Startup Land Has a Fear of Money, and It’s Crippling [Quote] | PandoDaily

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Google+

Startup Land Has a Fear of Money, and It’s Crippling [Quote]

"Their fear [of moving beyond beta] is justified, because the second you start charging for a product, all of the bubbly bullshit falls away. The market is cold, rational, and effective. It doesn’t care about your lean startup methods, your rockstar team, or your fawning tech press. All of your assumptions, vision, business plans, and pitches are irrelevant. You’ve either built something worth paying money for, or you haven’t."

- MixRank co-founder Ilya Lichtenstein on companies staying in beta forever.

HotSpot Shield crosses the 10M download mark

Free VPN service HotSpot Shield has crossed over 10 million downloads. In addition, it is growing at a rate of around 1.5 million new downloads per month. [Source: TechCrunch]
- CGW
May 21, 2013
Finally, a Lumia-like device unbound by Windows

By Nathaniel Mott May 21, 2013
Open-plan offices aren’t as magical as you might think

Open-plan offices are the latest fad in interior design, what with their promises of increased serendipity and total transparency and other kinda-cute notions that make employers feel better about having workers come in beyond the supposed 40-hour work week. Now Quartz has compiled a list of ways open-plan offices are actually kinda shitty, from increased distractions to the cesspools of disease and frustration that they really are.

[Source: Quartz]
- NM
May 21, 2013
Ride-sharing gets the Onion treatment

The Onion has published a cartoon depicting ride-sharing services as a communistic Grim Reaper threatening the darling baby representing our “precious way of life.” Looks like you’ve finally made it, UberX, Lyft, SideCar, GetTaxi, Zipcar, and every other ride-sharing startup!

[Source: The Onion]
- NM
May 21, 2013
Pandora announces new “Premieres” stations

Pandora has announced new “Pandora Premieres” stations that will allow users to listen to full albums up to one week before their official release in the US, the company has announced. The service actually sounds less like Pandora and more like Spotify in that it allows users to listen to tracks in whatever order they would like, for as often as they would like, without restrictions.

[Source: Pandora]
- NM
May 21, 2013
Intel CEO reportedly creates “new devices” division

Newly-appointed Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has created a “new devices” division and restructured other “key business groups,” Reuters reports.

[Source: Reuters]
- NM
May 21, 2013
Postmaster raises $600K

Postmaster, a startup seeking to improve shipping processes with the REST API, has raised a $600,000 round from Capital Factory, Cloud Power, and Zelkova Ventures, TechCrunch reports.

[Source: TechCrunch]
- NM
May 21, 2013
About.me introduces premium product

About.me has introduced a premium product that will allow users to pay $4 per month to remove the About.me branding from their pages, view Google Analytics for the page, and more.

[Source: AllThingsD]
- NM
May 21, 2013
Why a Valley veteran is building tech in Mexico

By Michael Carney May 21, 2013
Hey New Yorker, the Valley's not *that* vacuous

By Hamish McKenzie May 21, 2013
TeamSnap acquires WePlay in sports platform rollup

Sports team management platform TeamSnap has acquired athlete social network WePlay, and its 2.25 million users, for an undisclosed sum. TeamSnap is backed by $4.3 million in venture funding, but WePay took in $15 million over its five years. [Source: SoCalTech]
- MC
May 21, 2013
Change.org raises $15 million

Online petition site Change.org has raised $15 million from Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam’s firm Omidyar Network. The six-year-old company has not taken on outside capital before and is not a non-profit, though Omidyar says his minority stake does not anticipate an exit. [Source: All Things D]
- EG
May 21, 2013
Uncovet raises $1.3 million

Uncovet, an LA-based fashion deals and discovery site, raised $1.3M from Javelin Venture Partners, Siemer Ventures, and Paige Craig. The company is also backed by Science, Inc. [Source: SocialTech]
- EG
May 21, 2013
Orchestrate.io raises $3 million in seed funding

Portland, Ore.-based Orchestrate.io has raised $3 million in seed funding led by True Ventures with contributions from Frontline Ventures and Resonant Venture Partners. The company’s software provides an API that customers can use to send data from multiple databases. [Source: GigaOm]
- EG
May 21, 2013
HasOffers raises $9.4 million from Accel

HasOffers, mobile advertising attribution tool, has raised $9.4M in a round of funding led by Accel Partners, with participation by Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks, and Chris DeVore of Founder’s Co-op. The company has bootstrapped itself to 79 employees to this point. [Source: HasOffers]
- EG
May 21, 2013
Brightpearl raises $8 million

Brightpearl a provider of cloud for integrating orders, inventory and customer data for retailers, raised an $8 million Series B financing, co-led by Eden Ventures and Notion Capital. [Source: Brightpearl]
- EG
May 21, 2013
Adaptive Planning raises $45 million

Adaptive Planning, a business analytics software company, has raised $45 million in a new round of VC funds led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from existing backers ONSET Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, RBC Venture Partners, Cardinal Venture Capital, and Monitor Ventures. [Source: Adaptive Planning]

