From the Investors
Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital explains why the unicorn financing market just became more dangerous and complicated for all those involved in “On the Road to Recap”
Brad Feld of Foundry Group takes his own perspective in expanding on the emotional biases listed in Bill Gurley’s post in “Current Startup Market Emotional Biases”
Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures announces a new fund and reflects on how their unconventional approach has led to success over the past decade in “From 0 to $200M”
Mark Valdez of Playground summarizes what hardware means, why his firm believes it is critical to the future of technology, and how that informs their thinking on potential investments in “View From the Playground”
Logan Bartlett of Battery Ventures discusses how he built his brand, his key personal marketing strategies, and how he made his way into the world of venture capital in “20VC: The Rise of the Celebrity VC” (podcast)
Josh Felser of Freestyle Capital reminds us that being authentic means owning both your failings and successes and is powerful medicine to encourage your team to be more open in “I’m Not Perfect so STFU”
Ezra Galston of Chicago Ventures quantifies and explores the effects of advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning from a unit economics perspective in “The Huge Economics Underlying Chatbot Mania”
From the Operators
Deva Hazarika of Opstarts explains key SaaS financial metrics, how to calculate them, and provides a list of SaaS resources in “A Crash Course in SaaS COGS, Gross Margin, LTV, and CAC”
Jo Johansson of Close.io writes that even though every team within a company has a unique function, they are still all dependent on each other in “Hey Product, Your Salespeople Know Something You Don’t”
Howie Lu of Airtable publishes a guide on the legal setup process, from details of incorporation to company structure in “The Startup Legal Setup Guide”
Gil Elbaz of Factual details why his company chose to litigate instead of settle a patent lawsuit and argues that patent laws aren’t promoting innovation as much as they’re fomenting a tax on it in “Beating Back the Patent Trolls”
Sandi MacPherson of Quibb summarizes her conversations with two NYC-based tech people which caused her to reconsider one of the accepted rules of how startup ecosystems develop and thrive in “NYC Tech Catching Up to Silicon Valley, While Seattle Flails. Here’s Why”
Ben Thompson of Stratechery walks through Apple’s services problem and explains how it can only be fixed if a new type of organizational structure is built around these services in “Apple’s Organizational Crossroads”
“Like“ Mattermark on Facebook
If you want to get a feed of must-read posts and product updates from our team, you can “like” Mattermark on Facebook.