Goop and Condé Nast Team Up on a MagazineJade eggs, sound baths, IV drips, bone broth — in other words, all Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness secrets — are coming soon to a newsstand near you. Starting in September, Goop, Ms. Paltrow’s digital lifestyle brand, and Condé Nast, which recently closed the print version of Self, its health and fitness publication, are teaming up to create a quarterly print magazine entitled — you guessed it — Goop. [ NY Times ] Investor VCs and Operator VCsThe Venture Capital business is full of great firms that were founded by entrepreneurs/operators who became investors mid/late career. From Gene Kleiner and Tom Perkins in the early 70s to Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz at the end of the 00s, this is the iconic model of the venture capital firm and the formula that built Silicon Valley into what it is today. When young people ask me what the best way to get into the venture capital business is, I tell them “go work in startups in
your 20s and 30s, and then turn to venture capital in your 40s and 50s.” That is certainly the best way to do it. You build domain expertise, operating experience, and relationships/networks that help you win deals and help entrepreneurs by doing it this way. Building a startup? Build an audience, first.A few days ago I received an email from someone asking for advice on how to find a technical co-founder for his startup idea. My feedback: Build an audience yourself first. You can do this by blogging, podcasting, starting a newsletter, hosting meetups, etc. An audience-first strategy helps with:
IAC Plans to Buy Angie’s ListIAC plans to buy Angie’s List Inc., combining the consumer-review site with IAC’s HomeAdvisor and forming a new, publicly traded company. Under the terms of an agreement, Angie’s List investors are to get either one Class A common share of the new company, to be called ANGI Homeservices Inc., or $8.50 in cash for each share they own. The most IAC would pay out in cash would be $130 million. [ WSJ ] Rocketship.vc Takes Data Science Approach to Venture Capital Venture capitalists are increasingly using advances in data science and machine learning to make investments. A new Silicon Valley firm, Rocketship.vc, with a $40 million first fund, is using data and analytics to make its early-stage bets. The firm’s founders, Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, previously co-founded Kosmix, a social search and data startup that was acquired by Wal-Mart in 2011, and became co-leaders of... [ WSJ ] The first comprehensive study on women in venture capital and their impact on female foundersThe CrunchBase Women in Venture report is the third study in our ongoing analysis of women and their participation in the startup ecosystem. Previously we reported on the steady increase in the number of women founders and the universities that produce them. In this study, we looked at two new questions. First, we set out to determine how many women are true investing partners at the leading venture and micro-venture firms. While everyone knows that the number of female investing partners is very limited, we aimed to establish a well-defined baseline against which to measure future progress. [ Tech Crunch ] These 13 Tech Companies Sold for More Than $1 Billion (and They're Not Your Typical Silicon Valley Startups)These 13 "unicorn" exits posted valuations of more than $1 billion each for these non-Valley tech companies, making massive impact in their communities, and huge returns for investors. [ Inc. ] Silicon Valley VC: 7 things to study if you want a high-paying job in the future
Josh Elman of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners knows about keeping an eye out for the next hot industry. In the early 2000s Elman was so intrigued by social networking, then a fledgling industry, that he dropped out of business school to pursue a job at LinkedIn. He went on to help Facebook and Twitter grow their massive audiences before taking his talents to Greylock, where he focuses on helping portfolio companies do the same. [ CNBC ] This Startup Wants to Help You Find Masseuses Through Your FriendsWould you rather book a trainer you don't know or one who's recommended by a friend? Venture capitalist Scott Belsky is betting on the latter with the debut of his new startup, Prefer. Prefer, which is being unveiled on Monday, is
a mobile app that lets you get recommendations for services like massages, babysitting, and hair styling from contacts on your phone. The goal is to give users access to reviews from people they trust rather than from the strangers on services like Yelp or Zeel, an app that, like Prefer, can also be used to book and pay for appointments. With Series A funding from Benchmark, Prefer takes the wraps off its new marketplaceBetween Thumbtack, Yelp, Angie’s List and Amazon,
it wouldn’t appear that the world needs a new platform that matches customers with service professionals. That’s not the way Julio Vasconcellos sees it, clearly. Vasconcellos has spent the last year-plus working on a services platform called Prefer that relies exclusively on trusted referrals, replacing the wisdom of crowds with the wisdom of one’s friends when it comes to hiring a babysitter or accountant or housekeeper. In fact, if Prefer has its way, it will eventually become users’ go-to source for every service professional with whom people tend to have a close,
ongoing relationship. Is "Goodbye, Things" the New "Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up"?Marie Kondo is more than a household name. She's crossed over to the next level and has become a verb for those of us who write, think and obsess about all things home. Yes, "KonMari-ing" and "Kondoizing" are things now. We need our socks to spark joy if we are going to keep them around; why should we settle for anything less? Well, it's possible we should actually go for less - a lot less - according to a new book I've just read which aims to inspire us to consider living an ultra pared down minimalist life, right down to our socks. [ AT ] Why Raising Money For a Startup Idea Has The Opposite EffectWhen entrepreneurs ask me how to raise money to build their product idea, my answer is always the same: you’re asking the wrong question. I managed to raise investment off a PowerPoint presentation twice over the last 10 years. It sounds like a great idea to start off with money in the bank — but it turns out that it’s not that simple. The cost of investment goes beyond equity dilution. Raising capital changes your mindset — often in
unhelpful ways. Here’s why I’d never raise outside capital at the idea stage ever again. Trump Adviser Jared Kushner Didn’t Disclose Startup StakeJared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, didn’t identify on his government financial disclosure form that he is currently a part-owner of a real-estate finance startup and has a number of loans from banks on properties he co-owns, according to securities filings. |