Since last fall’s economic downturn, dozens of pundits of various stripes have announced the death of venture capital as an asset class. And it’s true (as Paul Kedrosky and the Kauffman Foundation have convincingly argued) that the class is grossly overcapitalized and will have to shrink radically to produce the kinds of returns investors rightfully continue…
Last week Ian reminded me about Joel Spolsky’s famous blog post on “Fire and Motion” – here’s a key excerpt: “When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards continue…
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” – Anonymous We just shipped a major upgrade to our search and browse functions at AppStoreHQ. It sounds crazy to say it, but as far as we can tell we now offer hands-down the most useful iPhone app discovery experience on the Web (not continue…
Ian and I have been having a ton of fun with AppStoreHQ – our mobile web app + developer discovery engine. We haven’t been at it all that long, and at the moment it’s just the two of us. But the other day we were reviewing our roadmap and backlog (which we track on two continue…
Find iPhone apps at AppStoreHQTwo-thirds of the Urbanspoon team dropped by Founders Co-op for our weekly all-hands lunch this week, fresh on the heels of their acquisition by IAC. They shared the story of their journey from struggling Facebook app developer to iPhone app superstars, including some of the best (and worst) decisions they made continue…
As a die-hard music fan, I love The Hype Machine. For those that don’t know it, The Hype Machine indexes the most influential music bloggers to identify which artists and songs are currently being discussed the most, and it’s an amazing way to discover new music by tapping into the zeitgeist of some of the continue…
I just came across this mini-rant by Fred Wilson in my feed reader and couldn’t agree more. His key point: “Aggregation is the central element of distributing content on the web. It’s not going to get shut down by calling these services names, suing them, or even worse taking your content out of them. The continue…
This mention of a possible revival of Google’s MyStuff idea caught my eye. I’ve been interested in the idea of a persistent personal data archive for a while now, and Google’s a natural for it. I was initially optimistic about EMC’s plans for Decho (their combined acquisitions of Mozy + PI Corp), but if so continue…
I’m still a little mystified by the appeal of Twitter to the individual user, but I definitely see the argument that – taken in aggregate – the service offers a useful window into what a (rarefied) slice of the global population is thinking about right now. But when I read pieces like this one by continue…
Last week Founders Co-op added a new company to our portfolio: Frugal Mechanic. This deal won’t surprise anyone who’s familiar with our investment thesis: It’s a niche offering (vertical search + price comparison in the $40B DIY auto parts market), With a smart distribution insight (white label parts search for auto enthusiast sites, of which continue…