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  • On Bubbles…

    Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley reminds the entrepreneurial community that predicting market tops is a delicately tricky business, and no one likes a party pooper.

    Read more...
  • Have Entrepreneurs Become Too Informal?

    Flybridge Capital's Jeff Bussgang wonders if entrepreneurs have taken informality in their thinking and approach too far.

    Read more...
  • The First Strategic Question Every Business Must Ask

    Cue Ball's Tony Tjan advises leaders to get their business definition and competitor set correct at the company's inception.

    Read more...
  • Two Big Events in Seattle: Microsoft Appoints New CEO, Seahawks Win Super Bowl

    Azure Capital Partner's Mike Kwatinetz breaks down two recent milestones in Seattle, the Seahawks recent Super Bowl win and the appointing of the third CEO in Microsoft history.

    Read more...
  • What I Would Look for When Choosing a VC – Knowing What I Know Now?

    Upfront Ventures' Mark Suster uses his years of experience on both sides of the table and looks at how he would choose a VC and why.

    Read more...

Featured Posts

Announcing the 2013 Venture Capital 100

February 3, 2014 | No Comments | AlwaysOn Awards
As the Global Silicon Valley flourishes, this year's top 100 venture investors are funding the very best technology ideas the entrepreneurial community has to offer.
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This year, AlwaysOn honors the talented investors in the Global Silicon Valley who have been funding technologies greatest ideas in digital entertainment, on-demand computing, cloud and infrastructure, and digital media. With the advent of a strong layer of early funding options, more companies are coming into the VC sphere with engaging products and well-developed business plans.

Competition remains fierce for VC dollars, and the 2013 Venture Capital 100 winners have brought strong products forward, creating vibrant new companies and invaluable new services. With the mobile world still dominating the technology marketplace, both business and consumer users are being treated to plenty of choices in terms of products and services.

Read On »

The Top 25 VC Firms and the Top 10 Corporate Venture Investors of 2013

January 27, 2014 | 1 Comment | AlwaysOn Awards
According to a report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association, there were 35 venture capital-backed IPOs and 322 M&As in the information technology space in 2013. Read on to find out the top 25 VCs firms and top 10 corporate venture investors who mined the most gold in another banner year.
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The exit market continues strong, building on last year’s list of exceptionally profitable IPOs and acquisitions. This year’s Top 25 VC Firms and Top 10 Corporate Venture Investors of 2013 list represents a wide range of investments, from Internet to cloud infrastructure to mobile to enterprise. This year, 35 companies raised $7.3 billion, creating $64 billion in public market capitalization. The largest IPO was Twitter (TWTR), the California-based social media platform, which raised $2.1 billion last November, leading the tech-based IPO offerings for the year.

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The AlwaysOn OnMedia 100 Top Company Competition

November 28, 2013 | 4 Comments | AlwaysOn Awards
The eighth annual OnMedia 100 private company and 50 Companies to Watch competitions have begun! Nominate your favorite digital media companies and check out the list of companies that have already been nominated.
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The OnMedia 100 represents the top emerging companies that are creating new business opportunities in the world of media, advertising, marketing, branding, and public relations. The winning companies are staring down the entrenched, legacy institutions that have long dominated Madison Avenue and creating new ways of reaching their sophisticated and increasingly mobile audience.

Today’s digital media, advertising, and marketing startups are shifting to take advantage of the trend toward both socialization and personalization. Consumers are demanding a new type of advertising—one that brings the products and services they want to them.

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Who Are the Power Players in Digital Media?

November 28, 2013 | No Comments | AlwaysOn Awards
The third annual Power Players in Digital Media competition has begun! Nominate your favorite champions of digital media and check out the list of players that have already been nominated.
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The AlwaysOn Power Players in Digital Media list honors the most influential people in the banking, venture capital, legal, and accounting world who support technology entrepreneurs that are bringing massive technology breakthroughs to the digital media world. These individuals and their firms are the infrastructure workhorses behind the ideas that make the Global Silicon Valley an incubator for success, creating strong companies that are building forward-thinking, indispensable products.

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The AlwaysOn OnDemand 100 Top Company Competition

November 29, 2013 | 1 Comment | AlwaysOn Awards
The fifth annual OnDemand 100 private company and 50 Companies to Watch competitions have begun! Nominate your favorite cloud infrastructure, on-demand, and SaaS companies and check out the list of companies that have already been nominated.
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The OnDemand 100 represents the top emerging companies that are creating new business opportunities in the world of on-demand, cloud computing, and SaaS. The winning companies are creating a complex world of interconnected business intelligence, merging valuable legacy data and systems with vital new streams of information. New application developers, especially those serving the expanding mobile market, now rely on cloud infrastructure to create, deploy, and manage their apps.

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Who Are the Power Players in the Cloud?

