Editor’s note: Ezra Galston is a VC at I2A Fund, a young entrepreneur at Foundation Capital, a Kauffman Fellows Finalist and a second-year MBA student at Chicago Booth.
It seems like nearly every tech business has sought to employ a subscription model for its services. While that makes sense from a business perspective, I wanted to investigate any effects of subscription fatigue on consumer… → Read More
Editor’s note: Geoff Lewis is a principal at Founders Fund and formerly served as co-founder and CEO of Topguest.
This email landed in my this week: Hi Geoff! I’m organizing an exclusive dinner on March 9 or 10 at SXSW for a few close friends. @Garyvee might attend and I’d love for you to join. Please RSVP by March 5. “Wow! I’m wanted!” I thought to myself upon receipt. But → Read More
Editor’s note: Steve Patterson is a writer who has covered Boston and San Francisco Bay Area startups for 20 years.
Braintree Payments, Square and fellow disruptors are applying web and mobile technologies to overhaul the economic model of the payment industry. In the next chapter of the Internet’s disintermediation of large markets, payments are shifting to be efficient and pervasive… → Read More
Editor’s note: Robby Walker is co-founder and CTO of Cue. His previous company, Zenter, sold to Google in 2007.
Programming challenges are a fantastic way to connect great people with great jobs, particularly great jobs at startups. Startups like Weebly and Cue have spent weeks of valuable engineering time building programming challenges. And tens of thousands of engineers spend their personal… → Read More
Over the past few years there has been a lot written by me and others about Twitter’s acquisition of the pull-down-to-refresh patent application with its purchase of Tweetie. According to Public PAIR (search for application number 2010-0199180), the USPTO has completed its examination of the patent application, and found allowable claims. Twitter has decided to take the allowable claims… → Read More
Editor’s note: Robert J. Moore is the co-founder of RJMetrics, a company whose software helps online businesses make smarter decisions using their own data.
In January, Twitter released Vine, a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos. We set out to learn how popular Vine has become in its first month and how it stacks up. Here’s what we found. → Read More
For the first time in 10 years, the lead-up to SXSW is, well, quiet. The usual influx of party invitations, Twitter stream inundation and press speculation around what’s going to be this year’s “breakout app” just hasn’t happened. Perhaps it’s because March is creeping up on us, having SXSW start earlier than usual. Or maybe the signal vs. noise ratio finally exploded, making this year’s… → Read More
Editor’s note: Erik Rannala is co-founder and managing partner of MuckerLab.
Much has been written about the Series A crunch that is facing entrepreneurs and their investors. Those who believe the crunch is upon us contend that a significant number of seed-funded startups will not be able to raise follow-on financing. A cursory review of the data reported recently by CB Insights would seem… → Read More
Editor’s note: Brandon Carter is a marketing manager at Outbrain, a content discovery platform on a mission to help readers find the most interesting content online.
It’s been nearly impossible to consume any kind of media in the last two weeks without hearing about Netflix’s new original series “House of Cards.” With all 13 episodes released simultaneously to enable binge viewing and a… → Read More
Editor’s note: Jacob Mullins is a VC at Shasta Ventures.
With the recent talk about the growing “billion dollar club” in startups, I’ve been wondering what characteristics a $1 billion consumer tech company has. As a Series A investor who primarily focuses on consumer web and mobile companies, I examined the pool of consumer companies that have had exits over $100 million within the… → Read More
Editor’s note: David Teten is a partner with ff Venture Capital and founder and chairman of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York.
I recently had an extensive debate with Tom Grossi, partner with New Enterprise Associates, about why and whether small funds (like mine) tend to outperform large funds (like his). He and I wanted to share the conversation with you. → Read More
Editor’s note: Jeff Cavins is the CEO of visual collaboration company FuzeBox.
I probably won’t ruffle too many feathers when I say very few people love meetings. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, meetings just don’t elicit the same emotions as, say, space flight. → Read More
In the latest episode of my Foundation video series, I talk with Smitten Ice Cream Founder Robyn Sue Fisher.
Robyn Sue explains how she built a solid alumni network at the Stanford d.school, why she turned down a job with the FBI to become an entrepreneur, and the secrets behind the Kelvin, her one-of-a-kind instant ice cream freezer. → Read More
Editor’s note: Legendary investor Vinod Khosla is the founder of Khosla Ventures.
Most VCs pitch their venture firms as value added to a company’s entrepreneurial founders. Personally, I think leading VC firms do a pretty good job of being supportive of their companies, and most entrepreneurs funded by good funds like their investors. But, on the question of “value added,” most venture… → Read More
Editor’s note: Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez represents the Fourth District of Illinois in the U.S. Congress and is the Chairman of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Vivek, I was sorry to read in your most recent post that you were “disappointed” with my response to your article on immigration and Silicon Valley, but I am not surprised. You and I both support a… → Read More
Editor’s note: Mike Ghaffary is the vice president of business development at Yelp.
Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman recently debated whether software would eat traditional retail, leaving no brick-and-mortar presence behind. Both noted that e-commerce is currently only 5 percent of retail in the U.S., while the other 95 percent is brick and mortar. → Read More
Editor’s note: Adam Jackson is a San Francisco-based serial entrepreneur and angel investor.
No part of building a startup is tougher than recruiting your team. Current supply is not meeting the demand for qualified people. And while innovative approaches, such as Google’s Summer of Code, to increase the number of experienced engineers will help in the long term, they aren’t of much… → Read More
Editor’s note: Mrinal Desai is co-founder and CEO of addappt, developer of an iPhone address book app that your friends maintain.
Many startups present themselves as mobile-first operations. These discussions about whether to be mobile- or web-first mimic discussions that take place about companies in the retail space. But what exactly is it about the mobile market that changes the rules of… → Read More
Editor’s note: Brad Garlinghouse is CEO of YouSendIt, the cloud file collaboration service. He is an avid angel investor in and advisor to several consumer and enterprise tech companies.
The news that electric car company Fisker Automotive could potentially be acquired by Chinese automaker Dongfeng Motor for about $425 million reminded me of an article that’s been eating at me for some… → Read More
Editor’s note: Bismarck Lepe is co-founder and president of products at Ooyala.
Mobile World Congress kicks off next week, and business and technology leaders from around the world will converge in Barcelona to see what’s next in mobile tech. But one thing you won’t find amid the keynotes, networking gardens and after parties is a frank discussion about why mobile video continues to be a… → Read More
Editor’s note: Alex Katz is partner and CFO with ff Venture Capital, an institutional investor in seed-stage companies.
Many venture-capital firms and other investors insist on investing only in corporations in order to avoid the complications that may flow from an investment in an LLC. As a result, many founders start their businesses as a corporation before the receipt of VC funding. In… → Read More
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Piazza founder Pooja Sankar and learned how her struggles in school inspired her to build an online question-and-answer platform for students to learn together. During our discussion, Pooja shared her story of feeling isolated in her studies and how that empowered her to learn Ruby on Rails and build a prototype that she pitched directly to professors. → Read More
Editor’s note: Adam Rifkin is co-founder and CEO of PandaWhale, an online network of interesting things and people.
Pop quiz: what is the favorite social networking site of Americans under age 25? If you guessed Facebook you are way behind the eight-ball, because Tumblr now enjoys more regular visits from the youth of America. That figure struck me while reading Garry Tan’s January 2013… → Read More
Editor’s note: Peter Relan is a former developer and Oracle’s former VP of Internet Division, a serial entrepreneur since 1998, and a Silicon Valley angel investor. Relan founded YouWeb Incubator in 2007, spinning out a string of successful mobile and gaming companies. Follow him on Twitter @prelan. Even before Apple’s 10 percent stock dip, it was clear that one battle was already over. Put… → Read More
Editor’s note: John Geraci is head of marketing for innovation agency faberNovel, where he and his colleagues help organizations think and act like startups.
Two years ago, faberNovel published a study called “Amazon.com: The Hidden Empire.” Detailing the strategies by which the company had gone from a scrappy startup to a world-dominating e-commerce site in the course of 17 years, the study… → Read More
Editor’s note: Hunter Walk was most recently Director of Product Management at YouTube.
Search engines have long memories. I think about this whenever reading new coverage of some immoral, misanthropic or illegal act. The kids who tweeted racist statements about Obama on Election Day, the college student whose secret videotaping of his gay roommate helped lead to the young man’s suicide, the… → Read More
Editor’s note: Dan Greenberg is the founder & CEO of Sharethrough, the native video advertising company. James Navin is the Vice President of Strategic Operations for Sharethrough.
There has been lots of talk in the digital media trade press about “native advertising” and the opportunities for advertisers. Yet, much less has been written about the opportunities and implications for… → Read More
Editor’s note: Michael Chang is CEO of YesVideo, a video-transfer and sharing service.
There are three trends in the world of personal video, and they have one common theme: answering the call of the consumer. Here’s how personal video tech is being affected by consumer demand and what companies like Apple and Google are doing about it. → Read More
Editor’s note: Doug Renert is a co-founding partner of Tandem Capital, Silicon Valley’s first and largest mobile accelerator fund.
Mary Meeker explains in her oft-cited report that the world’s 1.1 billion smartphone users still comprise only 17 percent of mobile subscribers. Yet, these users have tripled mobile Internet access over the last two years. This points to enormous continued… → Read More
Editor’s note: Michael Weinberg is vice president at Public Knowledge where he focuses primarily on copyright, issues before the FCC and emerging technologies like 3D printing.
Mashups are one of the great art forms of our time. Although remixes, mashups, sampling, and collage predate the Internet by decades (if not centuries), easy and accessible digital tools have allowed anyone to remix… → Read More
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