FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - March 4, 2016
FundersClub Portfolio News
Eight has raised $6 million in seed funding to make smart sleep trackers in the form of mattress covers in "Eight Raises $6 Million for Smart, Sleep-Tracking Mattress Covers".
Coinbase announces the beta launch of a new feature that will lead to enabling US customers to purchase bitcoin instantly via debit cards in "Coinbase Initiates Bitcoin Purchase through US Debit Cards".
TerrAvion is now expanding its service by also adding a layer of quantitative analysis on top of its aerial images for precision agriculture in "Aerial Imagery Service TerrAvion Adds Data Services".
drchrono announces a release of a new version of the platform that now allows for electronic photo capture and storage of patient insurance cards and credit cards right from iPad, iPhone or Web in "drchrono Announces Patient Insurance Card and Credit Card Capture In iPad, iPhone App and Web".
BioBots plans to develop new software and hardware advances that should help make the 3D bioprinting process easier, faster, and cheaper, which should help them expand their customer base and, ultimately, sell more units in "Where Are They Now? Startup Battlefield Company BioBots".
Unbabel’s machine learning algorithm learns from its translation mistakes and promises a formidable new standard for digital translation in "Portugal Startup Unbabel’s AI Puts Google Translate to Shame".
Investor Thoughts
Josh Elman of Greylock Partners believes founders should not be afraid of building on top of other platforms and shares a presentation he gave about how you can get the most out of them in "Building to Independence on Top of Other Platforms".
Tomasz Tunguz of Repoint Ventures says that when experimenting with price, the two most important things to consider are the relative price to similar products and customers' reactions to pricing changes in "What Pricing Implies About Product Market Fit For Startups".
Brad Feld of Foundry Group discusses the reappearance of the retrade – when an investor or acquirer changes the terms of a deal after a term sheet is signed – in "The Retrade".
Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures talks to over 100 LPS and finds "LPs remain staunch supporters of the venture capital industry, and their investment pace into VC seems likely to hold steady for the next one to two years" in "What Do LPs Think of the Venture Capital Markets for 2016?".
Rob Go of NextView discusses how the volatility in the market is impacting their decisions at NextView, and says he is very bullish with early stage companies in "Dealing With a Tough Market".
John Lilly of Greylock Partners makes all 20 class lectures of his Blitzscaling class taught at Stanford available via podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher in "Now Playing: Blitzscaling".
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Bastian Lehmann of Postmates shares their core values of Infrastructure, Choice and Immediacy, and how they are essential in decision making in "The Power of Core Values".
Harjeet Taggar of Triplebyte discusses the growing trend of fixing the inequity for startup employees by increasing the post-termination option exercise window in "Fixing the Inequity of Startup Equity".
Ellen Chisa of Lola emphasizes how "knowing when to quit and when to say no has made a massive, positive difference in her trajectory" in "The Magical Benefits of the 'Quitter's Mindset'".
Justin Jackson of MegaMaker believes that agonizing over your competition doesn’t help you serve your customers better, and being jealous of your peers won’t improve your craft in "Focus On Your Own Shit".
Larry Kim of WordStream discusses some aspects about being an entrepreneur that no one warned him about that he learned while launching WordStream in "What They Don’t Tell You in School About Being an Entrepreneur".
In Other News
Fidelity marked down Dropbox and CloudFlare while keeping expectations high for Airbnb, Pinterest and other consumer-tech startups in "Fidelity Writes Down Value of Corporate Software Startups".
Three top tech companies – Google, Facebook, and Microsoft plan to file a joint motion in support of Apple in its court fight with the Justice Department over unlocking an iPhone used by a shooter in the San Bernardino attacks last year in "Tech Companies to Unite in Support of Apple".
Did You Know?
Did you know that on an average work day, a typist’s fingers travel about 12.6 miles?