Antone Johnson on "Working in Santa Monica, Coworking in San Francisco"

The Lean Startup Lawyer, Antone Johnson, talks about how coworking is working for him.  See his original post here.

As my firm picks up momentum, we’re putting down deeper roots in both Northern and Southern California.  Although virtual offices in executive suites offered convenience and flexibility during our launch, they’re less than ideal in the long run for many reasons.  At the same time, as I’ve written before, BLLG itself is operating as a bootstrapped lean startup; minimizing overhead is essential in order to pass along savings to our startup clients in the form of sensible fees.  (See my March 2 soapbox rant about insane big-firm billing rates.)

This week, Bottom Line Law Group moves into new office space at 530 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica, sharing a suite with top-notch entertainment law firmDoyle & Miller.  (Thanks to Matt Polesetsky of Demand Media for hooking us up.)  The new location, at the heart of the Internet, VC and digital media industries in Los Angeles, is where we want to be, literally and figuratively.

Meanwhile, 381 miles north in San Francisco, we’ve given up the pleasantly nondescript environment of office suites to take up residence at pariSoma Innovation Loft, a strikingly redone Francophile coworking space at 1436 Howard Street that hosts many startup- and tech-oriented events, including my “Ask the Lean Startup Lawyer” office hours last month – a successful event we’ll be repeating on April 7.

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The ARDevMob Spring Open Augmented Reality Developer Challenge

On April 24th and 25th ARDevMob will hold an augmented hackathon event at The pariSoma Innovation Loft in San Francisco, California. Developers will form teams and compete to create the best Mobile and Web Applications. To qualify applications must contain a “mixed reality” or “alternative interface” which utilizes a web or cellphone camera. This is a trial run for a larger global event we are holding in June.
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From March 24th to April 24th The ARDevMob will be touring local user groups, clubs and meetups promoting the ARSpringOpen and presenting tutorials for Flash, iPhone, Android and more. These sessions will prepare you to join a team in our trial run on April 24th and 25th.  Look for the ARDevMob Spring Training logo at your local development group. There will be prizes at each Spring Training event. The grand prize at the trials on the 24th is a SpringDesign Alex ebook reader, or Nexus One. More prizes to be announced.
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Registration for the ARSpringOpen begins soon. Follow @ARDevMob on twitter or sign up at ARDevMob.com for updates!

April in Paris (in SF) at Workspace, Ltd.

Please join us on April 10th, 2010 for a showcase of music, art, fashion and atmosphere, inspired by everything French (at Workspace, Ltd.).

OUI,OUI!

Evening Highlights: Live musical performances, French style salon art show by local artists organized by Gogograciegalleries, fashion show presenting San Francisco boutique, April In Paris artisan leather accessories, delicious crepes by street cart Cre’Pierre and Brigitte Bardot look-a-like costume contest open to the public! Prizes and Surprises!

Stroll le Champs-Élysées, enjoy a drink et danse a Place Pigalle, et viver L’Art de Monmartre.

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Ask the Lean Startup Lawyer

Antone Johnson PhotoAntone Johnson, founder of Bottom Line Law Group, will host “Ask The Startup Lawyer” office hours for the second time at pariSoma on Wednesday, April 7 from 1230 to 530.

A veteran business and intellectual property lawyer, Antone has served as an attorney and executive for technology and media companies at all stages of growth, from incorporation and seed funding through venture capital financing rounds, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions.  As the former head of worldwide legal affairs for eHarmony, and one of the original lawyers at MySpace, he is particularly well versed in legal and business issues related to social media, Web 2.0, digital media, e-commerce, online advertising and marketing.  pariSoma startups and San Francisco community members are welcome to sign up for free consultations.

This event filled up quickly in March, so reserve your spot for the April Session now!


Steve Puma

Steve Puma

Bright Puma

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Steve was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in Parsippany, New Jersey. Upon tiring of humidity and cold winters, he decided to head West to seek his fortune.

A “computer guy” at heart, he recently received his MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School, in hopes that this would allow him to solve all the world’s problems.

Steve frequently writes for TriplePundit.com, and has recently started his own consulting business, called BrightPuma. He resides in the Far East Bay (Walnut Creek) with his wife and pug dog Miles.

    pariSoma at SXSWi!

    pariSoma was lucky to be in Austin for SXSW last weekend. Below you can see @calte on the Coworking Summit Panel and @julian presenting pariSoma on the SXSWi Daily Recap Show presented by TechZulu (at the 27-minute mark). Enjoy!


