Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

They have have raised $2-3 million, built a product that has some amount of market traction and got to annualized revenues of around $1 million. If you spent the 3 years perfecting some hugely differentiated technology IP that may also be different. Is it one product line or multiple? If you don’t, somebody else WILL!”

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2011

If you think it’s location-based services / find out where your friends are at while you’re out – let’s talk about whether we need to incorporate that into our product. I logged into a room to listen to music & see what the product was all about. Is our product not as pretty? But I saw turntable.fm

Startup 313

Startup Guerilla Silicon Valley Portfolio 313

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

They often make great team members such as head of products, CTO, head of sales, CFO, etc. And we’re lucky because they deliver many of the great products, services and content that we consume in our lives every day. Great companies are comprised of great individual point people or functional leaders. I finally called bullshit.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur CTO Hire South America Salary 293

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

One beautiful thing about being a private company is you get to test your pricing, your packaging, your product roadmap, your executive team and your fund raising strategy without public scrutiny or competitors gaining this knowledge. That’s a huge problem. Information leaks. The Pottery Barn Rule Can Save You.

Cap Table 150

Cap Table Cofounder Silicon Valley Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 2, 2015

I can’t tell you how many people have thanked me for this advice and say their productivity increased exponentially. It freed up Ophir to grow out our sales organization, to work more closely with agencies, to innovate on product and to raise capital. Legal threats from other IP holders? Here’s the dilemma.

Operations 150

Operations Metrics Early Stage Non-Compete 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. They have created two internal technology “products&# and wanted to figure out how they could turn their services business into a product business that could be financed. This team is talented.

Silicon Valley 332

Silicon Valley IP Dividend Finance 332

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

Paul Graham’s assertion that “any startup founder can tell you the most common question they hear from investors is not about the founders or the product, but “who else is investing?&# When I’m in, I’m in. rings true to me. Investors who commit early deserve to have a lower price.

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 8, 2016

It started with a series of books and is now a multi-billion dollar franchise with products, theme parks and games. But the problem with most games companies is that they build products more than character franchises. We bought the narrative and backed the team at Seriously, whose hit first product is called Best Fiends.

IP 150

IP Revenue Campaign Video 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

You don’t exactly get to make the margin you might like but as a candy bar supplier you need to be there to build awareness of your product with consumers if you want to be a large, mass-market product. Give access to music that is legal, avoiding lawsuits and ensuring revenue isn’t captured by other IP owners.

Networking 366

Networking Media Distribution Video 366

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 17, 2012

I am a product of one so maybe there’s resonance there. Well – he had this awesome platform that was super technical – great IP. .” I’ve written about similar topics: 1. Entrepreneurs Should be Respected, Not Loved. Why I Give Direct Feedback. But they’re seldom country club kids.

Vesting 336

Vesting IP Restful Entrepreneur 336

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

Moonlight Responsibly - If you are still employed please be very careful not to use your company’s resources to produce your product and please do not work on your next idea during business hours. To the best of my knowledge US law allows you to work on your own resources and in your own hours and let you personally own your IP.

Founder Vesting 365

Founder Vesting Intellectual Property Stock Options IP 365

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 7, 2011

I’m not an investor – I just love the product. In the rare instances where I get a troll I’m able to delete their comment and block them by email address or IP address. I’ve written before about my love for Disqus. So now Facebook has a new commenting system. But I don’t currently have a big troll problem.

Social Network 287

Social Network Reputation IP Audience 287

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Before this South Korean wonder spread across the globe I had written about a trend in global audiences that exists when the costs of production are nearly zero and the costs of distribution are also nearly free. think Amazon) and therefore hits with high production costs were more suited to the medium. billion views. think Apple.

Video 380

Video Audience Global Distribution 380

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

When the tech market is done over heating, or over hyping or whatever is going on right now, there will be a select few companies who have built differentiated products, hired talented teams, raised sufficient capital, established good operational processes and have strategic insight into where their market is heading.

Turkey 302

Turkey Differentiation IP Technical Review 302

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 29, 2010

Mark Zuckerberg seems to be me to be one of the most talented young technology professionals of his generation and seems to have an amazing vision for technology and product. It amazes me how quickly a modest success story gets replicated and any initial product / market advantages get narrowed. You need to fight for every inch.

Entrepreneur 296

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Term Sheet France 296

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 6, 2010

Imagine the “typical&# deal – somebody comes into a VC’s office, they’ve never met, they’re highly referred by a friend and they’re pitching a product demo and a PPT. If I see your alpha product then I can judge how it develops over time. I’m personally 70% management, 30% product.

Early Stage 360

Early Stage Startup Venture Capital Seed Stage 360

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

I learned how to better run a product management process. I learned how to integrate customers into our product development process. I wrote a large check to one of them for a startup with no product and no real plan. They seed funded my second company and even let me buy some IP in exchange for debt to get started.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Hiring Software Review Stock Options 285

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

He listed all of the product releases that were up coming, the customers that were in the pipeline and where he saw his competition moving. They haven’t launched their next gen product – watch this space. It’s why my investment philosophy is called, “ the entrepreneur thesis.&#. No Dave S. = Elder Statesmen.

Seattle 317

Seattle Silicon Valley Technical Review Los Angeles 317

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

To interconnect these computers we needed IP-based telecommunications equipment build by the likes of Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. Not all of these products & companies came from Silicon Valley but the overwhelming majority did. And then the world changed. I’ve outlined some of the changes in the following posts: 1.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Kansas City Startup Venture Capital 390

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2015

They were then sued for trademark infringement by a foreign company who had no product, no customers and no employees in the US. This also happens out of “startup weekends” where it’s unclear who contributed to the IP and where many people don’t continue with the idea beyond the first 30 days.

Vesting 150

Vesting Cofounder IP Stock Options 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

The start of the argument is that you need to separate using the Internet into “infrastructure & cloud services&# (basically the protocols of the Internet such as HTTP, TCP/IP, SMTP, etc. + I happily use the product. web storage, elastic computing) from how you consume the Internet as a user (the front end – HTML).

Web 300

Web HTML AJAX China 300

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

When I meet with Tom offline it’s obvious that he immediately is thinking about product issues, technology trends, funding rounds, etc. Angels will largely take a product risk (they bet on the product or idea and your ability to build it). “A” The team, of course, is just as important as the product or idea.

Angel Investor 302

Angel Investor Cofounder Southern California .Net 302