expanding on-demand marketplaces into LA differs from other markets. As an LA-based enterprise and marketplace investor, one of the most common questions I get from entrepreneurs is how to expand marketplaces into LA. While this includes all the usual difficulties of… Read More.
Los Angeles-based PeeqSee , a new startup developing social networking and media apps, has launched an app which lets users create interactive, visual posts. The startup--founded by Vacit Arat--lets users posts photos with an interactive component, which unveil additional information when users click on objects in those photos. The company said those "Peeqs" also can direct users to another photo, video, website, message, or video channel.
Say that you have a log file of every contact to your website. Or that you are a cell phone company with a multi–billion record log file of every call made from every location to every number dialed using your network. You can accurately state that you have big data at your fingertips. But it is useless in this raw, usually unstructured form. Adding context to data takes this information and creates actionable knowledge.
Investors will tell you that they love to put money into startups that are scalable, and ready to scale. 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.
Have you ever wondered why cheating and cheat codes have been such an important part of gaming for so long? Only in the past decade have we seen a lot of interest in cheating – although the motivation behinds those old cheats still lives in in surprising ways. Here’s how cheats first came to be – and why they stayed around. Codes and Countermeasures.
There was so much great content at the Upfront Summit but I think one held a special place in minds of most people I talked to – our panel on diversity led by my partner Hamet Watt (<– what? you’re not following him?). The message of the panel was very clear – “We don’t need your help. We want to partner with you to make money.” And I’ll elaborate on this but I wanted to start first with an important quote from Magic, said with a very positive
In my more than 20 years serving as a CEO and/or Founder, one thing I have learned is that change is the only constant. But then why is it so difficult to bring about, even in the most forward-thinking organizations? The simple truth is that it’s human nature to resist change. Change is threatening because it’s associated with uncertainty, self-examination, and a loss of control.
Los Angeles-based political news site The Young Turks says that it saw record ratings for its live coverage of the Iowa Caucases earlier this week. The online news and politics show said it saw 256,000 unique views over the course of its seven hours of live coverage, which was the largest audience ever for a live broadcast for the company. The broadcast featured founder Cenk Uygur, plus Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola, Ben Mankiewicz, Jimmy Dore and Jordan Chariton.
A version of this article previously appeared Forbes. A very good friend of mine has heard me tell many a tale of trips in which I have scored free drinks, gratis hotel and car rental upgrades and various travel freebies. However, without experiencing my stories first hand, he always suspected there was a degree of embellishment involved to make my stories a bit more entertaining.
Successful entrepreneurs understand the difference between a good business relationship with more people and having more friends. In fact, the focus on social networking platforms, starting with Facebook, has destroyed the meaning of the word friend and even changed it from a noun to a verb. It’s now common to have hundreds or thousands of friends online -- but no relationships.
Is it time for a new router for your office, home business, or work area? A little research will turn up news of something called “HaLow” or a 900MHz standard. A new Wi-Fi standard is always exciting – we are already expecting great things from MU-MIMO – but what does this 900MHz capability even mean? Let’s take a look. Defining the New Standard: What Does It Mean?
There is much talk these days that startup valuations have decreased and may continue to do so and that the amount of time it takes to fund raise may take longer. As I have pointed out in previous posts , 91% of VCs surveyed believe prices are declining (30% believe substantially) and 77% believe that funding will take longer than it has in the past.
In my more than 20 years serving as a CEO and/or Founder, one thing I have learned is that change is the only constant. But then why is it so difficult to bring about, even in the most forward-thinking organizations? The simple truth is that it’s human nature to resist change. Change is threatening because it’s associated with uncertainty, self-examination, and a loss of control.
Carlsbad-based 5D Robotics , a developer of positioning and navigation tools aimed at robot navigation, has raised $5.5M in a seed funding. Names of the seed investors in the company were not disclosed. 5D Robotics said its software uses data from GPS, LIDAR, IMU, odometry, vision, and UWB sensors for far more accurate positioning of vehicles than GPS alone.
I’ve written about Attention Deficit Disorder a couple of times. How to Know Whether You Have ADD & What to do About It. Why ADD Might Actually Benefit Startup Entrepreneurs. In the articles I made it clear that I’m not a doctor and if you have severe ADD you should consult a professional. But I talked about my personal experiences of finding out I had ADD when I was 39 years old and how this discovery led to a freedom mentally and emotionally because it explained some of my self
I recently sat down with Troy Carter to talk about what he does and why he believes it is applicable to venture capital. The “what” is well known in LA circles – Troy discovered a little known young singer named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta aka Lady Gaga and helped her launch her career. The “what” Troy Carter does also led him to be an early investor in Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Warby Parker and several other great startups of the last era.
“This is the year the tortoise may gain on the hare.” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively over the past 7 years and non-VC money has entered the system.
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