Last week I described how my initial skepticism about Windows Phone 7 was softening, based on glimmerings of interest in the mobile developer and CIO communities. Today, Microsoft poured some gasoline on that little flame by announcing with Nokia that WP7 would become the default OS for Nokia’s smartphone line. As Vic Gundotra (Google’s VP continue…
Step 1: From Team + Opportunity to Company Just over a year ago Founders Co-op invested in a new company called Untitled Startup. The co-founders, Aviel Ginzburg and Damon Cortesi, were well-known hackers in the social media community. They knew that social media marketing was headed for the mainstream and had a long list of continue…
Today the White House announced Startup America, a new economic initiative to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation. I’m proud to announce that Founders Co-op is a launch partner for this initiative as a charter member of the TechStars Network. Andy and I started Founders Co-op to help the best local technology continue…
I’ve been very skeptical of Microsoft’s ability to play a significant role in the exploding smartphone marketplace. Despite the company’s incredibly strong position in the enterprise, Windows Phone 7 has so far been promoted as a consumer offering, with snazzy UI tricks and lots of built-in social media, apps and photo-sharing goodness. But between Apple’s consumer-delighting continue…
It may not be as moving and important as Dr. King’s, but I also have a dream… I’ve been investing other people’s money (alongside my own) in early-stage software companies for almost three years now — not very long in career terms, but long enough for it to have more or less become my professional continue…
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while (more on that below) but now that TechCrunch and Mashable have let the cat out of the bag I can finally share it here as well: Portland-based PHP Fog has just raised $1.8MM in a Series A led by Madrona Venture Group with support from First continue…
Ouch! My last post here was more than two months ago. I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions but I’ve just decided that mine should be to post more often. Turns out there’s a direct, inverse correlation between my workload and blog post velocity… 2010 was a great year for me personally – I’ve continue…
Dan Shapiro isn’t ready to spill the beans on what he’s up to just yet, but word is already on the street that he’s rounded up a great group of folks to back him on his next venture: Sparkbuy. Dan was previously CEO of Ontela, acquired by Photobucket about a year ago). We think the continue…
When it rains, it pours… TechCrunch just broke the news of our investment in Estately alongside 500 Startups, Founders Fund, Jeff Clavier and AngelList’s Naval Ravikant. We’ve been tracking CEO Galen Ward’s progress for a while and just love how he thinks about building an online business. He’s now raised slightly more than $1MM in continue…
The news is all over the wires today (e.g., Mashable, TechCrunch, PEHub, Xconomy, etc) so I don’t have much to add other than a big congrats to the Urban Airship team. Not for the raise (raising capital is always a bittersweet event) but for rocking the world of smartphone messaging infrastructure so hard. The Urban continue…