De los Inversores
Heidi Roizen of Draper Fisher Jurvetson thinks “things have improved,” but from her article, it seems like there was nowhere to go but up – Heidi assures you, “It’s Different for Girls”
“There was an old saying that it took $50 million to train a VC… Considering that’s larger than our $35m fund, you could imagine that I wasn’t too interested in proving that axiom correct.” Hunter Walk of Homebrew celebrates Homebrew’s one-year anniversary in “Five Mistakes New VCs Make (& How I Tried to Avoid Them)”
Jean-Louis Gassée of Allegis Capital and Frédéric Filloux of Les Echos discuss Uber, AirBnb, and the cultural impact of digital change in “The Ripple Effects of Disruptive Models”
Rob Go of NextView Ventures looks at how certain funds have emerged as leaders in “the new Series A round” in “Competition and Leadership in Seed Stage Investing”
Michael Staton of Learn Capital was recently asked, What skills should I focus on as a young entrepreneur? He responded with “The cheap answer: all of them, but especially design,” in “One Man Whole Team”
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures matches the needs of a growing startups with their need for responsive marketing in “A Framework for Maximizing Startup Marketing Effectiveness”
“The combination of sky high valuations, equally high burn rates, and a disappearing IPO market is not a pleasant one.” Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures responds to TechCrunch’s article on Square and Box in “The Valuation Trap”
Tx Zhuo and Arteen Arabshahi of Karlin Ventures explain why customer retention beats customer acquisition every time in “Why Retention Matters”
Charles Moldow of Foundation Capital gives you a sneak peek at his presentation on how marketplace lending is creating No Country for Middle Men in “A Trillion Dollar Market By the People, For the People”
John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners shows how David beat Goliath in form over function “How GoToMyPC Kicked pcAnywhere’s A$$”
Tren Griffin of Microsoft expands on his sit-down with the CEO of Starbucks in “A Dozen Things I Have Learned from Howard Schultz”
Semil Shah of Haystack Fund reviews the arguments surrounding the lagging iPad market before offering his own views in “Perspective on an iPad Market in Flux”
Want to attend Y Combinator but live in New York or London? Today’s your lucky day: “Startup School is Going Global”
“As an artist—and that’s what I consider myself as a salesman—[wine] offered me a wide canvas to paint on.” Gary Vaynerchuk of Vayner RSE in “The Mind of a Salesman, Part 1”
Paul Sullivan of The New York Times interviewed a handful of angel investors, all of whom agreed that a steel stomach is more important than a platinum bank account, in “Billions Not Required for Angel Investing”
De los Operadores
Josh Miller of Facebook talked with his best industry insider—his little sister—about Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook to find out who’s eating whose lunch in “Eleventh Grade Tech Trends”
Joel Gascoigne of Buffer ushers you into the situation room in “How We’re Trying to Stay Innovative as a 3.5 Year-Old Startup”
When Danielle Morrill of Mattermark made a “Fantasy VC Portfolio,” two of the companies she wrote about extended her an invitation to invest. In her post, “Reverse General Solicitation,” she wonders why more angel investors don’t follow suit.
Michael Mace of Zekira breaks down the dynamics of Facebook’s f8 conference to determine whether Facebook will be a facilitator or a predator in mobile in “It’s Time to Pay Attention to Facebook”
Edvard Nore of Zoaring invites you to explore the Norwegian maritime industry in “The Norwegian Tech Industry is All Out at Sea” — “If you don’t work with oil, you’re screwed.”
Matt Mullenweg of Automattic announces his successful $160M Series C round in “New Funding for Automattic” (should have been titled A New Unicorn is Born…)
Mark Traphagen of Stone Temple Consultancy considers a possible future for Google Plus in “Why Google Plus Will Not Die (But May Change)”
Matthew Goldman of Wallaby Financial helps you land your next job/internship with the correct answer to this pivotal question in “For Tech Interviews, Research Means Trying the App”
De la Comunidad
Congratulations to Matthew Magdales on winning the #NEVYs14 contest! Matt will join Mattermark as our guest at the 2014 New England Venture Capital Association’s award ceremony. We look forward to seeing you there!
Fundador Destacado
Matthew Goldman is the founder of Walla.by. He bills Walla.by as “One card to rule them all.” Walla.by manages payments data and to empower consumers and marketers in their decision-making.
Mattermark: How did you come up with your startup?
Matthew: After being a consultant, I started using a lot of different credit cards to earn free travel. Years later, I realized that I wasn’t optimizing my rewards and thought there had to be an answer.
Mattermark: What is a recent milestone that your team celebrated?
Matthew: We recently launched a beta of our web product for a major new partner.
Mattermark: If someone were to thank you in a restaurant for creating your startup, what would you hope they say?
Matthew: Wallaby helped me earn an amazing free trip to the tropics with my family that I never could have afforded.
Mattermark: Tell us about your team.
Matthew: We have eight people – six in Pasadena, one in San Francisco, and one in Seattle. We have an odd affinity for RC helicopters and watching rocket launches.