Yesterday, Santa Monica-based SharesPost (www.sharespost.com) launched a new service of particular interest to the venture capital and high tech startup market, a new, online service which facilitates the buying and selling of private company stock. They've built successful companies, but looking at the IPO market they're essentially stuck. We caught up with Greg Brogger , the firm's CEO, to understand the service and how it might help private investors. Explain Explain how your service works? Greg

According to the firm, it will allow buyers and sellers of privately held companies to sell and buy shares in privately held firms, through secondary market transactions. In particular, the company said that it was looking to address the fact that IPOs have become "unworkable" for firms with less than a $500M market cap, leaving lots of private shareholders with "little hope for liquidity." SharesPost was Santa Monica-based SharesPost , a new startup out of Scott Painter's BrightHouse incubator, said Tuesday morning that the firm has launched on online platform which will match buyers and sellers of private equity.

Scott Painter, Founder of CarsDirect and Entrepreneur. Tell During this high-level event, Top Brand Marketers, Agency Executives, Publishers, and App Developers will come together to discuss and explore how brands can harness the power of the billion dollar app boom. The event will dive deeply into the challenges and success stories of the explosive mobile and social app market. Dear readers: We've got offers for two different event -- a discount to tomorrow's Digital Family Reunion , and a chance to win a ticket to digiday:APPS next week. Read more below for details.

With the economy in shambles, people scared for their jobs, and layoffs to the left and right, I was struck by a story that Scott Painter (currently CEO of Zag and TrueCar, and prior CEO of CarsDirect) made in a recent private gathering I was at of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and service providers. By definition, an entrepreneur is an optimist–who finds those hidden opportunities while everyone else is scared, doesn’t understand the market, etc. He explained how he often speaks at classes at business schools and entrepeneurship classes, and asks the audience to stand up, asking: Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

Scott Painter, Founder of CarsDirect and Entrepreneur. During this high-level event, Top Brand Marketers, Agency Executives, Publishers, and App Developers will come together to discuss and explore how brands can harness the power of the billion dollar app boom. The event will dive deeply into the challenges and success stories of the explosive mobile and social app market. Dear readers: We’ve got offers for three different events today — a discount to tomorrow’s Digital Family Reunion , a chance to win a ticket to digiday:APPS next week, and a 50% discount to the new Schmoozd Social Media Mixer .

started as a tester, but in six months, I had risen to assistant project manager at CarsDirect. We filed for a patent in 2000, but in 2001, when we filed for the final patent, the market tanked. We can also grow this moel beyond sports, into the stock market, into entertainment, anywhere feeds are quantifiable and reasonable. Thanks! Los Angeles-based KlickSports (www.klicksports.com) recently rolled out the firm's live sports prediction web site and game, looking to harness the enthusiasm of sports fans for their favorite sports and teams. We spoke with Jose daVeiga , the