From the Investors
Sam Altman of Y Combinator builds on the article in Businessweek, “Arrogance is Good: In Defense of Silicon Valley,” describes how some of the most innovative ideas were first viewed as toys, in “Stupid Apps and Changing the World”
Startup Advisor Neil Murray breaks out funding by country in “Analysis of Funding Raised in the Nordics Q2 2014“
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures champions the Benefit Corporation in “The B Corporation: A Novel Structure for Mission Driven Startups”
Benedict Evans of Andreessen Horowitz pulls together some charts on mobile from Ofcom’s annual Communications Market Report in “Chartflood“
Leo Polovets of Susua Ventures answers, “Which Technologies Do Startups Use? An Exploration of AngelList Data.”
Jonathan Friedman of LionBird illustrates how some founders expose their short-term ambitions at the cost of their long-term success in “Don’t Fundraise for Multiple Startups at the Same Time”
John Henderson of White Star Capital agrees with Hunter Walk’s argument that fundraising at the seed level is about finding product-market fit and building relationships — “It’s About More Than Just Money: Why Founders Must Raise the Seed Round Themselves”
From the Operators
Shannon Levis and Alli Brian of Kahuna explain how to keep your app on the lock screen in “New Data Shows up to 60% of Users Opt-Out of Push Notifications“
Sam Brown of Foursquare shares his thoughts on the journey through leading the design effort in “Designing the New Foursquare”
Avikk Ghose of Kernel dreams up a resource for identifying patterns of user behavior in “A Resource for Unmet Customer Needs”
Jishai Evers of Dadaviz makes a visually appealing representation of angel investors and follow-on investments in “Who Follows Who? Top Angels and Follow-On Investments by VC’s”
Steli Efti of Close.io makes more observations and fewer judgements in “The Hidden Danger of Studying Sales Persuasion Techniques”
Allie Lehman of The Wonder Jam gives a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into solidifying a brand image in “Whence”
Ivan Kirigin of YesGraph reassembles Foursquare into one app in “The New New Foursquare”
Stewart Butterfield of Slack, and his journey from Flickr to now, is featured in Wired — “The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup“