The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for LA startups for 9/16/2020 featuring funding details for Zwift, Endorsify, and much more.
The LA TechWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 9/8/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for LA startups for 9/8/2020 featuring funding details for Mustard and much more.
Brands That Have Permission: What If BMW Made Headphones and Apple Launched a Sneaker?
When I look at an established business strategically for the first time, I try to think of ways they could deploy their IP or brand in a different category. For example, the reason I have a signature sneaker with K-Swiss (even though I’m a businessman, not an athlete or a rapper) and the reason many companies have […]
Due Diligence and the Fallacy of Risk-Adjusted Returns
A 2008 paper “How Unlucky is 25-Sigma”, describes an interview with Goldman Sach’s then-CFO David Viniar who referred to their flagship fund’s 27% loss in August 2007 as a “25 Sigma event”. The paper goes on to analyze this statement and quickly shows that a 25-Sigma event would take place once in 1.309e+135 years, a […]
Business Complexity Goes Up Dramatically As You Scale
Most entrepreneurs are ready to declare success when they get that first surge of traction with a real customer. This is a good sign, but they have no idea that the hard work of scaling the business is still ahead of them.
10 Questions To Ask Before Selecting A Search Firm
I started out in business as a techy geek, so I understand why technologists starting a new venture spend so much effort getting the product just right. Yet I’ve learned over time that building the business is all about having the right team members. Thus I’m frustrated when I see founders pushing off recruiting, or […]
5 Best Starting Points for Increasing Overall Happiness
When I look at my surroundings I often feel a sense of solitude — not necessarily in a bad way, but not in a good way either. I’ve always been the sort of person who goes after what I believe in, despite the possibility of failure. To me, the worst outcome of all is knowing that you could […]
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10 Low Cost Business Resources for Entrepreneurs
As a business owner, what do you do when you’re seriously stuck, but have no boss or partner to go to for advice?
3 Initial Steps to Raising a Seed Round
Make sure you have these three things in place before opening your round. I am a true believer in having a bulletproof process for raising money. When I first set out to raise capital for my company Loopd, I did not have a formula. I wanted to go out into the market with a precise […]
Mobile Is Not Meant For Conversion
There are almost 2 billion mobile users in the world. For the first time, mobile usage had recently surpassed desktop usage. By 2020, it is projected that smartphone usage will grow to 4 billion worldwide (Ian Thiel, Optimizely). So apps are very much a part of our lives because we’re all mobile. We’re all a walking […]