 Hello. So my name is Tara and I'm not going to, you know, do my big background because you can Google me, I'm at Tara on Twitter, all my links are on there. Because my talk today is really about you guys and it's about LA. And it's start, for me it started when I came to LA in 2008 from San Francisco. I was working at a tech startup there called Topspin Media. We were both in San Francisco and in Santa Monica. And they were working with musicians on Directifan. Helping indie bands, you know, be able to reach their fans and without a label or manager or whatever. So I was all happy in San Francisco. I'd actually just moved back to San Francisco after living in Seattle. And, you know, I was getting in the groove in the mission and it was wonderful. And then I met my husband, Sean, and he lived in LA. And he said, I'm not moving to San Francisco. Like, no way. If we're going to make this thing work, you have to move to Los Angeles. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, I am not moving to LA. That is the last place on earth I ever, ever even considered living. So he kind of, he said, just come down and check it out and, you know, get to know it a little bit. He was living in Silver Lake at the time. And so I got to know Silver Lake and I said, yeah, this is okay, but I want to live at the beach. So we ended up at the beach. I transferred down to the Topspin office in Santa Monica and that was fine. I was having a good time. And that's when I started to get to know the sort of tech startup scene here in Los Angeles because there was a lot of tech startups in Santa Monica. And so I was like, oh, that's cool. You know, there's some stuff going on here. I had some friends at Hulu and I guess Mahalo was kind of over there. And so I was getting to know that crowd a little bit. So then my kid was born in 2010 and I kind of, I left, you know, working for about a year. We traveled and stuff like that. And then I came back and I thought, what am I gonna do? Like, should I do a tech startup? Or, you know, I didn't really know. And that's when I started delving into, you know, what's really happening, you know, in the scene here in LA. And a couple months ago, I wrote this blog post on Forbes with some title like, you know, LA is gonna totally outpace the Silicon Valley in the tech startup scene and, you know, yay, it's gonna happen. I didn't really have any data to back this up. I just was a believer. You know, I'm like, if I live here, this is gonna happen, you know? So, you know, it's kind of, it's, you know, self-interest like I wanted to happen if I'm gonna do a tech startup here. And I wrote it and I didn't really think anything of it after that. And all of a sudden, I started getting like emails and tweets and people wanting to like connect with me over LinkedIn. And some people totally wanting to call me out on my shit. And I was like, damn, like, okay, I got to do something with this, you know, something's happening here. And, you know, so I started meeting people for lunch and for coffee and just understanding what, you know, their business was in tech. And I was like, this is like much bigger than I realized when I actually wrote that post. You know, I was kind of hoping for it, but I realized, yeah, you know, there's a lot of stuff happening here. And I started thinking about it in my head, like on a map. I'm like, okay, where are all these startups, you know, and where's the, where are the BCs and where are the angels? And so I thought, okay, I should, I should make a map of this because, you know, there's a couple of maps here and there if you look online, but there, there isn't really anything that sort of gives you that sort of broad overview of like where everybody is that's not in Santa Monica or as they like to call it the Silicon Beach. And so for this talk, I, you know, I said, okay, yeah, maybe I'll talk about this. And then I found out that I'm not allowed to use like PowerPoint or anything. So I have this board here. And Sean helped me do it because he's better at drawing lines than me. So, you know, we've got all of those sort of major freeways. Got porn valley at the top. So now, you know, and that little purple pin there is kind of where we are right now. And so in order for me to continue my talk, I need a fabulous assistant. Oh, there's a fabulous assistant back there. Come on up. I can't really hold the board and do what I need to do. No, what's your name fabulous? I'm Jory. Hello, Jory. Okay. All right. So Jory is an LA native. And I figured we should have an LA native figure out what's happening with this map here because we're going to be sticking some stuff up on here. His arms are going to get tired. Thank you, Jory. Alright, so I wanted to get an idea. Who here works at a tech startup? And when I know you keep your hands up, but I just want to sort of define it a little bit the way I define it, which is that, you