BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
June 8 2011
by Thanasis Delistathis
Feature-Not-A-Company
I wrote a post yesterday about the general euphoria in the tech market. One of the signs of things are heating up is the large volume of startups that are pursuing niche product strategies. Consumer internet is a busy space and in a race to differentiate themselves, startups are positioning themselves in tighter product spaces. ...
June 7 2011
by Thanasis Delistathis
Pinch me: is it 1999?
I attended TechCrunch Disrupt a couple of weeks ago and the scene was abuzz with talk of a new tech bubble following the LinkedIn IPO, on the heels of privately traded Facebook shares at exorbitant valuations. The Groupon IPO filing last week helped reinforce the feeling that things are heating up. So, are we living ...
June 6 2011
by Todd Hixon
Tech = Media?
I attended TechCrunch Disrupt New York recently. A few observations: Web/mobile advertising and “flash commerce” were sliced and diced on several panels. Google and Facebook execs advocated for their new products. Most interesting comments: from Mark Walrath/RightMedia founder: “The Meeker Gap (% time versus ad dollars spent on web media) exists because web advertisers have ...
May 31 2011
by Scott Johnson
Way Too Early – On Market Timing
Market timing is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for venture success. Obvious, right? The problem is that timing is obvious only in retrospect. Predicting how markets will evolve is an art, and probably is the single most important job of a venture firm. Boiled down to its essence, our role is to help companies ...
May 20 2011
by Todd Hixon
The More Things Stay The Same
… the more they will soon change. This inversion of the famous saying applies very well to venture capital. The VC business has long, strong cycles. Everything goes in one direction for a few years, and the momentum seems inevitable, until it sharply reverses. 2011 is a time of extremes in VC. The industry has ...
May 12 2011
by John Backus
E-Commerce 2.0: The Birth of Companies Worth $50B in Market Value
A new wave of e-commerce is upon us, but most people do not yet understand it. No, I am not talking about fashion flash sales here (though Gilt, Moda Operandi and Zulily are building very valuable businesses here.) And no, I am not talking about the wave of discount group buying that Groupon, LivingSocial and ...
May 2 2011
by Scott Johnson
Waste = Opportunity
Waste is something I abhor. Waste of time, waste of resource, I love funding businesses that help others be more efficient and stop waste. Time wasters are fertile ground for new business ideas. If anyone is wasting your time, think about how that happened and create a solution for it. Resource wasters are also ...
April 28 2011
by Scott Johnson
Yahoo! – Come to Boston!
Dear Yahoo! You are completely unappreciated in your home town. You are compared unfavorably to Google and FaceBook and Twitter; and are kicked around by the local press as a washed-up has-been. Because of this bashing, your executives are embarrassed to admit to their neighbors that they work for you. It is clear to me ...
April 27 2011
by Scott Johnson
Color, Valuations, and the Winner’s Curse
My friend Kevin Lewis is a professor at Duke Business school and he sends out a feed of interesting abstracts describing recent research that I sift through every day or so. Today I found this one: The Bidder’s Curse Ulrike Malmendier & Young Han Lee, American Economic Review, April 2011, Pages 749-787 Abstract: We employ ...
April 19 2011
by Todd Hixon
How Entrepreneurs Can Help Fix Health Care
I’ve long thought that health care entrepreneurship was about finding new and better treatments for disease. Most innovations offer new therapies or diagnostics, often at very high price points: e.g., drug-eluting coronary artery stents and erythropoietin (EPO), a bio-pharmaceutical that promotes blood cell production, were expensive, breakthrough capabilities that became major businesses. There is another ...