    Watch live video from socialmediaclub on Justin.tv

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    Ask the SF Associates about your financial needs!

    Let Us Help You Map Out Your Financial and Business Success! On Tuesday, March 30th, we will have FREE 30-minute consultations for local area startups and pariSoma members on your businesses financial needs provided by San Francisco Associates.

    San Francisco Associates, a financial advisory firm in the financial district, will now be providing Parisoma members 4 hours of business and financial services. Since 1942, San Francisco Associates has been creating customized financial and business strategy plans to small businesses, individuals and families.

    Companies will be able to benefit from a range of available financial services including those related to taxes, insurance/pension plans, accounting/bookkeeping, payroll service and business management. Email us at office [at] parisoma.com to book your slot.

    Specific relevant services available include:

    1. Business Budgeting / Financial Forecasting
    2. Creation of Individualized Financial Reporting Models (utilizing the business’s existing software, if any, ie Quickbooks.)
    3. Operation Strategies, particularly those for sole/small business owners
    4. Determination of the best business entity to utilize (ie, LLC, S Corp etc.)
    5. 401K options for employees / Individual retirement support
    6. Health Insurance Analysis / Recommendations / Cost Info.
    7. Health Savings Account Analysis / Recommendations / Cost Info
    8. Personal Financial Analysis

    Additionally, San Francisco Associates will help to provide you with access to respected professionals in relevant industries including:

    • Certified Financial Planners
    • Certified Public Accountants
    • MBAs
    • And, any other financial professionals deemed necessary

    The first step to providing thorough, relevant financial services is to fully understand your individual (or your business’s) situation. As such, San Francisco Associates will be also begin providing 4-hour consultations at $100 for pariSoma members.

    eXo Platform gets funded!

    One of our beloved former coworking startups has just been funded to expand into the US market. eXo Platform, a provider of open source java middleware for cloud-based services, has received €4 million series A funding from Auriga Partners and XAnge Capital. eXo Platform makes Java websites and applications faster to build and easier to deploy, and offers modern features such as content, collaboration, social and knowledge on a services-based architecture. They have also just released some very cool new features.

    Here is a blog post, written by eXo CEO, Benjamin Mestrallet, discussing what the fund-raising means to the company.

    We are excited for eXo Platform and wish them the best of luck in their growth into the American marketplace and bringing innovative solutions to their clients.

    CASCADE meetup: Buttons & Sprites

    Learn the latest CSS + Web Design tricks and techniques.

    CASCADE is all about bringing the web design community in San Francisco together. We have events with specialized guest speakers in San Francisco, bringing us up-to-date on design trends, standards technique while interacting with some of the most talented designers in the country. We will also have a meetup night where designers will bring their favorite web sites and explain why it works and what can be improved.

    If you want to be on top of your game in your field, it’s important to stay connected with the right people. CASCADE can do that for you. Join today!


    About this meetup:

    “I will be leading a discussion regarding CSS Buttons, Sprites, and possibly Image Maps. We will begin the discussion reviewing some common uses and techniques. We will then move into discussing styling various different buttons and how to display and manage sprites.

    If you have a project or example you want to share, I encourage you to bring it or have a link to your project.

    Feel free to email examples or projects you may want to discuss or display. There will be wifi at the location, yet it may help to have your code offline too just in case.  The slides will be available via Google Docs.”

    Ask the Startup CTO

    Sebastian Hassinger has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years.

    He built the first website for Apple Support in 1995, founded two ISPs during the dot-com boom (one too early, one too late!), was senior strategist for IBM’s Pervasive Computing initiative, and is now the founder and CEO of Tech Propulsion Labs, a Vietnam-based web and mobile development firm providing services to startups in the US and Europe. He has written several technical books and holds over a dozen patents.

    Ask the Startup CTO will be able to help with technology strategy assessment for startups and firms of all stages. Make sure your technology choices support your business model, explore options to pivot or expand your business based on tech capabilities, map out a development roadmap that aligns with your business objectives, discuss recruiting and managing development resources or even your very own CTO, and more!

    Sebastian will be at pariSoma on March 22nd, from noon – 5pm.  There will be eight 30-min time slots available.  Email us office [at] parisoma.com to reserve your spot now.