FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - February 23, 2017
FundersClub Portfolio News
Memebox, a Korean beauty start-up, appoints Lee Kang-wook as its new co-CEO in charge of the company’s domestic business, and he will share the role with Ha Hyung-seok, the start-up founder who had been serving as the sole CEO who will focus on expanding Memebox’s global business in "Memebox splits CEO role into global and domestic."
Coinbase is listed as a top Bitcoin company and one of the easiest ways to enter the cryptocurrency ecosystem, in addition to being one of the largest in the world, with $116.5M in funding over the past few years in "Top 6 Bitcoin Companies Based on VC Funding."
AdmitHub, an edtech startup, makes conversational AI that can be customized to individual colleges, and works with accepted students at each school to help them navigate orientation, get financial aid, sign up for classes, and apply for housing in "The World's Most Innovative Companies: AdmitHub."
Verbling, who connects language learners with native speakers, is now available as an Android (and iOS) app, in addition to a web based application to get lessons in up to 38 languages including Spanish, French or Japanese on the go in "Learn a new language from native speakers with Verbling for Android."
Greenhouse Software and Ideal, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Recruiting company, announce their new integration which makes Ideal’s recruitment automation technology now available to Greenhouse clients via the Greenhouse Platform in "Greenhouse Customers Can Now Have Full Access To Ideal’s AI-Powered Recruitment Automation."
drchrono, Inc., integrates with Physitrack, making their telemedicine solution easily available to drchrono's providers and gives them the ability to offer high quality care and follow up programs for their patients in "drchrono and Physitrack Partner for Patient Engagement Initiative." and also opens a new office in Baltimore in "Opens A New Office in Baltimore to Support Growing Revenue Cycle Management Division."
Investor Thoughts
Ariel Zuckerberg of Kleiner Perkins sits down for a Facebook Live chat with FundersClub CEO Alex Mittal to talk about some of the insights that she’s acquired as a product-person turned VC in "Mining Teenagers’ Minds For An Edge In Venture Capital: A Conversation With Arielle Zuckerberg."
Christopher Steiner and Jerrod Engelberg of FundersClub highlight the importance of aligned incentives for investors and founders when creating a term sheet, and focus on the terms that are most important, and stipulations that can be troublesome for either side in the investment in "The Best Term Sheets Align Interests Of Founders And Investors."
Benedict Evans of Andreessen Horowitz discusses how metrics and algorithms drive Facebook, and compares this to how Snapchat swings away from metrics and looks to creation in "Facebook and Snapchat: metrics versus creation."
Fred Wilson and Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures talk with Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group Next about Transitioning Leadership at a VC Fund in "Fred Wilson and Andy Weissman Talk with Lindel Eakman about Transitioning Leadership at a VC Fund."
Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures discusses the importance of not falling into a trap of just getting things done, and actually stepping back and seeing if you'd benefit from doing fewer things truly well in "Doing the Right Thing > Doing Things Right."
Alex Danco of Social Capital continues his Abundance Series on frictionless consumption, and discusses the foundation on which the next generation of companies will be built and how we are now consuming functions in "Understanding Abundance, part 3: The Next Big Thing."
Rodrigo Martinez of Point Nine Capital highlights pricing as one of the biggest levers in SaaS, and how the goal of an early stage SaaS company should be to test if customers will pay something that will make your business work in "7 DOs and DONTs for Seed-Stage SaaS Pricing."
Semil Shah of Haystack Fund sits down with Brad Feld of Foundry Group and focuses on advice for people just getting into the game of investing in startups (covering branding, stage focus, and more) and draws out lessons from Foundry’s first decade in existence in "In Conversation With Brad Feld (StrictlyVC Insider Series 2017)."
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Jason Fried of BootCamp details some of the reasons why they have designed their company to be profitable as quickly and consistently as possible in "Why we choose profit."
Sam Altman of Y Combinator writes an annual letter to the YC community with an update of their progress in response to a comment on Hacker News in "2017 YC Annual Letter."
Dustin Rosen of Techstars explains why entrepreneurs should not overlook the opportunity for VCs offering relevant introductions for growing their business in "Investors Dropping Names Like It’s Hot: Making Use of VC Introductions."
Alexandru Paduraru of Creative-Tim shares exactly how his team built their products and grew their business, including acquiring first users, marketing strategies, business model, and more in "How my friends and I grew our side project into a $17,000/month business."
Leigh Gallagher of Fortune cover's how AirBnb went from failing in 2008, to getting a call from Paul Graham, and how that shaped their path to where they are now in "Airbnb’s Surprising Path to Y Combinator."
Jeska Dzwigalski Kittenbrink of the Boardlist shares how an independent director, who represents neither institutional investors nor the founders, can bring balance to a board and shares five reasons why every board needs an independent director in "Five Reasons You Need An Independent Director On Your Board."
Quincy Larson of FreeCodeCamp compiles warnings from Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking about the upcoming automated world that is inevitable, and how we still have time to take action and help displaced workers in "A Warning From Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking."
In Other News
NASA has discovered seven planets with Earth-like qualities orbiting a nearby star making them among the strongest candidates in the continued search for extraterrestrial life among known planets that exist outside of our own solar system in "NASA found 7 “Earthlike” planets just under 40 light years away."
Apple is opening a new campus, called Apple Park, and the first out of 12,000 Apple employees that will work there will move in April 2017 in "Apple’s new campus ‘Apple Park’ will open in April."
Square Inc., the electronic-payments company run by Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, topped sales estimates for the fourth quarter, and shares climbed as much as 9 percent in extended trading in "Square Tops Sales Estimates on Growth of Bigger Merchants."
Did You Know?
Did you know that Hedy Lamarr, a classic Hollywood film star and an avante-garde composer, helped invent Wi-Fi in 1942? Source