Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 1, 2009

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. I used to always tell my development team, “you need to design a product that my dad could use.

Customer 280

Customer Technical Review Software Review Mexico 280

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Many companies don’t reach the next phase either because their leadership doesn’t adapt as an organization or because they don’t design processes that lead to scaled outcomes. So it makes me laugh to this day when I talk with a journalist or potential investor in the company and they ask flippantly, “How is MakeSpace a technology company?”

Operations 286

Operations New York City Technical Review Startup 286

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2016

We have have been funding agriculture technologies, water conservation, wireless electricity, aquaponics and so forth in addition to our standard investment themes in software, data, video and retail innovation.

Cofounder 207

Cofounder Differentiation Hosting Design 207

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

People said this about Ring (which went from startup to selling to Amazon > $1 billion in around 5 years), Facebook, YouTube, Airbnb, Uber, Twitter, Instagram and many other great behemoths of the technology industry. Ah, but Bird doesn’t have network effects! There is nothing viral! Anybody can launch a scooter service! Not really.

San Francisco 256

San Francisco Valuation Technical Review Los Angeles 256

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Let me start with the obvious baseline that most people probably know instinctively: Los Angeles is the 3rd largest technology startup ecosystem in the US. billion in venture capital to LA’s technology startups and 2014 will shatter that figure. When you begin to peel back the onion some surprising data presents itself.

Los Angeles 376

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Seattle 376

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

We would argue that our movies are world-class movies, just designed entirely for mobile.” Meg spoke about how Quibi first built out the technology platform and only then exposed it to content creators, and how technology is primary to the platform both in content creation as well as how customers will experience the content.

Los Angeles 244

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Mobile Video 244

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

My partner Steven Dietz created an internship program with a few of the leading LA-based universities designed to get 500 internships with the thesis that if they start with LA-based roles they’re more likely to stay after they graduate. And there’s much more of this to come.

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

In 2005 he was graduated and took a job in South Carolina working for technology company while he started his own web design company on the side. He started another company on the side while he was working during the day at a technology company. He spent a bunch of this time in Canada. But TWTFelipe is an entrepreneur.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Canada Green South Carolina 282

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

And they have access to some of the most talented technology entrepreneurs so this is a worthy goal for them. They are designed to help good companies to get access to investors but also to make bad companies look good. ” Therefore one goal of Y Combinator appears to be “get the highest price and best terms.”

Early Stage 361

Early Stage Deal Flow Investment Bankers Technical Review 361

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

And they have access to some of the most talented technology entrepreneurs so this is a worthy goal for them. They are designed to help good companies to get access to investors but also help to make bad companies look good. ” Therefore one goal of Y Combinator appears to be “get the highest price and best terms.”

Deal Flow 347

Deal Flow Early Stage Investment Bankers Technical Review 347

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

If you spent the 3 years perfecting some hugely differentiated technology IP that may also be different. Income statements are designed according to accounting standards that are designed to “match revenues & costs in the period for which they should be attributed.” ” Harsh, but reality.

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 19, 2011

He shows data that the overwhelming majority of major enterprise in the US is currently adopting or looking to adopt social networking technology. As an example of how dumb they were (for those that don’t remember) whenever you changed one field in a browser-designed program the entire screen had to refresh.

Web 355

Web AJAX Distribution HTML 355

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

And as tech founders have skewed younger over the years due to the need to raise less capital and the fact that startups are often more technology-based at their cores – the shifts to areas where younger founders want to live has happened all over the world. So Silicon Valley massively shifted to San Francisco. Thank you, Jordan.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Jordan Los Angeles Technical Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 23, 2010

I was an early user of Quora and like all new technologies they take a bit of playing with them for a while, discussing them with others and reflecting on them to let them sink in. The design, albeit not intuitive at first, was beautiful and in weird ways very graceful. really understand it. So in a way it has built in game mechanics.

Silicon Valley 301

Silicon Valley Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Software Review 301

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2010

until the technology matures?&#. Don’t try to defend every process you have or every design choice. I found that I was always more curious about issues like “why do you charge for your web hosting services this way when newer non-incumbent players do not?&# Let them see data.

Startup 288

Startup Merger Technical Review Framework 288

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 5, 2010

They walked through 4 minutes of PowerPoint garble (of a 5 minute pitch) before unveiling a beautifully designed UI. As I’m sure Pip.io would acknowledge – they needed to get to the demo more quickly. Jason let them run over their time slot by a long time – the demo was worth seeing and he obviously knew this.

San Francisco 254

San Francisco Technical Review Los Angeles Software Review 254

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

Rumored: Digital Sky Technologies. Quirky - Platform facilitating collaborative design of consumer products through an online community. My take was that this follows three trends: a) customer involvement in product design, b) mass customization [e.g. Many other people over paid for Chemdex, VerticalNet, Pets.com, etc.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

MySpace was: scantily dressed, teenaged, middle-America, design chaos and on ad steroids. At the top end is the business logic created by startups and established technology companies. Facebook had grown stratospherically from 2004-2007 to 100 million users and was everything that MySpace wasn’t.

Social Network 297

Social Network Networking Internet EC2 297

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Fortunately I was mostly a technology consultant, which meant that I coded computers, designed databases and planned system integration projects. I’m writing this post to make sure you’re all on that same playing field. Here’s how I learned my lesson: I started my life as a consultant.