- EG
May 21, 2013
Shinichi Mochizuki is not Satoshi Nakamoto

By Adam L. Penenberg May 21, 2013
Google to launch Chrome OS app launcher for Mac

Google will soon unveil a Chrome OS Web app launcher for the Mac, according to a Google+ post from engineer François Beaufort. Users can try the app launcher in beta by installing Chromium. [Source: The Verge]
- HM
May 21, 2013
London’s Edxus Group to spend big on edtech consolidation

London-based edtech company Edxus Group has said it will spend up to $77 million over the next year and a half to develop and buy e-learning businesses in Europe that will give it to scale to compete against American edtech players. Edxus’s move mirrors similar strategies from US edtech companeis Pearson, Blackboard, Macmillan, Kaplan, and McGraw-Hill. [Source: TechCrunch]
- HM
May 21, 2013
ConsultingMD lands $10M for medical second opinions service

ConsultingMD, which launched last year to help patients get second opinions from specialists via the Web, has announced today that it has raised $10 million Series B funding from Venrock. The startup was founded by Reputation.com co-founder Owen Tripp and Dr Lawrence Hofmann, chief of interventional radiology at Stanford Hospital. [Source: TechCrunch]
- HM
May 21, 2013
MessageMe passes 5M users, confirms $10M funding round

Mobile chat app MessageMe has passed 5 million users two months since it launched. The startup has also confirmed that it has closed $10 million of funding, building on the $1.9 million round it announced in late 2012. Its new round was led by Greylock Partners, an existing investor. [Source: The Next Web]
- HM
May 21, 2013
Unity makes its mobile tools free for indie game developers

Cross-platform video game engine Unity has made its mobile tools free for small and independent studios. While Unity has provided free PC, Mac, and Web tools for indie developers since 2009, developers have until now had to pay $400 to release the game on either Android or iOS. [Source: Unity]
- HM
May 21, 2013
Spotify launches “top 50″ songs charts

Spotify has launched a “top 50″ songs chart for the most-listened-to and the most-shared tracks on the platform each week. The charts are available for, and sortable by, Spotify’s 28 markets and are updated every Monday at noon EST. The charts are also embeddable. [Source: Spotify]
- HM
May 21, 2013
Swipely raises another $12m from tiny Rhode Island

By Sarah Lacy May 21, 2013

The Week in Review

Thursday

dixon_2

For Chris Dixon the next big thing might be bitcoin The center of tech is shifting from Silicon Valley to “application towns” like New York and LA Chris Dixon: The consumer Web has gotten too good, enterprise companies are cutthroat Portland startup launches transit mobile ticketing service. Is this the future? We are real people trying to do real things With 2 million users, “secrets app” Whisper launches on Android As venture capital becomes a commodity, it’s all about community What CEOs could learn from comedians How Microsoft, Google, and Square use hardware to market their software and services A federal shield law for journalists would be virtually useless San Francisco: Get your ticket to see John Doerr at PandoMonthly now! Scroll down: The future of online media is in the cards Marqeta now powers Facebook Card loyalty and payments tech, announces $14M Series B round Berg Cloud Sandbox: A tool to unite connected devices and the companies that make them Two years of stealth and $11M in VC later, EdgeSpring launches a data analytics platform for the average man

Friday

underdog_bite_coin

Bitcoin is legal, but mainstream adoption will mandate playing by the rules For the Internet of things, will it be verticals or horizontals? A bitcoin bubble could be good for everyone New Zealand-based Vend raises $8M without turning to the Valley Hotseat: Gravity’s Amit Kapur defends the integrity of the MySpace mafia PandoHouse Rock: A history of 3D printing, from prototypes to pistols With the bleeding stopped, ShoeDazzle is in the market for a strategic acquisition or investment Bitcoin’s consumerization continues with Perk, a rewards platform and Web browser for normal people How to become a VC without leaving home Gliph joins Boost.vc, launches bitcoin messaging and payments app Zinio’s new subscription product only solves half a problem Facebook ponders its place in the Internet of Things The Apathy Epidemic: Why your startup will suck you dry

Saturday

dixon_quote_logo

PandoMonthly New York with Chris Dixon, the full interview Stop bitching about Millennials

Sunday

photo (1)

Dave McClure is no male chauvinist

Yesterday

Data Crying

You are your data: The scary future of the quantified self movement The new Flickr: Biggr, Spectaculr, Wherevr Yahoo didn’t buy Tumblr. They bought Tumblr’s market position Google closes Checkout, pushing thousands of merchants into Braintree’s arms Pass the pipe: Gawker’s “Crackstarter” is skeezy but potentially significant Sorry, NYC, Tumblr selling to Yahoo was not the “win” we needed On the outskirts of the Maker Faire Why Yahoo’s track record with acquisitions isn’t relevant to Tumblr Writers should be paid Don’t confuse Google’s ubiquity for openness NextGuide Web launches. Can it possibly be a discovery powerhouse? Minbox: The way file-sharing should work Former MySpace and NASA security exec raises $700k, launches Prevoty to defend websites against malicious user code Yahoo buys Tumblr and Mayer “promises not to screw it up” like past deals Forget armchair activism, new app Buycott helps people shop with a conscience