BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
Posts Tagged ‘Venture Capital’
January 26 2012
by Scott Johnson
No Better Time, Ever, To Be An Entrepreneur
I am often asked “what is new and exciting” by pretty much anyone that knows what I do for a living. And it is a great question that I relish answering – usually. Of late, however, I have been responding in a way that needs polish. I will say “smartphones” or “Health IT” or “the ...
January 9 2012
by John Backus
The Death of Retail 2.0
The 2011 holiday shopping season saw a 15 percent increase in online sales, up to $35.3 billion according to Comscore, but consumer electronics retail bellweather Best Buy reported a one percent decline in holiday sales. What is going on? Pretty simple – we are in the middle of another battle between brick and mortar and ...
November 22 2011
by Todd Hixon
Down With The 1%! Whoever They Are …
Unless you live in a deep cave, you’ve probably heard that the “1%” (top 1% of U.S. households ranked by income) enjoys a large percentage of U.S. after tax income (about 20% in 2007), famously documented by the CBO* (link). The Occupy Wall Street protesters imply that the 1% is mostly Wall Street traders and ...
October 14 2011
by Todd Hixon
How Entrepreneurs Can Survive and Prosper In The Political Crisis
We’re in the midst of a political crisis that has been a century in the making: in the U.S. and Europe the bill has come due for a welfare state that demographic trends and escalating health costs make unaffordable, which has been financed with debt and future promises. The political system is mostly seeking ways to ...
September 19 2011
by Scott Johnson
Direct Marketing 3.0 – The Social Era
One place where there is growth aplenty thesedays is good old direct marketing, which search reinvented last decade. This decade, social media is reinventing it once again. Picture this: You’re playing a social game like Mafia Wars on Facebook and you want more “credits.” So you type “Drink Dr. Pepper” into a box, and then buy a ...
September 14 2011
by Todd Hixon
What the Downgrade Means for Entrepreneurs: Part 1, What’s Happening
A downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit rating has never happened before, so it’s worth examining what it means for entrepreneurs. This is the first of three posts, focused on what’s happening. Part 2 will look at the impact on entrepreneurs and the venture market, and Part 3 will suggest how entrepreneurs can survive and ...
July 4 2011
by Todd Hixon
A Tale of Three Cities
In the past month I’ve been to venture conferences in three cities: New York, San Francisco, and Boston. (I rarely go to so many; events conspired this year.) This invites a comparison. The New York conference (TechCrunch/Disrupt) stropped its edge and trumpeted media, personalities, and disrupting everything, not least venture capital (more here). There were ...
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 ...