know, your pre IPO, you haven't done any mergers or acquisitions. You have a repeatable business model. So it's not just a project at this point, you know, you have some customers and stuff. So keep your hand up high. Okay, that's awesome. Okay. And you guys are in LA. If you're not from LA, put your hand down. Alright, that's that's still good. Okay, so while I'm talking here, we're going to pass around these little pink post it stickies. And what I'd love for you to do is put the name of your company and the city that so if you're in Santa Monica or Silver Lake or Glendale or whatever, then write it on here. And then we'll collect them and we'll put them up on the board. So I have like one pen, I should probably get another one to pass it back. Okay, you what? Are you still the searcher? Oh, we may have to learn about that if we have time. Okay. So I listened to this podcast, it's at a Stanford, I think it's Stanford entrepreneurial podcast. I don't know if any of you guys are familiar with that. And I'm sorry for Ripley. This is an experiment. And I blame Ian Rogers at Topspin who brings Lucinda to his talks. And we weren't sure if this would work. So I listen to this podcast, it's great. They have speakers on there, you know, like Jack Dorsey, and they have the CTO of America, you know, the reports to Obama. And yesterday I was listening to Brad Feld, who is one of the investors at the Foundry Group in Boulder. And he was talking about how he made this, you know, really, you know, life changing decision, which was that he was going to stick it out in Boulder. So even though he was an investor, and lots of investors are in the valley, he was going to stick it out in Boulder, and he actually convinced some of his partners to move to Boulder, and stick it out there with him. And he said, you know, a lot of people say, you know, you really need to be in Silicon Valley to do a tech startup. But I'm going to use Boulder as an experiment. I'm going to see how we can have a really great tech community here in Boulder, and have great startups that, you know, have great exits and all this other stuff. And he said, you know, when I'm thinking, I've been thinking about this and some of the stuff that I have realized is that, you know, it's about community. You know, you have to really get together with the people that are in the tech startup world, and not just people who are, you know, with the tech backgrounds of like artists and everything else too. But and it's not just about networking events. So it's not just about, okay, we're going to have drinks tonight. It's about making stuff, right? So, you know, whether you go to a hacker space or a hackathon or whatever, it's like getting together and make stuff is really, really important. And we know that actually some tech startups have actually come out of hacker spaces, right? Like Pinterest came out of Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, and MakerBot came out of NYC Resistor. So we know like cool stuff is happening in that way. And so he said, you know, we've got to get together and make stuff. And he also said, you know, we have to be really supportive and promote each other, right? And so in LA, I think that there's some of that happening, especially on the West side. So if you go on to like the Silicon Beach Facebook group, people are always, you know, propping each other up and supporting each other and all this kind of stuff. But I think we could probably do a little bit more of that. And I mean, like look at, we have 13 million people in LA County, spread over this huge space. You know, we have little cities within our big, big city here. And we have, you know, it takes a long time to get from Snoop Dogg, you know, down to where the rocket ships are being made. So you have to think a lot about community. So I thought, that's part of like what I was thinking about when I had all these people pinging me after I wrote that post was, how do we, how do we do that in LA when we're so far apart? And it's so hard to, you know, get together and, you know, bump shoulders in the coffee shops and, you know, have those conversations. And I don't have, you know, the answers, but hopefully you guys do. But I think, you know, what Brad Feld was saying in Boulder was, you know, getting together and making stuff. So the other thing I was thinking about is the money thing, right? Like there's, there are a lot of people like, well, you know, there's no investments in LA. I think in the first three quarters of 2011, there's $300 million in tech investments in LA, which is not as much as New York or the Silicon Valley. But that doesn't mean that we don't have money here. So I wanted to kind of start putting up, you know, where are some of the major BCs? I'll give this to you. Where are they located on, on the map? So we have the tech coast angels and they invest actually in all of SoCal. So you can