Continuations

Today we have launched a new website for USV. It is the second complete overhaul of the site since USV launched with a blog in 2004 (modulo some smaller experiments with tagging in between). The new site is up to modern standards in terms of speed and rendering on mobile. More importantly though it does a better job laying out the evolution of the USV investment thesis over time. It also provides much better access to the content that’s been produced on USV.com as well as on our personal blog...

Earlier this week Rebecca posted the latest evolution of the USV thesis. It includes the words “trusted brands” which led some people to ask how an early stage company could already be that. I provided the answer in a tweet in which I wrote that “trusted brands” — have incentives that are aligned with your customers/endusers so you can build trust over the longtermI want to explain that further today and put it in the larger context of Internet business models. During the Dotcom Bubble, there...

Last week was a big week for us at Union Square Ventures. We had the MongoDB IPO on Thursday and on Friday Rebecca Kaden announced that she has joined USV as a partner. Rebecca is a New Yorker and after nearly a decade on the West Coast, she is looking forward to coming back here. You can read more about it in Rebecca’s own words over on the USV blog. I am super excited for today’s Monday meeting because it will be the first one with Rebecca!

I am taking the day off from Uncertainty Wednesday because today is our portfolio company summit. It is a day I look forward to every year where many of the founders and CEO of our portfolio companies come together. We have been holding this unconference style for many years. The day maximizes the room for small group conversations around topics that have been generated by the participants. The net result is a high quality and open exchange of experiences and opinions, which contributes to st...

Today’s blog post is over at USV announcing our investment in Shippo. I have written previously about how the future of programming will consist of composing applications from different APIs. We already have quite a few building blocks in our portfolio with Twilio (communications), Dwolla (payments) and Clarifai (intelligence). Shippo adds shipping which is critical for any application that touches the movement of goods. You can also read more about the financing and the company’s plans on Sh...

Today is our annual get together for USV portfolio company CEOs. A few years back, when we first started building out the USV network, we switched to an un-conference format. Gary Chou who first started to bring portfolio companies in the network pioneered this. Gary’s insight was to create an opportunity to talk about issues in small groups of peers and start a dialog which can then continue throughout the year. Having been a CEO myself, the hard thing is the feeling of being alone. It is ea...

At USV we have talked about and invested in the power of networks. We have also been applying this network thesis to our portfolio companies, building out the USV network. One area where I am particularly happy with how we have “walked the walk” is in recruiting for the analyst position. Instead of relying on more traditional channels or criteria (e.g. past job titles or degrees) we have been using a completely open application process. This means we can leverage the network at large. So if y...

One of the amazing things that’s happening in the world is that technologies that once were expensive and available only to large companies can now be used by individuals. For instance, we all carry supercomputers in our pockets in the form of smartphones. Today I am excited to be announcing that USV invested in Munich-based SimScale, which makes engineering simulations available to anyone with a web browser. You can read more about SimScale in my USV blog post.

I am very excited about what we are doing over at usv.com with the Topic of the Week. Last week we discussed undoing incumbent marketplaces and this week it is about community ownership of applications. We wanted usv.com to be an extension of the discussions that we have internally and this new approach feels like we are getting closer. Instead of a loose collection of links the topic approach gives the conversation more shape and direction. So if you are interested in the question of who sho...

Today’s post is over at USV where we are looking for design talent to help us update our identity. Funnily there is a question about our logo on Quora. We are excited to be leveraging Behance’s design community for this update. Participate or let other designers know that they should. We will select and commission five designers. Here is the competition on Behance.