SoCal CTO

JANUARY 2, 2013

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. However, I often wish that I had someone more experienced both in marketing and working in a startup environment that I could go to for advice.

CTO Coach 259

CTO Coach Mentor Startup Technical Advisors 259

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

The most successful entrepreneurs are those with multiple real-life experiences, who have personal exposure to markets where opportunities are being left on the table. Take advantage of inside and outside advisers at school. Most universities also bring in outside advisors to mentor budding entrepreneurs.

Technical Advisors 90

Technical Advisors Startup Course Entrepreneur 90

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

Research your market. I know it’s obvious but I’m always surprised how many people just start building products without thinking enough about the market. DO NOT start with product, start with the market. If not, at least find someone really technical that you trust to help act as an adviser to you.

Startup 365

Startup Technical Advisors IP Ideas 365

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2020

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Outsourcing your core competency does not work.

Technical Advisors 123

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Startup High Tech 123

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 20, 2020

Most small businesses I advise still rely on traditional advertising models, assuming they can create enough media “noise” to get customers attention and sway them. You don’t realize that person-to-person noise now dominates all channels through social media, effectively hiding business marketing messages.

Marketing 130

Marketing Technical Advisors Social Media Media 130

socalTECH

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Accelerator programs--like YCombinator in Silicon Valley, and TechStars in Colorado--have come to the forefront of the minds of entrepreneurs as a way to boost their ideas quickly into the market, find funding, and into existence. Everything they need to launch and grow their business.

Technical Advisors 176

Technical Advisors Startup Southern California Los Angeles 176

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

by Michael Woolf that is worth any startup founder reading to get a sense of perspective on the reality warp that is startup world during a frothy market such as 1997-1999, 2005-2007 or 2012-2014. We’re going to start aggressively spend money on marketing our product. (it is also the title of a fabulous book from Internet 1.0

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 5, 2014

But as I rose in my career (and post MBA) I moved into a role in which I was to advise board-level executives on topics where I was expected to rapidly become an expert. Some areas were easy because they were technical and the answer was knowable or estimate-able. We are their sparring partners, their sounding boards. It is unknowable.

Entrepreneur 337

Entrepreneur Technical Advisors Startup Venture Capital 337

Eric Greenspan

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

First Data of Santa Barbara has offered to extend below market rates to current accredited businesses like yours – again, just like they did for your BBB. Please advise. link] we have been unable to resolve this issue due to technical issues on your site and yet this remains on our profile. This amounts to more than $4000.00

Santa Barbara 265

Santa Barbara Technical Advisors Email Technical Review 265

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Outsourcing your core competency does not work.

Technical Advisors 105

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Startup High Tech 105

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

If you’re thinking about joining as the director of marketing, product management manager, senior architect, international business development lead, etc. I advised against the SF role because it was a bigger company and his role would be pushing paper from one side of his desk to the other. Let’s face it.

Startup 418

Startup Technical Advisors Venture Capital Santa Monica 418

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2020

Include any empirical evidence--including market research or technical analysis, if that's appropriate--in order to bolster your case about why you believe you will succeed. If you don't have a team on staff, then a banker is going to want to hear about outsourcing and advisors. An impressive team.

Technical Advisors 162

Technical Advisors Tips Startup Equity 162

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Len Short is truly an online marketing pioneer, heading up marketing at Charles Schwab, AOL and then (PRODUCT)RED. Before his career moved online, Len worked on major marketing campaigns for credit card companies and rolled out MCI’s highly successful “Friends and Family” marketing campaign.

Google 220

Google Technical Advisors Technical Review Equity 220

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 6, 2021

Based on my experience advising new entrepreneurs as well as more mature businesses, I recommend the following strategies for building business momentum, while still optimizing the limited resources of every small business: Find more customers that like what you do best. The company has since gone public, and is still a market leader.

Technical Review 160

Technical Review Technical Advisors Startup Mentor 160

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

If you remember your history the market crashed the next week. By mid September the entire market was constipated. History repeated itself in September 2008 with that market crash. If anything changed (stock market crash, real estate crash, somebody trying to buy Salesforce.com, whatever) I could end up with goose eggs.

Venture Capital 301

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Technical Advisors 301

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 22, 2023

Include any empirical evidence--including market research or technical analysis, if that's appropriate--in order to bolster your case about why you believe you will succeed. If you don't have a team on staff, then a banker is going to want to hear about outsourcing and advisors. An impressive team.

Equity 121

Equity Technical Advisors Funding Ideas 121

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I would argue that this mostly consists of consumer Internet companies (although not exclusively) and it is predominantly early-stage people who are product gurus and have a mildly technical bend to them. Something like, &# I was thinking about jumping into the demo first before discussing the market. How big is the market?

Venture Capital 299

Venture Capital Slides Technical Advisors Startup 299

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 18, 2018

In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. You need to have a technical genius on the team to get your startup product off the ground. Outsourcing your core competency does not work.

Technical Advisors 57

Technical Advisors Startup Outsource Development High Tech 57

socalTECH

AUGUST 28, 2017

I tapped my co-founder, John Haro, who I worked for at Agency.com, and at another mobile marketing company, and we talked about the idea, ideated, and I brought him on as co-founder. He and I connected, and walked through PartySlate and what we were doing, and he immediately said he wanted to invest and become an advisor to the company.

Technical Advisors 100

Technical Advisors Technical Review Metrics Startup 100

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

In my business of mentoring new entrepreneurs and advising small company owners, I recognize that most don’t start as experienced leaders, and most don’t realize that people leadership is a primary key to their future success. Building a business is not a one-person job, and leading by edict rarely works today.

