FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - May 11, 2017
FundersClub Portfolio News
Coinbase rolls out full support for Litecoin, its third cryptocurrency, where users are able to buy, sell, send and store Litecoin from Coinbase’s website or mobile apps in "Coinbase adds support for Litecoin."
Flexport, a full-service freight forwarder and customs broker built on modern technology, hires Neel Jones Shah, formerly chief of Delta Cargo, as global head of air freight and senior vice-president in "Neel Jones Shah takes top air freight spot at Flexport."
Slack vamps up its search function so now when an employee searches for a topic, they are pointed to a good person to answer that question or the channel that is best to check for that information in "Slack beefs up its search to find the right person to ask a question."
Reebee, a company which delivers retail flyers digitally, now has more than 3.5 million customers scanning for deals in "Canadian startup Reebee taking retail flyers into the digital age."
Appvance is making load testing lower cost, fast, and easy for development & QA teams with the introduction of Appvance UTP Performance Cloud, which allows users to get load test results in minutes with no additional training in "Appvance Launches Low-Cost Apache JMeter Cloud."
Investor Thoughts
Alex Mittal of FundersClub shares a collection of hiring lessons learned by him and other founders in the FC portfolio in "Real hiring advice for early stage startup founders."
Christopher Steiner of FundersClub explains how the content and distribution game is being redefined, diving into ESPN's story as an example, and shares where entrepreneurs and VCs look to enable the new paradigm in "Where ESPN Falters, Startups And Content Creators Can Prosper."
Christopher Steiner of FundersClub draws on his own observations as a founder, others at FundersClub, and a wealth of other sources to share key tips when hiring a salesperson in "The 7 Keys To Spotting Superior Sales Talent."
Steven Sinofsky of Andreessen Horowitz responds to a question about responsiveness by looking at it from a leader’s perspective along two dimensions: velocity of decision making and responsiveness to teammates in "On CEO (and leader) Responsiveness."
Jason Rowley of Crunchbase News reports that to join the “one percent” of startups, as ranked by the total amount of money raised, a company needs to have received about $163 million in pre-IPO equity and debt financing in "Startups: You Must Raise This Much To Join The 1%."
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures thinks of learning from others as a way to steepen the learning curve, but highlights that no amount of feedback and advice will make you an amazing leader on your first day as CEO in "Learning From Others Vs Figuring Things Out By Yourself."
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures discusses the challenges of performance pricing, and while it makes sense theoretically, it changes the power dynamics of a sales conversation in "The Challenge Of Performance Pricing For SaaS Companies."
Parul Singh of Founder Collective shares advice for entrepreneurs, red flags to investors, and the most ridiculous pitch she’s seen lately in "What Investors Look for Before Putting Money Into a Startup."
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Adora Cheung, YC Partner, and Avichal Garg, previously Director of Product Management at Facebook, sit down with three startups to answer their questions and offer feedback in "Live Office Hours with Adora Cheung and Avichal Garg."
Wade Foster of Zapier explains how he built a uniquely customer- and employee-first culture and walks through three key areas where most founders can be more capital efficient in "How Zapier Pulled Off Its One-and-Done Approach to Fundraising."
Steve Blank of Lean Startup chats with Sebastian Thrun of Udacity and KittyHawk Corporation on pricing, customer discovery, small businesses vs. scalable startups, teaching entrepreneurship and more in "Fireside Chat with Sebastian Thrun."
Illia Kolodiazhnyi of CurrencyFair offers a few tips he wishes someone had told him before he built a complex user interface in "How to build complex user interfaces without going completely insane."
Jason Lemkin of SaaStr gives advice to the first salesperson into a start-up and also to CEO's hiring their first ever sales rep in "One Tough (But Rewarding) Job: Being the First Sales Rep at a SaaS Startup."
Boaz Maor, Customer Success Advisor, explains that while Customer Health Score (CHS) is a helpful metric, it is insufficient, and details an additional metric called Customer Maturity Index (CMI) in "Why Your Customer Health Score May Be Quite Useless: Your Framework to Calculate CMI."
Thomas Oppong of All Top Startups lists actionable daily habits that can greatly increase productivity in "17 Small Actions That Will Make Your Work Day Incredibly Meaningful."
Jon Westenberg of Creatomic shares his habit of hand writing 100 quotes per month and copies this month's quote list in "I’ve copied out almost 100 quotes by hand every single month for the past year."
In Other News
Snap Inc. stock tumbles more than 21 percent after its first earnings report, as their estimates for new users and revenue both fall short in "Snap CEO Dismisses Growth Shortfall, Scoffs at Facebook."
Apple reduces their reliance on the smartphone, as the Apple Watch, AirPod wireless headphones, and more versions of the iPhone drove revenue growth, causing Apple’s market value to top $800 billion this week – a first for a U.S. company in "Apple Product Lineup Too Big for a Table But Adds Growth Anyway."
Did You Know?
Did you know that the holes in swiss cheese are made when the bacteria, P. shermani, releases carbon dioxide when it consumes lactic acid, forming bubbles? Source
Not a subscriber to FC weekly? Click here to subscribe.
Want to invest in the best startups? Sign Up for FundersClub.