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'July marks the fourth month of our ongoing project measuring the performance of web application frameworks and platforms. We''ve just posted Round 6, which includes several more developer community-provided framework test implementations: Beego, Dart, Hapi, Jester, Luminus, Nancy, Yaf, Plack, Play-Slick, and Undertow. The results web site has been improved with test-type and hardware-type navigation, allowing you to share links to a specific results chart, such as Round 6, Fortunes on EC2.
'I work with a lot of startups. I start to notice when bad behavior creeps into the system as a whole. I have seen much of that behavior over the past 2 years get worse. Nobody seems to want to make money any more. I remember just a decade ago in 2003 when we all laughed at how dumb people in the 90′s were talking about the race to “capture as many eyeballs as possible” before your competition.
'Tech mogul Elon Musk , who has proved that you can, indeed, build your own rocketship to space with his success with Hawthorne-based SpaceX , said today that he plans to unveil a brand new transportation system called Hyperloop. Musk said in a tweet that he will release the plans for Hyperloop, which will deliver people between San Francisco and Los Angeles in less than half an hour, on August 12th.
'This is one of those “My dad used to say” homilies. You’ve probably heard the accompanying “It takes just as much effort to sell a small deal as a big one,” over the years. The truth of this is more nuanced. Some businesses will prosper in the shadow of larger competitors by specializing in those smaller accounts that are just not attractive to those with higher overheads and larger aspirations.
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.
'A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. To the surprise of no one, other than snooty film critics, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey broke Christmas box office records this past weekend. In addition to being a classic children''s tale of good versus evil, the film also contains some surprising 2013 job hunting tips for joining a startup.
'Making the decision to become an entrepreneur is a major commitment, with huge implications for skills and lifestyle. Yet there is no standardized testing or certification required or available anywhere to help you decide if you are a good fit for entrepreneurship, or entrepreneurship is right for you. An MBA or other academic credentials just don’t do it.
'Silicon Valley? That’s so yesterday. Today’s startup innovators come from about six hours south of Silicon Valley. If that’s news to you, here are eleven of Los Angles’ best and brightest. Get to know them now before they become household names. Venture Capital: Upfront Ventures. Previously known as GRP Partners, Upfront Ventures has focused on early stage investments since 1996.
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'Silicon Valley? That’s so yesterday. Today’s startup innovators come from about six hours south of Silicon Valley. If that’s news to you, here are eleven of Los Angles’ best and brightest. Get to know them now before they become household names. Venture Capital: Upfront Ventures. Previously known as GRP Partners, Upfront Ventures has focused on early stage investments since 1996.
'I have long advised startup companies that if you don’t control your messaging somebody else will and your potential customers will form impressions of you shaped by somebody else or by nobody at all. It’s why it’s important to establish a brand, know what your key messages are and communicate them often and simply. I have published many of these PR Tips before.
'A new study released earlier this month has ranked the Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta metropolitan area, as well as the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos metropolitan area among the top ten markets for venture capital activity. The report, from The Atlantic , found that Santa Barbara-Santa-Maria-Goleta was number five in the nation in terms of venture capital activity per 100,000 people, with $59.1M in deals in 2012 and 3.3 venture capital deals per 100,000 people.
'There is such leverage in high gross profit margins once a company is past breakeven. Every dollar of gross profit falls to the bottom line, increasing net profit faster with each transaction. A ten percent increase in revenues for a company with 50% gross margin and 5% net profit before the increase would double net profit for the period with that ten percent increase in revenue.
'Easy To Start, Hard To Control. A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. Brian Coryat, Founder and CEO of Local Market Launch and former founder of ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) recently spoke as part of UCSB''s Distinguished Lecture Series. His talk was entertaining and informative and contained a number of witty entrepreneurial insights, such as: "Startups are like high school.
'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.
