From the Investors
Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital explains why predictability and visibility are the secrets to a SaaS company’s valuation in “Recurring Revenue is Magic”
Angel Investor Mark Cuban dusts off an old court case from his Broadcast.com days and draws some comparisons in “AEREO – Everything Old is New Again”
Semil Shah of Haystack Fund distills the lessons from Dave McClure and 500 Startups on fundraising, accountability, and angel investors in “Notes from the 2014 Pre-Money Conference”
Brad Feld of Foundry Group asks mentors if their words match their actions in “Mentors 3/18: Be Authentic – Practice What You Preach”
Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures equates running a startup without marketing to running a marathon with only one shoe in “Growth is a Commodity”
Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz breaks down how Coinbase created zero net Bitcoin exposure for buyers and merchants in “Bitcoin and Volatility”
Bilal Zuberi of Lux Capital hears an unanswered call for innovation in “Computational Sound”
Lee Hower of NextView Ventures looks optimistically at the rising class of Boston universities and startups in “Boston Startup Talent: Leaky Bucket or Everlasting Spring?”
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures expands on some reflections by top VCs from the dot-com days in “Lessons from Interviews of Pre-Eminent VCs in 2000”
Hunter Walk of Homebrew offers some ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to reform philanthropy in “Average American Gives 3.1% of Income to Charity. Three Product Ideas to Help me be More Charitable.”
Angel Investor Gary Vaynerchuk reflects on user interest and being wrong on the record in “I Was Really Super Wrong about Snapchat Stories”
From the Operators
Megan Kierstead of Social Ergonomics tells what it’s like to be a woman in a field with omnipresent behavioral and cultural biases in “Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Reality of Being a Woman in Tech” — “Even compliments come with strings attached.”
Kieran Snyder of Amazon analyzes data on interruptions/hour and concludes that speaking up begets moving up in “Want to Get Ahead as a Woman in Tech? Learn to Interrupt.”
Alex Taub of SocialRank gets founders to believe in three things before they get on the line to pitch a still-evolving product in “How Do You Pre-Sell When You Don’t Have a Product?”
Andrew Wong of Coinvent looks to his home screen heroes for simplicity and focus in “Why Design Matters for Your Startup”
Steli Efti of Close.io coaches salespeople through the aftermath of a bad call in “Sales Mindset: How to Recover from a Bad Sales Call?”
From the Community
Startup Advisor Chris Shipley reconsiders what it means to be an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and what values drive entrepreneurs today in “Losing My Religion“