On today’s episode of TechCrunch NOW, investor Jeff Clavier and CloudCrowd founder, Alex Edelstein, joined us to discuss Apple’s ambitious plans for China, BuyWithMe’s new round of funding, and Twitter’s latest product, Earlybird.
Aside from Steve Jobs’ world domination plans, we focused on the hyper active daily deal market. Jeff Clavier, who has invested in 81 consumer internet companies as of this Wednesday (he just wrapped up his another investment last week), is no stranger to this space. He recently invested in Townhog— a collective buying site launched in 2009 that also features local promotions. Despite the flood of investment dollars, Clavier says the daily deal market is still in it’s infancy. He predicts that ultimately, personalization will be the key to dominating this sector.
“Inventory is tricky because by definition..there are only so many sushi offers and manicure offers that you can put on the table and really at the end what matters is personalization. What sort of offers will matter to me as a consumer is what I want to see at some point, the issue is that we’re at the infancy of the market…It’s going to develop in interesting way, there might be a shakeout at some point, but we can see many players being successful, I think.”
Meanwhile, CloudCrowd’s Edelstein is keeping an eye on Twitter’s Earlybird. Although there’s no clear evidence the new product will directly compete with the likes of Groupon, he says Twitter is a credible threat: “They’re arguably late to the party but they’ve got a lot of huge advantages in this space…I have a Twitter account but I don’t have a Groupon account and if Twitter can establish what locality I live in— which isn’t that hard to do if I think there’s something in it for me— than it’s very easy for them to start messaging deals to me.”
For more on Apple, the daily deal market and how competition will affect those rich profit margins, see the video above, or check out previous episodes of TechCrunch Now here.
CloudCrowd is one of the leading online workforce platforms, distributing millions of pieces of work to more than 200,000 workers. With projects ranging from high-end writing to quick-and-easy 10 second verification tasks, CloudCrowd provides the most advanced opportunity for individuals to find good work and get paid well. The workers of CloudCrowd are independent contractors who set their own schedules and choose their own tasks. CloudCrowd offers individuals new ways to make money, achieve recognition, and fit work into busy...
Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most established seed VC firms in Silicon Valley, having closed 150 investments since 2004. An early angel investor in Web 2.0, Jeff and his team have backed successful startups like Mint (Intuit), Kongregate (GameStop), Brightroll, Milo (eBay), Wildfire (Google), Bleacher Report (Turner), Fitbit, Eventbrite, Sendgrid, Fab, Poshmark and Class Dojo. The portfolio has also seen acquisitions by Groupon, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo and AOL. The...
SoftTech VC is one of the original micro VC firms, founded in 2004 and backing over 135 early-stage start-ups. Based in Palo Alto, the firm manages two institutionally-backed funds and invests in Silicon Valley, New York, Southern California, Boulder and Canada. SoftTech VC is among the most active investors in early stage consumer Internet and B2B startups, consistently investing in 20 new opportunities a year. We seek great entrepreneurs, differentiated products and large market opportunities. More information...
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