Develop 124

Develop Development Technical Advisors Satisfaction 124

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Include any empirical evidence--including market research or technical analysis, if that's appropriate--in order to bolster your case about why you believe you will succeed. If you don't have a team on staff, then a banker is going to want to hear about outsourcing and advisors. An impressive team.

Technical Advisors 80

Technical Advisors Startup Equity Ideas 80

Tech.Co

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Specifically, the program was designed to provide backing to women founders building product-centric businesses – including those developing, marketing, or selling digital, physical, or hybrid products. To improve your chances, we’d advise researching the grantor and focusing on how your venture’s goals align with theirs.

Technical Review 167

Technical Review Technical Advisors Design News 167

Tech Zulu Event

JULY 28, 2012

From visualization to conception, and actually taking the product to market, a company usually takes about 1-2 years to create. The team needed would consist of at least 1 non-technical business person (me) and 2 or more technical people—designer and developer. We had exactly 54 hours! Pitch and form teams! Pivot, Pivot, Pivot!

Startup 99

Startup Technical Advisors Ideas USC 99

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2018

In my years of advising startups, and also as an occasional angel investor, I still recommend this set of best practices to prepare you for platform applications: Formalize a business entity immediately. Market research from credible third parties, such as Gartner Group, is also critical to success.

Platform 94

Platform Equity Invest Technical Advisors 94

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 27, 2013

Include any empirical evidence--including market research or technical analysis, if that''s appropriate--in order to bolster your case about why you believe you will succeed. If you don''t have a team on staff, then a banker is going to want to hear about outsourcing and advisors. An impressive team.

Technical Advisors 75

Technical Advisors Entrepreneur Equity Ideas 75

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2011

Our own subsidiary, of a major technology company, started to repair and service competitive products in order to maintain our own technical staff and service capabilities. A successful sales person wanted to become more familiar with the international market and requested a transfer to the Latin American sales group, based in the US.

Startup 90

Startup Technical Advisors Sales Examples 90

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 17, 2018

Most of the entrepreneurs I advise today are ready to declare success when they get that first surge of traction with a real customer. You need to find investors for funding, vendors for volume manufacturing, processes for repeatable execution, as well as marketing and distribution to attract customers far beyond your pilot rollout.

Technical Advisors 83

Technical Advisors Tool Software Product 83

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

I wrote this conundrum and the need to take charge of how the market define your skills in my much-read blog post on “ personal branding.” ” If you don’t create the message about yourself, the market will. And if you want to be a CEO one day you need the messaging to reflect that.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2018

As a self-made entrepreneur and former chairman of Diamond Resorts International, he asserts that the five biggest companies by market value today, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, aren’t really tech, but hospitality companies.

Technical Advisors 82

Technical Advisors Artificial Inteligence Customer Custom 82

InfoChachkie

JUNE 25, 2009

Like most mature markets, the legal profession is highly segmented with respect to the services provided and markets served. Your lawyer is a trusted advisor, but in the end, you run your business, your lawyer does not. Even so, the majority of firms focus on servicing well-established BDC’s. but They Make Great Guard Dogs.

Technical Advisors 124

Technical Advisors Technical Review IP Patents 124

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2019

Steve Jobs started his technical career creating circuit boards at Atari, before joining Steve Wozniak to build personal computers in his garage. I advise owners that they have to know when to give up a business, as well as when to buy one. Recognize career growth requires changing with the business.

Technical Advisors 75

Technical Advisors Startup Satisfaction Customer 75

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2018

The list would include Howard Schultz, a marketer working for a Seattle coffee bean roaster when a trip to Milan convinced him to jump ship to create upscale espresso cafes that he found all over Italy; and maybe Steve Jobs, who started on the night shift at Atari. Focus on customer value in every job.

Startup 52

Startup Technical Advisors Entrepreneur IBM 52

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2010

Our own subsidiary, of a major technology company, started to repair and service competitive products in order to maintain our own technical staff and service capabilities. A successful sales person wanted to become more familiar with the international market and requested a transfer to the Latin American sales group, based in the US.

Technical Advisors 48

Technical Advisors Sales Startup Coach 48

Tech.Co

MAY 22, 2018

.” “[Founders underestimate] how difficult it is to get a deal done, and how few deals get funded out of how many deals that are pitched,” said Thomas Flake , Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of bcause , and who has been on both sides of the table. It’s validating that there is a market for their idea. Know Your Stuff.

Tips 70

Tips Help Slides Technical Review 70

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

Web Development & Marketing Technology) Exit: evolved into L90 (next company) Lesson: What you dont know cant stop you. Go-to-Market 5. We provide turnkey digital messaging appliances for enterprises, service providers and software developers to send marketing, e-commerce, CRM and customer service email. Startup 3.0: Be scrappy.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

Jason Nazar

APRIL 7, 2011

What’s the Remedy: Learn & apply any current marketable skills. You take no interest nor show any curiosity in how technical systems are built or maintained, and Engineering is the least valued/respected part of your organization. The WannaBe Board of Advisor. Business Dolts Who Devalue Engineers.

Technical Advisors 112

Technical Advisors Startup Social Media Ideas 112

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2010

The CEO weighs in with his perspectives, the head of product management disputes his conclusions and the marketing VP has a different take. Because the formation of a business is so dependent on “product / market fit&# these are the critical roles for me. CEO, VP Products and CTO must all be in the physical location.

Technical Advisors 335

Technical Advisors Outsource Development Offshore Startup 335