Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

As the desk-based Internet emerged it was initially sold through telecom carriers (after players like AOL and EarthLink innovated the market). Although the carriers made a lot of money initially by selling dial-up Internet services, customers never took their software because, well, it sucked. ” Here’s what I mean.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He explained how users at the time were encountering “social engineering threats” rather than “technical threats” and that his company took an “East Coast” approach to the problem as they built an automated system that rated websites. Such that during that time, Chris “learned how to learn.”.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Cofounder API 281

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

By the way, this was still pre-Netscape, pre-Internet. You know, the weird thing, Derek, and I should probably let you speak some time, but I was deeply technical when I went into Andersen consulting, and I got paid much less than engineers who graduated, because I had a degree in economics. Engineering vs. non-engineering. [00:10:32]

Cofounder 337

Cofounder Technical Cofounder San Diego Startup 337

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 5, 2010

The two most ambitious projects were ThereNow and IQ Engines. Jason let them run over their time slot by a long time – the demo was worth seeing and he obviously knew this. I wrote about how to give demos in a previous post. They cameras have the ability to show 360 degrees and can zoom closely.

San Francisco 254

San Francisco Technical Review Los Angeles Software Review 254

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

it is also the title of a fabulous book from Internet 1.0 In startup world low GM almost always equals death which is why many Internet retailers have failed or are failing (many operated at 35% gross margins). Think DropBox, Airbnb, Uber, Maker Studios.

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Before we filmed the segment we had the chance to chat over lunch over the direction of the Internet and how social was changing the fabric of the web. In addition to Seth, the core team he pulled together consisted of Elaine, a product person with front-end engineering skills and sharp design sense, and Sandy a back-end server engineer.

Connecticut 286

Connecticut Cofounder Silicon Valley Web 286

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2014

We graduate more engineers in our greater region than anywhere else in the US. We have top 25 engineering schools than anywhere else, too. We have a large number of highly talented engineers and entrepreneurs now developing companies in our local market. Buying local teams with talented engineering groups. Maker Studios.

Los Angeles 318

Los Angeles Silicon Valley LP Warrant 318

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 25, 2011

And anybody who follows this blog knows that I believe television disruption has already begun and it is more likely to resemble Internet content than streaming long-form content to our living rooms. But when you produce on Internet you can test your content in the same way that Silicon Valley firms test early versions of their software.

Silicon Valley 291

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Internet 291

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

The fact that today’s Internet bubble does not represent all companies does not disprove its existence. Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! But they also often have a rippling effect on broader markets as all of our economies seem to be intertwined these days. I said that at the Founder Showcase, too.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

We knew we had a valuable product that an acquiring company would gain greatly from and a world-class engineering and product team that would be valued by a buyer. And watching Jonathan to continue to build on the product vision that started 4 years ago from his desire to fix a large part of the Internet’s inefficiencies.

Technical Review 303

Technical Review Cofounder Analytics Founder 303

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

They bought distribution and engineering talent. You go onto the Internet and can control what people hear on terrestrial radio. It offers Internet radio targeted advertising and is growing really well. No big surprise. I talked about the platform moves of Twitter and why it should be expected. Good deal for all.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital Affiliate Valuation San Francisco 271

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

In an eCommerce or Internet Services business it is often the marketing costs (if purchased online) and in an enterprise software company it is often marketing plus enterprise sales reps. CAC Let me start with the easy stuff and graduate to the punch line in the final section. The first input is CAC. Customer acquisition cost.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

In 2010 the City of Los Angeles started trying to crack down on tax receipts of Internet startups allocating them to the least favorable gross-receipts tax bracket taking up their city tax by 500%. We can continue to innovate in LA or watch our jobs and our engineers move up North. The result? Thousands of jobs.

Los Angeles 325

Los Angeles San Francisco LP Austin 325

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2013

My colleagues that graduated with engineering degrees from UCSD were paid $31,000 – 15% more. I had a friend who joined at the same time with an engineering degree from the same university as me and held jobs in the restaurant sector in college. This was pre Internet. She WAS an engineer and plenty technical.

Marketing 385

Marketing Europe Engineer Networking 385

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

A market leader in content, music, entertainment, textiles, engineering, aerospace and trade. Home to the Internet’s first true “accelerator,” Idealab led by Bill Gross. Deviant Art, led by Angelo Sotira, which is one of the largest online communities on the Internet [Hollywood]. North of the 101].

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

By now we all know that the largest part of the online spend has been SEM (search engine marketing) where people buy CPC (cost per click) links to display alongside the “organic&# search results in the search engine. Internet consumption is obviously growing massively on mobile devices.

Advertising 284

Advertising Las Vegas Affiliate RSS 284

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

They raised around $350 million to try and sell cars direct over the Internet. Scott left the company, which eventually IPO’d and became Internet Brands. Spread through word-of-mouth as the company has no sales team, all engineers. And it carries no inventory. Total raised: $125mm See: TechCrunch.

San Francisco 248

San Francisco Venture Capital Analytics Government 248

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

You don’t have a pool of thousands of Google engineers to hire when they’re ready to leave the mother ship. But ultimately we’re on the Internet to communicate, buy stuff, become informed and be entertained. You can find very talented technology executives. You don’t. Get over it.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Technology Los Angeles Southern California 290

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

It is basically a return to the type of VC that was done 20 years ago long before the craziness of the Internet boom that skewed things so greatly. How about teaching engineering at Stanford and seeing the best & brightest before they’re even out in the wild. Do you have access to that kind of deal flow?

