Venture Pulse

Birchbox Cofounder Hayley Barna On New Ventures

After leaving Birchbox last year, Barna is diving into the VC world. She explains why and offers a look at what she's up to. Last August, Birchbox co-CEO Hayley Barna decided to walk away from the influential beauty-subscription-box startup that she cofounded in 2010 (she remains on the company’s board). "What we created with Birchbox was truly unique at the time," she explains. "I loved it, but it turned out the beauty industry is not my lifelong passion. It’s [exploring] innovative business models." So, in February, Barna signed on as a partner at First Round Capital, the seed-stage VC firm that has invested in companies such as Uber, Warby Parker, and, not coincidentally, Birchbox. [ Fast Company ]

Unicorn startup Toptal has no offices and unlimited vacation, and its founder has lived in more than 30 countries in 5 years

By the time Breanden Beneschott graduated from Princeton, his startup for placing technical freelance workers with companies, Toptal, was already doing about $1 million a year in revenue. Nearly six years later, the company is "flying way past" $100 million annually, has clients ranging from the Cleveland Cavaliers to Airbnb, has hundreds of employees — and not a single office space anywhere in the world. Beneschott cofounded Toptal while he was still in school at Princeton University, where he paid his own way. In order to put himself through school, he taught himself to be a software developer and started to do freelance work. Very quickly, he realized the pain of navigating the freelance world, both as a freelancer and someone looking to hire freelancers. [ Business Insider ] 

Jenny and Jenna reflect on three fundraising, leadership, and prioritization lessons Jenny's gleaned as a serial entrepreneur and Partner at Freestyle Capital

Flyspaces - a ‘Airbnb for workspaces’ ready to shake up Hong Kong

Hong Kong has the most expensive office space in the world – nearly double New York’s rates. The city of swaggering skyscrapers has held that dubious title for two years in a row. That’s not deterring Mario Berta’s startup, which is an Airbnb for workspaces. The site just took a big step forward in its ambition to cover Southeast Asia by launching in Hong Kong. Flyspaces is now active in the important business hub, offering up short-term offices, co-working facilities, business centers, and event spaces to businesses of all sizes. [ Tech Asia ]

Ex-Googler Sebastian Thrun says the going rate for self-driving talent is $10 million per person

When Sebastian Thrun started working on self-driving cars at Google in 2007, few people outside of the company took him seriously.  “I can tell you very senior CEOs of major American car companies would shake my hand and turn away because I wasn’t worth talking to,” said Thrun, now the co-founder and CEO of online higher education startup Udacity, in an interview with Recode earlier this week. [ Recode ]

 
 
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