January 2012
3 posts
Somebody that I used to know
I am SO late to this party (47 MILLION views as of this posting), but this has got to be the best music video (music + visual) that I’ve seen in ages.
Discovered via @mauerbach804
Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
And if you want to really have your mind blown, watch this remake (32 MILLION views so far) by Walk Off The Earth.
Productize your data
I have the opportunity to see many companies doing fascinating things with data at my day job. One truism that needs to be recognized is that generating interesting data is not nearly enough, but rather entrepreneurs need to be laser focused on productizing data. I’ve seen many entrepreneurs miss this point, often times creating an interesting mousetrap for generating, collecting or...
November 2011
2 posts
Dominating Freemium - Spotify case study
Like my good friend elsiguy, I’ve fallen in love with Spotify. Over the weekend I decided to take my relationship with it to the next level by upgrading to the premium service for $10/month. For the uninitiated, Spotify’s basic service is free, on-demand desktop music streaming supported by advertising. There are two premium offerings:
$5/month removes all ads
$10/month removes all...
October 2011
4 posts
Fundraising ‡ business development
I recently had a fundraising discussion with the head of BD at company looking to raise capital. He is a good guy and the company is doing cool stuff. But a word to the wise - fundraising is not business development and your BD lead should not run your fundraising process. Fundraising is fundamentally the responsibility of the CEO and cannot be delegated to other members of the team.
I get the...
Consumerization of Enterprise
Amongst the many buzzy internet themes popular these days, one that particularly intrigues me is the theme of consumerization of enterprise. Broadly speaking consumerization of enterprise refers to the evolution of enterprise software. As anyone who has worked in a big corporation can attest, enterprise software is generally stogy, complex, bland and antiquated. In stark contrast, successful...
September 2011
1 post
Business of Big Data slides_v2
My colleague Brad Gillespie and I led another Business of Big Data discussion at General Assembly last night. Our revised slide deck below.
The Business of Big Data (IA Ventures)
View more presentations from Ben Siscovick.
August 2011
5 posts
July 2011
8 posts
Notorious B.I.G. / Grateful Dead
A little ‘hippy hop’ for you Dead / Biggie fans.
Download Mixtape | Free Mixtapes Provided by DatPiff.com
IA Ventures is growing :: come join our start-up...
As our young firm grows and matures, we are extremely excited to announce that we expanding our team and are recruiting one full time associate/community manager and one full time analyst. A direct link to the job posting can be found here.
Roger’s post, reblogged below, says it all.
informationarbitrage:
When I started IA Ventures, it wasn’t with the intention of starting a fund, but...
Admission ticket to StartupLand
I absolutely LOVE this.
Tristan Walker of Foursquare fame shares his dialogue with Dennis and Naveen leading to his employment. In it we see a young, smart and obnoxiously hungry person *will* himself into a killer opportunity.
If you are outside StartupLand looking to get in, read this then read it again - this is how it is done.
tristanwalker:
today marks two years since i sent my very...
Boom or Bubble
Killer infographic of the tech boom/bubble courtesy of the folks at KISSmetrics.
Click on the image to see a larger (i.e. readable) version.
The Business of Big Data - videos
As promised, here is the video of our talk at General Assembly on the Business of Big Data.
Slides can be found here.
A big thank you to our awesome intern Stephen Yang for his excellent film work.
Part I:
IA Ventures - The Business of Big Data at General Assembly 7/12 Part 1 of 2 from IA Ventures on Vimeo.
Part II:
IA Ventures - The Business of Big Data at General Assembly 7/12 Part 2...
Resilience. Optimism. Herding. Fear.
My colleague Justin Singer wrote this excellent post yesterday. I wish I could disagree, but rumblings like this scare the shit out of me.
Definitely worth reading below.
jericsinger:
Don’t tell me this time is different. It’s not.
Don’t tell me we’ve learned our lesson. We haven’t.
Don’t tell me about “real companies”. Where there are real entrepreneurs, there are real companies, bubble...
The Business of Big Data
My colleague Andrew Cove and I gave a presentation today at General Assembly on the business of big data. This is something we think about daily at IA Ventures and rests squarely at the core of our investment thesis. The discussion covered:
Why now?
What is Big Data?
The characteristics of a Big Data company
Creating competitive barriers in Big Data
The Big Data team
We had a packed house...
June 2011
5 posts
“Shouldn’t I get more equity because it was my idea?
No. Ideas are...”
– Joel Spolsky from his excellent response on StackExchange to the question of allocating equity at a startup.
May 2011
4 posts
Where is the Disruption at TC Disrupt?
