Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

.&# I took it to mean, “making decisions with small amounts of money (pennies) that end up making bad sense for affecting larger amounts of money (pounds, as in Great British Pounds).&# I thought of it as people who cut corners on small costs but paid dearly in terms of lost productivity on expensive staff.

Warrant 333

Warrant Germany France Cost 333

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

In all of these new product and cost-focused new trends, a big problem has emerged that all of these movements have not addressed. Let’s start with how much value you think you’ll create for your customer if they use your product in terms of hours saved, costs avoided, extra sales, better conversion rates or whatever.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

Traditional video had very high costs of distribution due to limited time slots of broadcast TV (we only had enough spectrum to support 3-4 channels). Much of network television can cost $100,000 / minute to produce. Producers can cost-effectively test formats and build fans as they go. Much of it already is. Not so fast.

Video 339

Video Technical Review Distribution Aggregator 339

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

The initial Apple/AT&T deal was of course limited to the geography in which AT&T operated and thus after its initial success Apple had a template for exclusivity agreements in other countries. Why Exclusivity Matters to Your Customers or Business Development Partners. ” Here’s what I mean.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 10, 2011

Each customer segment of your business needs to be analyzed to determine whether they are profitable enough given ongoing costs to serve them relative to the revenue you would receive and the retention money you’d have to money to keep them with your service. A 20% savings for a cost conscious consumer. If they were on the $9.99

Customer 287

Customer Technical Review Caching PR 287

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. “Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money? Growth, again.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

People who think of fund raising as a “distraction away from the core business” fundamentally don’t understand that running a business comprises of: Shipping products, selling to & servicing customers, marketing, HR, recruiting, financial reporting AND making sure you have enough money to support operations.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

I helped make this decision by “triangulating&# between our DBA, lead technical architect and our VP of Engineering (who had a better grasp of the financial costs & development costs of each decision). I could never have been involved in this decision without “dipping&# below my CTO to understand the details.

CTO Hire 308

CTO Hire Management Technical Review Part-Time VPE 308

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

As a starting point the board is intended to have legal and financial responsibilities to a few key constituencies: shareholders, debt holders, creditors, employees, government and major parties with whom the business operates.

Cofounder 217

Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

If you hire 6 senior sales reps in January at $120,000 / year salary then you’ve taken on an extra $60,000 per month in costs yet these sales people might not close new business 6 months. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you. million to fund operations in their first year of operations.

Stock Options 227

Stock Options Startup Dilution Venture Capital 227

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

They had interviewed telecom operators, handset manufacturers and corporate buyers. 40% of costs are labor, 40% are materials and 20% are overheads. 23% of all costs are inefficient. As scientific as that. I called another agency. They were more scientific. It becomes folklore.

Investment Bankers 415

Investment Bankers Mobile Software Review Japan 415

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

He presented a system where your search results would be ranked based on companies bidding for placement and where merchants would be charged on a “cost per click” basis (CPC). What was Bill Gross’s heretical idea as portrayed to the tech elite? and are guiding LA 2.0. But Is This Really That Surprising?

Los Angeles 376

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Seattle 376

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2009

The company had less than $5 million in revenue yet we had a multi-tab spreadsheet doing activity-based costing on our customer service staff, operations and technology. The CEO had 60-page Powerpoint presentations analyzing every micro detail of the business.

Entrepreneur 414

Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Technical Review CTO Hire 414

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2010

The next major entrant is the Android platform, an open source mobile operating system that has led to the introduction of several handsets that are based on this OS and many more to be released over time. banner ads on a CPM, CPC or a Cost-Per-Install [CPI] basis). It’s also a great example of why transparency is so important.

Mobile 282

Mobile Management Southern California Application Development 282

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

They are the classic case of the Innovator’s Dilemma because they fundamentally can’t innovate on their product and can’t lower costs or their business craters. I’m a stickler for focus, being efficient with capital and building out operational excellence, so our strategy initially was very constrained.

Video 150

Video DC Chicago Washington 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

Howard Morgan earned a PhD in Operations Research/Computer Science in 1968. They chose the name First Round Capital because they thought capital would be deployed most efficiently at smaller seed stage rounds considering the cost to build an internet business had come down drastically. In 2008 they raised a much larger fund $132.5

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

When your competition does irrational things to grow fueled by low-cost capital it makes it harder for you to compete by playing by the conventional rules. Building billion-dollar businesses requires 7-10 years which means operating through at least one full economic cycle, if not two.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Costs of product on YouTube content is literally 99% cheaper than traditional TV and; Distribution of content can now go viral and can predictably distributed via social networks. Hits driven businesses come when production costs or distribution costs are so high that you need a home run to cover the huge costs of development.

