Benjamin Kuo’s Blog

For those who didn’t see it, Andrew Warner over at Mixergy did a great job getting in front of disgraced TechCrunch writer Daniel Brusilovsky, who was publicly fired by Michael Arrington for allegedly accepting a laptop (or two) in exchange for writing about a company for the popular tech blog. Andrew gets Daniel’s side of the story, on his podcast.  (side note: Andrew–who was behind the very popular Lunch 2.0 meetings here in So Cal– moved some months ago to Buenos Aires, which has been a huge loss for Southern California’s technology networking world…)

For those who haven’t logged into the main site or story pages lately (particularly, RSS readers and Twitter followers), socalTECH is in the midst of updating our site to a new web page design. So far, just the home page and story pages are updated, but we did want to let you know in case you did a double take and didn’t recognize where you were.

(Yes, we finally got tired of the “was your site designed in the 80’s” comments. I’ve always put information and substance — in our case, timeliness and content– ahead of glitz and flash, but there are plenty of people who think otherwise. I have more in common with the philosophy of Craig Newmark  and function-before-form of Craigslist, but I think we’ve come up with something that is more aesthetically pleasing yet doesn’t put anything ahead of getting timely information to you).

Thanks to Mason Yarnell of Yarnell Design for the work on the site. I’d highly recommend Mason and his work, and for providing the new look and feel you’ll see rolling out on our pages over the next few weeks.

Venture capital rating site TheFunded released their 2009 “most loved VCs” list via TechCrunch Tuesday — with a surprise, in that they actually had some Southern California venture capitalists ranked on the list.

The SoCal folks I noticed on the list:

2. Mark Suster, Partner at GRP Partners, rated 4.8571 by 7 CEOs

23. Mark S. Menell, Partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures, rated 4.3333 by 12 CEOs

49.  Stuart MacFarlane, Managing Director at Momentum Venture Management, rated 4.1667 by 6 CEOs

53. Michael Kim, Partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures, rated 4.1538 by 13 CEOs

84. David Min, Principal at Steamboat Ventures, rated 4 by 5 CEOs

To some degree, these lists are mostly useful as a rating of how “friendly” a VC is to listening to your deal, and on how well their “you’ve-got-a-good-idea-but-we’re-not-interested” skills are–plus what portion of their deals actually have rated them in TheFunded. I’m surprised ANY VCs end up on this list–not because they’re not great folks, but because they’ve got to tell 99% of the entrepreneurs they meet that their particular VC deal just isn’t for them, without getting them bent out of shape  (not an easy task).

This week is shaping up to be one of the busiest tech-event weeks so far this year yet, making me think again that a clone would help to actually get to all of these. Among the events happening this week are:

Oversee.net’s DOMAINfest, a huge, annual event catering to the domain name business and domainers; running from Tuesday through Thursday, the event includes a headline keynote by Tony Hsieh of Zappos, and is capped off by a party at the (um, yes) Playboy Mansion on Thursday evening.

Ventura Ventures is launching its Internet incubator on Thursday (our interview with Alex Schneider, the Executive Director of the incubator, will run tomorrow) with a launch party in Ventura and plenty of food from local downtown restaurants, plus presentations from startups Geodelic, Lottay, and others. (use password: incubator)

Twiistup, the technology conference and networking event, is set for Wednesday evening and Thursday. The event this year includes such speakers as Paul Graham of Y-Combinator, Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media, Om Malik of GigaOm, Bambi Francisco of Vator.tv, Robert Scoble, and others. Thursday night is big for Twiistup as well, with a Casino Royale themed party at the Skirball Cultural Center.

Also on Thursday, the Founder Institute, an effort by Adeo Ressi of TheFunded to help incubate and mentor startups–with local efforts headed by Ken Rutkowski, is launching at a local event at Clearstone Venture Partners.

Okay, maybe not exactly fun, but sure better than the drive (swim?) into the office this morning for some of you, and bound to be better than the wet drive home later today through the torrential downpour and occasional flashes of lighting out there: the socalTECH Annual Industry Survey!