As the name implies, TC Disrupt is about cutting edge ‘web innovation disrupting media and technology.’ Unfortunately, the highlight of the show - the Startup Battlefield - failed to deliver much disruption. While guilty of gross generalization (and to be extremely clear there were absolutely some fantastic companies, including, but not limited to, two IA portfolio companies Kohort and...
The myth of misalignment
All too often novice entrepreneurs are given advice that goes something like this:
“You can’t trust VCs. They have the power and control in the relationship, and inevitably, your interests will diverge and they’ll screw you. Protect yourself and be wary at all times.”
Some entrepreneurs are so fearful that they let this advice severely impact the important...
WatchNow this song is just sick.
Still Sound by Toro Y Moi
Via @garymongo
March 2011
5 posts
Product etiquette: when app developers fail users
I find myself often thinking about emerging internet etiquette (or ‘netiquette’, as coined by Andrew Parker in a recent post). While Andrew focuses on usage etiquette, I’m particularly interested with product etiquette. By ‘product etiquette’ I mean the way in which the product engages with the user.
There are two principle product engagement issues that I care...
A favorite from my weekly Yoga class with Master...
2 tags
IA Ventures is looking for a few good interns
IA Ventures (http://iaventures.com) is seeking one MBA/experienced intern and one undergrad intern to join us for 12 weeks this summer as full-time, paid interns in our New York City office.
We are a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on companies developing tools and technologies for managing and extracting value from Big Data, and we’re looking for two start-up junkies to join our team...
“There’s a pretty straigjtforward reason why FB is valued at an astonishing $75B,...”
– How Facebook is Killing Your Authenticity - steve’s blog
February 2011
4 posts
Humility and hubris
We hold ourselves to a higher standard in our industry, the world of early stage entrepreneurship. We come to work every day with unbridled passion and profound sense of purpose - we are changing the world for the better.
Really, we are all on the same team - entrepreneurs, startup employees, VCs, and even many service providers. We all do what we do because we love it and *can’t* do...
Picking the right startup to join
So here is the scenario - you are smart, talented and ambitious. You abhor the corporate world. You have tons of creative ideas and obnoxious energy. You love tackling world-changing projects. You thrive in unstructured environments. Your risk tolerance is high and you handle uncertainty well.
You don’t yet have your own world-changing idea, but you’ve figured out that you want to...
Product context
When I go to Linkedin, 9 times out of 10 I do so with a singular purpose in mind - to see one’s ‘resume’. I generally also like to see ways in which I’m connected to them (degrees of separation, shared contacts, etc.) as I find this info gives me additional useful context about the individual. Linkedin also has some cool and occasionally useful features around skills and...
Should Microsoft reinvest in growth?
Bijan Sabet wrote a thought provoking post this morning in which he encourages Microsoft to *cut* it’s dividend and reinvest more aggressively in R&D and growth initiatives. My colleague Roger Ehrenberg has written about this issue extensively as well in his excellent post in search of corporation 2.0.
While I definitely appreciate Bijan’s contrarian view and the...
January 2011
3 posts
Your Hand In Mine by Explosions In The Sky
Just...
2 tags
The $50bn (educated?) guess
Over the past two days I have been involved in a fascinating discussion regarding Facebook’s $50bn valuation on a finance/economics/investing Google Group of which I am a member. Many of the ‘traditional’ econ/finance folks are shocked by the bubble-esque valuation. At the same time, the technologists in the group all remain adamant bulls.
Valuing a company like Facebook is...
December 2010
3 posts
On Raising a Fund - the IA Ventures story
There is really not much I can add to Roger’s highly transparent and incredibly descriptive piece on the story of our new fund.
I will, however, say one thing. I am blessed to love my work and respect, trust and admire the people I work with.
Very high quality content below.
informationarbitrage:
This past Thursday it was announced that my first fund, IA Ventures, had closed with $50...
Venture backed incubators
I generally don’t respond to tweets on my blog, but in this case I don’t think a 140 character limit will work.
Last night, Chris Dixon tweeted:
@cdixon Yet another scheme for VCs to get free options. Apply to YC or Techstars instead. http://on.wsj.com/fPQw4S
The article referenced in Chris’s tweet describes the launch of a new FinTech incubator in NYC that is financially...
November 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Experience
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to spend an hour one on one with Fred Wilson. Fred is arguably the premier venture capitalist in the world today. Between his investment track record (Twitter, Zynga, Etsy, Foursqaure, etc.) and obnoxiously awesome blog (*the* standard against which all other tech and venture blogs are measured), Fred is the Man.
As a young person in the industry, I reached...