Podcast appearances and mentions of dave mcclure

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Mantle. The AI-powered equity management platform designed for modern founders and operators. Get your first 12 months free at https://withmantle.com/TWIST Hubspot for Podcast Networks. Looking to up your marketing game? Check out the podcast: Marketing Against the Grain Hosted by: Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar and Zapier CMO Kieran Flannigan They bring you the latest in marketing trends, growth tactics and innovation. Available on all your favorite podcast apps. Curotec. Are you one of those companies that knows you need to be using AI, but you're not even sure where to start? Well then you need Curotec. They are AI experts, and they're offering TWiST listeners an AI Strategy Roadmap tailored to your business for $5000. That's 50% off the normal cost just for telling them we sent you. Check out http://www.curotec.com/twist and get $5000 off! * Todays show: David Weisburd hosts Dave McClure, Jordan Stein, and Jason Calacanis to discuss the evolution of fund spaces. The discuss investing in the YC ecosystem (00:28), the role of secondary funds today (40:26), and the importance of betting on outliers (1:00:49). * Timestamps: (0:00) David Weisburd intros Dave McClure, Jordan Stein, and Jason Calacanis (00:28) Reddit's IPO adds to YC's track record of successful public listings (10:21) Mantle - Get your first 12 months free at https://withmantle.com/TWIST (11:39) Strategy of investing in YC ecosystem and the importance of entry point evaluation (18:40) YC's demo day and opportunities for other accelerators (26:12) Hubspot - Marketing Against the Grain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNgyVFsk4g https://lnk.to/h3vKHnTW (27:18) YC's demo day and opportunities for other accelerators cont. (32:24) Carta's report on the rise of capital call requests (39:15) Curotec - Check out http://www.curotec.com/twist and get $5000 off (40:26) The role of secondary funds in the current macroeconomic conditions and the potential for more company shutdowns (1:00:49) Betting on outliers and the decision-making process for doubling down (1:14:16) Lightning round: Top 3 investments from each guest (1:25:20) Discussing the upcoming https://www.liquiditypod.com/summit * Check out: https://mercury.com https://www.gropyus.com https://recargapay.com.br https://www.ridemotive.com https://testrigor.com https://www.krepling.com * Follow Dave: X: https://twitter.com/davemcclure LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemcclure Check out: https://practicalvc.com * Follow Jordan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-stein17 Check out: https://cressetcapital.com * Follow David: X: ⁠https://twitter.com/DWeisburd⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/dweisburd⁠ Check out: ⁠https://10xcapital.com * Follow Jason: X: ⁠https://twitter.com/jason⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/jason⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (10:21) Mantle - Get your first 12 months free at https://withmantle.com/TWIST (26:12) Hubspot - Marketing Against the Grain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNgyVFsk4g https://lnk.to/h3vKHnTW (39:15) Curotec - Check out http://www.curotec.com/twist and get $5000 off * Check out the Launch Accelerator: https://launchaccelerator.co * Check out Founder University: https://www.founder.university * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

Arctic Cat released its 2025 M Alpha One 858 mountain sleds this week and this is our initial reaction pod. We get Todd Tupper of Cat's R&D department and David McClure on to talk about riding the '25 M 858 Alpha Ones. SnoWest test riders Justin Stevens, Broc Genta and Bruce Kerbs join host Ryan Harris in studio.

Dave McClure, a well-known venture capitalist focused on enterprise startups, developed his “pirate model” for success with service offerings and marketing—he emphasizes Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue. Yes, that's the pirate model—AARRR! But his pirate model can work well for the continuous regeneration of every enterprise. Join Kevin as we unpack the pirate model and its relevance for your workplace enterprise…but also how the early church's dynamic model should direct our steps today. Doesn't God desire ongoing renewal of the vitality and results of the early church we see in the New Testament?  // Download this episode's Application & Action questions and PDF transcript at whitestone.org.

In this episode, Ross dives into the mental frameworks used in marketing, focusing on the Pirate Metrics (AARRR) approach including acquisition, activation, retention, and referral. They also discuss mental models, the awareness and consideration stages of buying, and strategies for closing sales and delighting customers. Detailed Breakdown: Marketing is a complex and ever-evolving field and it can be hard to keep up with the latest strategies. That's why it's important to understand the mental frameworks and strategies that successful marketers use to stay ahead of the game and get maximum results. One such framework is AARRR Pirate Metrics, which was coined by 500 Startups founder Dave McClure. This framework breaks down marketing into five key components – acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue – to help marketers understand how to drive maximum value for their businesses. Acquisition is the strategy and efforts you use to bring customers to your website. Activation involves getting a user to have a positive experience with your offering. Retention is about measuring whether people are coming back, while referral focuses on encouraging satisfied customers to refer new customers. All of these components must work together for the best possible results. For example, SaaS marketers can employ pricing optimization and cross selling to maximize revenue. A mental model is also important when it comes to effective marketing. It is an overarching term for any concept, framework, or worldview that you use to revisit in your mind. This concept of mental models helps marketers to think more holistically and understand the bigger picture. Another important concept in marketing is the awareness-consideration-closing funnel. In the awareness stage, potential customers become aware of their problem, then in the consideration stage, companies need to provide web presence to help prospects evaluate their solutions, before finally helping them make a choice in the closing stage. To help customers in all stages of the funnel, marketers need to produce content such as blog posts, social media posts, white papers, and YouTube videos to provide value. It all comes down to helping customers be successful and delighting them by putting a smile on their face and keeping them retained. By understanding and mastering Pirate Metrics and Mental frameworks, you can develop an effective marketing strategy that will help you get the most value for your business. Resources & Tools: - Dave McClure, 500 Startups Founder - Pricing Optimization - Cross-selling - Call to Action ---

On today's show: Jessica starts the show by giving her thoughts on the Netflix film RRR. Meghan and Jessica also catch up with Grizzlies Summer League coach Dave McClure, discuss the team's Summer League Championship chances and talk about the latest Khloe and Tristan drama. (start) shenanigans (7:00) RRR review (16:00) Coach McClure interview (35:00) Meghan live from Vegas (57:00)REPORTEDLY: Jazz and Knicks talking about Donovan Mitchell trade (1:03:00) KCP's new contract extension (1:05:00) Big 12 media days (1:13:00) Khloe and Tristan are expecting a baby via surrogate (1:25:00) Ryan Gosling's Barbie movie comment Watch LIVE at 8am, weekdays on YouTube and the Grizzlies App: bit.ly/MemGrizzApp Watch today's full show at: youtube.com/grindcitymedia

Dan Martell joins Daniel for an educational conversation about development, both tribe, and product, how to be smart when looking for mentors, and the value of subscription-based services. If you don't already know Dan, he is the Founder of Clarity.fm, a business coach, and a relationship builder, who appreciates proving his worth with every piece of content he puts out.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Born and raised in a chinese-brazilian family, Bedy Yang has a lengthy track record of consulting for global companies on go-to-market strategies in Brazil. She moved to the US at a time when there weren't many links between Silicon Valley and Latin America, and so she helped build and strengthen them.It started in 2009, when she founded Brazil Innovators, scaling its network from 0 to over 10,000 people. Two years later, she joined 500 Global as a consultant before tackling the role of Managing Partner and the challenges of ecosystem development.In the words of founder Dave McClure, “Bedy Yang is a super-connector who knows Brazil inside and out”.As a global operator, she's invested in the likes of ContaAzul, Descomplica and Viva Real.Bedy and I are catching up to talk about:The role of networking in an entrepreneur's journeyThe recent influx of capital in Latin AmericaAnd how founders can enter negotiations from a position of strengthBuilding something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.comJoin us in building the future of LatAm tech entrepreneurship at futuro.latitud.com

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister.

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister.

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister

Tom Dotan grills me on my trip to Miami during Art Basel. We talk about 500 Global in the shadow of 2017 exposé Dave McClure. We cover a potpourri of topics. I play my best Steven Pinker while Tom harkens back to his days as a digital media reporter. We talk about Max Read’s piece “Is web3 b******t?” and discuss the BuzzFeed public listing. (Ben Smith can finally sell his shares!) There’s even a brief discussion of the latest episode of Succession **spoilers** toward the end of the episode. Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