'This month TechZulu is heading to NextSpace Coworking in Culver City! For those unfamiliar, held the last Friday of every month, TechZulu Final Fridays (#TZFF) are a creative blend between mentorship, networking event, startup showcase, and community celebration. Join us as we introduce you to featured faces and spaces across our great city, highlighting the many flavors of innovation that make up the LA tech ecosystem…plus plenty of free food and drinks.
'Last year I wrote a blog post on entrepreneurs with a chip on their shoulders. I think it’s an important read. A chip on one’s shoulder as in, “F**k the system, it’s broken and I want to fix it” is exactly the energy I look for in entrepreneurs. My internal compass says that “country-club” entrepreneurs struggle to make as big of an impact because it’s really hard to totally change a system that you’re part of and have a vested interest in.
'If there were such a thing as a "Dream Team" for mobile advertising, you would be hard pressed not to pick the founding team of Los Angeles-based Gradient X (www.gradientx.com), whose founders include Michael Lum (formerly of OpenX), Brian Baumgart (formerly at Adconion), and Julie Mattern (formerly of Rubicon Project). We caught up with Michael to learn more about what Gradient X is doing, and why the three have teamed up at the company.
'We all know that the world of marketing has turned upside down these past years through the power of the Internet. College professors teaching marketing must be having a real challenge keeping up with the new channels of communication, the relative values of advertising buys in this new world, and explaining how to make the most out of these cheaper and more powerful channels.
'A version of this article previously appeared on Inc. The ability to consistently give horrendous investor pitches is within your grasp. If you follow the tips outlined in this entry, you will be guaranteed to suffer absolutely no. dilution, as there is zero chance a reasonable investor will give you money. Investors are overrated. Who needs them? If you haven''t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly Infochachkie articles!
'Starting a business is usually the result of a personal dream or need. Investors tell me that they invest in people, more than the idea. Customers buy from people, not from a company, at least at the startup stages. That’s why it’s important to build a personal brand, in parallel and before your business brand. This will kick-start your business, and improve your odds of success.
'Did you know that Los Angeles was ranked as the second best startup city in the U.S. by the Startup Genome’s Startup Ecosystem world report? Did you even know there was such a thing as the Startup Genome’s Startup Ecosystem world report? Well, it was and there is, which goes to show that while Silicon Valley (ranked #1) gets most of the press, LA is no slouch when it comes to tech.
'One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. Not just because meeting Clayton was influential in shaping my thinking about markets but also because Derek Andersen (who founded Startup Grind) is such an awesome host and runs a very informative events.
'Encinitas-based ForwardMetrics has just taken $1M in a seed funding round, to help companies better conduct their strategic planning. The startup said that the new funding round brings its total raised to $1.75M. ForwardMetrics, which is headed by Ozzie DiVinere, said its cloud-based software helps organizations create and track their strategic plans, helping to track the progress of employees towards business results--rather than just activity.
'Substitute the word “money” for “water” and we have an explanation for most all of the reasons why successful products move from concept through early adopters through mass market. Money flows to the cheapest effective solution to a problem. Fighting this fact will just extend the misery of accepting a product or marketing failure in the marketplace.
'A version of this article previously appeared in The Wall Street Journal . Tenderfoot Boy Scouts are taught to differentiate between the three combustibles required to build a sustainable fire: tinder, kindling and fuel wood. It''s a long, cold night if the tinder does not light the kindling or if the kindling fails to ignite the fuel wood. However, once the fuel wood is lit, a fire is relatively easy to sustain, as the resulting hot coals readily trigger the combustion of new fuel.
'To be an entrepreneur, you have to be navigate lots of unknowns, and the path is fraught with risk. Once you are past a certain mental age, you know too many of the things that can go wrong, so you never start. Sort of like the old saying that if we didn’t have young men to fight our wars, we could achieve world peace in no time. People who are young, or young at heart, don’t know all the negatives, or don’t worry about them.