kind of put them on the blank space over here. And we have the Pasadena angels. They're in Pasadena and they, they invest anybody that you have to actually be headquartered in, headquartered in LA. So they don't, they don't invest outside of LA. And then I think the majority of the rest of them are like GRP is in Century City. That's Mark Suster. And then I think a lot of the other ones are in Santa Monica proper. So these guys invest, you know, starting at, you know, maybe $25,000, $50,000, up to $10 million. So it's not like they're just handing out, you know, small chunks of change. And in fact, GRP where Mark Suster is at, you know, they've, they've invested in true car, which a lot of people are talking about Goji, which is text plus, Makers Studio. You know, so they're, they're doing some interesting investments. Yeah, you can keep sticking up there. I think the rest are all Santa Monica. So that kind of gives you some idea about like where some of the major investors are. And then on top of that, we have tons of accelerators and incubators. And I don't have all of them here. There's a, there's a site, I think it's called Startup Hen that is starting to list all of the accelerators and incubators and stuff like that. So they're listed here. Now one of the OG accelerators is Ideal Lab that Bill Gross started. And so they're up in Pasadena, I believe as well as Pasadena, right? Yeah. And so, you know, they, Overture came out of that. And I think Overture became Google AdSense, I think. Okay. Yeah. So, but, you know, Overture is a big deal. And then City Search was another one that came out of Ideal Lab. So, you know, you can go on there and they have all these different companies that are at Ideal Lab right now. I mean, I've heard Bill Gross talk a couple of times and he said he loves that, you know, all these tech startups are, you know, he can go easily go and talk to each of them and these in the same space. And he's done some really cool stuff. I think he's really into solar right now is this big thing. So, you know, then there's a couple other ones that are doing, people are talking about science right now that just started in Santa Monica. And I think it was one of the guys from my space, my space CEO, I believe started science. They're doing some interesting things. I was trying to think if there's one else that I want to talk about. Oh, I know that IOLA is in Hollywood now. They've been pinging everybody, including, like, this researcher I work with at UC Irvine. She's like, why is this incubator calling me up to come hang out? I don't really understand that. But they're trying to get out there and that's great. So, that kind of gives you an idea, you know, if you're looking at the map, you know, where are all the people who have the money? They're giving the money out. And like I said, this is just the, you know, a subset of the total. So, definitely there's a large collection on the west side. But, you know, we're spread out in other parts of LA too. So, are you guys familiar with Business Insider? You know that. So, they do this top 100 list of the most valuable tech startups. And we actually have some of those guys here in LA. The first one that I'll talk about is Legal Zoom. You guys know Legal Zoom, right? If you don't know Legal Zoom, anybody not know Legal Zoom? Oh, you don't know? Really? You guys, come on, really? Okay. So, Legal Zoom basically lets you create legal docs on your own online. So, you don't have to go get a lawyer. So, it's kind of like life-changing, right? Like, you can go get a divorce, I guess, right? You can go get your online divorce docs and get that done. I don't know why that came up first. That's probably... Also, I formed a company using Legal Zoom. And now I keep getting, you know, mail from them all the time after we tried to dissolve it. I don't know how to get a bunch of stops sending me mail. But anyway, maybe it's... I should start another one. Okay. So, they started in 99. Their value valuation is at $800 million and they made $250 million in 2011. And they're located in Glendale. Now, something interesting about Legal Zoom, do you guys know that one of the founders, Robert Shapiro. You guys know Robert Shapiro? You recognize that? But then, yeah, the main defense lawyer for OJ. Okay? So, I had no idea. I'm like, that is rad. Okay. So, him and this guy, Brian Lee, also co-founded Shoe Dazzle. Okay? Shoe Dazzle is also on this business insider list. They started in 2009. So, the interesting thing about Shoe Dazzle is that they have Kim Kardashian as one of the founders. And she's, I think, their lead fashion stylist. And for $39, $95 a month, you get a pair of shoes delivered to your door based on her style. I guess. I haven't signed up. I don't know that my shoes would, you know, be something that she would think is stylish. So, they're valued at $280 million and they made $70 million in 