From the Investors
Elizabeth Clarkson of Sapphire Ventures addresses the record amount of money that has gone into U.S. venture funds this year and offers recommendations to attract LPs and improve your odds of raising in “Dear VCs, There’s Something You Need To Know About Raising Funds This Year”
Stuart Peterson of ARTIS Ventures shares details of Stemcentrx’s acquisition and where he sees further opportunities to invest in hard science in “Congratulations Stemcentrx”
The Team at Menlo Ventures announces the closing of their new Opportunity Fund and their intention to fill the “Venture Valley” that has led to a decline in Series B and C rounds in “Opportunities for Entrepreneurship: Menlo’s New $250M Fund”
Bryce Roberts of OATV uses the phrase “too much money chasing too few good deals” to evaluate the current state of the venture market in “Are We Reaching the Limits of Silicon Valley’s Venture Model?”
Abhas Gupta of Wildcat Venture Partners explains venture industry dynamics using Rihanna’s lyrics in “Rihanna Calls The Tech Bubble Like It Is”
Michael Carney of Upfront Ventures takes a look at Foursquare’s journey in order to illustrate the difficulty of building and scaling a truly valuable data-powered business in “So You Want to Build a Data Business? Play the Long Game”
Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital gives his take on how startups, investors, and customers can accelerate robotics into the workplace in “Is the Robo-Tail Wagging the Dog?”
From the Operators
Biz Stone of Jelly discusses the release of Jelly, the journey of how they got to this point, and their greater goal of amplifying humanity with software in “Introducing Jelly, A New Search Engine”
John Cockrell of Managed by Q looks at what a “Middleman as a Service” is, how it’s not a traditional middleman, and how it complements self-service rather than replaces it in “The Complementary Middleman”
Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter walks through what happened at Kickstarter over the past year, from the team and the community to developments and challenges in “Happy Birthday, Kickstarter!”
David Stillman and Steve Richard of ExecVision chat with Michael Cardamone of Acceleprise about how they determined their messaging, their biggest challenges, and tips around prospecting and qualifying in “SaaS Founding Stories”
Ben Milne of Dwolla writes about the power of default providers, including banks, in the context of new fintech software in “The Power of Default”
Myk Pono of MYXYS explores what differentiates a market leader from the rest of the field and how focusing on a single word can set them apart in “How Industry Leaders Create Strong Brands”
Investors Are Still Less Bullish About LinkedIn (read more)
LinkedIn beat in Q1, but investors are still far from as bullish on its value as they once were.
Mattermark’s Alex Wilhelm reports.
