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Lessons Learned: Spend little to go as long as possible

by Ezra Roizen, June 17, 2008 | Comments (1)

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Yardbarker started out as a Digg for sports. It's iterated a lot since its early days, and it's found a business model to boot - to be an ad network for blogs/publishers targeting males. It's no wonder, Pete Vlastelica, co-founder and CEO is very cognizant of money that's being spent. “Spend as little money as possible to prove as much as possible to go as long as possible," he said. "We bootstrapped the company for 12 months and paid ourselves ...

Lessons Learned: How to raise the initial VC round

by Ezra Roizen, May 13, 2008 | Comments

When it comes to consumer Internet sites, the best thing an entrepreneur can do is go out to friends and family and build a prototype, or proof of concept. That's exactly what online travel site Nile Guide did. And, it's paid off. In this segment of "Lessons for entrepreneurs," Nile Guide CEO and founder Josh Steinitz, who was a former marketing executive at Cendant and in business development at Away.com, laid out the steps he took to get his travel ...

Nile Guide wants to be your concierge

by Ezra Roizen, April 28, 2008 | Comments (1)

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Nile Guide on Monday formally announced that it's entered the crowded but fast-growing online travel market with a service that combines recommendations with trip-planning and booking.The company is looking to take advantage of the preferences of Internet users who want to plan and book their trip with one site, rather than going to separate ones for booking hotels, flights and dinner reservations.NileGuide allows users to type in the name of a city and plan an entire trip, through its own ...

Lessons Learned: Eze Vidra of VC Cafe says non-U.S. entrepreneurs should "think big"

by Ezra Roizen, February 15, 2008 | Comments

Helping entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley get access to the capital and networking opportunities available to valley startups is part of our core mission here at Vator.tv.But we're not the only ones trying to help overseas innovators.As we told you when we posted our first interview with Ezequiel (Eze) Vidra, his VC Cafe is devoted to shining a spotlight on Israeli-based startups. In this second part of his interview with Vator.tv contributing editor Ezra Roizen, Vidra says that cracking the U.S. ...

VC Cafe shining a spotlight on Israeli startups

by Ezra Roizen, February 4, 2008 | Comments (1)

Israel has the highest ratio of startup companies per capita, according to Ezequiel (Eze) Vidra, who founded the Web site VC Cafe to help shine a spotlight on that nation's entrepreneurs. It's not that high-quality startups there haven't gotten the attention of investors or strategic buyers like AOL, which bought Quigo and its online ad network last year for $300 million. Still, while Israeli entrepreneurs are heavy on technical know-how, they often lack the marketing skills to bring their ...

KickApps CEO Alex Blum on new social-media tools and services

by Ezra Roizen, January 31, 2008 | Comments

KickApps gives online publishers the ability to quickly and easily add social-networking features to their Web sites.The company provides a suite of hosted services and offers tools for developers to customize their own sites with things like chat, messaging and rich-media features like video uploads and sharing.In this interview with Vator.tv, KickApps CEO Alex Blum tells Ezra Roizen that the platform is so easy to use that a small team of developers can create a custom site "in a matter ...

Lessons Learned: Eric King says all the warnings are true

by Ezra Roizen, January 24, 2008 | Comments

Eric King, the chief marketing officer of Clean Power Finance, doesn't sugarcoat his advice for startup entrepreneurs. "When you hear that it's going to take twice as much time and twice as much money as you thought to get to profitability -- (it's) all true," says King, who is also a managing director at the merchant bank Arena Group LLC. And where do all those unforeseen expenses come from? "People tend to underestimate salary costs or, conversely, they hire too ...

Clean Power Finance wants to bring solar power to mass consumer market

by Ezra Roizen, December 19, 2007 | Comments

Without the financing that auto makers provide to both car dealers and consumers, the new-car market would be out of reach for a significant number of buyers. Clean Power Finance wants to use that same financing model to help consumers afford the high cost of solar power. The average residential solar installation is between $30,000 and $40,000, so getting consumers over sticker shock is a big hurdle for contractors who install solar power, Clean Power chief marketing officer Eric King ...

Mobilize Your Holiday Shopping

by Ezra Roizen, December 11, 2007 | Comments

Scott Dunlap CEO of NearByNow discusses how his service is a virtual aid to physical shoppers. The company aggregates real-time inventory data and provides consumers with easy-to-use tools for finding and reserving desired items. The service drives traffic to shopping malls and enables store operators to promote to actively shopping consumers in real-time on their mobile phones. Watch NearByNow's video pitch in which Scott talks about how he came up with the idea while shopping with his wife.

Match.com founder Gary Kremen says consider exit strategies early

by Ezra Roizen, November 29, 2007 | Comments (2)

Match.com founder Gary Kremen answers whether or not his new venture, Sex.com, is the ultimate distillation of his earlier efforts. Gary, who gave his pitch about his other ventures -- Citizen Hawk and Clean Power Finance -- on Vator.tv, also talks about innovation, his thoughts on angel investing and what he looks for in the entrepreneurs he backs. He also shares his thoughts on why exit/acquisition dynamics are something startups should consider early. Essentially, he suggests that entrepreneurs think about ...

The Latest Thing in eCommerce: You

by Ezra Roizen, November 12, 2007 | Comments

Many of the experiences we have were conceived and designed by someone else prior to us having them. When we go to the supermarket, for instance, it seems our entire experience – however idiosyncratic - has been played out and anticipated. The same is true when we go out to dinner, to a movie, or the airport. Disneyland is probably the extreme case. We live in a world in which macro contexts are largely set for us. Our own micro ...

The Roizen Report: Making Sense of Millions of Voices

by Ezra Roizen, September 25, 2007 | Comments

Words cannot describe the degree to which I hate shopping. Over-stimulation is probably at the root of my shopping aversion. There are too many choices and too many questions that go unanswered, which invariably raises the possibility for future regret. Abundant choice seems to be a precondition for buyer’s remorse. So, why bother setting myself up for disappointment? Like for most people, the idea of getting a cool new toy has its appeal. But my allergy to the process ...

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