As always, Built In LA looks to foster the growth of local digital companies by helping entrepreneurs connect and learn from each other. Here are three veterans of LA's digital ecosystem that have helped to make it what it is today - and here's your opportunity to take a few pointers from them...
Gil Elbaz, Factual
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Factual CEO and founder Gil Elbaz is one of the iconic founding fathers of LA’s digital startup world. In 1998, when he co-founded Applied Semantics with Adam Weissman Santa Monica’s digital community barely existed. Then, when the company was acquired by Google in 2003, Elbaz and his team of 40 were whisked into the very beginnings of Google’s LA presence. While there, Elbaz worked on the Adsense technology as Engineering Director for about four years.
Now at Factual, Elbaz is leading a team of over 75 to build the company into the leading open data platform for app developers. And Factual already is the number one data platform worldwide with over 70 million places plotted. Factual provides the location data for companies such as Apple, Yelp, Bing and Samsung, truly making it “the hub of the data ecosystem.”
Built In LA chatted with Elbaz to gain his insight on current Big Data trends, as well as hear his Google-influenced advice for other founders:
Josh Berman, BeachMint
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In 2013, Santa Monica-based social commerceBeachMint made all the right moves. The 150-person team formed partnerships with brands such as intimate apparel company Cosabella and footwear company ALDO and also named Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as co-chairs of their advisory board. Josh Berman, co-founder and CEO of BeachMint, is the man behind these strategic partnerships between his e-commerce company and fashion brands and high-profile celebrities.
This was possible because Berman knows the way around the LA’s entertainment, fashion and tech scene; he’s built a company in LA quite a few times now. As a co-founder of Myspace and President of Slingshot Labs (an incubator within News Corporation), Berman still involves himself heavily in the LA tech scene while building up each of BeachMint’s four online brands.
Built In LA sat down with Berman to hear about how the BeachMint team will leverage their successes of 2013 as they “come to life” this year:
Adam Goldenberg, JustFab
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“This is going to be a big year for us,” JustFab co-CEO Adam Goldenberg said of his El Segundo-based VIP membership fashion company. And Goldenberg knows what “a big year” entails, as he has had quite a few throughout his career already: in 1999, he sold his two-year-old gaming network Gamer’s Alliance to Intermix Media. By 2006, he founded Internet brand incubatorIntelligent Beauty and four years later started up JustFab.
The traction JustFab has gained in just four years is a telling sign that Adam’s predictions for 2014 are in fact correct. In 2013 alone, JustFab raised $55 million in funding and also acquired shoe discovery service ShoeDazzle. JustFab’s own celebrity stylist membership program is currently used in five countries outside of the US and is constantly expanding its offerings with new launches such as athletic brand Fabletics. Built In LA caught up with Goldenberg to pick his brain about JustFab’s best practices and hear how they have propelled the company’s growth:
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