Tom Dotan grills me on my trip to Miami during Art Basel. We talk about 500 Global in the shadow of 2017 exposé Dave McClure. We cover a potpourri of topics. I play my best Steven Pinker while Tom harkens back to his days as a digital media reporter. We talk about Max Read's piece “Is web3 b******t?” and discuss the BuzzFeed public listing. (Ben Smith can finally sell his shares!) There's even a brief discussion of the latest episode of Succession **spoilers** toward the end of the episode. Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Todd Embley, Senior Startup Advocate for Agora. Todd and I talk about the new technologies and trends from no-code tools to embedded audio and video platforms, that affect how we see, hear, and interact with each other. We also explore how companies are tapping into startups and startup ecosystems to enable founders to build and impact the world more effectively. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation as the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. I'm your host Brian Ardinger, founder of InsideOutside.IO. Each week. We'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Todd Embley, Senior Startup Advocate for AgoraBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Todd Embley. He is a Senior Startup Advocate for Agora and a formerly with China Accelerator. So welcome to the show, Todd, Todd Embley: Thank you, Brian. It's good to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you because we've met a while back early in my startup days when I was running NMotion. You were in China. And we met at some global accelerator network conference. I think it was in San Diego, perhaps. So, you spent a lot of time in Asia, as I did. And recently moved back to the states, working for a interesting company called Agora. We had a chance to run into each other again in Lincoln. Todd Embley: Yeah. Thanks very much. I actually did come back from China and moved to the U.S. but now I'm back in Canada. I am Canadian and I'm living in Western Canada. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to start the conversation with the most recent company that you're with is a company called Agora. It's an interesting company for a couple different reasons. And it's a real-time engagement platform that a lot of popular companies are using to build on top of like Run the World, which is something that we've used for our IO Conferences and that. And some of our IO Live events. I think you guys provide like the SDKs and the building blocks to enable these types of startups to build off of. So, I I'd love to get your take, not on just Agora, but you've got an interesting role there as a Startup Advocate. So, what is a Startup Advocate? Todd Embley: It's a great role, for those of us who aren't necessarily adept at selling. And we fall under marketing. And the role is really, if I were to compartmentalize everything that we're about and our ethos and thesis. Is go out into startup land and be as helpful as possible. Try to integrate. You know, we sponsor. I run workshops. I meet with lots and lots of entrepreneurs all the time, and we're just out there trying to be as helpful as possible. And the great thing that the company and the founders and senior leadership have all gotten behind is just be out and be as helpful as possible. And wear the t-shirt while you're doing it. That's almost the be all and end of it. And for those that are really interested in what Agora is and what Agora does, then we can get into that. But essentially, we're not trying to put it in front of everybody and not trying to blast everybody with, with Agora specifically. The team is comprised of people who have been entrepreneurs, been in startups, been in VC, run accelerators. And who have just a lot of empathy for startups and that's kind of where it begins and ends. Brian Ardinger: We see a couple of different companies use this approach of startup advocate type of program to help build their business. Walk me through like, what are the benefits and the reasons why a corporation would want to put together some type of program around this.Todd Embley: You know, I think AWS and what they've been doing for as long as they've been doing it are kind of the benchmark. And they were, I would say the pioneers, at least the most famous pioneers of running programs like this. Our senior leadership had an opportunity in China to talk to the heads of AWS Activate in China.And they divulged some interesting statistics, which I think were the precipice of Agora wanting to build their own startup team as well. And that was that after 15 years of them having a program, they will now attribute up to 65% of AWS revenues today to the activities, you know, over the last 15 years, of their startup program.And what we're trying to do is invest in our future huge customers. Knowing that the world's next billionaire companies, trillion-dollar companies. The unicorns of the future are still just startups today. And if we want to align ourselves correctly with what it takes to build a startup and how hard it is, let's maybe try to get out of their way at the early stages while they're trying to cross the early chasms of, you know, and the difficulties of what it takes. So, from a revenue perspective or from a cost perspective, let's give our stuff for free. You know, until you, their revenue. You can't get blood from a stone. So, while they're still searching for product market fit and revenue, let's let them use our software for free until such time as they are then finding product market fit and then able to start generating revenue. And only at that time, should we then start to talk to them about actually paying for the service? Brian Ardinger: That makes sense. And obviously it seems to be working. I think I read on your website, you've got over 50 billion minutes of engagement on the platform. Probably going up as we speak. I don't know if you can speak to any specific use cases or specifically what you do when it comes to helping these companies get up and off the ground. Todd Embley: Sure. As you alluded to, there are some famous companies that have been using us, especially in the real-time audio space. There are a few NDAs in place. So, you could mention who those companies are. And by all means it's pretty widely known. I necessarily can't speak directly to who some of those more famous ones are. But the nuts and bolts of the program essentially boils down to free minutes. So, my Director, Tony Blank. He and another friend of ours, Paul Ford, used to do this at SendGrid. And that's where they were a big supporter of the Global Accelerator Network where you and I met in the beginning and then the Twilio acquisition of SendGrid. So, he was there. And they were doing a great job as well. And leading on some of the data from their experience there, or Tony's experience there, and then understanding our business and the data that we had over the years that Agora has been thriving. We positioned the amount of minutes at 1 million, we figured 1 million minutes of Agora should be enough for most companies to achieve product market fit and revenue.If you haven't achieved product market fit and revenue, after using a million minutes of Agora, you may have some underlying other issues that are getting in the way of that. But we really feel that upwards of 80%, even 90% of companies who do achieve and use up the million free minutes, should be at a position of having raised money and are revenue positive.At which time we feel comfortable to say, okay, though, now we do have to, for our business purposes, need to, to work on something and we'll hand them over to sales in a gentle way and work on getting them some discounts and start forecasting future usage and things like that. But those are the nuts and bolts.In our world of real-time video, real-time audio, just the real-time engagement aspect of it. There are certain verticals that are really taking off. I think health is obviously a big one where you have doctors and patients or therapists and their clients. We're seeing a lot in fitness, so for coaches training. Doing big group classes. Education is probably our biggest. I think that's a pretty obvious use case of doing real time lessons with teachers and things. But we're also seeing a lot of activity in the area of gaming where people want talk to each other. They want to be on video with each other while playing games together. Live performances and experiences around online virtual concerts or comedy shows or things like that as well. There's a lot of added context that you can get from engaging in real time, over video. That you couldn't get at an actual conference.You know, there are solutions coming around blending those where you might be at the concert, but you'll also have on your phone different camera angles that are available to a viewer. And you can get other contextual information that is happening plus chats with other people at the concert or something like that.And then, you know, a lot of multi-verse. A lot of VR stuff. I mean, I had a conversation with a startup out of New Zealand who was working in the overcoming therapy space, where if you had a phobia of dogs, you know, a psychologist would work with their client, and they would go to a kennel and slowly start to integrate and learn how to overcome. But now we can do that in a VR environment, but overlay a lot of very interesting artificial intelligence, facial recognition. Stuff like that to really be able to measure the things that are almost imperceptible to the human eye, to understand like the dilation of their pupils when faced with a small dog versus a big dog or different breeds or something, just giving a lot more contextual information to help a psychologist really work with their client to overcome a phobia. So, it's fascinating to work with the startups because they are thinking of use cases that we even within Agora can't think of. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn. Brian Ardinger: Well, and that's an interesting thing because the platform itself is really robust. You can do video calls and voice calls and interactive live streaming and real-time messaging and white boarding. And like you said, the toolkits are there. And I think this fits into one of those trends that we've been talking about, where it's never been easier for a startup founder to find the tools they need. They don't necessarily have to build everything from scratch nowadays. They can find partners and no code, low code tools and things like that to get up and going and testing the marketplace a lot easier than ever before. And get to those use case scenarios that a platform tool provider may not have thought of originally. I'm curious to get your take on some of this accessibility to tools that founders didn't have maybe, you know, 10 years ago when we started in this business. Todd Embley: Yeah, it's amazing. I think back to, I used to be with SOSV was the fund, and we were doing kind of an internal conference for all of our portfolio, all of our mentor network. Everybody that had ever been involved with us, including investors in Agora or LPs. And we had a guy named Dave McClure come and speak. And somebody had asked him is your eight-year-old daughter learning how to code. And he said, let me rephrase that. I think what you're asking me is do I think that it is important for very young people to learn how to code and essentially that's what you're looking for. And he said, you know, coding is like learning any other language, you know, in the development of the brain and how that enables young people to really grow. But it is in his opinion, he said it is just kind of a commodity. He said coding is probably going to become a commodity. And we've seen that in the low-code no-code explosion.And then he thought, you know, design would probably not be that far behind. I mean, there probably will be a day in the future where our phones will know everything they need to know about us, where you won't have to necessarily code or design the UI UX CX, of how an app works and feels. Because it can just deploy to our phone and our phone can tell the app how to develop itself as it lands on our home screen, in the way that we prefer it to be from colors to where the settings are or where our profile lives.And we can navigate that so intuitively. It has been absolutely amazing. And I think, you know, as we go, we've launched our app builder where pretty much anybody, even without any coding experience can go on and within 20 minutes create a video conferencing tool that they can use for their family reunion. You know, that is super easy. So yeah, it's been amazing. Brian Ardinger: It is kind of crazy to think what are the uses. I'd imagine obviously COVID has changed the dynamic landscape for you guys, especially. And so maybe let's talk a little bit about that. Some of the trends you're seeing with the move to more remote and more virtual environments. Todd Embley: Anybody who just watches the stock price of Zoom over the last couple of years would understand exactly where this industry has gone, but then factors like the quote unquote Zoom fatigue. And now we're seeing people that want to have more control over the layout and the design and the backgrounds and the information and the chats and emojis and music and all these other things that you can build into it. Because you know, now for instance, all our conferences went virtual, right? So we are now having to figure out how did you run a web summit or you know, like an East Meets West, that Blue Start-ups does in Hawaii or something. How do we now do this online and create a really great experience where everybody can still try to achieve those same outcomes for why they attended in the first place. It's been a pretty amazing growth that has really kind of pushed the boundaries.The work from home, I think has been the biggest thing where everybody's now at home. So, there's working with colleagues. There is collection of data. There is monitoring output and outcomes. And, you know, as a department or as a salesperson or marketing has changed. How do we do now market to people who aren't leaving their homes anymore that has now all changed.It's been such a game changer just in the future of work. I wouldn't say it necessarily changed course, but COVID has absolutely accelerated what we were already starting to think it would be. You know, it's done some damage to the world of coworking spaces, right. Or in-person accelerators or incubators. It's changed how we, even as a startup team go out and find partners and find startups to introduce them to Agora. So, it's had a tremendous impact. Brian Ardinger: You spent a lot of time ecosystem building for lack of a better term. You know, you go to different communities and see what the landscape is in the startup world. And then again, try to help founders navigate that. So, what are you seeing when you travel around to different startup communities and that. What's maybe different than it was five or six years ago? Todd Embley: There's a lot of factors. Entrepreneurship and startup land, as we know it, just even in the last 20 years, let's say since the .com boom and bust. And then, you know, Paul Graham kind of the Godfather of the accelerator starts Y Combinator in 2005. And so, the way investors started investing, and then there was, you know, a lot of information and then Crunchbase and others started coming around. And then, then we had 10 years of data from Crunchbase, somewhere around 2013. That we're now measuring how well people were investing, how well-performing that whole venture financial class was doing.And we've seen things where investors are now looking more at timing of solutions versus not just team and problem, but they had so many investments that were either too early, too late. And they started to recognize that. A lot of funds are starting to look internally and seeing, trying to reinvest inside the value that they've created to capture more of the food on the table versus being so outwardly focused. For our jobs, even in doing ecosystem development, how to startups find us versus how do we find them? If there's no meetups. If we're not able to do in-person startup weekends, then how are we able to find them, to attract them, to support them and to help them. How are investors doing their due diligence? You know, things like DocSend. Right.Having that digital data room with a lot of analytics built into it. So that founders can now not only see who's entering and who's looking at their due diligence documents at, but where in the deck are they spending time? On what slides, what is important? Where are they stopping? Where are they looking at? There's a lot of data and information that they can measure from that as well. I'm not exactly sure if that answers the question, but it is so drastically different. And now we're going back into, you know, web summit is in-person. I'm going to be going to that next week after we record this. That is going to be a different experience as well. And then there's the hybrids that are kind of doing both. It's changed a lot. Brian Ardinger: It is definitely interesting. You know, it's always been hard to find startup founders. A lot of times they're heads down doing their thing. You know, over the last five or six years pre COVID, you started to have a different environment where things like coworking spaces and events like Startup Weekend and that, started to bring some of those folks out and started to get some energy. And then COVID kind of slap that in the face to a certain extent. But now what I'm seeing at least is more collaboration across different communities. So even though I'm based in Lincoln, Nebraska, the network and our reach to different communities for the startups in our backyard, has increased and been beneficial from the standpoint of they're no longer having to be in the middle of flyover country. They can access folks that wouldn't necessarily in the past look outside of their own Sandhill Road area. So, I guess there's pros and cons to this new environment, but I was curious to get your take on that as well. Todd Embley: Constraints, breed Innovation. And COVID has drastically brought a whole new set of constraints just by not being able to meet in person as much. So, I think it's the development and the investment in developing a different skill set. You know, you take one sense away, the other senses improve. And so, we've had to become better at being able to build relationships. And we have video. And we have voice. But suddenly we're tuning in to the video and tuning into the voice. We may not have the same social cues and we may not have the same physical cues to be picking up on things. We used to train entrepreneurs on how to pitch in person. You were on a stage facing an audience. You were standing in front of an investor at a meetup. Here's how you do it. Here's how you talk. Here's how you hold yourself. Be careful of your hands. Don't shift your feet around. You know, there is all these, you know, all this kind of training, which has had to change. Which has had to develop. And now we're reaching out, we're developing partnerships and I think I've seen a lot of ecosystems lean in on having silos or verticals that they're starting to own to be seen as a place.And accelerators are now going virtual, where they're pulling from anywhere. Right. We have a focus. We're vertically focused. And so even if you're in Brazil or you're in Russia or wherever, this is the accelerator that you want to join because the world has just been absolutely flattened. And now this is the best place. This is the best accelerator, and you don't have to fly in and live here. Right? So now you've seen costs of living. People are moving out of the main centers. It's just, it's been a tremendous change. Brian Ardinger: You've spent your life helping founders. And I'd love to get your input on for our founders that are listening to this show. Some of the biggest obstacles or barriers or things that you've seen or can help them overcome. Are there particular tips or tricks that founders should be paying attention to nowadays?Todd Embley: I still think it all starts with the problem. And I still find myself having to talk about deep diving into the problem discussion. And there has been a penchant for the snapshot. And of the landscape as it is today. But I think what we're starting to understand. And what I'm seeing from a lot of questions that come from investors, is it's not as much about what. It's about why. And when you're pitching or talking about what you're doing, you have to start layering in the why.This is our go to market strategy. Great. Doesn't really matter, but why did you choose that? They're being measured on the way they think. The way they process. The way they built. What data did you take in. Which did you keep? And which did you throw away and why? And then what decision and strategy did you make off of that data?And why did you decide to strategize that? Why are you deciding to build this next? Why is this the next iteration of what you're doing, this problem that you're trying to solve? Anybody can Google and get a lot of data on a problem that exists today. But do you have a deep understanding of how we got here? You know, we have this Canadian kind of saying of the Wayne Gretzky, don't go where the puck is, go, where the puck is going to be.And as investors, we're always trying to find the entrepreneurs who are good at figuring out where the puck is going to be. But the only way that they can figure that out, isn't understanding just where the puck is, but how the puck got to where it is. Because only then do we understand the speed and the trajectory and are able to extrapolate off of that to know where it's going with some reasonable degree of accuracy. But we'll never get it right. But that I think is always be factoring in your why. Nobody is going to be blown away by your what because you're still early stage. Unless you have a hundred thousand downloads or a million MRR, you know, it's just not that impressive. Because the only thing that matters is what people use and pay for.So, knowing that. Now, we're just trying to measure size you up as a founder. So lean in on all your why of everything that you're talking about so that they can understand how you develop, how you price, how you see the world. Be unique, be different. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Solid advice. Well, Todd, I want to thank you for coming on Inside Outside Innovation and sharing your insights and your experiences from the many years of being in the trenches there. I want to encourage people to check out Agora and that. If people want to find out more about yourself or about the startup program at Agora, what's the best way to do that? Todd Embley: Yeah. I mean, if they want to connect with me, LinkedIn is great. Just Todd Embley. I will generally show up. That's a great way to do it. And I'd love to connect. And I love to meet with everybody. And then agora.io/startups is where the entrance to the startup program lives. But Agora.io is where most of the information about Agora lives. And we're happy to talk to anybody, especially partners. Anybody doing events. Anything out there. We'd love to be a part of it. We'd love to sponsor. And try to add value. Brian Ardinger: Well Todd, thanks again for coming on the show. It's great to see you again and look forward to continuing the conversation in the years to come. Todd Embley: Thanks, Brian. It's been great.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

