Recent Interview for Workbridge

After a recent speech I gave for startups, I was interviewed by Jennifer DesRosiers (love that name!) about tech startups. Here are my answers…

When did you first discover your love of technology?

>> When I was a 11 my brother built a homemade crystal radio. It was fascinating to see him assemble these inert parts and then hear sound come out. From then on I was hooked on technology and electronics.

What is your favorite part of your job?

>> The unknown factor, the challenge to create the future and make something grow from nothing.

What sparked the idea for NeoRay?

>> The original idea for me came from seeing people use their cellphones to buy from vending machines in Japan. Simultaneously Alessio watched his father create a PayPal competitor and he wanted to make something more futuristic for mobile payments; he then saw a WIRED article “Kill The Password!”. We compared notes and decided the timing was right for mobile payments without passwords leveraging advances in biometrics..

What in your opinion is the next big thing in technology?

>> The 15 Minute Website and Personal Website “Portfolios” – soon anyone will be able to build multiple personal sites with full e-commerce, payment systems, community, social networking, SEO, and big data analytics with no coding and very easy manipulation. Currently there is a barrier to this – you must know some coding to optimize this and it’s difficult to manage multiple sites. People and companies will have a portfolio of websites and not even think about it.. Most of the tools already exist but need a lot of refinement; it will take another 2-5 years.

What excites/interests you most about tech startups and what makes them successful?

>> The Scalability challenge. Much of my career has been dedicated to trying to create the alchemy of continuously growing a company. The progress of E-Commerce, HTML5, CSS3, PHP and Javascript have made it so any startup idea, tech or non-tech, can become reality with very little money or work. The difficult step has shifted from launch to revenues, scalability, growth.
This is exciting because it allows so many people to give it a try which equals more great ideas coming to light, but still requires a great idea and great execution to have larger success and growth. Pretty soon the most important people at startups will shift back from developers to those that can create and sustain growth.

3 Questions to Ask Yourself (If You’re Trying to Convince The World That You Have a Hot Startup)

  1. What are people doing now because your product doesn’t exist, what is the pain you will solve?

  2. What is it that you know about your specific niche that other companies do not?

  3. How and when does this make revenue and profits? What is the growth graph?

@tomnora

What does it feel like to be the CEO of a start-up? 3 FULL TIME JOBS.

Being the CEO of a startup is crazy, fun, very hard work, inclusive, humbling and of course can be quite rewarding. Weekends are meaningless. There is a continuous decision stream where each decision informs the next. Your mind is thinking 24 hours a day, even when you sleep.

When you’re the CEO of a startup, a real startup with product and some cash in the bank and/or revenue, there are 3 FULL TIME JOBS.

1. Raising Money – you are constantly doing this, preparing for this and thinking about this, whether it’s pre-seed, seed funding, debt, revenue, partnerships, IPO or other.

2. Managing and Properly Growing The Business – this includes several things, depending on the size of the enterprise: managing employees, administration, hiring, firing, leases, expenses, unhappy employees, fixing other problems, etc.

This piece is what often kills an otherwise great business, which justifys the case for less is more when it comes to employees and infrastructure.

3. Selling – The CEO of a startup must ABS, always be selling. You start every day working this, just like #1 above, they’re closely related. Using the CEO to close sales no matter what size the business is, is vital to success.

This piece emphasizes the importance of having an awesome, mature VP of Sales, if you can afford it; it takes a lot of pressure off and frees up the time of the CEO.

Overall, it can be the most exhilarating experience you’ve ever had, especially when things work. And it’s more accessible to most people than ever before. But it’s not for everyone – you must decide what your #1 goal is. If it’s to create a successful long term business, being the CEO should be something you’re willing to give up if it threatens goal #1. If your #1 goal is to try it out to see how it feels, then by all means do it, get professional help, and make the most of it. Contact me if you’re dead serious and I can help you. The Startup CEO by Tom Nora

A Million Failures

A Million Failures

About a year ago, during a speech I was giving for a Hacker News group, someone in the audience brought up the notion that “Failure Is Good”, i.e. Fail Fast, Fail Often. This is a major change in thinking from the past, due to many factors, and it makes a lot of sense. Rapid prototyping of web apps and mobile apps now means rapid prototyping of startups.

Since everything in life is becoming an app and MVP is good enough to actually attract revenue and/or funding, you can actually try something and throw it away within a few weeks. The cost for this is from $0 to $5,ooo.

The problem is when someone tries this over and over with the same result – junking it. I see a lot of this in my circles There is a price for doing this; you wer yourself out, lose credibility, waste peoples money and time, lose friends, etc.

A better option is to vastly improve your odds each time by getting smarter, refining, capitalizing on mistakes, getting help in the areas where you’re weak, have less ego and more focus on not accepting failure.

If you add up all the attempts to launch startups over the past 2-3 years by all participants, there are probably at least a million failures. Many of these were stepping stones to better things and/or a quite valuable learning process, maturity, personal growth. But over half were probably unnecessary ego bursts and fleeting ideas where deep down inside the founder knows it ain’t gonna happen but keeps going for many reasons.