Silicon Valley 306

Silicon Valley Deal Flow Angel Investor Cofounder 306

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

If YouTube really cares about dominating the future of Internet video it should take less because at 45% it will only encourage video producers to seek alternate distribution and will make it easier for competitors to emerge. I agree with YouTube (that they provide more (hosting, ad sales, etc.) This is always how we saw Maker Studios.

Networking 366

Networking Media Distribution Video 366

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2010

and his personality type seemed to be as the guy who built a wonderful, warm and fuzzy culture of purple at this new-fangled Internet kinda company. In the same way that AOL dithered and allowed us to become the Internet darlings we, too, avoided the big, company changing decisions. and I only met Jerry once. We were innovating.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley United States Technical Review 330

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

I’m no prude, it’s just unpleasant to have stuff like this plastered on the internet about you. “Congratulations … Your post have [sic] made it on front page of Hacker news … lot of good engineers leaves you after they worked for you. See definition: ad hominem. From Ji [last name withheld].

Aggregator 258

Aggregator Naming Early Stage Email 258

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

The Bridge Between Online Services & The Internet: AOL. It was an online community like CompuServe and eventually started offering people dial-up access to the Internet for a monthly fee. They had a proprietary browser, their own search engine, their own content, chat rooms, email system, etc. And then came AOL.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Internet Technical Review 318

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2010

Funnily enough I was at the Twiistup conference yesterday and I was chatting with an engineer whom I really like and he told me that he enjoyed reading this series but that now he wasn’t sure he was ready to see me because he wasn’t sure that he scored highly enough on all attributes. The list is getting quite long.

Entrepreneur 296

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Term Sheet France 296

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2012

We sat down for an hour to talk about why what GaiKai built was able to overcome its much better funded rival and to dispel the myth that great engineering teams don’t exist in Southern California. GaiKai had 50 such engineers, which was a large part of its success. Everyone follow him @scottedwalker.

Southern California 279

Southern California Detroit Los Angeles California 279

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

They were going to bring the Internet to your mobile phones ushering in the era of “m-commerce.&# Gag. App is one step forward, two steps back – In 1999 I launched my first company, BuildOnline, a SaaS-based (back then we were ASP’s) content management platform for large-scale engineering and construction projects.

Flash 326

Flash Mobile Application Development Cloud 326

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Or maybe you’re trying to dramatically change the way TV is consumed, like Boxee or TV advertising works on the Internet, like Hulu. The fact that they can be both an economic engine and a driver for social change is awesome. But be sure that along your ascent they’re going to notice you and respond.

Entrepreneur 330

Entrepreneur Tunisia Egypt Iran 330

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

The two most prominent – Internet Capital Group (ICG) and CMGi – raised the bar for others and every firm in the Valley seemed to have a new war for services. Other firms like Google bring massive resources to design or engineering and as as corporate VC can offer things normal VC firms can’t offer.

Portfolio 150

Portfolio PR Partner Early Stage 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

The “Infrastructure Phase” of the Internet … Before we had an Internet startup explosion we needed infrastructure which spawned the original tech startup community in Silicon Valley. The “Three C’s” of the Internet … The infrastructure and web services phases of the Internet are built.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Kansas City Startup Venture Capital 390

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

Mike believed that search was an essential part of the Internet experience, and he guessed that it would evolve towards commercial search. Mike believed that any valuable page was going to be monetizable on a cost-per-click basis in relation to every page on the Internet. He decided to join. How Quigo Went Head-to-Head With Google.

Semantic 302

Semantic Acquisition Valuation Angel Investor 302

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

We were talking about a company, Factual (disclosure my firm is an investor), which was founded by one of LA’s most talented Internet entrepreneurs, Gil Elbaz , who as co-founder of Applied Semantics (purchased by pre-IPO Google for $102 million and now Google AdSense) is responsible for a large portion of the Internet’s monetization.

Silicon Valley 313

Silicon Valley Southern California Los Angeles Semantic 313

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

You can find a good start-up lawyer to help or if you want to do it on the cheap there are tons of websites you can find on the Internet to help. It you have a great software engineer that’s awesome. It isn’t expensive and the admin isn’t too great. You can probably get loads of information on Legal Zoom also.

Founder Vesting 365

Founder Vesting Intellectual Property Stock Options IP 365

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 28, 2011

5 engineers. I’m looking to back technology companies so I naturally have this bias and I care deeply about product design, the ability of the team to have a good sense of what is working on the Internet & mobile and thus to make the necessary changes in the market as market conditions change. Nothing else.

Hiring 325

Hiring Early Stage Valuation Engineer 325

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

There is all sorts of advice on the Internet about how to raise capital. I’ve raised in boom markets and when everybody thought the Internet was a fraud. And the great monetization engines of the Internet were built in LA – Overture (AdWords) & Applied Semantics (AdSense).

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

Of course this can be done and of course I am a big proponent of the rise of startup centers across the country as the Internet has moved from the “infrastructure phase” to the “application phase” dominated by the three C’s: content, communications and commerce. Locally we call it “the Snapchat effect.”

Community 369

Community Silicon Valley Chicago Boston 369

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2011

from winning the Internet portal wars. Sure, if Zuckerberg thought that check-ins were the single most important part of his future business and put 200 engineers on the problem and all of their market might, they’d squash FourSquare like a bug. And we’ll build the best discovery engine to find the best content.”. Or Box.net.

SMS 325

SMS Non-Compete Differentiation Social Network 325

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2016

But I think computer vision will be much more profound as our long-term human-computer interface and I think will dwarf “wearables” in the field people annoyingly call IoT (Internet of Things). The CTO, Tor Ivry , heads engineering out of Israel.

Jordan 150

Jordan CTO Hire Cofounder 150