artofstartingup
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You shouldn’t be bored at a board meeting, Pt. 2: Structure for success
In my previous post I laid out some dos and don’ts for board meeting attendees. In this post I’ll describe best practices that help enable the board to surface and tackle the key issues the company is facing. A good way to structure the meeting is to divide it into three parts: progress reporting, strategic discussion and administrative... -
You shouldn’t be bored at a board meeting, Pt. 1: Board meeting dos and don’ts
Most entrepreneurs view board meetings as somewhere between a total waste of time and mildly annoying. Outside board members are often similarly frustrated that they are unable to get the information and analysis they desire from these meetings. This shouldn’t be the case. Board meetings should be valuable for both management and outside board members. How can you make that... -
Why the unremarkable success story of Dropbox is just so remarkable
Back in 2006, I did one of the first magazine covers on the budding Web 2.0 phenomenon — the infamous BusinessWeek Kevin Rose thumbs up cover. We’d also shot a few with other up and coming hot shots for cover consideration — including a young(er) Mark Zuckerberg. Those companies were all included in the piece. But the reason we ultimately... -
Dear awesome startups, don’t join an accelerator, unless…
I’ve noticed a common refrain with investors at accelerator demo days. “What did you think of the companies?” I ask. “Eh,” they say with a shrug. Over the last month I’ve asked around 15 of them the same question, it became difficult to find a VC who’d argue, in general, IN favor of the industry. (None cared to play the... -
Can Mike Maples, Josh Kopelman, and other seed investors retake the term “Value Add”?
One of the moments that stood out in Josh Kopelman’s PandoMonthly talk last week was his comparison of his seed fund First Round Capital to a baby nurse. He was talking about how First Round’s partners only take board seats for two years — the time when they think they can most help a startup learn the basics of... -
Convertibles: Great cars, bad vehicles
From an investor’s point of view, convertible notes (or “converts” or “convertibles”), while popular in California, rarely make sense except to bridge to an existing investment at an inflection point into a much larger round. This is more than some East Coast/West Coast difference in approach, and worth taking the time to dig into it. Advantages of convertible notes Convertible notes are... -
Steve Blank: “A founder’s vision is just an opinion stated passionately.”
Given the huge popularity of our Q&A with lean startup evangelist Eric Ries a few weeks ago, I decided to take one step backwards and interview the man who helped inspire Ries: Steve Blank. Like Ries, Blank is a serial entrepreneur who left company building to help create a science and discipline around entrepreneurship. The goal? To reduce... -
Three reasons not to build a Minimum Viable Product
If you are like most entrepreneurs, you should build a “minimum viable product.” Let’s get the definition out of the way first; Eric Ries defines MVP as “…that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” As we detail in “The Lean Entrepreneur,” famed entrepreneur... -
VIDEO: Dennis Crowley, Kevin Systrom and others share advice and anxieties
From pitching investors in their underwear to bucking the so-called Series A Crunch, there’s a lot for entrepreneurs to feel anxious about these days. Luckily, you don’t have to go through it alone. In this video, seven icons of the startup world, including LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Instagram’s Kevin Systrom, and Spotify’s Daniel Ek, share their... -
How the Lean Startup idea went from idiotic to overhyped
I’ve spent a lot of time rolling my eyes at the words “lean startup” because– like “pivot”– they’ve become so bastardized. Eric Ries and his philosophies of rapid iteration, testing hypotheses and turning entrepreneurship into a science went from something that was considered crazy to something that was considered overhyped. There was almost no time in the middle where... -
Raising money from outside the Valley: Still tough, but maybe not for long
It took Ben Milne a year of concentrated focus to raise the first round of funding for his payments startup, Dwolla. The company, which has raised $6.3 million over two rounds and is touted as one of the hottest online transactions firms, might have attracted dollars more easily had it been started in Silicon Valley. Instead, however, it was…
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Reid Hoffman strikes a blow at the cult of the founder. Is he right?
Reid Hoffman has an interesting essay on his site today about when founders should hire professional CEOs. In some ways, it runs counter to Ben Horowitz’s seminal post on why his firm prefers founder CEOs — a theory that has dominated the consumer Web landscape through the Web 2.0 age. Hoffman is parting company with a lot of... -
How two outsider entrepreneurs took on Washington to legalize crowdfunding
In early 2011, Los Angeles serial entrepreneurs Chance Barnett and DJ Paul were contemplating the state of startup fundraising. It’s long been a closed club with a privileged membership, which served to keep out regular Joes and Jills who might want to get in on the action – even if they didn’t have millions in the bank. But few industries... -
PandoHouse Rock: The Series A Crunch Blues
Here at PandoDaily, we’ve written a lot about the Series A Crunch and what it means for investors and entrepreneurs. That includes warnings, survivor’s tips, case studies and even an outright denial. But according to the data (and Twitter), the phenomenon is real and something all startups should keep in mind, whether they’re gearing up for a...
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Microsoft’s Kinect to come to Windows devices next year
Microsoft will be bringing its Kinect product, a motion-sensing peripheral currently used by the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, to Windows products next year, the company has announced. Microsoft is expected to reveal more about the change during its BUILD conference in June.