Silicon Valley 374

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Java 374

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

While the company continues to perform well it has come at a cost. But they were the lucky company because there was an investor that believed in the high-growth scenario and was willing to continue funding at any cost. VC’s fund their salaries and operations through management fees, which typically equal 2% per year.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2010

But they’re big and they have very experienced operators like Brett Brewer running things. how to cut redundant costs. - To make acquisitions work you need to know things like: - how to structure deals. - how to incentivize management teams to stay / deliver value. - how to integrate technology, systems, people and culture. -

Merger 276

Merger Technical Review Early Stage Dilution 276

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5 million in team costs to code, launch, manage, market & sell our software. We paid 10% of the normal costs for the software and that money was for software support. A 90% disruption in cost spawns innovation – believe me.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

But how to mobilize same-day deliver cost effectively? The company recently announced a partnership with General Growth Properties (GGP), one of the largest shopping mall operators in the U.S., On the other hand, you can view local physical stores as depot centers for same-day delivery. That’s where Deliv comes in.

B2B 331

B2B eCommerce B2C Differentiation 331

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2014

The drive to succeed at all costs. Yet somehow many people think that startups intended to operate at massive, Internet scale can be casual affairs. When second place isn’t good enough because we live in winner-take-most markets. The desire to be better than anybody else in one’s field. In our society we revere athletes.

Founder 394

Founder Non-Compete Venture Capital Leadership 394

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

How to manage costs - One of the biggest frustrations that people have with lawyers are unexpected costs. I always try operate on the “Fixed Fee +&# arrangement. In every firm there are A, B and C players. Good people and evil people. Focus on the partner you would be working with.

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2015

YouTube takes too high of a revenue split (45% vs. 30% that Apple and many other distribution companies take – FWIW, YouTube argues this is because their costs are much higher since they host and stream the video). Notably I said: You have to have owned & operated websites (O&O) to drive traffic to. But think of this.

SEM 150

SEM Los Angeles Silicon Valley Acquisition 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

Each VC has their own take on which services to provide and mostly they’re free but some smaller VCs charge portfolio companies for use of these services but usually at a cheap cost. As many of us are ex operators I think it intellectually suited us. Internal Operations.

Portfolio 150

Portfolio PR Partner Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

. “Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator.

Silicon Valley 293

Silicon Valley Technical Review Southern California Angel Investor 293

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

I’m not saying that VC behavior is always impeccably honorable but the truth is that there are so few VCs and the reputational costs of bad behavior are now so high that becoming known as somebody who leaks confidential information can have immediate negative consequences. The wolves operate. The reality is that you cannot.

SEC 352

SEC Venture Capital Early Stage Cofounder 352

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder CTO Hire 380

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

In 1995, while in high school, Seth wanted to start a business scanning paper documents for companies, but realized it was a non-starter when he learned that a scanner costs $4k. Seth raised $100k in angel funding to fuel operations. Seth’s interest in helping others grew out of his lack of having a mentor.

Connecticut 286

Connecticut Cofounder Silicon Valley Web 286

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 25, 2015

The killer chart is below: In the article it raved particularly about the WaPo’s amazing mobile app and how Bezos personally intervened to get the team to improve loading times – whatever the short-term costs. “His focus on customer experience has become a near mandate within the news operation.

DC 150

DC Washington Mobile New York 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Think about the tension between media companies and cable operators like last year when Viacom threatened to pull Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, etc. If you’re in the market for pure functionality and you value the lowest costs, Amazon will always be a great bet. This is true whether it’s physical products or media products.

Curation 296

Curation Los Angeles Differentiation Channel 296

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

And when her assets were tapped she rented out her bedroom and even her couch on Airbnb to afford her year-one operations. She sold many of her possessions on Craigslist and even sold her paintings and materials at less than cost. Without this money she wouldn’t have been able to finance operations. More on that later.

Silicon Valley 363

Silicon Valley Cofounder Entrepreneur Startup 363

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2013

Tells me she wants to do operational stuff so she joins a small team of people running City Search. About the need to be careful about being the low-cost provider of physical products but risking not providing products that mom’s can feel safe using with their children. You can imagine the narrative … Native Angelino.

Haiti 398

Haiti San Francisco Startup Turkey 398

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Reasons: cost of sales executives, long sales cycles, deep functional requirements. I look for firms in which some of the partners (my partner) have operational experience and know what it’s like to wake up every day and be an entrepreneur. Biggest lessons …. But not one VC thought I should go after big, enterprise clients.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

For many businesses you should keep your costs low & your capital raises low until you discover whether you are really on to a big idea where there is market demand. Every conversation about fund raising should start with what your current operational needs are and the stage of your business. Are you in the “lean&# phase?

Pre-Money Valuation 303

Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Valuation PR 303

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

The best ones by now have an amazing finance leader who often doubles as head of internal operations. But at what cost? The best ones bring in more executive leadership so you can appropriate allocate resources across sales, marketing, product, engineering and support. Other B-round scaling issues?

Startup 381

Startup PR Finance Hiring 381