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I recently wrote a post about how to manage relationships when you’re at a startup or are busy executive. It was based on an excellent book I had just read by Brad Feld & Amy Batchelor (his wife). I had images in my brain of all of the stresses I had placed on my wife in the heyday of my startups. We once took a “vacation” in Spain with Tania’s parents but we were in the midst of an M&A transaction so this photo is how my wife & her family remember me on that
I've had several Startup CTO Consulting sessions recently where it became apparent that the Founder needed help with the business and product as much or more than the technology. I suggested that they should look for someone like me, but on the business end. Then we discussed how they could go about finding this startup business advisor. Then I got an email that asked: I'm leading the marketing efforts for an early-stage startup.
It was standing room only at StartEngine 's Demo Day Wednesday afternoon, held at Santa Monica's Cross Campus , as the startup accelerator launched eight of its latest startups into the world, after a 90 day process of mentoring, honing their business model, and heads down development. In a way, the event--like the Demo Days from the other accelerators around town--seems to have focused the startup community and prospective startup community on the possibilities inherent in a new startup.
A version of this article previously appeared on Forbes. It just happened again. A well-intentioned colleague introduced me to a stranger via email, without first confirming with me that the intro was welcomed. Such "blind"matchmaking is more often than not a waste of everyone’s time: the person making the introduction, the person being introduced and me.
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.
My brother, Barry, passed away recently. A world famous architect, he is credited with the design of over 600,000 homes worldwide. He had been named one of the world’s top 100 architects by Architectural Digest, and one of the ten most significant figures of the 20th century by Residential Architect. He was quite a role model as a big brother, five years my senior.
Jody. You’re gone too early. We still had so many more times to spend together. I loved this image I saw posted by Andy Rankin. Because this is the one word that was not in your vocabulary. And it was the first word I muttered when I heard the news tonight. I remember when we met years ago. I think Michael Kantor introduced us. You were pitching me an online business selling other people’s baby food.
Somebody commented that in 2013 I have done a lot more personal posts than usual. I didn’t set out that way. It just happened. Lots of tragedies in the past couple of months. Aaron Schwartz. Sandy Hook. Now Jody Sherman. And my friend Brad Feld & his wife had written a book on the importance of personal relationships which made me want to weigh in on that.
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Somebody commented that in 2013 I have done a lot more personal posts than usual. I didn’t set out that way. It just happened. Lots of tragedies in the past couple of months. Aaron Schwartz. Sandy Hook. Now Jody Sherman. And my friend Brad Feld & his wife had written a book on the importance of personal relationships which made me want to weigh in on that.
I’m very excited to be finally be able to announce that this week we’ve added Sam Rosen to our ranks at GRP Partners in the role of entrepreneurs-in-residence – EIR. It’s the first EIR that we’ve had in the years that I’ve been with the firm and I hope will be the start of our investment in this program. And it’s the latest in a series of investments we’ve made in building out our practice as the LA technology market continues to grow robustly and
Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. I think many board members (including VCs) were trained 10+ years ago when life was very different and their advice often comes from an outdated lens. One of the advantages of blogging, using social media, public speaking, etc as a VC is that you get a more nuanced view of these shifts by watching your own successes a
I’ve started a recent series on PR at startups since I get asked for advice on this topic so often. I will put the full list of posts here. The start of this series was, Should Your Startup Announce Funding ? 6 or 7 years ago when TechCrunch was at its peak market share (they are still strong but many more tech blogs have also popped up) there was a term for getting covered there called “the TechCrunch bounce.” If your company was featured there (in the early days of what peop
The last few years in Los Angeles has been a heady one for the technology startup community, with hundreds of new startups, and a tangible enthusiasm in the air along Silicon Beach. Along with that growth, there have been a host of coworking and similar service provider cropping up to serve the community, offering up office space and more to local startups and other businesses.
Southern California is the center of the entertainment industry, which not only includes the world of Hollywood, movies and film, and television, but is also the home of the music industry. Combine that with the growing startup community here, and you end up with at. intersection of technology and music. We've compiled a list of five of the startups that are revolutionizing some part of music, based here in Southern California.
A local group is planning an Silicon Beach-themed event at the upcoming SXSW Interactive event in Austin, to help showcase the diversity of companies in the LA tech industry. According to organizers Kevin Winston of DigitalLA and Nicole Jordan of Radix Collective, the Silicon Beach Sunday Funday --planned for March 10th--will include a mixture of companies from multiple verticals - everything from fashion to enterprise to demo, connect, and network at SXSW.