2011. Okay? Now, I thought, you know, because the founders, you know, in Legal Zoom and everything, that, you know, they have, are in Glendale, that Shoe Dazzle would be in Glendale. And the reason I thought this was because Kim Kardashian has said that she wants to be a mayor of Glendale. So, I'm like, oh, Shoe Dazzle must be in Glendale, but no. Shoe Dazzle is actually sadly in Santa Monica. So, she might want to reconsider that. E-Harmony, they've been around since 2000. They're valued at $800 million. They made $300 million in 2011. But what I think is more interesting about E-Harmony is this. Every day, 542 members or like roughly 300 couples get married because they met on E-Harmony. Every day, 300 couples get married that met on E-Harmony. That's an amazing stat. That's life-changing stuff, right? I mean, on top of that, you know, everybody's interested in their, um, their algorithm. You know, everybody's like, okay, I'm really interested in your matching algorithm. They have fantastic scientists. And so, you hear a lot about different companies taking advantage of that, including one called Trip Trotting, who matches people who are traveling around the world. And, um, they're at, uh, I think they got some funding out of GRP. And there's Rubicon Project. They've been around since 2007. And I think they do some, like, online advertising stuff. And then, um, there's Beechman. They're another one. They're lower on the list. I think they're number 88. They're valued at $150 million. Better works. You guys really have better works than Page Craig. So, he's, you know, pretty well known in the tech startup scene. He, uh, has, uh, pretty fun parties on the beach and Rina Del Rey. Uh, he's really, really loved by VCs and accelerators. Dave McClure did this, uh, he led this panel with a bunch of accelerators and incubators in LA. And Page's name came up all the time. So, the, the one that, um, can anybody guess what the top LA tech company is that they, they listed on Business Insider? Hulu. Now, we know Hulu has been in the news lately, right? People are pissed off at Hulu. Something about now you have to prove that you have cable subscription, um, in order to use Hulu or something like that. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, um, I try, I have friends that work there. So, I always, they try to be cool, but yeah, they, they're annoying me all the time every day. So, but they've been around since 2007. Valuation at 1.5 billion. They, um, made around 500 million last year. But they share that I think with like Disney and NBC and all that kind of stuff. So, anyway, um, so that's where our top Business Insider companies are on the map just to, to give you an idea. Now, we're in Malibu up here, huh? We could just stick them in the water, maybe. Yeah. Okay. So, that gives you that idea. Um, I'm just going to give these to, to you, Jory, to start posting on there. So, here's some tech startups that we'll start putting on the map here. Um, there's a couple that, um, I'll talk about. So, I hang out at the Silver Lake headquarters in Silver Lake. Do you guys, anyone familiar with the Silver Lake headquarters? A few people. Uh, so, um, at Social Engine, which they're a tech star alum, um, they're, they, they started Silver Lake headquarters along with Greg Cohn. He used to be in charge of games at Yahoo. And he's doing his own startup now. I think it's called Burner, where you can, um, I think it's based on the Twilio API. So, you can get a phone number when you're done with it. You can get rid of it. Um, so they're, them and a couple others, um, including Basecamp, are based in the Silver Lake headquarters. And other startups, you know, that are in that area are welcome to hang out there, too. I sometimes hang out there. They also do pitch, like pitch competitions and stuff. Um, so, Goodreads, you guys familiar with, uh, I didn't know Goodreads was actually in LA. You guys familiar with like Felicia Day, Bonnie Burton, and Veronica Belmont? They have this book called, um, Vaginal Fantasy. And I'm a part of that book club. And we meet on Goodreads. So I thought that was kind of cool. I didn't realize that they were based in Los Angeles. Basically, all it is is, uh, if you're reading a book, you can give recommendations on the book and have discussions about the book. So we read, like, steamy, you know, steampunks and sci-fi books and they have, like, little love stories in them. So that's Goodreads. And, um, that book club in particular. Um, and then Neighbor Goods. So I think Mickey spoke here last year, uh, from Neighbor Goods. Um, so she's in downtown LA now. I thought she used to be in Glendale. But it's a place where you can go and share, um, like, or kind of let neighbors borrow stuff that you have. So if you have, like, a ladder or, I don't know, like a sewing machine or something like that, then you can, and you can let your neighbors borrow it