This morning I am speaking to a group of women entrepreneurs out here in Westchester about opportunities coming out of mobile. I have written about this before on the USV blog, but here is what I am planning to talk about today.. To understand mobile opportunities we need to look at - Device capabilities - Adoption rates - Behavioral changes Something that is intentionally left off this list are specific technologies. Whether it will be Android or iPhone or Flash or HTML5 are largely tactical...

I am glad to see the net neutrality debate raging. As Union Square Ventures and on our personal blogs (AVC, Continuations) we have long been proponents of net neutrality (the USV link is from 2006!). Our own bias here is clear: we are pro-startup and pro-innovation. Both are of course essential to the venture capital business, but we believe they are also the lifeblood of the economy. Surprisingly, a lot of people who argue against net neutrality don’t seem to make the connection to innovatio...

This morning I am speaking to a group of women entrepreneurs out here in Westchester about opportunities coming out of mobile. I have written about this before on the USV blog, but here is what I am planning to talk about today.. To understand mobile opportunities we need to look at - Device capabilities - Adoption rates - Behavioral changes Something that is intentionally left off this list are specific technologies. Whether it will be Android or iPhone or Flash or HTML5 are largely tactical...

I am glad to see the net neutrality debate raging. As Union Square Ventures and on our personal blogs (AVC, Continuations) we have long been proponents of net neutrality (the USV link is from 2006!). Our own bias here is clear: we are pro-startup and pro-innovation. Both are of course essential to the venture capital business, but we believe they are also the lifeblood of the economy. Surprisingly, a lot of people who argue against net neutrality don’t seem to make the connection to innovatio...

First time entrepreneurs who are just getting going frequently ask me about how to find angel investors. I usually tell them about my theory of “concentric circles” of angel investors. The innermost circle are people who know you and love you and will give you money no matter what (even if you were opening an ice cream store on the South Pole). These are the friends and family angel investors.The next circle out are people who care deeply about the thing itself that you are doing. So if you a...

First time entrepreneurs who are just getting going frequently ask me about how to find angel investors. I usually tell them about my theory of “concentric circles” of angel investors. The innermost circle are people who know you and love you and will give you money no matter what (even if you were opening an ice cream store on the South Pole). These are the friends and family angel investors.The next circle out are people who care deeply about the thing itself that you are doing. So if you a...

It is 2010 and while we don’t have jetpacks, it doesn’t seem too much to ask to not have to deal with paper stock certificates. Yet most early stage deals that I see still wind up sending out physical paper certificates. While it may seem like a convenient way to push out the expense of keeping track of certificates to holders, that is not really the case. Whenever a transaction takes place that requires the certificates, such as a secondary sale or an exit, there are people who can’t find th...

It is 2010 and while we don’t have jetpacks, it doesn’t seem too much to ask to not have to deal with paper stock certificates. Yet most early stage deals that I see still wind up sending out physical paper certificates. While it may seem like a convenient way to push out the expense of keeping track of certificates to holders, that is not really the case. Whenever a transaction takes place that requires the certificates, such as a secondary sale or an exit, there are people who can’t find th...

Last week I wrote briefly about my position in the carried interest taxation debate. Since then the debate has gotten a bit more heated with opposing posts by Chris Dixon and James Robinson. Chris argued that this is a matter of basic tax fairness and Jim provided two (new) arguments for how increasing the tax rate on VCs might result in fewer dollars for startups. Jim’s first argument is what economists call “tax incidence." When you tax someone they will lay off part of the tax on their cus...

Last week I wrote briefly about my position in the carried interest taxation debate. Since then the debate has gotten a bit more heated with opposing posts by Chris Dixon and James Robinson. Chris argued that this is a matter of basic tax fairness and Jim provided two (new) arguments for how increasing the tax rate on VCs might result in fewer dollars for startups. Jim’s first argument is what economists call “tax incidence." When you tax someone they will lay off part of the tax on their cus...