Most people are very good at one thing at a time, not five so pick ONE and try that role and let as many others as possible help prevent failure number one million and one. @tomnora

Southern California #Angels and Their Investments

Southern California Angels on Twitter and Facebook

Are you a southern California angel (or do you know one) who’d like to be on our list?

Click here to add an angel.

 

Jason Calacanis (Los Angeles)
http://www.twitter.com/jason
http://www.facebook.com/jcalacanis

Sample Investments:
http://www.twitter.com/backupify

http://www.twitter.com/gdgt

http://www.twitter.com/blippy

http://www.twitter.com/rapportive

http://www.twitter.com/gowalla
http://www.twitter.com/challengepost
http://www.twitter.com/chartbeat

Matt Coffin (Los Angeles)
http://www.twitter.com/mattcoffin

Sample Investments:

http://www.twitter.com/demandmedia
http://www.twitter.com/rubiconproject
http://www.twitter.com/docstoc
http://www.twitter.com/ebureau
http://www.twitter.com/cyberrain
http://www.twitter.com/inadco
http://www.twitter.com/unsubscribeme
http://www.twitter.com/adlyads
http://www.twitter.com/hautelook

Paige Craig (Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/paigecraig
http://www.facebook.com/paigecraig

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/betterworks
http://twitter.com/dealquad
http://twitter.com/backtype
http://twitter.com/kiip
http://twitter.com/mobileroadie
http://twitter.com/contextlogic
http://twitter.com/styleseat
http://twitter.com/plancast
http://twitter.com/klout
http://twitter.com/postling
http://twitter.com/takelessons
http://twitter.com/metricly
http://twitter.com/livematrix
http://twitter.com/ecomom
http://twitter.com/indinero
http://twitter.com/socialrewards

John Greathouse (Santa Barbara)
http://twitter.com/johngreathouse

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/rightscale
http://twitter.com/appfolio
http://twitter.com/frontiertech

Sean Jacobsohn (Santa Monica)
http://twitter.com/sjacobsohn

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/linkedin
http://twitter.com/offermatic
http://twitter.com/strongtech

Paul Kedrosky (La Jolla)
http://twitter.com/pkedrosky

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/mozes
http://twitter.com/firstrain
http://twitter.com/xpenser
http://twitter.com/stocktwits
http://twitter.com/weathertrends

Clark Landry (Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/clandry
http://www.facebook.com/clarkwlandry

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/edgecast_cdn
http://twitter.com/burstly
http://twitter.com/ecomom
http://twitter.com/citymommy
http://twitter.com/310labs

Beau Laskey (Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/beaulaskey
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1039099299

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/playdom
http://twitter.com/photobucket

Peter Lee (Los Angeles)
(Baroda Ventures)
http://twitter.com/ptlee
http://www.facebook.com/ptlee

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/steelhousemedia
http://twitter.com/gamecrush

Howard Lindzon (Coronado)
http://twitter.com/howardlindzon
http://www.facebook.com/howardlindzon

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/tweetdeck


http://twitter.com/betaworks
http://twitter.com/bitly


http://twitter.com/stocktwits
http://twitter.com/zentact

http://twitter.com/mytrade

http://twitter.com/limosdotcom

http://twitter.com/buddymedia

Thomas McInerney (Los Angeles & San Francisco)
http://twitter.com/tgmtgm
http://www.facebook.com/tgmtgm

Sample Investments:

http://twitter.com/mochimedia
http://twitter.com/blockchalk

http://twitter.com/gamesalad

http://twitter.com/cyberrain

http://twitter.com/shopflick

http://twitter.com/socialpicks

http://twitter.com/postling

http://twitter.com/burstly

http://twitter.com/mogotix

http://twitter.com/flingotv

Farhad Mohit (Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/farhad667
http://www.facebook.com/farhad667

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/bizrate
http://twitter.com/shopzilla

Brian Norgard (Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/briannorgard

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/adlyads
http://twitter.com/q_angellist
http://twitter.com/flowtown
http://twitter.com/grockit

Talmadge O’Neill (Prague & Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/talmadgeorion
http://www.facebook.com/talmadge.oneill

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/pollenware
http://twitter.com/bluebeam
http://twitter.com/kijubi
http://twitter.com/linkedin
http://twitter.com/chegg
http://twitter.com/eharmony
http://twitter.com/teslamotors

Michael Parekh (NYC & Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/mparekh
http://www.facebook.com/mparekh

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/stocktwits
http://twitter.com/eqal
http://twitter.com/seesmic
http://twitter.com/scanscout
http://twitter.com/dogster
http://twitter.com/loomia

Mark Suster (Los Angeles)
http://twitter.com/msuster
http://www.facebook.com/msuster

Sample Investments:
http://twitter.com/ecomom
http://twitter.com/gendaigame
http://twitter.com/laughstub