[Source: Microsoft]
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Lyft raises $60M
Lyft has raised a $60 million Series C from Andreessen Horowitz (whose founding partner, Marc Andreessen, is a personal investor in PandoDaily). The funding will be used to kickstarter Lyft’s global expansion; the company’s COO told AllThingsD that they can “scale globally in the next 12 months.” We’ll see.
[Source: AllThingsD]
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Microsoft announces new computer mice with dedicated Windows keys
Microsoft has announced two new computer mice (as opposed to, you know, mice mice) with dedicated Windows keys meant to make it easier to navigate the oft-befuddling interface introduced with Windows 8. The Verge’s hands-on states that the products’ usefulness is currently limited, but that Microsoft teased more-capable products in the pipeline.
[Source: The Verge]
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LoyalBlocks raises $9M
LoyalBlocks, an Israel-based loyalty marketing startup, has raised a $9 million Series A led by General Catalyst Partners, the company has announced. Founder Collective and Gemini Israel Ventures also participated in the round, which will be used to expand the LoyalBlocks platform and the company’s US presence.
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Appboy helps Android developers avoid heartbreak
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Evernote adds reminders feature to beef up its To-Do list chops
Those users who rely on Evernote to manage their To-Do list got a gift this morning in the form of a new “reminders” feature. Available at launch on Mac, iOS and web and for both to Evernote and Evernote Business users, the new alarm clock icon will allow users to create reminders, more quickly created to-do lists, and pin notes to the top of their Note list based on time. [Source: TechCrunch]
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GamGee raises $2M for mobile health care startup
Palo Alto-based Gamgee, a “stealth mode mobile health care startup,” has raised $2 million from Khosla Ventures and one other unnamed investor, according to an SEC filing. [Source: FinSMEs]
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TaskRabbit offers businesses workers for 15 plus hours per week
With 30 percent of its revenue coming from small businesses, TaskRabbit has introduced a business product that will allow clients to hire its workers for more than 15 hours per week. TaskRabbit will manage the necessary W-2 forms in exchange for a fee of 26 percent, up from the standard 20 percent. [Source: AllThingsD]
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Yahoo continues M&A strategy, grabbing upstart PlayerScale
Keeping its acquisition binge going, Yahoo acquired another early stage startup today announcing the addition of cross-platform gaming software company PlayerScale. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Nepal's Picovico takes on Animoto
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WibiData raises $15 million Series B
WibiData, a big data startup focused on software for building customer-facing applications on Hadoop, has raised $15 million in Series B funding from Canaan Partners. Existing investors NEA and Eric Schmidt participated. [Source: WibiData]
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AlephCloud raises $7.5 million
AlephCloud, which makes technology to help manage content privacy in public clouds, has raised $7.5M in a Series B round of financing led by Handbag, LLC, a venture capital firm founded by Seth Neiman. The company has raised $9.5 million total. [Source : AlephCloud]
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Bent on European domination, JustFab continues M&A
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Interactions Corp. raises $40 million
Interactions Corporation, which builds Virtual Assistant applications raised $40 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Capital with participation from Sigma Partners, Sigma Prime Ventures, RED LLC, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, North Hill Ventures and Updata Partners. [Source: Interactions Corp.]
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Rallyverse, a platform that helps brands spread authentic content, releases API
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How Qualaroo hacks the marketing conversion funnel
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Nextdoor: “We stopped everything we were doing and trained every engineer on mobile”
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As WeChat grows, Tencent opens office in Malaysia
Chinese Internet giant Tencent is opening an office in Malaysia, in part to consolidate its gains in the country with popular messaging app WeChat. The app has more than 1 million users in the country, representing 70 percent market penetration among Malaysian smartphone users. The app has about 400 million users worldwide, Tencent claims. [Source: The Next Web]
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Low-fee investment platform Loyal3 raises $18M Series C round
Loyal3, a startup that lets people invest in companies without having to pay transaction or management fees, has raised $18 million in Series C funding, led by DNS-L3, with participation from former Facebook privacy officer Chris Kelly, and Loyal3 Chairman and CEO Barry Schneider. The company has raised a total of $45 million. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Facebook’s Home phones delayed in Europe
Facebook Home, the social network’s new launcher for Android phones, has been trashed in the US and is now striking trouble in Europe. HTC First, the phone that comes with Home pre-installed, won’t be launching on time in the UK or France, because Facebook has decided to instead improve the software before rolling out to international markets. [Source: TechCrunch]
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Messaging service imo.im raises $13M, adds Broadcasts
Uber-messaging app imo.im, which is reminiscent of the old Meebo, has raised $13 million led by its co-founder Georges Harik, an early Googler. The universal messaging dashboard has also unveiled a new “Broadcasts” feature for its Android and iOS apps that connects users with similar interests. [Source: The Next Web]
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Mailbox releases its email app for iPad
Mailbox, the stupidly popular email app for iPhone that recently sold to Dropbox, is now available on the iPad. Looks pretty much the same, but bigger. Apparently a version of the app is coming to Android soon. [Source: Mailbox]
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Reid Hoffman and Joi Ito’s H2 comes out of stealth
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Forty more tickets on sale for our John Doerr PandoMonthly! (And a new venue…)
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Report: Square drops two execs
Two execs, Alyssa Cutright and Alex Petrov (who hadn’t even started at the company yet!), have been dropped by Square, according to AllThingsD. Cutright was Square’s vice president of international, while Petrov was going to be the new vice president of partnerships. [Source: AllThingsD]