A few times over the last couple of months I have been asked what government could do to help startups. I believe there are five different areas that could really make a difference. The first two are specific to the kind of startups that we invest in at Union Square Ventures, but the other three apply across the board. 1. Net Neutrality By this I mean a clear commitment to separating bandwidth, devices and applications. Once I have bought a certain chunk of bandwidth (whether wired or wireles...

A few times over the last couple of months I have been asked what government could do to help startups. I believe there are five different areas that could really make a difference. The first two are specific to the kind of startups that we invest in at Union Square Ventures, but the other three apply across the board. 1. Net Neutrality By this I mean a clear commitment to separating bandwidth, devices and applications. Once I have bought a certain chunk of bandwidth (whether wired or wireles...

Historically in the software business high gross margins were considered essential. It is not clear to me that the same logic will apply for cloud-based services. Their cost structure might wind up being quite different. Much smaller development teams can accomplish amazing things on top of a cloud stack substantially reducing the fixed cost component. On the other hand, COGS may increase significantly as the underlying cloud services are paid on a variable basis. With that in mind, it could ...

Historically in the software business high gross margins were considered essential. It is not clear to me that the same logic will apply for cloud-based services. Their cost structure might wind up being quite different. Much smaller development teams can accomplish amazing things on top of a cloud stack substantially reducing the fixed cost component. On the other hand, COGS may increase significantly as the underlying cloud services are paid on a variable basis. With that in mind, it could ...

It is very rare that I find myself disagreeing with Chris Dixon, but the other day Chris tweetedbusiness plan contests are a terrible idea. investors care far more about founders’ bios. make it a bio pitch if you need to have contests.I will be heading up to Boston tomorrow to judge MIT’s 100K competition and have a pretty different take on it. The purpose of a business plan competition is to get students excited about startups, which is – as Roger Ehrenberg points out today – critical to the...

It is very rare that I find myself disagreeing with Chris Dixon, but the other day Chris tweetedbusiness plan contests are a terrible idea. investors care far more about founders’ bios. make it a bio pitch if you need to have contests.I will be heading up to Boston tomorrow to judge MIT’s 100K competition and have a pretty different take on it. The purpose of a business plan competition is to get students excited about startups, which is – as Roger Ehrenberg points out today – critical to the...

Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Andreesen Horowitz has a guest post on All Things Digital titled “The Case for the Fat Startup." In it he makes a case for raising a lot of money and investing it aggressively. Ben’s argument is related to my post from yesterday about ”Winner Take All and Early Stage Valuations.“ He justifies massive fundraising and spending by saying it’s worse to be in "startup purgatory” than to run out of money:What is start-up purgatory, you ask? Start-up purgatory occurs ...

Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Andreesen Horowitz has a guest post on All Things Digital titled “The Case for the Fat Startup." In it he makes a case for raising a lot of money and investing it aggressively. Ben’s argument is related to my post from yesterday about ”Winner Take All and Early Stage Valuations.“ He justifies massive fundraising and spending by saying it’s worse to be in "startup purgatory” than to run out of money:What is start-up purgatory, you ask? Start-up purgatory occurs ...

We took a quick look yesterday at the Closing Ceremony for the Winter Olympics, which was painful (Shatner, really?) but as we flipped to another channel, we ran across Undercover Boss on CBS. The premise of the series is simple: a boss from a large company works “undercover” at the frontlines of the business. The (first?) episode was one of the family owners of White Castle working shifts at several of their restaurants and at two of their supply facilities. On the downside, like all reality...

We took a quick look yesterday at the Closing Ceremony for the Winter Olympics, which was painful (Shatner, really?) but as we flipped to another channel, we ran across Undercover Boss on CBS. The premise of the series is simple: a boss from a large company works “undercover” at the frontlines of the business. The (first?) episode was one of the family owners of White Castle working shifts at several of their restaurants and at two of their supply facilities. On the downside, like all reality...