November 29, 2013 | No Comments | AlwaysOn Awards
The third annual Power Players in the Cloud competition has begun! Nominate your favorite champions of on-demand, Saas, and cloud computing and check out the list of players who have already been nominated.
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The AlwaysOn Power Players in the Cloud list honors the most influential people in the banking, venture capital, legal, and accounting world who support on-demand entrepreneurs that are bringing massive technology breakthroughs to the cloud, on-demand, and SaaS world. These individuals and their firms are the infrastructure workhorses behind the ideas that make the Global Siliconn Valley an incubator for success, creating strong digital media companies that are building forward-thinking, indispensable products.

Read On »

The AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Company Competition

November 29, 2013 | No Comments | AlwaysOn Awards
The 12th annual AlwaysOn Global 250 private company competition has begun! Nominate your favorite innovative technology startups and check out the list of companies that have already been nominated.
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The AlwaysOn Global 250 represents the top emerging companies that are creating new business opportunities in the Global Silicon Valley. These startups are opening up a new era in worldwide innovation that’s not only changing the way people live, it’s bringing a bright, new vision to the business world. Thousands of new ideas are making their mark, thanks to an expanding venture economy and a wide range of options available to entrepreneurs with the tenacity to take their idea from concept to market.

With the unprecedented shift from desktop to mobile, cloud and infrastructure innovators are making it possible for an entirely new generation of application and software solutions to enter the technology marketplace. The enterprise world has endured a long ramp-up to the cloud, but is now flocking to it with alacrity.

Read On »

Latest Posts

CEO Showcase: dataguise

August 24, 2010 | No Comments
Manmeet Singh, CEO at dataguise, talks about critical data security solutions for sensitive industries at AlwaysOn &STVP's Summit at Stanford, which took place at Stanford University July 28th, 2010. Don't miss this video of Manmeet's CEO Showcase.
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Dataguise provides automated and advanced database security solutions to help ensure regulatory compliance and protect against data theft. Dataguise’s dgdiscover focuses on sensitive data discovery and classification across the enterprise, while the dgmasker product solution provides secure masking of database content with unprecedented flexibility and functionality across heterogeneous environments.

Read On »

Viacom vs. YouTube: What Was Won and Lost

July 12, 2010 | No Comments
Magnify's Steve Rosenbaum looks back to at this landmark case in 2007 and discusses how the ruling will affect the speed of growth of video on the Web.
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When Viacom filed suit against YouTube back in 2007 the web was a very different place. Video, which is likely to be 90% of web traffic by 2014, was a tiny blip on the radar screen. And YouTube, while backed by the highly regarded Sequoia Capital and growing quickly, was still very much a fragile entity that could have been crushed by a significant defeat.

You have to wonder if Viacom, in hindsight, now realizes that their billion dollar lawsuit drove the video startup into the arms of Google where it now has grown to become a powerful force in web video and likely challenger to the cable dynasty that is Viacom.

Read On »

Augmented Reality Minus The Camera

July 9, 2010 | No Comments
Is Foursquare really just augmented reality without the camera? Who wants to walk around holding their smart phone in front of them all the time anyway?
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I blogged about Dutch virtual reality business Layar last week and I spent 20 minutes last night playing with the app whilst I was waiting for a friend to come meet me for a drink in north London. As I mentioned in last weeks post they have an active developer community and what these developers do is write Layars which run within the Layar augmented reality browser. All Layars share the same underlying structure – when the Layar is opened the iPhone/Android phone opens up the camera and the screen shows the camera view augmented with content relevant to that Layar which is tied to a specific location and within a distance set by the user.

Read On »

Is Going for Rapid Growth Always Good? Aren’t Startups So Much More?

September 25, 2012 | No Comments
GRP Partners' Mark Suster warns that continuing the "growth at all options path" may do more harm than good to a number of startups with excellent potential.
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I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “Startup = Growth” three or four times now. And of course on Twitter I’ve seen the Tweets, ReTweets and superlatives on what a great post it is.

Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” And when you read the article carefully it allows for a period of discovery in your business. For example:

Read On »

Amazon Hits All-Time Highs

September 10, 2012 | No Comments
Thanks to Amazon's Kindle Fire HD announcement, the stock hit all time highs, while Apple will be announcing it's iPhone 5 early next week. Check out this week's best and worst performers.
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The AlwaysOn X Fund rebounded 4.3% last week, while the NASDAQ was up 2.3%, and the S&P 500 advanced 2.2%. Year to date, the AO X Fund is up 9.4%, the NASDAQ is up 20.4%, and the S&P 500 is up 14.3%.

Long time leader Lululemon impressed with another strong quarter, beating expectations and posting 50% EPS growth for the second quarter. Revenue growth was 33%, driven by 15% same-store sales growth. While growth was slightly decelerating vs. the previous two quarters (partly due to seasonality), LULU set Q3 expectations above the street’s consensus. The stock responded in kind, advancing 12.4% on Friday, and finishing the week up 18.3%.

