The promised to follow up with: calls, using your product, talking to customers or “noodle on things.” Despite best intentions they probably won’t follow up on their actions. Why don’t VC’s follow up? Plus, now they need to Tweet, This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC .” 8221;  Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough.  Some

Let me start by saying I’m a huge business book cynic.  I But Net had told me that he picked up some valuable lessons from the book, so I thought, “WTF? So people diligently put in their hours every year, brag about how little vacation they’ve taken and try to save up for 45 years so that one day in their late 60’s (or in today’s era 70’s) they can do what they’ve always dreamed of.  They A couple of years ago I read the popular book, “The Four Hour Workweek ” by Tim Ferriss.  It It was recommended to me by my friend,

Unfortunately my wife reads my blog and she’d log in and add comments to dispel this rumor (she keeps me honest .  Like When added to my volume of Facebook messages, LinkedIn requests, blog comments and Tweets my head is definitely below water.  So I scan it for the most important messages to be sure nothing urgent has popped up. I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “ Deferred Life Plan ” and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I

Let’s start with a discussion of existing social networks and then how to approach people on them. Second, I don’t want to clutter up the stream of information that I have in my Facebook newsfeed with information on people with whom I don’t have a relationship. Usually it’s because your conversations steam looks interesting, your link goes to an interesting blog or website or you work at a company that interests me.  I I sometimes think that certain advice is BGO (blinding glimpse of the obvious) and doesn’t warrant mentioning.  But But then

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs.  After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company.  My blog was wiped out.  I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org. I

Good idea & plan: You must start with a good idea and a PowerPoint deck (my outline is here , scroll down mid way).  Jarl And a great product starts with the founder. Quick caveats: having fewer investors (3-5) is better than many investors (10-15) and PLEASE make sure you hire a great lawyer who has experience in doing start-ups to avoid pitfalls that will make VC harder down the line.  Also, This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC . Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising

Arnold Waldstein , who stops by periodically on my blog and always leaves relevant comments, made the observation that, “if I want to connect with you, I’ll engage with you on this blog …from there, a follow on Twitter, a link on LinkedIn are closing the loop of connection rather that opening a cold door.”  Many people who want to get to know me send me a LinkedIn invite, connect on Facebook or more recently follow me on Twitter.  I’ve been thinking a lot about comments lately.  I recently wrote a post about how to get access to people

Since, I've given them the same advice, I thought it was worth putting in my blog. Or look at funding activity if you are considering start-ups. Make it your top 25 where you think there will be opportunity. Work Your Network Once you have your one pager ready, I'd definitely use LinkedIn to see who I can already find. For some reason over the past week, I've been asked by three different people I know about job opportunities that might fit them. I personally believe that the best way to hire, find partners, and find a job is through a network.

Individuals use social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo as career-advancing tools, even more useful in a down economy. Top officers of some of the leading social media websites and tools (including Facebook, MySpace and Yammer) will be on the Panel, and there will be panelists from the worlds of media sharing platforms (Pringo), online advertising (Stun Media) and law (Greenberg Glusker), the latter to highlight risks relating to such issues as corporate blogging and privacy. Speakers: * Jason Oberfest, Senior Vice President, Business Development of MySpace

In his post, he mentions the following events / event organizers, and you should visit his post for a bit more on each of them. LA CTO Forum Dealmaker Media Digital Family Reunion Startups Uncensored Social Media Club, LA Twiistup Mindshare LA LA Hadoop Meetup Dorkbot Geek Dinners LA Cloud Computing LA Web Application Developers LA PHP Developers In addition to these, I'd recommend looking at: Technology Council of Southern California – Surprised John didn't mention this one.