GeneralSubscribe to Fully Vested at FullyVested.co or through your podcast app of choice.Some definitions"Startups" are hard to define, but many different definitions point toward similar themes:"A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model." – First sentence of the Wikipedia page for 'Startup company,' at least at the time of recording"A startup is a newly established company whose corporate form allows a clear distinction between different shareholders and the ability to receive outside financing while the goal is super rapid growth and market dominance by offering an innovative product or service." – Marius Schober, on his blog"A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model." – Steve Blank"Properly defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company's most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think." – Peter Thiel, in his book Zero To One"A startup is a company designed to grow fast." – Paul Graham, founder of Viaweb and Y Combinator, in September 2012"A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty." – Eric Reis in his book, The Lean Startup"A startup is a venture that is initiated by its founders around an idea or a problem with a potential for significant business opportunity and impact." – Startup Commons"A 'startup' is a company that is confused about: 1. What its product is, 2. Who its customers are, [and] 3. How to make money. As soon as it figures out all 3 things, it ceases being a startup and becomes a real business. Except most times, that doesn't happen." – Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups and Practical VC, on Quora in 2013Some differentiators between startups and small businessesIt just so happens that one of your Fully Vested co-hosts has done some writing about this. From the Startup Fundamentals cluster on Golden...Startups tend to share several characteristics which serve to distinguish them from small businesses:Innovation. Startup companies are typically built around a new idea, method, or product. While the products and services a startup may offer are enabled by technology, not all startups are rooted in unique, defensible intellectual property. They may offer a new type of business or service model (ex. app-based ride-hailing services vs. the traditional taxi industry) or a unique design or interaction model which sets them apart from established competitors.Risk. Startup companies often operate at the edge of a technical field or market for their product or service. Given their small size, limited resources, and often unproven demand for their commercial offerings, startup companies experience high rates of business failure. However, with high risk can come high reward.Scale. Almost by definition, startup companies start small. At launch, they may serve a small geographic area or a specific customer segment, sometimes referred to as a "beachhead market." However, from a management and economic standpoint, startups are designed to scale up beyond their initial markets and serve many, many customers. For startups, economic viability is often predicated on very large scale.Speed. Small team sizes and relatively flat organizational structures let startup teams make decisions and move quickly to seize upon a market opportunity. Limited available resources (see runway) and competitive pressure makes speed a necessity.Some resourcesWhat The Hell Is A Startup Anyway? (Alex Wilhelm for TechCrunch in December 2014)What's the Difference Between a Small Business Venture and a Startup?(Candice Landau, for Bplans.com)About The Co-HostsJason D. Rowley is a researcher and writer at Golden.com. He volunteers with startup outreach for the open-source community and sends occasional newsletters from Rowley.Report.Graham C. Peck is a Venture Partner with Cultivation Capital and additionally helps companies build technology development teams in partnership with Brightgrove and other technology development organizations.

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio:   Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure.  #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford.  #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble.   Dicas de livros:  #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister.

O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure. #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister

 O Man in the Arena é um vídeo podcast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti. Neste episódio: Dicas de conteúdo na internet: #Blog 500 Hats, de Dave McClure.  #Palestra de Steve Case em Stanford. #Favoritos no Twitter do Robert Scoble. Dicas de livros: #Inbound Marketing, de Dharmesh Shah e Brian Halligan. #Rework, de Jason Fried e David H. Hansson. Dicas de produtos web: #Foursquare #Mindmeister

When it comes to user onboarding, one of the first names that pop to mind is Samuel Hulick, an accomplished UX consultant, founder of User Onboard, and author of The Elements of User Onboarding. In this episode, you'll learn Samuel's take on exactly that — the “ideal” user onboarding experience, as well as his Mario-fireball concept, Value Paths, success metrics, Jobs to Be Done, segmentation, and his invaluable advice for SaaS founders.Visit our website for the detailed episode recap with key learnings.Show notesUseronboard.com — Samuel's user onboarding resource websiteThe Elements of User Onboarding — Samuel's bookWe Are No Strangers — Samuel's article, which refers to his Mario-fireball conceptValue Paths — Samuel's new onboarding approachUI Breakfast Podcast. Episode 181: Jobs to Be Done with Jim KalbachThe Jobs To Be Done Playbook — Jim Kalbach's popular bookWhy We Do What We Do — a book by Edward L. DeciStartup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! — a talk by Dave McClure on his Pirate Metrics frameworkFollow Samuel on TwitterIf you found the episode useful, please spread the word on Twitter mentioning @userlist, or leave us a review on iTunes.SponsorThis show is brought to you by Userlist — the best way for SaaS founders to send onboarding emails, segment your users based on events, and see where your customers get stuck in the product. Start your free trial today at userlist.com.