Read On »

Vision vs. Hallucination – Founders and Pivots

September 8, 2012 | No Comments
Guest Blogger Steve Blank warns founders that a pivot should not be an excuse for a lack of a coherent strategy or a lack of impulse control.
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A founder’s skill is knowing how to recognize new patterns and to pivot on a dime. At times the pattern is noise, and the vision turns out to be a hallucination. Knowing how to sort between vision and hallucination can avoid chaos inside your startup.

———

Yuri, one of my ex students started a big-data analytics company last year. He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30.

Read On »

How Much Information Should you Give VCs for Due Diligence?

September 2, 2012 | No Comments
GRP Partners' Mark Suster gives some direct advice about dealing with VCs that can help you pick up a lot of new relationships that can benefit you in your future.
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This is a hot topic I’ve been asked a lot about recently.

  • You’re on a first date with a VC – how much should you tell them?
  • You’re heading into a full partner meeting and you’ve been asked for a full data pack before – should you give it?
  • When is it appropriate for a VC to call your customers?

There is no universal answer and my discussions with various VCs on these topics have yielded many differing opinions. Having been on both sides of this sensitive topic, the following is my personal advice.

Read On »

Draw Something Coming to CBS?

June 18, 2012 | No Comments
Fashion retailer Michael Kors had a great first quarter, with strong growth, especially in same-store sales, while Zynga looks to partner with CBS to bring Draw Something to TV. Check out this week's best and worst performers.
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The AlwaysOn X Fund portfolio finished the week down 0.6%, the NASDAQ was up 0.5%, and the S&P 500 advanced 1.3%. Year to date, the AO X Fund is up 7.7%, the NASDAQ is up 10.3%, and the S&P 500 isup 6.8%.

Fashion retailer Michael Kors reported very strong Q1 results with a robust +36.1% in same-stores sales growth, which was slightly up from its Q4 same-store sales growth at +35.8%. Revenue growth was 58%, and earnings increased 87% year over year. KORS added 71 net new stores during the quarter and raised its Q2 expectations, with same-store sales growth expected at +35%. For the week, KORS was up 2.3%.

Read On »

What They Don’t Teach You in School About Risk

May 1, 2012 | No Comments
Remmy explains why risk exposure for us engineers should be lower. Hint: Because our major was 90 times harder than studying business.
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Risk.

As engineers, we don’t need to take risk like econ majors. Have you ever played Risk, the Parker Brothers game?! The winner sits in Australia protecting one border and never "risks" ANYTHING.

They should rename that game, "Sit and wait on Australia so you can slowly conquer Asia." Nine armies. Three borders. Zero risk. True story.

Read On »

Apple Leads December Mobile Purchases

January 3, 2012 | No Comments
Apple finished up its astounding year with its users accounting for 92% of all mobile purchases in December and starts the year strongly with the iPad 3 release rumored to be before April. Check out this week's best and worst performers.
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The AlwaysOn X Fund portfolio fell 0.7% last week, while the NASDAQ was down 0.5%, and the S&P 500 was down 0.6%. The AO X Fund finished 2011 up 4.6%, the NASDAQ was down 1.8%, and the S&P 500 was flat at -0%.

New rumors arose that the new iPad 3 will come in two different models and will be out as soon as Q1 2012. Impressively, Apple’s iPad and iPhone users accounted for 92% of all mobile purchases in December in the U.S. For the year, AAPL finished up 25.6%.

Read On »

Don’t Send That Email. Pick up the Phone!

November 8, 2011 | No Comments
Cue Ball's Tony Tjan reiterates how important it is to focus on the live conversations at hand, rather than parallel conversations on the Blackberry screen.
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Around this time last year, I wrote about how we need to get back to allowing conversation to occur without texting, emailing, browsing, Tweeting, Facebooking, or doing whatever else zeros and ones can do these days on smart phones, iPads, notebooks, etc. I am as guilty as the next person of falling for the perception that any response latency is unacceptable. As 2012 fast approaches, this needs to go on top of my New Year’s resolution list: focus on the live conversations at hand, rather than parallel conversations on the Blackberry screen.

Read On »

Protecting The Safe Harbors Of The DMCA And Protecting Jobs

November 2, 2011 | No Comments
Union Square's Fred Wilson addresses a threat to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, urging the tech industry and content creators to collaborate and find a solution to "online piracy."
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My partner Brad and I spent Thursday in DC along with a bunch of entrepreneurs and VCs. We talked to dozens of our elected officials about an issue that is very concerning to us, protecting the safe harbors of the DMCA. 

The DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It received unanimous support in the Senate and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998. It is a complex piece of legislation but it contains four "safe harbors" for "network service providers. The four safe harbors are explained here. "Network service providers" is shorthand for web services. Companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are "network service providers."

Read On »
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