In a sign of the growth of the Silicon Beach technology world, last year, Google moved its headquarters out of a space on Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica, and into a new fancy headquarters space in Venice. However, it appears the spirit of innovation and technology didn't leave Google's old space: instead, that office has become Real Office Centers (realofficecenters.com), an office center which on a recent Friday looked to have become somewhat of a hub for Silicon Beach's startup and investors.
If you have your eyes and ears open, you can discover sales lessons in unexpected places, including the cable TV show, Say Yes To The Dress. I do not consume much TV content, other than cable news. However, my wife is a major fan of fashion oriented "reality" TV shows, including Say Yes To The Dress (Say Yes). In my ongoing quest to be a wonderful husband, I have watched some of these shows with my lovely bride (sorry, I draw the line at Project Runway ).
How do you go about trying to completely disrupt the entire telecom industry? If you're FreedomPop , the Encino-based startup, you start by offering up free 4G wireless data access, and then expand to offer free, voice-over-IP services, along with home-based wireless Internet services. No fly by night startup -- the company is backed by the founders of Skype -- we talked with COO Stephen Sesar about how FreedomPop can provide free wireless Internet, the firm's expansion plans, and how the compan
As part, of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Eucalyptus Systems' CEO, Marten Mickos shared his insights and advice regarding what it takes to be a serially successful entrepreneur. Marten has enjoyed a celebrated entrepreneurial career. As an early executive at MySQL, he helped build the company into the world's most used open source database.
The latest numbers from the PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report were released today, finding that a total of $683.7M was invested across Southern California in Q4 of 2012. That total was less than the $859.6M raised by companies in Q4 of 2011, and less than the $701.18M raised by companies in the region in Q3 of 2012.
FitOrbit , the online fitness service which offers up personal trainers and weight loss plans via the Internet, has tied itself with online dating site Chemistry.com , in what might be the first link between fitness and dating. FitOrbit, which is based in Santa Monica, is the online fitness and personal training startup started by Jake Steinfeld of "Body By Jake", offering up handheld guidance of a personal trainer via the Internet, and tracks fitness, meals, workouts, and more for users.
Just before the holidays, we caught up with Blair Harrison , founder of Frequency (www.frequency.com), a personal video service which lets consumers watch video from the Internet on any of their devices. Harrison created one of the Internet's first video search sites, FastTV, and also ran IFILM, which he sold to Viacom in 2006. We caught up with Blair to learn more about his new startup, and why he thinks we need Frequency.
Playsino , the social casino games and app developer headed by Brock Pierce, said Tuesday that it has released iPhone and iPad versions of its Bingo World app. The free-to-play apps are on the Apple iTunes App store. Playsino, which is based in Santa Monica, is a developr of casino focused games, which are available both on mobile platforms and on sites like Facebook.
EventUp , the online marketplace which helps people find and book unique venues for their events, has now expanded into eight markets, after recently adding Washington, D.C., to its list of cities. The company, which now has operations in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, said that the market is among a number of markets it plans to expand into during 2013, as it rolls out its service nationwide.
What is a hackerspace, and why might having them available in the area help the tech community? The idea is a community space where people can come together, learn something from one another, build that electronics project, software, or even arts and crafts, in a supported environment. One hackerspace coming together in Los Angeles, LA Makerspace (www.lamakerspace.com) is being put together by Tara Tiger Brown.
The massive, $103M funding round for Carpinteria-based Lynda.com might have been a surprise for some, except perhaps readers of this publication, who over the years have gotten a glimpse of the growth rate of the company in recent years. The firm--which said it has been profitable since 1997 in its announcement this morning--disclosed that it now has over $100M in annual revenues, and 400 employees.
Los Angeles-based Gobbler , the cloud-based media backup, file sharing, and collaboration software provider run by Chris Kantrowitz , has raised $1.5M in a funding round, the firm said today. The funding came from celebrities Ryan Tedder (One Republic), Jared Leto , and Troy Carter (Lady Gaga's business manager). Gobbler develops a cloud-based service, specifically aimed at musicians, for helping them send files, collaborate with others, and back up their music.
