September 2010
24 posts
“I fear we’re training a generation of fundraisers not company builders.”
– Bryce Roberts
I totally agree with Bryce on this and I am coming at it from the other side. Recently I have seen some situations where this happened. It is bad for everyone, when the wrong people raise money it creates lots of really bad outcomes.
I have a half written post called the “The...
“With Unsubscribe.com, I simply click the Unsubscribe button in Gmail and the...”
– Brad Feld, Gmail Has Won Me Over
I literally was jumping off my couch like Tom Cruise on Oprah when I saw this. Thanks Brad, that is awesome and we are so psyched that you like Unsubscribe.com
WatchI have always hated filling out those “No really I am a human” things. They are both a waste of time and in the case of the ones on Google, almost impossible to fill out.
This video above is from a new company called Solve Media which is going to use this area for ads now instead of just pure frustration. Awesome, turn a pain point into profit.
“These startups are binary …they succeed or fail”
– Ron Conway
I like how this boils things down to the basics.
Shapeways Coming to NY
I am really excited to see that USV is investing in Shapeways. They are similar (yet a bit different) to one of my favorite companies, Quirky.
I love the model of leveraging the intelligence of the web and things like 3D printers to create new products for individual or small volumes. It really opens up the ability to create highly customized things for niche uses.
If you want a great example...
Shapeways Coming to NY
I am really excited to see that USV is investing in Shapeways. They are similar
The Winklebabies
Erin and I were watching the today show this morning and the Winklevoss twins were on talking about the Facebook movie and their position on how Mark Zuckerberg “Stole” the idea from them.
First of all, these guys got a reported $65 million for their “idea” in a settlement, so at this point they should be quiet and enjoy their wealth.
But what I find even more ridiculous...
WatchI needed something printed and the guy who owned the place took me on a tour of the whole print shop. It was fascinating.
The printer in this video is for real high volume stuff. I watched them set up the job and it was amazing that printing still is really a art.
This machine was around 2 million. The owner told me that it is being replaced next year with a $800k digital machine from xerox....
“Unsubscribe.com - from the man who brought us phonetag (one of my all time...”
– Another great service brought to us by Jamie!
A VC: Inbox Zero (via henrysztul)
Thanks Henry. And thanks Fred for the awesome post today.
“PFOA causes liver cancer, reduced birth weight, immune-system suppression and...”
– Jerry Hirsch, LA Times article Safety Concerns May Stick to Teflon, 02/14/2006
Erin showed me a pot that we had where the non-stick stuff was coming off of it. So I googled a bit to find out about it. This was one of the articles I found, a chemical component in the non stick coating (PFOA) that...
WatchI am not sure what the physics of this is but my the water in my fridge is liquid but when I take it out and tap it on the table it freezes instantly.
Pretty cool to watch.
Update- Well now thanks to the awesomeness of the web, I now know that this is a phenomenon called Supercooling.
Continuations: VC Dog Fooding: Preditter →
continuations:
When investing in consumer services, we try to be active users of the services. That tends to provide a fair bit of insight about what is working and what is not (as long as one keeps in mind that one may not be the exact target user!). To do something similar for our more developer directed…
This is awesome and I look forward to more open developer services to help this...
“Leaving somebody a voicemail is just plain rude.”
– Ricky (via david)
unless they have PhoneTag…
How to Sell a Mac Book Pro for $6,700 on eBay
I have a Mac Book Pro, 17”, that I bought last year and no longer have a use for it. So I figured I would just sell it on eBay. So far I have been EXTREMELY successful selling it on eBay, netting a total of $6,700 in 4 consecutive sales.
So how with one laptop was I able to sell it 4 times (now going on 5)? Because for things like laptops eBay is just a giant black hole full of scumbags...
bryc3:
love this quote “If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” http://bit.ly/93JYCJ via @precipice
Awesome!