In this episode of the Effective Family Office Podcast, host Angelo Robles speaks with Dave McClure, Founder, and CEO of Practical Venture Capital and Founder of 500 Startups. He shares why he actively gives back as an angel investor.

Whether you're starting a new business or just looking to track the overall health and growth of an established brand, it's important to understand the business metrics that are most important for growth. In this video, we'll cover the top 5 best marketing metrics for tracking business growth.These metrics are often referred to as pirate metrics, because of the AARRR acronym. They were established by Dave McClure and stand for: acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue.They can be used as a basic marketing funnel, but are best used to measure the overall health and growth of your business over time. Be sure to identify and measure these marketing metrics within your own business.Want to leave a COMMENT or watch the VIDEO edition?► https://youtu.be/X5nfM-L2nKoFollow Rick Kettner for episode updates, book recommendations, and more.► https://www.twitter.com/rickkettner► https://www.instagram.com/rickkettner/► https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickkettner/► https://www.youtube.com/rickkettnerContent by Rick KettnerProduced by Kyle Trienke

It's easier to spend money on information technology modernization than it is to get lasting results. Accenture Federal Services interviewed some 350 federal executives for insight into how to modernize with impact. For details, the managing director for Accenture's CIO advisory, Dave McClure, and the principal director, Malcolm Jackson, spoke to Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue. This the the framework that makes up any robust digital marketing campaign. Coined originally by Dave McClure of 500 Startups, the framework fits tourism and economic development marketing quite nicely. www.pintlergroup.com www.geofli.com

Acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue. This the the framework that makes up any robust digital marketing campaign. Coined originally by Dave McClure of 500 Startups, the framework fits tourism and economic development marketing quite nicely. www.pintlergroup.com www.geofli.com

Episode 78 of 14 Minutes of SaaS is the third part of a 5-episode mini-series. Stephen Cummins chats with Sean Percival, CMO at Whereby, formerly of 500 Startups and Myspace. "Dave McClure is slight controversial in some cases, but still a really good guy. Dave invested in Wittlebee ... And he said to me ‘I'm going to invest 50K dollars ... I don't think this is gonna work out though. And if it doesn't work out and you need a job, I want you to contact me first, that's all I ask.'"

Episode 78 of 14 Minutes of SaaS is the third part of a 5-episode mini-series. Stephen Cummins chats with Sean Percival, CMO at Whereby, formerly of 500 Startups and Myspace. "Dave McClure is slight controversial in some cases, but still a really good guy. Dave invested in Wittlebee ... And he said to me ‘I'm going to invest 50K dollars ... I don't think this is gonna work out though. And if it doesn't work out and you need a job, I want you to contact me first, that's all I ask.’"

Paypal Mafyası | #59 - 26.11.2019 Bilal Eren ve Cem Sünbül ile dijitalleşmenin hayatımıza etkilerini her salı 22.00'da bir başka konuyla ele alan DijitalHayatTV YouTube/Facebook/Periscope yayınımızda bugün; - Paypal Mafyası Nedir? - Paypal'ı Kuranlar Kimler? Paypal'ın Hikayesi Ne? - Paypal Mafyası İsmi Nereden Geliyor? - Paypal'ı Kuran 14 Kişi Kim? - Paypal Sonrası Neler Yaptılar? - Dünyayı Değiştiren Girişimcilerin Hayat Hikayeleri? - Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Max Levchin, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, Dave McClure, David O. Sacks, Premal Shah, Russel Simmons, Jeremy Stoppelman, Andrew McCormack, Luke Nosek, Ken Howery, Keith Rabois, Roelof Botha ve Paypal Mafyası Başlıklarını konuştuk. Haftaya salı saat 22.00'da görüşmek üzere. Hem canlı hem de geçmiş yayınlarımız için tıklayın; YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dijitalhayattv Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dijitalhayattv Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/dijitalhayattv Web: https://www.dijitalhayat.tv

Holly is grateful for accepting a new position that she feels great about, that allowed her to drop two jobs she was only so-so about. She works for a start-up.   00:55 Challenge: What are some good resources for someone who doesn't have experience with start-ups? How can I find people who've been in this position before, to be able to chat with them?  01:30 Question: What's your role in the company? 01:31 Operations and accounting. I don't know where to look for a mentor in a similar company - small.  01:49 Question: Is the start-up funded already? 01:49 Yes. 01:55 Question: Can they pay salaries?  01:55 No, not yet.  02:03 Question: So people are just working for equity right now? 02:03 No, just working part time.  02:10 Question: What is the biggest challenge for the start-up itself right now? Marketing? Sales? Delivery? Mindset? 02:21 Sales, spreading the word.  02:27 Question: So marketing and sales, start-up. Will the new people be working on commission?  02:36 No, we're not looking to hire anyone.  02:43 Suggestion: So for resources, Y-Combinator, 500 Start-Ups, Dave McClure. Erik Reese, Lean Start-Up, is a great book.  02:52 Question: So your role is operations, you might be wearing other hats, but is that what you're being paid for mainly?  03:06 We're organizing that right now. For now it's mostly me getting things ready to be scaled.  03:29 Suggestion: Focus on building the systems they need to scale. So focus on other companies that have scaled.  03:58 Suggestion: Talk to Matt Richie. Matt is in our group, he worked with Jay Brown. He helps grow companies, and he's starting a Mastermind around it.  04:24 Suggestion: The book Extreme Ownership was recommended to me.  04:41 Suggestion: Book: Traction. Great start-up, operational-based. 05:15 Question: Let's spread the word. What is the word that you're spreading? What is your target avatar right now? What are you leading them to? What's the offer? 05:26 It's CBD creme; face products, sleep spray, higher level cosmetics. It's called Culture For Good.  05:45 Suggestion: First rule of marketing, always be marketing. 05:51 Suggestion: Talk with Cece Bodela? She markets direct sales CBD for a living.  06:20 Suggestion: Chris from Alexinol?    Three Key Points: Books for start-ups: Extreme Ownership and Traction Network; leverage the groups you’re in. Don’t be tempted to put on too many hats; define your role early.

“No se detengan a pedir permiso, ni a esperar a que se alineen los astros, sino que empiecen a hacerlo.” – Santiago Zavala Santiago Zavala es un iceberg. Sí, él es la imagen cliché de Instagram. En la foto, tanto la parte superior como la inferior del iceberg son visibles. Sin embargo, el hielo que perfora el agua es minúsculo en comparación con la magnitud de lo que se esconde debajo. Este podcast es lo mismo, solo que un vistazo a la mente de alguien que ha dedicado años a construir y mejorar el mundo de los emprendedores en LATAM. Desde la prepa cuando lanzó – su primer emprendimiento – un foro llamado culter.com.mx, donde lograron tener miles de usuarios, cientos de miles de mensajes y millones de visitas hasta ahora, mas de 17 años después, dirigiendo las actividades de 500 Startups en América Latina de habla hispana. A finales del 2010 y durante el 2011, viendo el ecosistema mexicano creciendo en actividad y forma; pero sabiendo que necesitaba acceso a capital y buenas prácticas, frustrados de que no existiera nada que resolviera estos temas, decidieron comenzar Mexican.vc. Meses después, buscando su siguiente paso, logramos convencer a 500 Startups de explorar la posibilidad de hacer algo mas grande y desde entonces, han generado dos fondos nuevos para América Latina, invertido en mas de 100 empresas y generado 8 programas de aceleración. 500 Startups de Dave McClure casi siempre han estado interesadas en dominar el mundo. Ahora está dando un paso más cerca, al adquirir el acelerador de startups de América Latina Mexican.VC. Al hacerlo, 500 Startups obtendrán una posición aún más fuerte en el mercado de Latam, ya que trae a los socios de Mexican.VC César Salazar y Santiago Zavala al equipo, convirtiéndolos en sus socios de riesgo en México. La misión de 500 es descubrir y respaldar a los emprendedores más talentosos del mundo, ayudarlos a crear compañías exitosas a escala y construir ecosistemas globales prósperos. En este podcast, discutimos la historia de 500 Startups en México, el poder de un unicornio, por qué un emprendedor hace lo que hace, el mundo de la inversión, cambios radicales en LATAM, la salud y mucho más. Creía que estaba usando mi podcast para cazar conocimiento. Ahora me doy cuenta de que estoy persiguiendo mi falta de conocimiento. Estoy buscando lagunas en mi mente que revelen la inferioridad de lo que una vez creí que era correcto.  Es muy fácil confirmar lo que ya crees. Es mucho más difícil y gratificante verificar que te equivocaste. Este podcast con Santiago Zavala me recuerda una de mis citas favoritas de Sócrates, “Solo sé, que nada sé”.   ***Si te gusta el podcast, ¿podrías considerar dejar una breve reseña en Apple Podcasts | iTunes? Es rápido, no duele y hace una gran diferencia para convencer a los futuros invitados y promocionar el podcast.Enlaces importantes:The Frye Show.com con más información, libros, artículos y más...Boletín creativo - 747The Corvus Show - CorvusThe Frye Show LIVE - LIVEThe Frye Show - MembresíaLinkedIn - robbiejfryeTwitter - robbiejfryeInstagram - robbiejfryeFacebook - robbiejfrye★ Support this podcast ★

Venture capitalist, Dave McClure, coined the acronym AARRR which is a simplified model that enables to understand what metrics and channels to look at, at each stage for the users’ path toward becoming customers and referrers of a brand. This funnel goes through: Acquisition Activation Retention Revenue Referral It is important to highlight that this is a model, and as such, it doesn’t represent the actual behaviors of users or customers. Instead, that is a simplification that helps identify the crucial actions and marketing tactics to implement to make sure a user becomes a paying customer. https://fourweekmba.com/pirate-metrics/

Modernizing information technology takes a lot of vision, even courage. But it also takes a lot of practical strategies to get rid of dated, expensive data centers, become good at development, and offer better service to your constituencies. Managing director for Accenture's CIO advisory, Dave McClure, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss strategies.