Santa Monica-based Retention Science , the developer of big data software being used to help e-commerce companies covert more customers, has linked into e-commerce engine Magento, the firm is announcing today. Magento said that it has added a new extension to Magento called the "Customer Profiling Engine", which will help online stores with automating personalized retention campaigns for customers.
Who are the top technology and innovations leaders? C-Suite Quarterly has identified the top leaders in Southern California's technology industry, and is honoring them Wednesday evening at an event at the Viceroy in Santa Monica. The event--which is being sponsored by HP, Macallan, Cohiba, and others, is honoring Boingo's Sky Dayton , as well as other entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk , Brian Lee , Bill Gross , Karen Kerr , Gil Elbaz , Richard Rosenblatt , Josh Berman , Adam Miller , Brandon Beck
Is your iPhone the answer to your romatic life? Tinder , a brand new iPhone dating app created by Sean Rad and Justin Mateen of Hatch Labs, has just launched, in a quest to help users better connect with others via their iPhone. The new app, the first to spin out of Hatch Labs, helps users find who likes you nearby, and connects you with them if you're interested, via an anonymous process.
Los Angeles-based Atlas Powered , a developer of software for managing calendar, task, and contact data on iOS and Android, has raised $700,000 in a funding round, the firm said today. The round was led by the Tech Coast Angels, and also included the Maverick Angels, Pasadena Angels, Angel Capital Entrepreneur Fund, LaunchpadLA, and angel Clark Landry.
This article originally appeared on Forbes HERE. As part of UC Santa Barbara’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Citrix's CEO, Mark Templeton shared his advice regarding building and maintaining a healthy and innovative corporate culture. Mark framed his comments around the culture he built at Citrix, which has been augmented (and complicated) by the significant number of acquisitions the company executed during the past decade.
Fanmix , a startup developing "social inbox" software to manage a user's social conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, comment threads, and elsewhere, has spun out of Los Angeles-based Social Engine , according to Social Engine co-founder and new FanMix head Charlotte Genevier. According to Genevier, she has left her position as CTO of SocialEngine to work on FanMix and turn it into a "real business".
A new, Los Angeles-based startup, Baboo is looking to help brands and marketers in the entertainment space reach consumers, and recently launched an alpha of its services. The startup, headed by Drake Sutton-Shearer, is offering up media content in exchange for micro-survey answers, to help bolster music, film, TV, sports, and gaming brands. Co-founder Sutton-Shearer previously co-founded Movie Song Vault and The Gift App, and is a former entertainment industry executive.
It's a new year, and another batch of accelerator startups, as Demo Day season in Los Angeles kicks off this week. The first Demo Day of 2013 in Los Angeles is tomorrow, as MuckerLab launches its latest class of startups; fellow Los Angeles accelerator StartEngine has its first 2013 demo day scheduled for January 30th. The two are just a couple of the accelerator groups in the region which have been the driving force in early stage startup activity and funding, by providing mentoring, early stag
Among the new features of the social promotion tool released by Los Angeles-based PromoJam earlier this week: a new link to demographic data from Esri in it analytics. The tool, which lets users analyzing the web traffic from their promotions, lets users click into a map of where users are interacting with their promotions, and get detailed demographics data--household income, education, net worth, neighborhood data, and more--at the street level.
San Diego-based Take Lessons , an online marketplace which helps people find local teachers for music and singing lessons, disclosed today that it has raised $4M in a Series A follow on funding. The funding was led by Triangle Peak Partners, and also included Siemer Ventures, Crosslink Capital, and SoftTech VC, among others. TakeLessons asks users for the type of music lesson and zip code, and then connects those potential students with local teachers.
What are some of the key steps that CEOs ought to do to communicate with their CTOs? For our Insights and Opinions section today, we share an article by John Shiple , who provides technology consulting to CEOs, helps outline some of the key things startup (and other) CEOs ought to know in dealing with their CTO. Start at the top with the CEO and CTO. To improve communication between these two leaders, CEOs should address the following issues: Clarify your expectations of your CTO.
What's the best way to meet new people, and expand your social circle in a city? One way might be to try out GrubTonight , a newly launhced iPhone application from Venice-based Grubwithus, which allows users to find organized dinners in a local area, reserve a seat, and meet others at meals. The free application, which curently is only available in Los Angeles, let users find nearby dinners at local restaurants, where they can then reserve a seat and prepay for dinners, getting a chance to netwo
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