He recommends that early stage companies get input from people who know the funding process, know the vertical, etc. On the flip side, as a person who regularly advises early stage start-ups, I often have a hard time finding interesting start-ups. Actually, the friction is even higher trying to find a partner for a start-up. Andrew Warner from Mixergy posted - Before Looking for Funding, Get an Advisor . That's great advice.

Because I was the Acting CTO for eHarmony at it's start, I quite often get introduced to people who have an idea for a startup company that is based on some kind of matching algorithm. They describe the company as the eHarmony of careers, clothes, jobs, college, tutoring services, doctors, service companies, investments, etc. In In eHarmony's case, it was the friction of finding a compatible marriage partner. In the case of college matching, it's the complexity of what college matches best with the person's needs. As I've had more

RSS ); Why You Should Start a Company in... Los Angeles By: Laura Rich February 26, 2010

Social networking sites and microblogs are used not only to build company brands, but to foster productivity; social media tools help build communities around the question, "What are you working on?" Companies also use social networking sites in the hiring process, and increasingly, to do innovative advertising (such as the recent Jack in the Box campaign). This Panel will Just a quick note that I'll be moderating a Technology Council Event : Social Networking as a Business Strategy May 19, 2009 - Culver City Social networking media are used on a daily basis to grow businesses and expand career opportunities.

Cliff Allen is someone I've known for quite a few years and he's a go to person for me when I'm thinking about issues around marketing, sales, technology, startups and networking. Of course, when I started thinking about Visible Networking , I immediately went to Cliff to check in to see how he's doing and to get his feedback, thoughts and ideas on the concept. Cliff, remind me about your background? My first career was spent building radio and television stations, then running the programming side of those businesses. In 1986 I started an advertising and public

Monster Worldwide, the leading purveyor of online jobs, purchased the company in 2004. How he came up with the idea for Goodreads You had match.com, you had americansingles.com, and eHarmony, and those are great. But people started to get burned out on those big generic sites. Here's an easy way to vote for this interview on Hacker News. --Andrew Andrew

The Silicon Alley Insider has weighed in on its list of “ 50+ most valuable startups “, and suprisingly, they didn’t neglect Southern California. Facebook was tops, but local companies highlighted in the list: eHarmony ($700M) – Pasadena 29. 4. NewEgg (est worth $3.2B) – City of Industry 10.

Southern California's venture capital industry isn't just content and media, but is gaining a reputation for companies who "actually know how to make money,"--or so says Highland Capital's Richard de Silva. de Silva, who is a General Partner at Highland based out of its Menlo Park offices, pointed specifically to companies like LowerMyBills, eHarmony, and MySpace. Speaking on a panel on Venture Capital in Hollywood at AlwaysOn's OnHollywood conference yesterday, de Silva said he's now seeing repeat entrepeneurs coming out of Southern California who are just as good, if not savvier about real businesses, as Silicon Valley.

One of the industries which has seen a lot of activity lately in Southern California is clean technology, with a large amount of investment activity and new company formation. We spoke with Nikhil, to hear why he thinks the site is important for green technology companies and investors, as well as how the effort is related to his own incubation firm, Artilient Labs. Let's Let's start with an overview We recently ran into Nikhil Jain , CEO of Clean Green Guy (www.cleangreenguy.com), a newly launched online marketplace for green tech deals. What is the site all about?

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. 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. Among the private shares that sellers are looking to unload on the site are shares in Facebook, LinkedIn, SolarCity, Tesla Motors, and eHarmony, the firm said. In particular, the company said