There are so many design methodologies available these days — lean, agile & design thinking being the most popular. Could you use them side-by-side? Our guest today is Jeff Gothelf, author of Lean UX and Sense & Respond, and co-founder of Sense & Respond Press. You'll learn how to make the most out of these frameworks, help teams talk to each other, and measure customer outcomes (instead of your effort) using the right behavior metrics. Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play Music. Show Notes Lean UX, Sense & Respond, Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking — Jeff's books Sense & Respond Press — Jeff's publishing house together with Josh Seiden Making Progress, Hire Women — some of the latest books by Sense & Respond Press Agile vs Lean vs Design Thinking — Jeff's original article Episode 131: Design Sprint with Jonathan Courtney AARRR! Dave McClure’s “Pirate Metrics” And The Only Five Numbers That Matter — an article by Walter Chen Jeff's website Follow Jeff on Twitter: @jboogie Today's Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Abstract — design workflow management for product design teams using Sketch. No more searching for the right version of the file, exporting and importing between tools, or trying to consolidate feedback. Now everything is in one place! Sign your team up for a free 30-day trial today by heading over to abstract.com. Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here. Leave a Review Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. Here's how.

Las Métricas Pirata aparecieron en nuestra vida gracias a Dave McClure (emprendedor e inversor en Startups de San Francisco) donde expone su metodología para resumir de una manera muy fácil y práctica el camino que sigue el usuario desde su llegada a través de la web, hasta convertirlo en un cliente recurrente. Este embudo conceptual sigue 5 pasos: adquisición, activación, retención, referencia e ingresos o retorno (AARRR) y sirven para medir el éxito de tu negocio y el buen funcionamiento de éste.

We explore how startups can take their B2B business abroad.   We analyze the best strategy, and discuss when, where and with whom to go global.    My guest is Barnabás Málnay, who has decades of experience helping startups develop their business abroad as business developer at EIT Digital. Dave McClure – 500 Startups Elad Gil: High Growth Handbook  Clayton Christensen: The innovator's dilemma www.smartware.tech  www.eitdigital.eu www.teleberry.com fintechflow.libsyn.com

Following a couple of dizzy years of policy and legislation, just what is the state of federal information technology going into calendar 2019? According to one new in-depth look, it's better but not great. Agile development, cloud computing and just basic impact of IT still have a long way to go. Dave McClure, principal director — Federal CIO Advisory Services at Accenture Federal Services, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for the details.

This week: 500 Startups is back in Canada - what does that mean for the ecosystem and is everyone cool with Dave McClure still (kinda) being involved? Why did Microsoft buy GitHub? Plus, Erin provides tech PR tips on when not to "have the D." Canadian Content music clip (under fair dealing): "Spokane" by The Tourist Company Ad music: "Dreams" by Joakim Karud

Dave McClure, principal director of Accenture Federal, joins host John Gilroy on this week’s Federal Tech Talk to discuss how technology is being used to improve the mission outcomes of the federal government.