Last year we kicked off an effort to survey the opinions of people in the high tech industry here in Southern California to get a better idea of people’s opinions and attitudes on the economy. As a followup, working with the David James Agency, we’re doing it again for the Second Annual socalTECH Industry Survey. Click here to take the short survey, and our thanks in advance for your help! Guaranteed to be funner than shoveling mud out of your driveway and putting buckets under those leaks in your roof.

One of the interesting trends I’ve been watching emerge out of the new, social web has been the push toward user-generated and user-directed contests — for user-created advertising, user-driven voting, and even user-directed charity donations. The social medium seems ideally tuned towards reaching out to people based on their interests, and where their friends and acquaintances help to spread the word about different causes.

The latest– user driven charity donations — seems to be an interesting indicator of where and how nonprofits are going — where skills to tap into Facebook, Twitter, and the social web might make the difference between who does, and doesn’t get funding for their nonprofit efforts.

I was recently approached by Bill Strong, who started the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation (GSF) — a nonprofit out of Santa Barbara which helps to fund research into a disease called Spinal Musclar Atrophy (SMA) — about a new web site the nonprofit specifically created to get people to Twitter and spread the word about a contest run by the Chase Foundation on Facebook to give $5M in total to five different charities.  Chase is asking Facebook users to vote for the charities they feel ought to receive $1M each in charity funding–based solely on the number of votes received on Facebook. How to get an edge over the many nonprofits who would love that $1M for their cause? Bill tells me:

We’re two parents fighting any way we can to try and save our daughter’s life. We have a real opportunity to win this $1 Million, but we know we need something unique and creative that would give us an edge over other larger organizations.

That’s where our friend Josh and I came up with the http://VoteForACure.com idea.

We believe it’s a really innovative use of Twitter and Facebook and I refer to it as our ‘Hail Mary’ — to help us win this $1 Million, accelerate that cure for SMA, and save our daughter’s life.

VoteForACure is a site, specifically created for the nonprofit, to get people to use Twitter about the effort. Incidentally, Bill’s web site was created by Bill and Josh Lippiner (former founder of LowFares.com, now owned by Oversee.net). Josh is a long time reader of our newsletter. (Well, now site, blog, etc.–but originally, the email newsletter).

The Gwendolyn Strong Foundation isn’t the only charity using Facebook, Twitter, and the social web for fundraising and awareness efforts, but it’s an interesting case example of how nonprofits are tapping the new world of the Internet to gain exposure and support for nonprofit causes. (Other area nonprofits currently on the leaderboard in the Chase competition include Hope For Paws, Los Angeles; Invisible Children, San Diego; Center For The Pacific Asian Family Inc, Los Angeles; Trevor Project, Los Angeles; GIsen, Los Angeles, Sheckler Foundation, Carlsbad; Imaging Foundation, Malibu; American Chinese Culture And Education Foundation, San Diego; Angel Heart International, Rancho Santa Margarita; and Tiziano Project, Calabasas).

Wildcard Demo signups are now open. Here’s how it works. Any STARTUP attending Twiistup on a regular ticket can sign up for stage time at Wildcard Night January 27th 6:00-9:00 at UCLA. There are no other fees besides the attendance ticket. First dibs will go to companies that applied to be a showoff but we expect there to be a few open slots for newcomers. Time on stage will range from 5-10 minutes depending on how many companies want to demo.

We’re looking for a few MBA or business students, who wouldn’t mind
interning with us for some experience and exposure to the world of high
tech startups and venture capital. As an intern, you would research and
verify information in our venture capital database, do competitive
research, analyze companies, and other tasks which are highly relevant to
anyone pursuing an MBA and with interest in the startup and high tech
world.

Please email info@socaltech.com if you’re interested and want more
information. This is an unpaid position (but a great one for the
experience and the resume).

Last year, in the midst of a market collapse and recession, we kicked off an effort to survey the opinions of people in the high tech industry here in Southern California to get a better idea of people’s opinions and attitudes on the economy. As a followup, working with the David James Agency, we’re doing it again for the Second Annual socalTECH Industry Survey.

We’d like to invite you to answer a quick survey about your opinion and outlook on your business and the economy, which we’ll be analyzing and sharing with our readers. Thanks for your help in participating!

Go to the survey

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome back (to those who took some well deserved time off over the holidays). We’re back into full coverage now, as people gear up for the new year!