Investment Bankers 415

Investment Bankers Mobile Software Review Japan 415

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2010

If you don’t already read Chris’s blog you should – it’s very well written, often takes a strong POV and speaks from an entrepreneur’s perspective but with a huge knowledge of the technology investors as well. Sometimes it’s to play around with new technology. He is both.

Product 348

Product Silicon Valley Oauth Design 348

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Warby Parker produces modern eyewear at affordable prices, Apple produces elegant, premium technology products, Netflix offers an enormous library of binge-worthy, unique video. better than anybody we had spoke with and she had the marketing chops to know how to communicate this to her market once she designed & built her products.

Curation 296

Curation Los Angeles Differentiation Channel 296

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2013

I’ve been involved with technology product design in one form or another for nearly 25 years and seen one mistake consistently repeated. The single biggest mistake most product teams make is building technology for what they believe the user would want rather than what the actual end-user needs. My philosophy is simply.

Product 408

Product San Francisco Green Technical Review 408

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2011

I use technology precisely to try and develop an intuitive feel about what will work and what won’t” The management team got it. Let’s see if there is anything we can learn about our behavior – good lessons or bad ones – that will inform our product design in the future.” The VCs snickered a bit.

Startup 313

Startup Guerilla Silicon Valley Portfolio 313

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 15, 2014

One really great experience was a discussion I had with the camera rolling with my good friend Dmitry Shapiro who founded the major YouTube competitor of its time (Veoh) that was sued into oblivion by Universal and who also founded a social network designed to promote pseudonymity. I first logged into Secret a few weeks after it launched.

Technical Review 329

Technical Review Reputation Naming Internet 329

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

It’s a very smartly designed debenture program. A local tech winner really creates a generational technology opportunity in the way nothing else can. There are two reasons you need local capital. Tent-pole Local Tech Companies – Seattle has them – Amazon & Microsoft. San Diego has Qualcomm. Austin has Dell.

Community 378

Community San Diego Silicon Valley Los Angeles 378

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 21, 2010

When to get a lawyer - If you plan to be a venture or angel backed technology company (what I mostly write about) the best time to start meeting and getting to know lawyers is long before you ever start your company. I know he’s smart but you wouldn’t hire a Javascript developer to do your database design – would you?

Southern California 318

Southern California Silicon Valley IP Stock Options 318

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice). The Montgomery Conference : one of the top technology events of the annual calendar in the United States and held every March.

IPO 242

IPO Venture Capital Private Placement Cofounder 242

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

This requires more than technology. It requires writers, actors, film crews, lighting, costume & set designs, make-up artists, post production, sound, editors and so on. ” Me, “ok, but who is going to provide your technology? As humans we like story telling. And we like to be entertained.

Silicon Valley 374

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Java 374

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Responses ranged from, “hey, they’re in a HUGE market&# to “it is an amazing company and their technology rocks.&# Huge structural under-employment in much of the country and full employment in some niche tech markets where it’s impossible to hire developers, designers or sales professionals. You feel it, too.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 16, 2009

Initially as a systems designer and programmer and post MBA as a strategy consultant. Some companies / products are designed for large organizations from day 1. Companies post the $5 / month product designed for self-service clients. Tags: Start-up Advice startup technology. Avoid elephants in your early stages.

Startup 389

Startup Early Stage Demand Channel 389

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

At the margin you can make yourself better at sales, product design, marketing, leadership, capital raising, etc. Brad Feld and his cohorts graduated in the late 80’s and worked through the 90’s when many more technology companies were built that favored super-bright, technical people.

Silicon Valley 289

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur United States Leadership 289

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2011

What do you think of the design elements? When commenting please state if you have specific skills in visual design, copy or similar. We wanted to stay true to our roots, which were in retail and financial services, both industries in which we invest heavily, albeit almost exclusively where there is a technology core.

Early Stage 260

Early Stage Lead Investor Portfolio Partner 260

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2012

Back in 2006/07 when I sold my company and then worked at Salesforce.com there were very few options in SF for technology folk to build their careers at big, growing companies. Technology innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. And sci-fi writers are but one example of the way society impacts technology. Today there’s many.

San Francisco 313

San Francisco Technology Los Angeles Incubator 313

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Creative – we’re a place of writers, directors, producers, musicians, costume designers, make-up artists, graphic artists, 3D modelers. An innovator in technology, especially monetization. ” To me, LA will always be a creative hub for TV, film, music, video games and now technology. Not derivative.

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

We started hanging out a bit and discussing technology and entrepreneurship. And after one meeting they started asking for his advice about marketing, customer engagement, product design, monetization – whatever. I reached out after the event to learn more.

Houston 150

Houston Cofounder Audience Business Model 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

After that you could tell that Greg was really “all in” on the LA technology community. In 2011 the company was sold to Nordstrom for $270 million in a deal that has been widely seen as a success for both buyer and seller. How can you do a job half time? Pretty well as it turns out.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

Out is the “cocktail only&# Twiistup and in is the new format of a conference that should take its rightful place on the national technology calendar. We are a city unique in merging the world’s best content with digital media and technology expertise. Tags: SoCal Stuff LA SoCal startup technology.

Silicon Valley 228

Silicon Valley Cofounder Hawaii Semantic 228