I'm about to travel to England for the first time. My previous international excursions have been to Mexico, Jamaica, and Bangladesh. In honor of my first trip to Europe, I decided to write a feature on European startup hubs and discuss some of the unique challenges and dynamics that startups face in Europe. I've pulled … Continue reading European Startup Hubs
Venture Capital
Learning vs. Staying Informed: an Important Distinction in the Realm of New Ventures
Learning and staying informed are two different paradigms for receiving information and forming a view of the world. While staying informed is to some degree a necessary requirement of learning, on its own it is insufficient for dealing with new ventures. People that want to operate in the creative space of new ventures should aim … Continue reading Learning vs. Staying Informed: an Important Distinction in the Realm of New Ventures
What Are App Coins, and Do They Spell The End of Venture Capital?
This post, more so than any previous post, represents a compilation of unfinished thoughts. I have so many questions surrounding app coins (or "tokens", as some prefer to call them), and there don't seem to be many answers. The topic is a deep rabbit hole that lends itself to grandiose posturing on one side and … Continue reading What Are App Coins, and Do They Spell The End of Venture Capital?
A Brief Introduction to Blockchain Technology
What is blockchain technology? A quick search of "blockchain" on Crunchbase, the startup and investing data base, yields 304 unique results. Blockstream, a startup focused on improving blockchain technology, has raised $76 million in funding. Chain, the leading blockchain platform for enterprises, has raised more than $43 million. Factom, Gem, Elliptic, Storj, Funderbeam, and Colu are just … Continue reading A Brief Introduction to Blockchain Technology
Is Your Startup Idea Good, Bad, or Ugly?
The other day, I saw an advertisement for an on-demand dog walking service. Not to offend the founders, investors, or fans of Rover the on-demand dog walking service, but the idea seemed preposterous to me. Does this count as innovation? Is Rover actually a technology startup? Do people realize that tacking an "on-demand" onto the … Continue reading Is Your Startup Idea Good, Bad, or Ugly?
A Venture Capitalist’s Most Valuable Asset
Statistically speaking, you have approximately the same odds of playing professional baseball as you do of becoming a venture capitalist. You hear the names of venture capital elite mentioned alongside the likes of Uber, Twitter, Snap Inc., Google, and almost every other disruptive tech company of the last twenty-five years. But what do venture capitalists actually do? … Continue reading A Venture Capitalist’s Most Valuable Asset
The Death of the Screen and “the Next iPhone”
We interact with the world through screens. The reality of this idea is so commonplace that we don’t usually think in these terms. When we think of messaging, FaceTime, emails, group chats, Twitter, Facebook, and this blog post, we think of the content exchanged through those applications. But stop, and take a second to look … Continue reading The Death of the Screen and “the Next iPhone”
Computer Vision Gets a Lot of Hype, but are We Still Underestimating It?
What is computer vision? The British Machine Vision Association defines computer vision as "the automatic extraction, analysis, and understanding of useful information from a single image or a sequence of images" and "involves the development of a theoretical and algorithmic basis to achieve automatic visual understanding." Although this sounds (and is) incredibly complex, it's something … Continue reading Computer Vision Gets a Lot of Hype, but are We Still Underestimating It?
Will We Pay for High-Quality Information?
Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, says that in order to come up with successful startup ideas you need to "live in the future and build what seems interesting." He notes that successful founders usually operate on the fringe of what is believed to be possible, and then fill in gaps when they notice something … Continue reading Will We Pay for High-Quality Information?
Three Things We Can Learn from Walmart’s $3.3 Billion Acquisition of Jet.com
Note: writing in hindsight sure makes things easier It's been almost three weeks since the announcement that Walmart will acquire Jet.com. The news came as a surprise to many, and turned Jet.com from a target of skeptical condescension into a classic case study. Some still doubt that a Walmart-Jet tag-team will be able to challenge … Continue reading Three Things We Can Learn from Walmart’s $3.3 Billion Acquisition of Jet.com
Supersaturate 