From the Investors
Rob Go of NextView Ventures offers reasons why entrepreneurs face especially tough challenges in the very beginning of their process of finding a second company to start in “Second Time Founders — The Sophomore Slump”
Kyle Lacy of OpenView launches their new look and shares their story of reinventing their brand to accurately reflect who they are and what they do in “Powering Expansion: Reinventing OpenView’s Brand from the Inside Out”
Ali Hamed of CoVenture explains what happened with Lending Club and why he believes it is finally a good time to start investing in alternative lending again in “What Is Going On With Lending Club”
Adam Besvinick of Deep Fork Capital outlines the principles and standards that he strives to follow before and after sourcing an investment, and how he does his best to achieve this task in “My VC Code”
Ryan Shmeizer of Spark Capital discusses the formula for creating mass movements and what that has to do with investor psychology and the technology markets in “What Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Teach Us About Investing Psychology”
Jeffrey Carter of West Loop Ventures talks about how robots, AI, algorithms, and developments in computing power are going to disintermediate traditional forms of brokerage in “Assault On The Brokers”
From the Operators
Ali Mese of Crew argues that no matter the temptation to obsess about conversion, what lies behind sustainable growth is the ability to delight customers by remaining dedicated to extreme value creation in “I Can’t Tell You Why Our Business Is Growing”
John Battelle of NewCo summarizes Kickstarter’s charter and talks about how it serves as an inspiration for a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors who want to do more than just get rich in “Kickstarter’s Mission Is Non-Negotiable”
Jason Fried of Basecamp reminds us of the importance of being able to boil down an idea into something as simple as a row or column in “The Best Visual Description of a Company I’ve Ever Seen”
Ian Spalter of Instagram gives a peek into their design process in “Designing a New Look for Instagram, Inspired by the Community”
Drew Koloski of Upsider writes about the differences between recruiting developers versus salespeople and the problems with finding high-performing salespeople due to lack of data and information in “Salespeople, You All Look The Same”
Zachariah Reitano, formerly of Shout recommends evaluating investors based on how they interacted with the companies in their portfolio that failed in “Why You Should Pick Your Investors Based On Their Failures”
Innovation That Matters
1776 used Mattermark data to examine and rank 25 cities’ readiness to capitalize on the inevitable shift to a digital economy.
