Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 28, 2010
OK, this will be a test of whether using real curse words in your title or post gets all of your stuff blocked by spam filters or from appearing on HackerNews or the like. I thought about trying to spell it differently (like Guy Kawasaki always says Bull Shitake (as in the mushroom, but slightly misspelled) but somehow it lost the same effect that this saying has always had for me.
socalTECH
MARCH 2, 2010
Alec Shankman is CEO of Santa Monica-based Gotcast (www.gotcast.com), an online site focused on casting of actors for television shows, movies, and other productions. The firm is venture and angel backed, and was co-founded by Wil Schroter, who is involved with a number of other startups here, including Affordit. We sat down with Alec the other day to hear more about the company and what it's try to do.
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SoCal CTO
MARCH 18, 2010
More Visible Networking? this time with Vince Thompson. You’ve got a REALLY diverse background. What’s the short version? Vince: I’m an author, speaker and management consultant with a special expertise in online media sales. I started out as screenwriter, went into local television, ran ad sales in the west for AOL and joined Facebook in the companies very early days.
Berkonomics
MARCH 30, 2010
There is a relationship between time and money that is more complex than most managers think. Fixed overhead for salaries, rent, equipment leases and more make up the majority of the “burn rate” (monthly expenses) for most companies. Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues.
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.
Eric Greenspan
MARCH 11, 2010
Rob Lowe's first tweet. Long time Make It Work customer and Santa Barbara resident Rob Lowe joined Twitter today. His profile is @robloweprofile. I’ve known Rob for years, both as a customer and a fellow parent at local schools. We did a couple of fundraisers together a few years back and our kids went to school together. I spoke to Rob today guiding him to his very first tweet which he successfully sent about an hour ago.
InfoChachkie
MARCH 16, 2010
In 1987, a representative of Michael Jackson approached the modest Sycamore Valley ranch house and knocked on the door. The owner of the ranch was shocked by the visitor’s message. He told the homeowner that he represented someone who wanted to purchase the ranch at a substantial premium over its current fair market value. He also indicated that the offer was non-negotiable and the home owner had to respond either “Yes” or “No” in a matter of hours.
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socalTECH
MARCH 3, 2010
Los Angeles-based GotCast.com , the online casting site run by Alec Shankman, said today that it has launched two talent searches for on-camera roles, for The Streamy Award, and HollyScoop, a syndicated TV show and site focused on celebrites, music, and fashion news. GotCast allows users to submit their profiles, photos, and information in hopes of getting casted for entertainment positions.
SoCal CTO
MARCH 30, 2010
People seem to be missing the really big picture of the value of social media and really the Internet for that matter. They look at how current social networking sites work and how online and offline relationships currently work and make the assumption that this represents the value proposition. Case in point the recent HBR blog post: The Social Media Bubble , by Umair Haque where he advances the following hypothesis: Despite all the excitement surrounding social media, the Internet isn't connec
Berkonomics
MARCH 7, 2010
I am happy to announce the availability of BERKONOMICS in book channels worldwide, including the eBook edition from Amazon. Purchase either for yourself or for an entrepreneur, board member or executive of a growing business. This book and workbook contain all the material from the BERKONOMICS emails and blogs and much more. Organized into eleven chapters from start-up through a sale of the company with focus upon growth of the enterprise, the unique combination of book and workbook helps ensure
Tech Coast Venture Network
MARCH 31, 2010
Virginia Lorimor 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first 5 years, primarily for one reason; the business owner fails to plan. It is not that they lack a good product! So we know that your in business to succeed - what kind of plans do you need: Business Plan. I find a simple working business plan is adequate for most (unless you are seeking outside funding in which case you would want to be more in depth).
InfoChachkie
MARCH 2, 2010
In 1933, baseball card collectors were frustrated. For some reason, they found it impossible to complete their Goudy Gum 240-card set. No matter how many packages of cards they purchased, they failed to find card number #106, which featured Napoleon Lajoie. Enterprising collectors who wrote Goudy and voiced their frustrations were rewarded by receiving the Lajoie card in the mail.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 11, 2010
This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. It’s a tricky question with no clear answer. There are trade offs. And it obviously depends on the kind of business you’re building.
socalTECH
MARCH 10, 2010
One of the more successful serial entrepreneurs here in Southern California has been Robin D. Richards , who most recently sold The NTI Group to Blackboard, and previously also was CEO of Vivendi Universal Net USA, the founding president and COO of MP3.com, and managing director at Tickets.com. Robin's latest startup is Internships.com (www.internships.com), an online site focused on aggregating internship opportunities and providing resources to potential interns.
SoCal CTO
MARCH 16, 2010
This question came up last week. I am hearing from my project management team a bit of distrust in the technical capacity of our web development team. I think we suffer because of the distance and culture but the project management team takes every late delivery or small bug as evidence that the development team may not be capable. My quick response was that this was likely some combination of: Weak development team Poor communication, especially around requirements and expectation setting Past
Berkonomics
MARCH 24, 2010
First customers are critical. Greatly exceed expectations at all costs. There is so much history behind this insight, and so many stories that illustrate this point. Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important group of allies that your marketing and sales people rely upon when attempting to create buzz and make a mass market for a new product.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 6, 2010
One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. Since I answer this all the time anyway I thought it might make an interesting blog post. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# That’s true.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 22, 2010
File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. I was over at Robert Scoble’s blog Sunday night reading about the “ Death of the Great Startup Launch.&# I’m not 100% sure that I understood his core thesis but I *think* it was that startup events such as Demo force such a zone of secrecy about what you’re working on (with a threat of being kicked out of the event for leaking your story) that they kill the ability for most companies to dazzle people
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 27, 2010
This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. OK, hiring is a loooong topic and I couldn’t do it justice in single post. But I thought it might be useful to do a headline view of the key components and then come back and do the individual topics over time if people seem interested. I’ve been recruiting for 20 years so I’ve learned a few things along the way.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 21, 2010
This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. Large companies can be strange sometimes. As startup entrepreneurs we all want to work with them because having their name as reference clients makes it so much easier for marketing, PR, selling to other customers, fund raising and even recruiting. Plus, we’re all allured by the false sense that our contract with BigCo is going to “make us&# because once they start using us it will spread like wildfire and the revenue will flow i
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 10, 2010
File this under entrepreneurial advice. I know that this will sound like a random post topic for startup advice but I promise it’s relevant. You actually need to give advice to nearly every employee whom you offer a job to on how to best quit their job. This is important to improve conversion rates of accepted offers / joiners, shorten the time-to-join ratio and the improve the ability of that employee to maintaing good relations with their former employer.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 17, 2010
Los Angeles. People either love it our hate it. All the stereotypes and caricatures are overblown. And we’re left with a city with idyllic weather, major commerce, the media center of the world, and a great emerging technology scene. We have an abundance of ethnicities, culinary options, music and culture. Randy Newman said it best, “ I love LA &# (Worth a 2 minute watch for pure nostalgia.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 8, 2010
I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on how to create a company blog. Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. I have a very detailed article that covers stuff I won’t cover in detail in this post.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 3, 2010
Many of us in the technology, media and VC world sit on panels at lot. Many of them are painfully boring. It’s a shame since it’s such a golden opportunity for you to build awareness with your audience for who you are and what you do. And it’s a surprisingly great way to meet people in this industry who share the stage with you.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 30, 2010
I’m very pleased today to announce that I invested, on behalf of GRP Partners, in Burstly alongside Rincon Venture Partners , an early stage VC in Southern California whith whom we love to work (and were our co-investors on RingRevenue ). Burstly, a Santa Monica based company, provides an open and free ad management platform that helps mobile application developers better monetize their inventory.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 18, 2010
Today we announced Launchpad LA V2. Full press release with more details is here. We will be selecting 10 startup companies to participate. There is no cost but you must physically be based in or move to Los Angeles for the 6 months of the program. Applications are due April 6th, 2010, the form is on the website and the Twitter address is @launchpadlad.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 2, 2010
After a few days of controversial blog posts I thought I’d try something more light hearted today. Fred Wilson once wrote about the topic of how to introduce two people who don’t know each other via email. He called it the “ double opt-in introduction. &# He talks about the stuggles of email introductions when you’re dealing at scale.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 5, 2010
I attended the inaugural Open Angel Forum in Los Angeles back in January and wrote about it here. Jason Calacanis started this initiative in response to the pay-to-play network of angel events that he despised. I’m a huge supporter of his initiative to help end this practice. The first event was a big success and brought out many of LA’s angel elite.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 8, 2010
I’ve been enjoying using Plancast over the past month or so. I’m not an investor and though I wouldn’t rule it out in the future I’m not currently looking at the company. Just wanted to get that out of the way up front so I won’t look like a vested-interest fanboy. In fact, for the research of this post I just noticed that they announced funding today – congrats.
