Semil Shah

Semil Shah is a GP @ Haystack & a Venture Partner @ Lightspeed. Haystack is an early investor in Instacart, DoorDash, Hashicorp, Hired, Narvar, Giphy, eShares, OpenDoor, Chariot, Navdy, Managed By Q, and many other companies

The Latest from Semil Shah

My Weekly TechCrunch Habit Ends

Over the past three years, every weekend, I sit down with my laptop and write something that eventually becomes a blog post on TechCrunch. Every Sunday, 10am PST. It started back when Mike was writing

In Digital Health, Does Nike Have A Path To Victory After Fuelband?

This past week, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.techmeme.com/140418/p30#a140418p30">conflicting</a> reports about Nike leaked, suggesting either <a target="_blank" href="http://recode.net/2014/04/

UberRUSH Raises Three Critical Questions For The Future Of Mobile On-Demand Services

Last week, my column discussed how on-demand mobile services -- <a target="_blank" href="http://blog.semilshah.com/2014/04/06/tap-your-phone-get-stuff-including-funding/">Tap Your Phone, Get Stuff</a>

Tap Your Phone, Get Stuff (Including Funding)

Earlier this week, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.twitter.com/schlaf">Steve Schlafman</a>, an investor with RRE in New York City, <a target="_blank" href="http://schlaf.me/post/81679927670">creat

Microsoft Office, Now On iOS, Highlights A Powerful Lesson For Incumbents

<p dir="ltr">Finally, Microsoft's flagship Office suite (Excel, PPT, Word) is <a target="_blank" href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/28/microsofts-office-for-ipad-suite-dominates-app-store-ch

Mobile Platforms, Smartwatches, And Golden Handcuffs

<p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height:1.625;">Ask three different smart, knowledgeable people in tech about their views on smartwatches, and you’re bound to receive at least four plausible opinions

Looking In The Rearview Mirror For Mobile App Inspiration

<p dir="ltr">Every Sunday, I try to write something about mobile that’s relevant today or tomorrow. This week, I thought it would be fun to briefly look back in time. When it comes to mobile (and th

How Secret May Uncover A New Secret To Mobile Growth

<p dir="ltr">Greetings from a rainy (but always fun) Austin, TX. As is the case leading up to every SXSW, many wonder what will be the breakout app. As someone who works in, invests in, and writes abo

The WhatsApp Effect

<p dir="ltr">It’s no secret that many entrepreneurs and investors are seduced by the <a target="_blank" href="http://blog.semilshah.com/2013/08/30/oh-the-marketplaces-youll-go/">specter of network e

The WhatsApp Story Challenges Some Of The Valley’s Conventional Wisdom

<p dir="ltr">Silicon Valley and the tech world at large are filled with a variety of conventions. These conventions are now created, captured, and shared ad nauseam disguised as blog posts, tweets wit

An iPhone Loyalist’s First Few Weeks With Android

<p dir="ltr">A year ago, I wrote a post titled “<a target="_blank" href="http://blog.semilshah.com/2014/02/16/silicon-valley-slowly-awakens-to-android-on-samsung/">Silicon Valley Slowly Awakens To A

How CodePath Trains Developers To Build In A Mobile World

Late in 2013, I stumbled upon two bootstrapped entrepreneurs -- <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/timothy1ee">Timothy Lee</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/nesquena">Nath

Unpacking Facebook’s Mobile Strategy: Paper, All The Mobile News That’s Fit To Print

<p dir="ltr">In the world of mobile apps, the biggest news from this week was the announcement, by Facebook, of a new app, built by the social network, to read news and stories: <a target="_blank" hre

Enterprise Mobility: Devices, Security, Design, And Distribution

<p dir="ltr">Every Sunday for this column, I write on something <a href="https://techcrunch.com/author/semil-shah/">related</a> to mobile. To date, it’s mostly been about consumer-facing apps, <a ta

Revisiting Mobile Identity, TouchID And Beyond

<p dir="ltr">About three years ago, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.twitter.com/artypapers">Rebekah Cox</a>, an early product designer at Facebook and Quora, <a target="_blank" href="https://twitt

The Automobile As A Consumer Mobile Frontier

<p dir="ltr">I’ve never been to CES before, but it’s hard to escape the flurry of noisy tweet, and headlines. One morsel that managed catch my attention centered around major automobile manufactur

A Passive Yet Potentially Aggressive Mobile App Strategy

<p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height:1.625;">Yes, we know...If you’re reading <em>TechCrunch</em>, there’s a great chance we all look at our phones too many times during the day, during meetings,

How Snapchat Became The Breakout Consumer Product Of 2013

<p dir="ltr">Last year, as 2012 ended, I scanned the early-stage startup landscape and tried to identify one company that was a breakout for the year -- I ultimately selected  Stripe, and explained w

For Holiday Shopping, Mobile Apps Bring Out My Inner Grinch

<p dir="ltr">Every week for this column, I write about something related to mobile technology or apps. It would be only natural, then, for me to devote at least one column to the intersection of mobil

The Shifting Ways In Which We’ll Interact With Mobile Apps

<em></em>‘Tis the season to reorganize the apps on my iPhone. With iOS 7 and the shift from spotlight search to swipe-down-to-search for apps, I’ve noticed my app behavior has changed a bit, as it
Load More