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When I was a venture capitalist there were lots of reasons why we did not make investments in particular startups. My goal was to try to provide some honest feedback/guidance as to the reason for passing on the opportunity. Given the deep deal flow at my fund, this was not always possible, but if I had used up more than a few minutes of the executives’ time learning about their company I tried to give a little bit of the color behind the rejection.
This ranged from “the end market is too small” or “you need more user traction” or “it is too competitive of a market” or “we are not comfortable with this particular technology.” But the fact of the matter was, sometimes there were not great reasons for passing on a company. Many times these were just excuses hiding the real reason:
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The Time Warner board has approved the spinoff of AOL as an independent, publicly traded company, undoing the disastrous merger between the two in 2001, which came to be a symbol of failed synergy between content and web distribution. It also positions Time Warner for a return to its roots: as a dedicated content company.
The spinoff is targeted for the end of the year, after Time Warner buys back the 5% stake in AOL it doesn't own from Google, which it says it will do in the third quarter of 2009. The deal follows Time Warner's spinoff of Time Warner Cable earlier this year.
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-29" »
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Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) recently said they are not worried about the recent success of Android on the G1 handset and that Windows Mobile has felt little impact from its release. Is Microsoft just talking smack, or are they really not worried about it?
Mobile News shares some comments from David Weeks, a Windows Mobile product manager.
We’re not worried about Android - Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and BlackBerry are probably more badly hit by it. We're on forecast. 100,000 sales is very low considering the amount of marketing T-Mobile put into the advertisement of the G1. A high-end feature phone like the G1 would usually sell 500,000 units for the money they invested.
Now, keep in mind this is the UK market. Overall, the G1 has sold over 1 million devices since launch, but according to Weeks, moving only 100,000 in the UK market in a few months is a poor showing for a device like this.
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Do parents really know the deal when it comes to their kids and sexting? John Walsh, host of "Americas Most Wanted" said they don't have a clue.
That’s why it’s incredibly important to sit down with your child and talk about the dangers of this growing problem, Walsh told FOX and Friends Thursday morning.
“I talk to my 14-year-old son — but the bad news is that 1 in 4 teens say ‘hey, hey hey… parents don’t know what the heck they’re talking about… and every teenager thinks they’re bullet proof,” Walsh said. “But when that picture shows up in cyberspace, and that college admissions director sees that looking at the Myspace page or the Facebook page — or they hear about it, or the kid gets arrested for distributing a sexy picture — you know — then it’s going to come back to haunt that kid.”
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-19" »
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In a down economy, it is a wise strategy to find potential customers who actually have money.
According to comScore, they are still out there—and they are online.
Over 50 million unique affluent Internet users—those with annual household incomes of at least $100,000—visited Websites in March, making up over one-quarter of the entire Internet population for the month.
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Continue reading "links for 2009-05-17" »
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ANDROID SMARTPHONE shipments will purportedly grow a whopping 900 per cent according to some highly optimistic figures from excitable market research outfit, Strategy Analytics (SA).
SA also blurted out it believed Apple's Iphone operating system will be the next fastest-growing smartphone OS in 2009, citing a predicted 79 per cent growth rate.
Despite being a bit of a late bloomer, Google's open source Android platform seems to be gaining momentum amidst buffed up support from telco operators, developers and retailers alike, with SA noting the platform's presence is finally seeping through Europe and Asia.
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Boulder, Colorado-based social software publisher HiveLive has signed on consumer products giant General Mills, the firm disclosed this week. According to John Kembel, the firm's CEO, Generla Mills is using the firm's communities for market research and consumer insights. Financial terms of the win were not disclosed. Kembel said in a blog post that General Mills has so far launched HiveLive powered sites for four brands, including Nature Valley and Yoplait. HiveLive is backed by Aeneas Ventures and Grotech Capital Group.
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-13" »
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HammerTap, which provides market research services to eBay sellers, announced that its president Greg Cole has recently acquired sole ownership of HammerTap and its associated companies. Previous owners Brian Clark, Todd Baum and Joe Rowberry along with former CEO Ty Hawkins are stepping down.