socalTECH
MARCH 19, 2010
Four Southern California firms are headed to Palm Springs for the DEMO launch conference next week, according to a list of the presenters released Friday. According to DEMO, Thousand Oaks-based Invested.In , Santa Barbara-based Phone Halo , San Diego-based Tastr , and Los Angeles-based Immitter will all be presenting at the technology launch conference.
socalTECH
MARCH 2, 2010
Torrance-based LiveOffice , a provider of email archiving services, announced today that the firm is releasing a new product specifically aimed at archiving social media sites, including LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The firm said the new LiveOffice Social Archive software is can capture and retain content from any public web site. LifeOffice said the solution is geared toward addressing recent FINRA regulations on communications by securities firms and brokers on those social networking site
socalTECH
MARCH 24, 2010
Van Nuys-based Audiolife (www.audiolife.com), a new startup focused on providing e-commerce tools to musicians, recently raised $1M in angel funding. For today's interview, we spoke with Brandon Hance, the firm's founder, about how his startup is helping musicians to sell both digital and physical merchandise on the web. What's the idea behind Audiolife?
socalTECH
MARCH 24, 2010
In a new report released today by the UCLA Anderson Forecast released a report today saying that the economy is in a "bipolar" condition, where the economy is growing, but where unemployment continues to stay in the double digits. The forecasting effort said it is seeing slow-but-sure growth in the national gross domestic product, but predicts an unemployment rate to remain in double digits until 2012.
socalTECH
MARCH 22, 2010
Virgin Galactic , the commercial spaceflight firm of Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan, announced today that it has completed the inaugural captive carry flight of the firm's combination spacecraft and mothership. Virgin Galactic said the flight, at the Mojave Air and Spaceport, is the first in a test program that will continue through 2010 and 2011.
socalTECH
MARCH 25, 2010
Scripped , the developer of online screenwriting software headed by Sunil Rajaraman, has merged with Zhura.com , another online provider of screenwriting software, the firms announced to their users today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the firm said the merger is in the "seven-figure range." Zhura.com is based in Boston; Scripped was based in Los Angeles, but is moving to San Francisco to become part of a technology incubator called I/O ventures.
socalTECH
MARCH 30, 2010
Los Angeles-based social networking site MySpace is looking to boost its Internet safety efforts today, saying that it is backing a campaign by nonprofit Enough is Enough to help keep children online. MySpace said it is sponsoring a Jumbotron ad campaign in Times Square in New York City, as well as a related DVD teaching series, workbook, and web site, to help educate kids on the dangers of the Internet.
socalTECH
MARCH 19, 2010
Santa Barbara-based Eucalyptus announced Friday afternoon that the firm has snagged Marten Mickos, most recently the CEO of MySQL AB, as its new CEO. Current Eucalpytus CEO Woody Rollins becomes Chief Financial Officer of the firm. Eucalpytus develops open source, cloud software used to manage cloud deployment, and is venture backed by Benchmark Capital and BV Capital.
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