LA Startup Club
Real products for real people in the real heart of LA.
-
Yesterday marked the official end of the first round of LA Startup Club and we couldn’t be more pleased with how it went. When we started LASC our goal was to create a no-bullshit gathering of incredible entrepreneurs (over on the east side) and it worked!
It these few short months we saw all of our companies make huge strides and we’d like to think that the group was part of that. We finished out the night with a couple of awards that were voted on by the group.
The award for most improved went to Ben and Eric for Offbeatr. When they applied for LASC they were just shifting their focus from Extra Lunch Money to Offbeatr and we got to see them pivot around some very difficult business challenges and launch a great new product. Great job guys, you deserve it!
Sean over at Wittlebee took home the awards for Most Likely to Succeed and MVP, for being the most helpful in the group. He’s got a ton of experience under his belt and a great head on his shoulders, both of which were huge assets to the group. We know Wittlebee is going to go far!
Be sure to keep an eye on the rest of our companies too. At The Pool has been blowing up around the country, Cheers has some big things coming and Outlisten, have you seen all their sweet videos lately? You can pre-register for Favortree right now and Skyline is helping to green the west coast.
It was a very unique experience and we learned a ton for our next session. That’s right folks we’ll be back for round two so stay tuned for more information!
-
When we read Offbeatr’s team application to LA Startup Club, we knew immediately we wanted them in our group. They were quirky and honest, and seemed to be a far cry from what most people imagine porn guys to be.
They were open from the very beginning that being tech guys in the porn world still meant that they were porn guys, and being porn guys meant that they are facing extremely difficult challenges due mostly to the legal hurdles any legitimate business faces in their industry thanks to the fraud magnets that dominate the XXX internet. We’ve talked through everything from the difficulty getting approved for a merchant account to marketing strategy and how the adapt to the challenges they’ve bumped up against.
Yesterday brought the launch of Offbeatr and they received some great press from TechCrunch and Gigaom. Their goal is to help adult projects, who much like Offbeatr itself live on the fringes of their industry, get the funding they need.
“For Offbeatr it’s about going directly to the fans and supporters and engaging them in the process and giving content creators access to capital they previously never had access to. By getting this capital the industry will start to innovate and take more risks with business models, products they make, and how they reach out to their customers.”
We hope that this is only the beginning of a long line of successes for the team, ultimately leading to the crowdfunding sites that continually pop up, to soon be described as the Offbeatr for boring stuff. Cheers!
-
We met for our second LA Startup Club this week and we were joined by Amanda Lewis from LA Weekly. Our goal with LA Startup Club is to create a really safe place for founders to be able to speak candidly about the good, the bad and the ugly of entrepreneurship, so having someone from the press join us was a little different. But Amanda was great and even had some thought provoking questions to add to the discussion. She captured the diversity, honesty and camaraderie of our group and totally rocked the frieNDA.
Head over to LA Weekly to read the full article: LA Startup Club, Offering Counsel and Commiseration for the Silicon Beach Set.
You can also follow Amanda on Twitter at @adelaidelaments and keep up with LA Startup Club at @LAStartupClub.
-
We were so excited to have Wittlebee join LA Startup Club and even more excited when they became our first sponsor!
If you aren’t familiar with the service, Wittlebee is a monthly kid’s clothing club, that delivers amazingly cute clothes to your doorstep, helping keep your little one stylin’ and saving you time! Their team works tirelessly to make sure you get great clothes at a great price. They also work hard to help out their community, recently launching the “One for Onesie” program, delivering 1,000 onesies to Baby Buggy, a nonprofit that helps young mothers in need.
We really love Wittlebee and we’re sure you will too!
Interested in sponsoring LA Startup Club? Let us know!
-
Today marks the beginning of the very first LA Startup Club. We really believe that Los Angeles is one of the best places to start and run a company, with an outstanding community of entrepreneurs. Our goal is to bring to a group of incredible people together at one table to provide support and mentorship, collaborating to overcome the challenges we all face on the winding road to success.
Los Angeles has such a diverse startup culture and we really tried to capture that diversity with a broad range of founders and products. We had an overwhelming response and we are excited to finally introduce you to the teams!Sean Percival, Wittlebee
Wittlebee is the kids clothing club. We aim to keep parents well stocked with amazing kids clothes. We create custom packages for our members based on their child’s age, color preferences, geographic location and more.
Alex Capecelatro, At The Pool
At The Pool is web service that connects like-minded people online in order to facilitate getting together in the real world. Our goal is to expand your social circle, whether it be meeting new cyclists, foodies, entrepreneurs, etc.
Jeff Ponchick, Outlisten
Outlisten takes fan shot concert footage and synchronizes the overlapping moments into a new video turning the audience into the cameramen for the artists.
Kai Gradert, Cheers
Cheers is the “like button” for the world around you — a fun social way of expressing love and appreciation for anyone, anything, anywhere.
Aaron Block and Sandra Lee, Skyline Innovations
Skyline Innovations is committed to enabling the widespread, sustainable adoption of clean energy solutions by businesses. We deliver immediate and guaranteed energy savings as a service to businesses with zero capital outlay.
Ben Tao and Eric Lai, Extra Lunch Money
Extra Lunch Money a social marketplace for models to market and sell custom and pre-made adult digital content. ExtraLunchMoney is dedicated to creating innovative and safe platforms to allow people to explore sexuality in positive ways.
Micki Krimmel and Daniel Hengeveld, Favortree
Favortree is the first ‘play it forward’ favor trading game for mobile phones. By helping your friends and neighbors, you earn rewards which you can exchange for help when you need it.
-
Thank you to everyone that applied to be part of the first LA Startup Club. We had an amazing response from so many incredible entrepreneurs. Our team is thrilled with the number of applications we received, but now have the tough task of deciding who will be joining us. We wish we could accept everyone, but space is very limited and we will be announcing the startups that made it very soon!