'Tonight, in my Facebook feed, ( thanks to Micah Baldwin ), I came across the Hello Flo video. It is YouTube marketing at its best. Huffington Post is already calling it the “ Best Tampon Campaign Ad in the History of the World” and the video only went live yesterday. YESTERDAY. From the time I took a screenshot of the view count for this article, to my fingers clicking away typing these words, the video has already shot up over an additional 300,000 views totaling 1,851,189 views in 2 days.
'This is final part of a series that describes a sales methodology for technology companies or frankly many other types of companies, too. We developed this at our first company and called it PUCCKA – the overall methodology is described here. Pain. Unique Selling Proposition. Compelling Event. Champion. Key Players such as enemies, sages and blockers.
'What''s one of the hottest, fastest growing mobile apps out there out of a Southern California startup? No, not Snapchat--it''s Tinder --a mobile app and service which lets users rate people nearby them, and if the feeling is mutual, connect them. The app has been extremely popular for dating, but co-founder and CMO Justin Mateen says it''s more than dating, it''s about meeting all sorts of new people.
'If you’re an Apple iOS 7 beta tester, iOS 7 beta 3 just released. Settings/General/software update. The post iOS 7 beta 3 appeared first on Eric Greenspan.
'A version of this article previously appeared on Inc. The ability to consistently give horrendous investor pitches is within your grasp. If you follow the tips outlined in this entry, you will be guaranteed to suffer absolutely no. dilution, as there is zero chance a reasonable investor will give you money. Investors are overrated. Who needs them? If you haven''t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for free weekly Infochachkie articles!
'One of the first harsh realities that every entrepreneur has to learn is that most of the things that are critical to startup success are outside of their direct control. Just because you dream it and build it, doesn’t mean they will come – that encompasses not only customers, but also investors, partners, team members, and even your own family. They won’t come if they don’t trust you.
'Industry-specific networking site Kaleio , has partnered with Indeed.com to include both national and international job listings within the Kaleio Marketplace in a move that is expected to make it a one-stop professional networking and business tool for students and the non-executive workforce. According to Kaleio founder & CEO, Jim Riley, “This partnership marks a significant step in us becoming an invaluable resource for college students and working-class professionals to not only f
'This is part of a series that describes a sales methodology for technology companies or frankly many other types of companies, too. We developed this at our first company and called it PUCCKA – the overall methodology is described here. Pain. Unique Selling Proposition. Champion. Compelling Event. This post talks about the “K” or Key Players involved in a buying decision.
'As much as the idea of "Silicon Beach" wants to represent the whole of the local technology industry in Los Angeles, there are -- as one would expect in such a large metropolitan area -- many different neighborhoods and communities spread across the region, all with their own individual identities, companies, and technology focuses. In the same way that the technology community is not the same when you''re talking San Francisco versus Palo Alto versus San Jose, Southern California''s technology
'When polled 88% of marketing professionals said they couldn’t accurately measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and the majority said lack of ROI measurement is their single greatest frustration with social media (Forbes). If you look at the left side of the graphic you’ll see the easy, traditional measurement of followers, RTs, FAVs & replies.
'In what could help Santa Barbara further increase its influence in the high tech world, Surf Air , the subscription-membership based, all-you-can-fly airline headed by Wade Eyerly, said today that it has added Santa Barbara to its daily schedule. SurfAir said it will connect Santa Barbara with nonstop service to Silicon Valley, with the first flight leaving this morning at 8:15 a.m.
'Are you tired of paying a lot for parking your car for days on end at Los Angeles International, and ending up with just an empty wallet and a dirty car when you get back? A new, Los Angeles startup, Hubber , has just launched a new service which turns your car into a cash cow for travelers--instead of a cash sink--by letting people rent out their cars from a parking lot at LAX.
'Los Angeles-based video streaming site Hulu will receive $750M in a funding round, and continue to be owned by 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal and The Walt Disney Company, those firms announced Friday morning, as the companies have decided not to sell their stake in the onlie television site. Breaking story, more details in a minute. READ MORE>>.
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