All this month we’ve been exploring how startup fundraising is changing and why it’s going to continue to change in 2018.   We started off by talking about why you don’t want to reach out to an investor when you just have an idea, how to evaluate if seeking investment make sense for your business, and in the last episode why no matter how great your idea or business is you’re still going to receive a lot of NOs.   After what might seem like endless reality checks, I’ve saved the best episode for last, we’re going to be talking about what it’s going to take to get a yes from an investor. Ooshma Garg and Danielle Morrill are back. Ooshma is the CEO and Founder of Gobble, and Danielle is the CEO and Founder of Mattermark. They've both recently become investment partners at XFactor Ventures, an investment firm that's focused on investing in female founders and mixed-gender teams.   You’ll learn:   Some of the uncomfortable activities you’re going to have to do find that first investor How to approach the topic of check size How to leverage that first check and attract additional investors who may have been on the fence What the investment partners at XFactor Ventures are looking for and the types of startups they have already invested in   Finally, if you are a female founder or are on a mixed-gender founding team and want to pitch your startup to the partners are XFactor you can check out their website here and follow up with them via email: hello@xfactor.ventures.   Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.   ## What It’s Going To Take To Get That First Check From An Investor Transcript   Poornima:         In the last *Build* episode, we explored all the reasons an investor may say “no” to your big idea. If you missed the episode, I've included a link to it below this video. In today's episode, we're gonna dive into what it's gonna take to get that yes from an investor. So stay tuned.   Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. In each episode, innovators and I debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. Now, it can be very disheartening to hear no after no from investors, and make you wonder whether you're eventually gonna hear a yes. But it is possible, and in today's episode we'll talk about what it's gonna take to get that yes. Today we're back with Ooshma Garg, who is the CEO and Founder of Gobble, and Danielle Morrill, who is the CEO and Founder of Mattermark. And they are both investment partners at XFactor, a new investment firm focused on funding female founders and mixed-gender teams.               So thanks for coming back, ladies. I know last time we talked about all the many reasons that we've received a no. This time let's turn it around and talk about what it's gonna take to get a yes and let's start by reveling in that moment where we each got our first yes. Danielle, when was the first time you got a yes? Danielle:            I got my first yes from Dave McClure. We were sitting on the curb in front of their new office they had just opened in Mountain View. It was my birthday and it was the “you can quit your job now” check.   Poornima:         Awesome.   Danielle:            So it was extremely exciting to kind of put that milestone.   Poornima:         Yeah. What about for you, Ooshma?   Ooshma:            I got my first yes from Ben Ling and Keith Rabois. I remember going to get a physical check from Ben. He was at Google at the time. Now he's a partner at Khosla Ventures. And so we had been meeting and going back and forth and then I showed up there and he just wrote this check that was more money than I had ever seen in my entire life. He's like, "Here you go." I felt like I was this bodyguard...like I needed an armored truck. I felt like anybody who looked at me could see that I was carrying tens of thousands of dollars in my hand. It was really funny. I remember just being so excited, but also funny enough, just so careful and so nervous carrying that check literally all the way to the bank.   Poornima:         Nice. You weren't like Serena Williams, who just hopped into the ATM and tried to put it in the machine or something like that? She did a drive-by with one of her first—   Ooshma:            Oh yeah?   Poornima:         Yeah. With one of her first grand slam winnings. It was like—   Danielle:            I didn't even have a bank account.   Poornima:         There you go.   Danielle:            That sounds awesome.   Poornima:         That's awesome. All right. And then what did you do right after you got that first yes...after you deposited the money in the bank?   Danielle:            I don't think I deposited it for a while. There's all this stuff that has to happen actually, so we also incorporated on that day, just luck of timing. But yeah, I think it's really weird. You get this check and it's like this life-changing thing and then you have to go back to your crappy one bedroom apartment with no windows in San Francisco and it's like, "Get back to work."   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            Keep coding, so it's bizarre and this thing happens and you wanna shout from the rooftops, like, "Ah!"   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            But on some level you feel like, "Oh shit, this is real."   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            Does that resonate for you?   Ooshma:            Absolutely. I think with every great success there's just great responsibility. And so now you have this amazing check and certainly it's time to crack a bottle of champagne and celebrate for a moment.   Danielle:            Yes.   Ooshma:            But with that comes everything that you were planning to do when you told the person you would do with it. And not only that. It's just the first check. Typically you're raising some kind of round and it takes 10 to 15 angel investors to get it all together. So it's a huge milestone that I think people can take a sigh of relief, but still have to carry it to the finish line.   Poornima:         Now, one of my first investors was somebody who understood my niche market. I know we talked about this in the last episode, but once I found him, actually fundraising became super easy because he went out and kind of rallied the other folks who were kind of on the fence, right? It was, "I believe in this market, I believe in this founder, I believe in this idea, I'm gonna write this check and you all would be stupid to not follow." Have you had that experience as well?   Danielle:            Yeah, I think different investors take different approaches. Sometimes they go and create the syndicate and sometimes you do and then they come back you up by adding a voice. But I think they're pretty networked so most investors here talk to each other or they're only one degree of separation away.   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            So you almost feel like when you're beginning to fundraise, you can kind of feel the Valley talking about your company. There's no trace of it on the internet, but they definitely are asking each other questions and saying, "Have you looked at the deal? What do you think of the price? What do you think of this person? Do you know anything about them? Have you heard anything negative?" Just all those questions. Because there is no diligence tool, and I'm laughing because Mattermark is part of that story—   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            —but when we were really early stage, it's really a reputational thing.   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            And so I think part of it is going out and beating the drum for you and part of it is also they're fielding questions. So as soon as you say, as soon as I said, "Hey, Dave invested in us." Then I should expect Dave is gonna get hit up with people saying, "What do you think of Danielle? Why did you invest?" etc., etc.   Ooshma:            Yeah.   Poornima:         Right.   Ooshma:            But I do think it's important to make sure that when you get some of those first checks that you ask the person who else they would recommend join the round. That would be leaving a lot of value in introductions and referrals on the table if you didn't do that. Because this person has just expressed huge conviction in your vision. And so they'll typically or should be able to bring along at least a handful of introductions.   Danielle:            And also, I've gotta add, I did not know to do that when I first started out. And I think it's because you think you're inconveniencing this person who's just written you a check.   Ooshma:            Yeah.   Danielle:            But actually they just wrote you a check because they wanna make you successful. And so you should ask and ask and ask. They will tell you if you've crossed the line, but you probably never will cross the line. And it's really easy, as an investor now, to just move on to the next thing and get busy. And it's not that I don't want to help, but I kind of assume if you're not asking, you're all right.   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            So ask. Because I think it's totally true. And I think I did leave a lot of that on the table and probably made it harder on myself than it had to be at first.   Ooshma:            Yup.   Poornima:         Yeah. They're also protecting their investment by getting their fellow investors to invest, right?   Ooshma:            Yes.   Poornima:         Yeah. So last time we talked a little bit about the stage that investors are at and oftentimes that makes a difference. And Ooshma, you sort of alluded to this. Now there's a lot of different types of investors out there in the market today. There's VC's, angels, super angels, micro funds, and so on. So let's talk through what makes sense at each stage, and let's start with accelerators because both of you have been involved with YC. So when does it make sense to approach an accelerator before or maybe after funding, and what did it take to get in?   Ooshma:            Wow. You know, one secret that a lot of people don't discuss is that many folks that got into something like a YC got in on their third or fourth try. So I did not know that until I started talking to a lot of founders. And YC might've given them feedback, maybe they kept working on their idea and they got to a certain stage. So I think that you might apply but you shouldn't just quit based on getting a no that we talked about. Even getting in to accelerators at an early stage sometimes takes a few tries.   Poornima:         And why would you even recommend people apply? Why does it make sense to do that?   Danielle:            So I think it really comes down to helping you set up the company for success down the road. So what an accelerator or incubator program is gonna do is help you with your go to market, and that doesn't just mean your product go to market. It's also the marketplace they create for financing your company.   So they're gonna help you validate that you've got a venture-backable business and they're gonna help set you up with the relationships and the communication pattern that you need to have in order to be a viable option for those investors. And that's really valuable, especially if you're coming to the Bay Area from somewhere else and you can't really build that network in a few weeks.   Poornima:         Sure.   Danielle:            You really need to be here. And so you're gonna be able to get a lot of time back. Of course, they take equity for this. But I think it's probably one of the best trades you're gonna make because in the beginning it's just so binary. You're either gonna raise that round or your company's probably not going to exist and so early on that's probably one of the best ways to de-risk financing and then you can focus on the product.   Poornima:         So you mentioned that marketplace pulling in intros for you. For the two of you, how did YC facilitate those intros to angels or super angels?   Ooshma:            Well, in my case we were very unconventional. I started the company without YC and I just wanted to build this idea and I felt that there was a problem that needed a solution. So I started prototyping it, I asked my friends for introductions. I was luckily already here for three years after college building a network. So I could just start my own process and seed round and ask for introductions, start raising money, and we didn't need Y Combinator for the first couple years of the company.   Then, it takes a while. First your company has to get funded so you can explore it, all right? And then you have to find product-market fit and you get to a stage of scale. So it took us a while to find product-market fit and I did YC in the middle of our company's story, at a time when we were changing models. Solving the same problem, but with different solutions, and when the fundraising environment was really tough.   So I had to make the decision of, “If it's worth working on, I'm gonna take what I can get.” And at the time that was joining an accelerator. So I think that that's a good example because it shows that you might've been working on something for five years and if YC can help you, or an accelerator can help you, you should still apply and use that as a catalyst for whatever next funding round or whatever growth metric you're—or awareness you're really looking for. But I would also say that you can't let anything like that stop you from building your company.   Poornima:         Right.   Ooshma:            So any investor saying “no” or any accelerator saying “no,” you should be building something because you see a way for the world to be better with something. And you have to decide to just do that and do it anyway, regardless of how you get there.   Poornima:         So let's talk about the mechanics behind this now. So there's obviously angels, there's super angels, there's micro funds, there's VCs. Walk us through what the check size is or who makes sense at what stage.   Danielle:            Right, so, there's a lot of flavors. Generally, if you're talking pre-VC, then there's very few private individuals who are gonna write more than a $50,000 to $100,000 check. Generally, if you think about someone's net worth, they've got some chunk of their net worth set aside for investing, and it's probably like 5% or 10%, so you can kind of begin to understand what's going on there.   But the easiest thing for anyone who's not a VC is just to ask them. What's your check size and how much risk do you wanna take? Will you invest pre-product or no, is question one. And then post-product, it's like what do you need to see from me to invest? There's so many investors now in that pre-Series A stage that I think it would be hard to give a blanket answer. But the most important thing is to just ask them, "Tell me about the last two or three deals you did. How big were they and what stage?" And I would try to not worry about getting them to do something exceptional. People kind of have their comfort zone with their personal money. And what they're doing is probably gonna continue to be the same because they're anchored on their last check.   Poornima:         Yeah. Danielle:            So if they've been writing a lot of $10K checks, that's probably the check size that they're writing unless they come into a huge amount of money and it changes their world.   Ooshma:            Right.   Danielle:            And then the other thing is you're gonna have these weird institutional investors who will invest before Series A. I guess this is super common now. When I started fundraising this was a lot less the case. So these are kind of these super angels, micro VCs, I don't really know what they're called today. Pre...what is it, pre-seed?   Poornima:         Pre-Series A.   Danielle:            They call it all these different things.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            But fundamentally no, those check sizes could be anywhere up to, let's say, $500,000. They're generally not leading or pricing a round. No one has to lead a round if you don't have a equity round, so that's—a big part of it is just, again, what size check are you normally writing, do you need control in some way, do you add a board seat, all those things. The good news is once you get to Series A, it's a lot more standardized in terms of ownership. So there's some rules of thumb and I'm gonna say these and then you tell me if you think they're different because I feel like maybe they're not all the same. One big piece of advice is don't sell more than 25% of your company before your Series A. So fully diluted, when you run your own cap table out. You don't wanna be in a position where you've already sold half your company, because what happens is a Series A investor probably needs to have 20% ownership just for them when they come in. So if you've already sold half your company, on top of that, it starts to be pretty demotivating. That can be a little higher or lower, just depending on what's going on with your business. And then you of course have your other investors that might come in. So maybe you sell 25% to 30% of your company total in that round.   And then the B and C and so on. The way to think about it is the better you're doing, the more leverage you have.   Poornima:         Sure.   Danielle:            People generally sell 15% to 20% of their company in the B. And then at the C, D, and onward, it's kind of a sliding scale downwards from there in terms of ownership percentage. And you might be thinking, "Well, doesn't this add up to more than 100%?" And the thing is that you're diluting everybody else as you go. So you're selling a chunk of the whole company at that moment in time. So these investors, it's generally gonna come down to...fund size will line up with check size. And they're gonna say something like, "We raised $150 million fund, we're planning to write $5 million to $10 million checks, and then we're holding on to $5 million to $10 million per company for follow-on." Something like that, and you can just do the math.   Poornima:         Right.   Ooshma:            Or like, in our case with Xfactor, we have a $3 million fund and we're putting $100K in 30 companies. And that's the rubric. So I think to Danielle's point, it's your job to understand everyone's rubrics and appetites so that you are not wasting your time and not wasting their time. And at each stage—and let's take the seed stage for example, because it's one of the only stages where there's so many investors involved—fitting all those puzzle pieces together to get to how much money you need for the next 18 months and a specific material milestone. So I think you start out with calculating that money and you get your friends or blogs or whatever advisors to help you. And then look for people in that stage and then fit those pieces together and ask them to make introductions until you fill the amount.   Poornima:         Yeah, so let's talk about that. How do you actually get these intros? If I'm outside of Silicon Valley, I'm coming in, or even if I'm here and I've been an engineer all my life or a designer or something and then I recently made the switch to a founder, I might not have that network. How do I get those intros?   Danielle:            So, the truth is you're just gonna have to get out there and talk to people.   Ooshma:            Yeah.   Danielle:            And I think the thing is you probably know people who can help you that you might not realize. It's pretty rare, if you live here, even if you just moved here, not to know somebody who works at a startup. So you just have to start asking. And the truth is you're gonna have to give away information to get information.   Poornima:         Sure.   Danielle:            "Hey, I have a startup." OK, everybody has a startup.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            "Hey, we're raising." OK, "It's really hard."   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            A lot of people immediately are like, "Oh, OK, interesting." "Do you know anybody who invests in startups?" And the thing is you're gonna have to do this at scale. So you're gonna need to go to events.   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            You're gonna need to ask the people that you worked with in the past and you're gonna need to do things that you might not enjoy doing, like going on LinkedIn and just doing a ton of research. Nothing is better than a warm intro. So even though this feels really weird and painful to ask, these are gonna generate the introductions that are gonna be the best possible. The next thing is cold after that.   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            So anything you can do to get something warm, even if it's many degrees of separation, is gonna help you more. And so that might also mean cold outbounding someone that you wanna then get an intro through.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            So portfolio founders are probably the best people to cold outbound rather than the VC themself or the investor themself. So if someone cold contacts me and says, "Hey, I'd love to get to know you and Mattermark, yadda yadda," and maybe their plan is that they'd like to get introduced to Brad Feld, the reality is if they can tell that we didn't click, they're not gonna ask for that intro. And that sounds really, I dunno.   Poornima:         Transactional?   Danielle:            Mercenary? Transactional?   Poornima:         Yeah, yeah.   Danielle:            But it's business, so that's what business networking is.   Poornima:         Of course.   Danielle:            And I think the truth is I wanna send Brad great companies.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            Yeah.   Danielle:            So if you're an interesting company and you pitch me and I get excited, one, I might angel invest in you, which is the absolute best way for me to introduce you to one of my investors.   Ooshma:            Yeah. Danielle:            But the other thing is we all got helped in the same way.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            So it sounds transactional, but it's also just kind of how it works.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            It's the culture of paying it forward.   Poornima:         Right.   Ooshma:            Everyone does that. And if they can't...they'll be honest. If they can't give you that introduction and you do click, maybe they'll give you some advice. And then we go back to that whole idea of listening and staying in touch and sending people updates. But I would say leave no stone unturned. If you just landed here, there's Techstars or 500 or Founder Institute or Y Combinator or TechCrunch Disrupt or Golden Seeds or who knows. There's all these things you can apply to. And of course, if you are an island and you don't know anyone, you have to start out cold. But cold will soon become warm.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            And you have to play the numbers game in the beginning.   Poornima:         Sure.   Ooshma:            And so just go to all the meetups, email everybody, send links and product demos. Just be creative. Oh! One hack that I had which actually led to me meeting you is that I would go to talks and sit in the front and come up with really good questions. And I'd strategically go to talks where I really wanted to meet the person and I knew they'd be a great investor or advisor. I would wait until the very end. They would give a talk and then all these people would be crowding around someone like Reid Hoffman. In this case it was Aaron Patzer from Mint. And so people were talking to him for 30 minutes. And I waited until the very end and he was like, "Oh my gosh. Who's this person waiting?" I said, "Hey, I'll just walk you to your car. I have a quick question." And then he became a very early on startup advisor and advocate for me. So there's all these unconventional things I think that you can do to get out there. And they might be uncomfortable but that's how we all did it.   Poornima:         Yeah. It's funny. I actually mentioned this hack to a bunch of people whenever they want my time. I tell them I'm gonna be at this event speaking. Some people take me up, some people don't. Some people have gone so far as to say, "I'll pick you up from the airport." I love those people. Because I'm like, "Great! I don't have to worry about how I'm gonna get from Point A to Point B," right? Or "I'll buy you dinner" or whatever, but yeah, I think it's definitely going out of your way to get that interest and build that network. So let's talk about what you guys are working on now. You are working on XFactor. So let's dive into that. Why did you even think this was important? Ooshma, you just rattled off 10 seed opportunities. So why XFactor?   Ooshma:            Yeah.   Poornima:         Why do you want to put another one in there?   Ooshma:            You know, there was not one female investor in our seed round. And I think...I firmly believe that diversity creates innovation, diversity of thought. And America in and of itself is this diverse nation and considered to be the best in the world. And it's because of all the different perspectives and kinds of people that we have here.   I like to emulate that in the company and I would like that in our investors. I don't think that one perspective is gonna make us this breakout, worldwide innovative company.   So, I think that XFactor is unique and necessary because it's brought together a partnership of nine people and it's all women and we are all operators, founders, CEOs, and active companies. We're not retired. We're extremely current. All these things...fundraising, hiring, strategy, growth, it's all on top of mind. We can add so much value to early stage companies. And we're just approaching it in this very kind of operators helping operators, allowing for bad-ass women to help other women in a space where there just aren't as many.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            And really just adding some more diversity to both the founder pool and the investor pool to build more breakout companies.   Poornima:         So you mentioned you were able to raise capital without having a woman founder. So why is that...why do you think that's important? Right? You did it, you proved it. You did it, you proved it. And I know I've...in my last company I raised from all men, so why is that important?   Danielle:            I think that it's important because it's hard and the reality is we want these products to exist in the world. It's not really that these companies can't get funded. It is harder, but the best ones get funded. And it's just what are we missing?   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            What are we missing out on in the world that could exist tomorrow?   Ooshma:            Yup. Danielle:            There's so many creative, amazing people who are not getting funded for reasons that have nothing to do with what the company is about. And the bad thing is that this kind of poisons the well too, so there's people who aren't even trying.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            And so I think we wanna send this message that, "Look, we shouldn't have to exist." XFactor shouldn't need to exist and if we do a really good job and we make a bunch of money, people are gonna realize that investing in women, investing in men, we wanna invest in the best no matter what. So down the road, hopefully we can't exist.   Poornima:         Nice. Yeah.   Danielle:            But until that happens I think we need to...the only way to change it is to actually create competition.   Ooshma:            Yup.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            So we are in competitive deals and we are sending this deal flow, we're creating market for each of these founders because we're gonna need to see a lot more female role models at the top. Ooshma's company is progressing, Mattermark is progressing, but we're still very early stage and there's not a ton of examples of huge exits run by women.   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            So I think we're really great examples here, but it's very early days and the best chance we have of seeing those results at the end is to put as much as possible at the top of the funnel. And I wanna say I also think it's just an incredible investment opportunity because it's under-invested so dramatically. Frankly, we should be able to see incredible returns partly because there's just so many opportunities that haven't been taken.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            So I feel like not only is it awesome for founders, and I'm so stoked about them, it's awesome for our LPs and it’s gonna prove to LPs that female fund managers can return awesome results as well. And you know what? There's more asymmetrical opportunities like this to take. There's room to create tons more funds focused on women. You can create the exact approach with any minority group.   Poornima:         Yeah. Danielle:            So it's...it shouldn't have to exist, but while it does, we should try to create wealth for all the people involved and then long term, I think create competition in the market.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            And it's so...this is not a not-for-profit.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            It is not a charity. We are looking at people who are the grittiest of entrepreneurs and are in it for the long haul and ready to build multibillion dollar companies, and can answer all the hard questions. And we've got—   Poornima:         So what are some of those?   Ooshma:            Yeah. Well, first of all, we've gotten hundreds of pitches.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Ooshma:            And we've only made about nine or so investments.   Poornima:         OK.   Ooshma:            Since July. So in just the last three months we've looked at so many companies, and I think people assume, "Oh my gosh, there's a female investor, she's gonna invest in a woman." But I think it's out of respect to founders that you...that investors ensure that they are looking for and helping you build huge companies and use your time in the best way possible.   Poornima:         OK. So what are you guys looking for in your...and what's kind of...you said that your check size is $100K, so we're looking at early deals. And what else are you looking for? What's it gonna take to get a yes?   Danielle:            Well, the first thing is that we are definitely looking for a return that's pretty impressive. So even at the early stage if we invest, let's say $100,000 in a $1-million round, I would say the average post-money valuation is $8 million to $10 million.   Ooshma:            Yup.   Danielle:            So right away, to get to a 10x outcome, we need to see a company with really meaningful revenue. The good news is we don't technically need to find the billion-dollar companies to have a really successful fund, but I think the reality is we wanna find those outliers. Poornima:         Sure.   Danielle:            So we're just like any other venture firm at the early stage looking for the most impressive opportunities to deploy their capital. We've got 30 bullets in the gun. So we're also thinking, "OK, we're gonna invest this money over the next two or three years. Is this the best deal that I can do this year for each partner?" Each partner is thinking about this constantly. So you're looking at the entire field and you're saying, "Of all the possible ways to deploy this money, what do we think can get the best return?"   Ooshma:            Right.   Danielle:            And that's what we're focused on.   Ooshma:            And the partners hold each other to a very high bar. We're all CEOs of our own companies and we hotly debate every deal.   Poornima:         OK.   Ooshma:            And it's incredibly smart, active people around the table. So it helps us make great investments. And it helps us keep the bar high because we have a lot to prove to each other and I think we have a lot to prove as a fund. And that we want to. Because this is...it's about the great returns, but it's also, like Danielle said, about setting an example and about proving a point and hopefully making ourselves obsolete.   Danielle:            So I think we should give some specific things for the viewers in terms of what we wanna see because, people listening, we want you to pitch us. So, you gotta have a product. You pretty much have to have revenue I would say for our group, although we would still talk to you, help you get there, stay in touch. We wanna some amount of revenue or customers. I would like to see high margin businesses. I'm looking for software scale. I don't think that that's true for all of my partners, but I struggle because I think we're looking for companies that take advantage of innovations to get the advantage in the market.   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            I'm looking for people who have some special passion. Ooshma talked about being mission driven. It's really hard. I think we really wanna find founders who are in it for the long haul, so if they're just an arbitrage deal, I don't know that we're quite as excited about that.   Poornima:         Right.   Danielle:            Again, I don't wanna speak for all my partners, but I personally would prefer to talk to somebody who's like, "This is the only thing I wanna do."   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            I'm looking for patents and technology innovation. I'm looking for stuff that solves problems in the enterprise space and software space for developers, just because I actually think there are a lot of women in those fields and I think there's more bias for women pitching those ideas than any other idea, and I think they—I wanna give them that check so they have the confidence to go do all the rest of the pitches.   Poornima:         OK.   Danielle:            I wanna write the quit-your-job check. That's the number one thing. So if you're watching this video and you're like, "I would have to quit my job and work on this full-time and I need $100,000," we wanna talk to you.   Poornima:         Yeah.   Danielle:            Because the quit-your-job check for me was life-changing. I think we would like to write that, so, sorry I'll let you tell them what you want.   Ooshma:            I mean, man. Yeah, Danielle really covered a lot of it. And I think just the founder DNA and passion and willingness, of course plays a huge role. But the interesting thing is that our partnership is so diverse that we have folks coming at it from retail, from consumer, from enterprise, from hardware. We've assembled this...and from the finance companies and healthcare, finance, SAS, etc., so it's really neat because no matter what your company is doing, there's probably an expert in our partnership that can talk with you, consider the deal, and at least give you feedback, if not invest.   So I think that we are looking for breakout companies in all of those industries. But your...yeah, we—   Danielle:            Our portfolio already has quite a range.   Ooshma:            It has quite a range. I mean, we've invested in fashion, in hardware, in AI—   Danielle:            Developer tools and machine learning and ag tech—   Ooshma:            Yes.   Danielle:            Huge range already.   Poornima:         Well I can't wait to hear when they come out. Ooshma:            Yes.   Poornima:         So, for our audience out there who's eager to get their idea out in front of you, how can they get in touch with you?   Danielle:            An email to hello@xfactorventures is perfect. Xfactor.ventures is the domain.   Ooshma:            Yes.   Poornima:         OK, what should they send you?   Danielle:            You can send us a pitch or you can send us a hello and we can set up a phone call. Either one is great.   Poornima:         Cool.   Ooshma:            Yup.   Poornima:         All right, well, be sure to take them up on their opportunity.   Ooshma:            Looking forward to it.   Poornima:         That's it for this episode of*Build*. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive many more episodes like today's and great *Build* tips. Ciao for now.   Announcer:      This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.

