Category: Random

  • New & Interesting Startups: September Edition

    For the uninitiated, I like to ramble about interesting startups I’ve come across recently. Sometimes there’s a theme, but other times it’s random. Let’s start with the “unbundling of colleges”, since Lambda School recently raised a $74M C round. You’re starting to see this model across a wide range of skillsets. There’s OnDelta* for marketing, Reforge for growth, ProductSchool for product, Skillfull for strategy […]

  • Voice is Hot

    Likely because of the recent Clubhouse investment, I’m noticing a lot of activity in the voice space. I’m seeing more of Chalk, which is similar to Clubhouse but open to all. Clubhouse feels more like a media play, where they focus on courting influencers to become what I’d call the Twitch for conference calls, where as Chalk feels […]

  • Opening up the Workplace and the Future of Work

    We’re starting to open up the workplace. Are self-reported health symptom tools like Tamarin Health and TeamSense enough? Maybe your workplace won’t reopen and you’ll go full remote. You might negotiate a work-from-home office package through Firstbase, and get better home security through Clario. Maybe use Avvinue to relocate to another country. Now that all the meetings are on Zoom, perhaps you’ll use […]

  • Startups Tackling the Future of Education

    As we look to opening up schools, I’ve spent an increasing amount of time thinking about the future of education. Within 5-10 years, I believe parents will be able to move anywhere in the world and provide world-class education for their kids at any age. We’ll start below with startups supporting more traditional schooling, and […]

  • I’m loving No Code

    I recently migrated a custom CRM from code (MySQL/PHP/HTML/CSS/Javascript) to No Code, so I naturally look at a lot of these tools. For those unfamiliar, there are an increasing number of tools that allow people to create full blown apps without writing a line of code. Webflow is the king today, they provide both front end and back […]

  • Is Shelter in Place Political?

    Following the news cycle, it seems Shelter in Place is driven politically, with conservatives itching to get out and liberals sheltering in place (I’m overgeneralizing). We also know that urban environments help spread the virus, so it would make sense that these people would support shelter in place. Finally, we also know that urban areas […]

  • Four Deltas: a framework for communicating the impact of coronavirus on your business

    I’ve received a lot of communication from founders about the impact of the recent epidemic on their business – some informative, some lackluster. Based on what I’ve seen, I created a rather simple framework to help founders communicate the key pieces of information that an investor (current or prospective) would want to hear. I call […]

  • COVID-19 discussions for emerging GPs #OpenLP

    I continue to be amazed at the content available for emerging GPs. This month, the content comes in the form of blog posts, but also zoom webinars and live audio talk shows. I first heard Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Ventures being interviewed on Semil’s Talkshow (listen here) on March 11th.  It was right after on Mar 14th that […]

  • Change is slow

    When looking to permanently change the physical shape of hard materials, it often requires an additional ingredient to be added first (eg. heat, water), then you work the material slowly and gradually, and finally let it rest. If you skip adding the necessary ingredient, work the material too fast, or don’t let it rest, it […]

  • Launching askanything.vc – a search engine that only shows results from trusted VCs

    When asked questions by founders, I often send them articles from VCs who’ve said it better than I could. I always wished there was an easy way to search just content from blogs by VCs. When James Augeri told me about his new startup Jingle last Thursday, I asked if he could help set this […]