"Over the past year, our companies have transitioned focus from offering a wide array of services, including personal business mentoring, to a more focused effort toward developing innovative online business software products," Cole stated in a press release. "Changes in ownership and leadership within the company are a natural and progressive step in this process."
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Little known fact: Apple and Microsoft were both started without venture capital and both started in a recession. So what's your fledgling company need to do to navigate the current economic climate?
I got a pitch the other day from some fine fellows over at BDO Seidman, an accounting and consulting firm that participated in 73 public and private offerings, producing proceeds in excess of $10 billion over the past two years. Partners Bob Strasser and Bob Pearlman have a suggestion for startups: You can be wildly successful without VC investments in a down market.
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-09" »
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President Barack Obama's plan to impose U.S. taxes on corporate America's overseas profits threatens to open a big crater in the financial statements of technology companies.
While additional taxes are rarely popular, Obama's decision to go after corporate earnings outside the United States is a particularly prickly subject for technology executives because the industry has been steadily boosting its overseas sales amid rising demand for its gadgetry and services.
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Only a few days ago, eMarketer ran an article (Online Sales Up) based on a study that showed US online retail sales on average were up 11% in Q1 2009.
Looking forward, however, the projection for online sales in 2009 does not appear so rosy.
After years of unbroken growth, eMarketer forecasts that continued recessionary pressure will cause online sales to actually contract in 2009—by 0.4%.
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-08" »
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Last August, Hewlett-Packard Co. signed a letter of intent to pay $360 million cash for LeftHand Networks Inc., a venture-backed provider of storage systems. A few weeks later, Wall Street’s collapse sent the economy in a tailspin and threatened to knock the screws out of the deal.
But after a two-week pause the two sides got back together and in November closed the acquisition on the same terms. Asked how LeftHand was able to command the same price despite the uncertainty created from the financial markets, an investor in the company said, “Maybe it’s because every Sunday I went to church and lit candles. Faith and religion are very important in the sale process.”
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E-Commerce merchant and affiliate network Shopster announced the launch of a new online retailing solution in PowerMerchant.
A popular online drop-shipping solution, Shopster previously focused on helping affiliates aggregate products from wholesalers and sell those products as they chose. At last count there were more than one million products from 130 suppliers. PowerMerchant widens the scope of potential customers for Shopster by enabling more traditional merchants to list and sell their own products - not just tap into databases of Shopster partners and suppliers.
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-06" »
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A year and a half ago, my co-founder Dev Nag and I started an internet TV network for games called PlayCafe. Our ambitious plan was to run highly interactive game shows in which everyone was a contestant. Players could watch our hosts, answer questions, win prizes, form teams, call our studio, live chat, and run their own games. It was a huge undertaking, but despite great engagement — users watched for 87 minutes per session and 40 percent returned within a week — we didn’t reach enough users. We may revive it in the future, but for now, we’ve placed the site in hibernation and returned remaining funds to our investors.
What follows is a post-mortem of what we did right and wrong and how we will improve next time. I feel too many entrepreneurs are afraid to discuss their failures, locking up important lessons. I hope you find some of this useful.
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While venture capitalists search for a way to jumpstart the market for initial public offerings, corporate acquirers appear to be coming back on their own and giving investors a way to reap returns - if they can survive the negotiations, according to an investment banker.
The M&A market has slowed down considerably since last September when the financial markets tumbled in the wake of Wall Street’s collapse. The fourth quarter saw just 65 M&A deals involving venture-backed companies, the lowest on record for a quarter, while the first quarter didn’t fare much better at 68 deals, according to industry tracker VentureSource.
But there are some signs that large corporate buyers are getting back into the game. Dan Williams, a managing director in the technology practice of investment bank Montgomery & Co., said his firm is today seeing a very different mood than it did just 30 days ago.
Continue reading "links for 2009-05-01" »
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