off of Neighbor Goods. Um, oh, the other one that I really like that just, uh, made, uh, I think they just raised, like, a million or a million and a half, uh, dog vacay. So if you guys have dogs, this is one that you guys might want to check out. So basically, you can, um, open your home to, and, and babysit a dog for someone. And people are charging, like, between 25 to 50 bucks a day or something like that. And so instead of having to send your dog to a kennel, you can actually, um, let them go to someone's lovely home and hang out and snuggle in bed with them. I don't know totally how I feel about this, about vetting these people. Um, but my friend, uh, Ted Reingold, who's, uh, he started Dogster and Catster and actually sold that company. Dogster and Catster is a social network for people that have dogs and cats, but in San Francisco, but he sold it and he, he, um, is one of the investors in dog vacay. So I figured, you know, that's probably an interesting one to, to watch. Um, so I think that that's the ones I wanted to talk about. So do you guys have your, the ones with, in the tech startups, did you guys make your stickies? Did you guys write on them? Yay. Okay. So maybe if you can go collect those, that would be great. I don't know where I'm at with time at all. I have no clue. Okay. Good. So we'll collect those and then we'll stick them up. So do you guys have any startups in LA that you think are really rad that you've been following? Talks. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, we've been, uh, subscribing to Tonks coffee for, I think, since he started the subscription service. So we have, uh, a thing of coffee beans delivered to our door. I don't know. Is it monthly? I forget. Twice a month? Okay. Um, delicious. He's an excellent, excellent roaster. Um, so Sean is part of coffee common and we've learned how to actually properly do pour over coffee and stuff. So I, I totally recommend that if you're going to be part of a subscription coffee service, you understand how to do pour over and stuff because I think you'll enjoy it that much more. You can go online and learn how to do it. Um, so yes, I think that Tonks is a great one. So what, what do we have here? Zarely? Who's Zarely? What does Zarely do? Okay. That's cool. And you're in Santa Monica. Can I ask quickly why you're deciding to move to San Francisco? Right. I mean, that is a thing, right? Like a lot of people are pressured to move and it kind of bumps me out because I feel like, you know, why can't you give back to the city you're in and the economy that you're in? Like, why do you have to go somewhere else? Gotcha. Well, good for you. I'm sad if you're leaving. Um, okay, we have, is it SEP or SEP? And what's that? That's very nice. Are you going to stay in Santa Monica? Excellent. Good stuff. What do you feel about the Silicon Beach? Do you consider yourself part of Silicon Beach? You're connecting Latinos to the American workforce. Yeah, exactly. Preventing collecting documentation and then providing a portal for folks to find work. So you find a portal for the Latino workforce? You find work? Right. Well, for people who need work done to find the Latino workforce. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So people who need work done to find Latino workforce to do that work for them. Okay. We have little crowd, little, sorry, life crowd, life crowd. Where's life crowd? What does life crowd do? Life crowd is a social activities marketplace. And we're based in Santa Monica, but have launched in San Francisco, the OC in San Diego. And our pitch is sort of Facebook connects people. I think you get to keep that. They're like the five bucks at the store, right? Um, so Facebook connects people online. We connect people offline. We have both hosts and and crowders. So it's anything from casual get togethers around sushi rolling or learning how to bake Girl Scout cookies to happy hours, mixology. So all sorts of events you're connecting people who want to put on event with people who want to join in on that event. And it could be something as, you know, simple like let's get together and I don't know, learn how to do coffee pour over. Exactly. I love it. Respite from computer screens and the bar scene. Yeah, out there in IRL. Okay, I love it. Okay, life crowd. Okay, bounty bounty boy? Bounty boy? Bounty buy? Marina Delray. Um, it's kind of similar to Zarely, except it's in the bike space. So you say what kind of bike you're looking for and then they get you in touch with. So you're looking for a bike and it'll help you find a bike. I like it. Simple. Okay, and then I know I'm running out of time, so you guys are going to have to go really fast. Stack social in Venice. Boy. Great accelerator. Oh, microphone. Great accelerator in Venice and we're dead simple e-commerce integration for technology publishers. So we work with sites like CNET and get them great