Schlank, schlanker, lean – die Figur ist heute längst nicht mehr das Einzige, das schlank sein sollte. Überflüssige Pfunde stören nicht nur an der Hüfte, sondern auch in deinem Unternehmen. Sie machen es langsam und ineffizient, sodass es mit der Konkurrenz nicht mehr mithalten geschweige denn, diese überholen kann. Das Gleiche gilt für Start-ups, die ohnehin schon ein überaus riskantes Unterfangen darstellen. Der Speck muss also weg! Und das ginge mit nichts anderem besser als mit der Lean Startup-Methode nach Eric Ries. Wie du diese am besten anwendest, erklären wir dir im folgenden Artikel.   Lean Startup – revolutionärer Ansatz zur Risikominimierung   Wer ein Start-up gründet, kennt nur ein Motto: Do or die. Sowohl Zeit als auch finanzielle Resourcen sind knapp, um ein konkurrenzfähiges und von der Zielgruppe nachgefragtes Produkt bzw. eine ebensolche Dienstleistung auf den Markt zu bringen. Dass das nicht alle schaffen, erklärt sich von selbst. Wobei diese Annahme angesichts der Realität immer noch recht euphemistisch wirkt, denn in Wirklichkeit entwickeln sich nur die wenigsten Start-ups zu Erfolgsmodellen. Was läge hier also näher, als zu versuchen, das Misserfolgsrisiko zu minimieren? Das dachten sich auch Ash Maurya, Dave McClure, Steve Blank, Alexander Osterwalder und allen voran Eric Ries. Diese gelten heute als Vorreiter des Lean Startup-Konzepts. Bei diesem handelt es sich um einen pragmatischen Ansatz zur Risikominimierung, der mittlerweile im Silicon Valley flächendeckend eingesetzt wird. Dabei eignet sich Lean Startup nicht nur als Ansatz bei der Gründung eines Start-ups, sondern auch als effektive Methode bei Veränderungen in bestehenden Unternehmen – und das ganz besonders im Zuge der digitalen Transformation.    In seinem wegweisenden Buch digitalen Transformation beschreibt Eric Ries die grundlegende Methodik des Lean Startup-Ansatzes. Dabei lassen sich zehn Methoden festlegen, die die Basis dieses Ansatzes darstellen. Diese möchten wir dir im Folgenden näher vorstellen, sodass du diese auch für dein Start-up bzw. für anstehende Veränderungen in deinem Unternehmen nutzen kannst.   1. Aufbauen – Messen – Lernen   Die Vorstellung davon, wie wissenschaftliche Methoden zu nutzen seien, um mit Risiken umzugehen, hat sich in den letzten Jahren grundlegend verändert. Die besten Resultate werden heute mit folgender Vorgehensweise erzielt: Stelle eine Hypothese auf, baue einen Prototypen, um deine Hypothese zu testen, schaue, was passiert, und nimm basierend auf diesen Erkenntnissen Anpassungen vor. Auf diese Weise lassen sich neue Produkte und Ideen nicht nur gründlich prüfen, es können auch gleichzeitig mehrere Ideen auf ihre Realisierbarkeit hin getestet werden, sodass du am Ende siehst, welche davon das Zeug zum Erfolg hat. Dabei kannst du diesen Ansatz nicht nur bei neuen Produkten, sondern vom Website-Text bis hin zum Kundenservice bei so gut wie allem verwenden. Wichtig ist nur, dass du deine Hypothese auf Herz und Nieren prüfst, um genügend aussagekräftige Daten zu erhalten. Auf diese Weise kann es dir gelingen, herauszufinden, was deine Kunden wirklich wollen – und nicht, was sie sagen, sie wollen, oder du glaubst, sie wollen.   2. Das MVP – Minimal Viable Product   Die traditionelle Produktentwicklung erfordert viel Vorarbeit, um die Produktspezifikationen festzulegen, sowie jede Menge zeitlicher und finanzieller Ressourcen, um das Produkt zu realisieren. Ganz anders beim Lean Startup-Ansatz: Hier wird nur so viel entwickelt und realisiert, wie nötig ist, um einen Bauen-Messen-Lernen-Zyklus zu absolvieren. Man spricht hier vom Minimal Viable Product, jenem Produkt, das den geringsten Einsatz sowie die kürzeste Entwicklungszeit benötigt. Dieses reicht vollkommen Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=2PU5W9H752VZJ&source=url)

