FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - April 6, 2017
FundersClub Portfolio News
FundersClub's returns in the first three years outpaced the median venture capital fund and much of the industry's top quartile of investors in "FundersClub, Where Folks Can Back Startups Online, Says It's Beating the Pros."
drchrono raises $12 million in Series A financing to help the company implement their plan to take its software and mobile applications to larger hospitals and medical clinics in "Drchrono raises $12 million in Series A to take on older EHR platforms like athenahealth."
Sourcery is working to bring financial technology to bars, restaurants and company kitchens, as their technology essentially automates accounts payable for buyers and helps vendors issue invoices and collect payments in "How Airbnb And Dropbox Brought Fintech To Their Company Kitchens."
AppZen is highlighted in the "Business Finance & Expense Reporting" category in CB Insights' map of 100+ companies using AI algorithms to improve the Financial Services industry in "The AI In Fintech Market Map."
Aircall announces that it is expanding its presence in the Canadian market through a new channel partnership with Solulan, one of the largest telecom solution resellers in Canada in "Aircall Announces Latest Channel Partnership with Solulan."
Investor Thoughts
Benedict Evans of Andreessen Horowitz dives into the two foundational technology changes rolling through the car industry at the moment: electric and autonomy in "Cars and second order consequences."
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures notes that next generation machine learning products will rely on building the trust of the user, and it must do so by managing risk and finding the equilibrium confidence threshold for the product in "Managing A User's Trust With Machine Learning SaaS Software."
Rafael Corrales of CRV discusses Amino's recent $25M funding round, and shares some of his pre-launch internal investment memo and why angels would enter at this kind of valuation in "Amino raises $25M. Read a VC’s Thoughts From Pre-Launch To Now."
Goodwater Capital creates a new index aiming to help consumer-oriented startup founders understand the health of the venture capital fundraising environment, and specifically when is a good time to seek funding in "Goodwater Index."
Clement Vouillon of Point Nine Capital details 6 metric frameworks and benchmarks commonly used in the VC world in "6 SaaS Metric Frameworks & Benchmarks To Know Before Fundraising."
Sarah Tavel of Greylock Partners shares more lessons learned from scaling Pinterest that focus more on team and culture building as companies enter into hypergrowth in "Five More Lessons from Scaling Pinterest."
Tae Hea Nahm of Storm Ventures discusses how companies who become thought leaders with reinforcement from their passionate early customers can supercharge their go-to-marketing funnel and become successful in "Attacking with Thought Leadership."
CB Insights continues with round 2 of their bracket to select the most innovative consumer product since the iPhone in "What Is the Most Innovative Consumer Product Since the Iphone?"
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Steven Pham of Y Combinator announces that the first lecture of Startup School is now available to watch online, and also shares the speaker and topic list in "Startup School Online: First Lecture and Speaker List."
Lloyd Tabb of Looker describes how when tech companies elevate their metrics, from daily active users to revenue growth, it doesn't necessarily help them run better and effectively just compares companies in "I’m Sorry, But Those Are Vanity Metrics."
Steve Blank of Lean Startup explains how customer discovery, and business model and value proposition canvases contain the answer to how to communicate to potential customers in "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Marketing Communications."
Lesa Mitchell and Jenny Fielding of Techstars detail common mistakes to avoid when applying to an accelerator in "Ask Techstars: Common Mistakes to Avoid When Applying to an Accelerator."
Preetish Panda of PromptCloud highlights the importance of focusing on the metrics that help you check the pulse of your business at each stage of growth and weed out the vanity metrics in "Mapping Key Metrics to Saas Growth Stages."
Jason Fried of Basecamp argues that those who are genuinely curious about your business are willing to take the time and listen, and there is no need to jam your entire vision into 60 seconds in "Ditch the elevator pitch."
Benjamin P. Hardy says that the while most people only do what they are asked, successful people initiate by asking questions, making recommendations, offering to help and pitching their ideas in "One Behavior Separates The Successful From The Average."
In Other News
Lyft Inc. has raised about $500 million in a new round of funding, valuing the ride-sharing company at $7.5 billion, and is determined to roll out service to 100 cities in the U.S. in "Lyft Said to Raise $500 Million in New Round of Funding."
Jeff Bezos says he sells $1 billion a year in Amazon.com Inc. stock as his business model to fund Blue Origin LLC, the company fueling his dream of sending people into space in "Bezos Sells $1 Billion a Year in Amazon Stock for Space Project."
Facebook Inc. is rolling out it's promise to educate users about fake news by asking people from 14 countries to view tips on how to spot a false story when they log on to their account in "Facebook Starts to Educate Users on How to Spot Fake News."
Did You Know?
Did you know that it only takes 7 minutes for the average person to fall asleep?