deals on software like limited time flash sale deals and then they get a cut of every sale that they do and so it helps them earn extra revenue on top of just running ads on their site. That's stack social. All right, cool. And then we've got Check 2. Check 2. Check 2, Westwood. I was wrong, it's a bad idea though. The feedback wasn't working. To talk about, basically Check 2 is a version of those punch cards that you get in whenever you walk into a restaurant and you get a punch every time you visit, but on your smartphone so you can never lose it and you can, the business owners also get demographic, anonymous demographic information on their customer base. I have so many of those punch cards. That's awesome. So it's a virtual punch card and you have it on, it's an app on your phone. Not just it, it's a web app, it's a normal app and it's also being a text message. Text message, app, and on a website. Lovely. Okay. And we've got Me, who's Me in Hollywood. Is this Me? Okay. I just put my agency guide to learn to code full-time. You're going back to learn code full-time? Yeah, because I was a founder and that was the biggest struggle that I could just prototype by you. And where are you learning to code? Uh, my place. With books? I'm in like jelly LA, so I'm going to probably bounce around co-working. Oh, okay, cool. You should come out to the Silver Lake headquarters. Come hang out. Okay. Okay, and then we got Zestcash in Hollywood. Zestcash. We use machine learning to make small loans to people that don't have access to traditional credit circuits, people that are underbanked, people that can't get a credit card. Micro loans. It's for profit and for money, so misconception is that... So you don't have to, you don't have to be like a non-profit sort to get these micro loans. It can be if you're running a company, okay? Okay. Okay, and then Mobile Roadie. Oh, I know Mobile Roadie from when I was at Topspin. Where's Mobile Roadie? Hey, Mobile Roadie. It's for musicians, right? Anybody? It was originally for musicians. Okay. A Nation Builder. I met Nation Builder that Kai came out to my Lady Tech group, by the way, called Lady Tacos. So if you're a lady into tech, hardware, software, we meet once a month. Nation Builder, tell us. Nation Builder is a tool for running good campaigns and nonprofits. Everything you need, website, donation, email, voter data, it's aimed for people who really want to pay like thirty-three dollars a month. And we are VC funded by at least part of what's in the Bay Area. Yes. I know Carlin, who's the president of Crash Space, is very excited about Nation Builder. So Pink Cloud 9 in Downtown LA. Okay, so you're a collective of wedding planners that pay as you go advice for people getting married. Okay, cool. I'm almost done. I know you want me to hurry. Okay. Make TV in Downtown. Oh, I can't hear. There's a helicopter. Life video. Live. Live video and editing production tool. Fabulous. Okay. Okay. Spontaneous. Michael Levin. Hi, Michael. It's a, sorry. Events going on right now. Okay. What neighborhood are you on? Sorry. What neighborhood are you on? Oh, Hollywood. Okay. Okay. So I, did I, did I miss anybody? Did I miss someone? Spire. Yeah, we make APIs for developers. So you can write client site applications, not really worry about coding the back answers. So who are you? Spire. I know. What's your name? Jason. Okay. Because are there any other Spire people here? Because they're helping me at the Youth Hack Jam on June 23rd, which by the way, I'm looking for more volunteers. And they're, they have a whole bunch of people from Spire coming to help me out. Okay. So I hope I got anybody, and did I miss anybody? Yeah, about half the people in the crowd who are not at startup companies, but perhaps probably it's small businesses here in Los Angeles. Good. Cool. Okay. So I think my time is up, but I just, we built this map, you know, we're not just in Santa Monica. We're in all parts of LA, you know, as a startup. I know I didn't do co-working spaces. There's tons of them, but they're all over the place too. There's money, there's communities, there's stuff happening. So we should take a picture of this and put it online. I mean, I don't know. What's Mucker Labs? Mucker Labs is the incubator that we actually launched out of. Okay. Um, we were there first class just finished. There's nine startups that came out of that. They're based in Santa Monica. And they are looking for people for their next class. So if you have a startup idea, you should look at Mucker Labs. They're Mucker Labs incubator. They have applications that they're taking now. Really great investors, great workspace. Cool. Okay. So, um, I'll put this online. I'll, we're going to do something on represent.la where we're going to post this stuff. And, um, I hope that we stay in touch because I want to know what you guys are doing. Okay. So thanks guys. Have a good day.