Google’s App Engine is the first major cloud forming over several key segments of the current landscape . In today’s installment of this multi-part series: hosting. GoDaddy has a very profitable business (paying for Superbowl ads out of cashflow) in large part because many people put relatively small sites on shared hosting, charge it to a credit card and forget about it. Over time GoDaddy’s cost declines but the charges stay the same - voila a profitable account. Many of these sites fall wel...

Google’s App Engine is the first major cloud forming over several key segments of the current landscape . In today’s installment of this multi-part series: hosting. GoDaddy has a very profitable business (paying for Superbowl ads out of cashflow) in large part because many people put relatively small sites on shared hosting, charge it to a credit card and forget about it. Over time GoDaddy’s cost declines but the charges stay the same - voila a profitable account. Many of these sites fall wel...

Just announced our investment in Covestor.

Just announced our investment in Covestor.

A big step forward towards cloud computing and a potential breakthrough in scalability for startups. I (may) have found a new platform.

A big step forward towards cloud computing and a potential breakthrough in scalability for startups. I (may) have found a new platform.

I used to read the NYT every morning as a way to get an overview of what was happening in the world, find in-depth coverage and investigative reports, and see opinions on politics and the economy (I also used to do the same with the WSJ). But increasingly I find that I only skim the paper and then head for my computer to read techmeme and the Huffington Post. Both are great at what they do, but leave me yearning for more. I want a personalized new service that meets the following needsCovers ...

I used to read the NYT every morning as a way to get an overview of what was happening in the world, find in-depth coverage and investigative reports, and see opinions on politics and the economy (I also used to do the same with the WSJ). But increasingly I find that I only skim the paper and then head for my computer to read techmeme and the Huffington Post. Both are great at what they do, but leave me yearning for more. I want a personalized new service that meets the following needsCovers ...

Freemium is an attractive business model in theory. Offer a free service to attract folks and then convert some of them into a paid version with premium features. In practice it turns out to be hard to pull this off. The free version needs to be fairly functional in order to attract people. Unless the free offering is unique, which is rarely if ever the case, it also needs to be at least as good as offerings that are entirely free (competitors may be entirely free because they are ad supporte...

Freemium is an attractive business model in theory. Offer a free service to attract folks and then convert some of them into a paid version with premium features. In practice it turns out to be hard to pull this off. The free version needs to be fairly functional in order to attract people. Unless the free offering is unique, which is rarely if ever the case, it also needs to be at least as good as offerings that are entirely free (competitors may be entirely free because they are ad supporte...

Personal media management and consumption are a mess. For instance, I use Picasa for photos and short video clips coming off my camera onto my laptop. But given the large number of photos and video, I then move everything to an EasyNAS RAID array. Pictures from my mobile phone go to flickr. For music and video downloads I use iTunes on my laptop, but in my living room I have a Sonos. My PVR is from the cable company and (big surprise) doesn’t talk to anything else. My DVDs are largely not rip...

Personal media management and consumption are a mess. For instance, I use Picasa for photos and short video clips coming off my camera onto my laptop. But given the large number of photos and video, I then move everything to an EasyNAS RAID array. Pictures from my mobile phone go to flickr. For music and video downloads I use iTunes on my laptop, but in my living room I have a Sonos. My PVR is from the cable company and (big surprise) doesn’t talk to anything else. My DVDs are largely not rip...

Hiring is maybe the single hardest thing for any startup. Marc Andreesen has had a number of great posts about it. He covers interviewing in some depth, including the importance of planning out interview questions in advance. Something implied in Marc’s post but worth spelling out is the following – make sure to (1) have a decent number of candidates, (2) schedule interviews close together and (3) use at least some fixed set of interview questions with each candidate. Leave out any one of the...

Hiring is maybe the single hardest thing for any startup. Marc Andreesen has had a number of great posts about it. He covers interviewing in some depth, including the importance of planning out interview questions in advance. Something implied in Marc’s post but worth spelling out is the following – make sure to (1) have a decent number of candidates, (2) schedule interviews close together and (3) use at least some fixed set of interview questions with each candidate. Leave out any one of the...

Saw 21 last night. It was reasonably entertaining. Knowing Ben Mezrich from college, I was not surprised to hear the main character called Ben (the character is based on Jeff Ma and was called Kevin Lewis in Ben Mezrich’s book ‘Bringing Down the House’ from which the movie is loosely derived). But the movie could have been so much better simply by ironing out the many minor nuisances. There are three sources of nuisances. First, unnecessary dumbing down of material, such as in the lecture sce...

Saw 21 last night. It was reasonably entertaining. Knowing Ben Mezrich from college, I was not surprised to hear the main character called Ben (the character is based on Jeff Ma and was called Kevin Lewis in Ben Mezrich’s book ‘Bringing Down the House’ from which the movie is loosely derived). But the movie could have been so much better simply by ironing out the many minor nuisances. There are three sources of nuisances. First, unnecessary dumbing down of material, such as in the lecture sce...

Is it a good or bad time to start something new, with the economy tanking as it is? I believe the answer depends entirely on your personal financial situation and risk profile. If you have a family to support and only have enough savings for a few months, then it’s a terrible time to start. If you can afford to fund yourself and maybe a few others for a least 6 months and possibly much more (or have friends who the “more” bit) then it’s a great time. You can find talent (and space should you ...

Is it a good or bad time to start something new, with the economy tanking as it is? I believe the answer depends entirely on your personal financial situation and risk profile. If you have a family to support and only have enough savings for a few months, then it’s a terrible time to start. If you can afford to fund yourself and maybe a few others for a least 6 months and possibly much more (or have friends who the “more” bit) then it’s a great time. You can find talent (and space should you ...

There is a high probability that we are in for a recession and many folks think that it might be a fairly severe one. What does that mean for startups and VC funding? VentureBeat today has an article suggesting that funding is slowing down both from VCs and angel investors. For startups that are already well funded this is great news because they can focus on building their product / service and worry less about the markets becoming overly crowded with me-too competitors. The same argument ap...

There is a high probability that we are in for a recession and many folks think that it might be a fairly severe one. What does that mean for startups and VC funding? VentureBeat today has an article suggesting that funding is slowing down both from VCs and angel investors. For startups that are already well funded this is great news because they can focus on building their product / service and worry less about the markets becoming overly crowded with me-too competitors. The same argument ap...