Parker Thompson's a Partner at Angellist, an active investor and syndicate lead and likes to help startups in any way he can. Before AL, he was a mentor, partner and as an early employee at 500Startups, where he helped Dave McClure and co build 500 into a top tier accelerator., help His illustrious past includes... The post Angellist's Parker Thompson on Why the Best Startups Tell You a Secret and How Platforms are Changing Investing appeared first on The Syndicate.

Show Notes Today’s talk is based on Dave McClure’s “500 Startups.” We will take you through the ins and outs of what they call “marketing for pirates.” AARRR! Show Description The Business Design Podcast helps entrepreneurs design and build businesses that succeed on their own even if you take a 6 month vacation. Hosted by […]

Pirate metrics is essentially a way of categorizing different metrics and KPIs, and is made up of the metric stages which can be referred to as AARRR - Acquisition, Activation, Revenue, Retention and Referral. Many companies track metrics by the funnel, and then try to improve conversion rates from one of these stages to another. The AARRR metrics model was developed by Dave Mcclure and represents all of the behaviours of customers.

Stefano Bernardi's sat at both ends of the table. A YC backed founder and startup hustler, Stefano got into venture and angel investing early and never looked back. Stefano enjoys long walks in the Alps, investing and blogging about crypto and blockchain and helping European founders find their groove and succeed. Listen and Learn: What... The post ICOs, Ethereum, Italian Mountains and being Dave McClure's Shadow with Stefano Bernardi appeared first on The Syndicate.

En este episodio nos vamos hasta Argentina para traerte a otro mentor top: Santiago Salom, emprendedor y coach de negocios, al que conoces por ser uno de los creadores del podcast de hábitos más escuchado en toda Latinoamérica, El Show de Súperhábitos. Santiago nos habla en esta charla de: - Qué hábito pocas veces recomendado puede ser clave para tu crecimiento - Por qué validar es básico antes de arrancar tu negocio - Qué es la escucha activa y cómo te ayuda a detectar ideas de negocio que funcionan - Qué son las métricas Pirata de Dave McClure y por qué son útiles para hacer crecer tu negocio Realmente una delicia descubrir a personas que comparten tantas ideas en común contigo, y son capaces de transmitirlas de una forma tan amena. ¡Tienes que escucharlo! ENLACES DE INTERÉS: Libros recomendados:  · Los 7 Hábitos de la Gente Altamente Efectiva, de Stephen Covey · Cómo Ganar Amigos e Influir en las Personas, de Dale Carnegie · Running Lean, Ash Maurya    La página web de Santiago, Matías y Lucía es esta: · SúperHábitos.com ________ Episodio patrocinado por Instituto de Emprendedores: Conoce el Plan Midas, 5 fases y 10 pasos para pasar de no tener ni siquiera una idea de negocio a tener una empresa de éxito, funcionando, generando ingresos y calidad de vida para ti y los tuyos. Enfócate en conseguir tus metas con una empresa que te proporcione los mejores resultados. El Instituto de Emprendedores te da el plan de ruta para alcanzarlo. Contenidos, cursos y coaching grupal con Luis Ramos, de Libros para Emprendedores. Consigue tus metas, ¡AHORA!  ________ ¿Necesitas un hosting de garantías para tu página web? ¿Rápido y con el mejor servicio al cliente? En Libros para Emprendedores utilizamos Siteground, porque nos da flexibilidad, rapidez en el servidor y rapidez en el servicio. Habiendo probado muuuuchas otras opciones, nos quedamos con Siteground, porque por muy poco más, obtienes mucha más calidad y tranquilidad. Haz click aquí para obtener un 60% de descuento al contratar tu servidor Siteground: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/siteground   _______________   En esta página encuentras las notas del episodio de hoy: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/mpe003    Esta es nuestra página oficial de Facebook: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/facebook Nuestro grupo de Retos para emprendedores: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/retos   Además, recuerda que puedes suscribirte al podcast en: - Nuestra página: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/feed/podcast - iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/mx/podcast/libros-para-emprendedores/id1076142249?l=es - Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/LibrosparaemprendedoresNet - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0qXuVDCYF8HvkEynJwHULb - iVoox: http://www.ivoox.com/ajx-suscribirse_jh_266011_1.html - Spreaker: http://www.spreaker.com/user/8567017/episodes/feed - Stitcher: 

En este episodio nos vamos hasta Argentina para traerte a otro mentor top: Santiago Salom, emprendedor y coach de negocios, al que conoces por ser uno de los creadores del podcast de hábitos más escuchado en toda Latinoamérica, El Show de Súperhábitos. Santiago nos habla en esta charla de: - Qué hábito pocas veces recomendado puede ser clave para tu crecimiento - Por qué validar es básico antes de arrancar tu negocio - Qué es la escucha activa y cómo te ayuda a detectar ideas de negocio que funcionan - Qué son las métricas Pirata de Dave McClure y por qué son útiles para hacer crecer tu negocio Realmente una delicia descubrir a personas que comparten tantas ideas en común contigo, y son capaces de transmitirlas de una forma tan amena. ¡Tienes que escucharlo! ENLACES DE INTERÉS: Libros recomendados:  · Los 7 Hábitos de la Gente Altamente Efectiva, de Stephen Covey · Cómo Ganar Amigos e Influir en las Personas, de Dale Carnegie · Running Lean, Ash Maurya    La página web de Santiago, Matías y Lucía es esta: · SúperHábitos.com ________ Episodio patrocinado por Instituto de Emprendedores: Conoce el Plan Midas, 5 fases y 10 pasos para pasar de no tener ni siquiera una idea de negocio a tener una empresa de éxito, funcionando, generando ingresos y calidad de vida para ti y los tuyos. Enfócate en conseguir tus metas con una empresa que te proporcione los mejores resultados. El Instituto de Emprendedores te da el plan de ruta para alcanzarlo. Contenidos, cursos y coaching grupal con Luis Ramos, de Libros para Emprendedores. Consigue tus metas, ¡AHORA!  ________ ¿Necesitas un hosting de garantías para tu página web? ¿Rápido y con el mejor servicio al cliente? En Libros para Emprendedores utilizamos Siteground, porque nos da flexibilidad, rapidez en el servidor y rapidez en el servicio. Habiendo probado muuuuchas otras opciones, nos quedamos con Siteground, porque por muy poco más, obtienes mucha más calidad y tranquilidad. Haz click aquí para obtener un 60% de descuento al contratar tu servidor Siteground: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/siteground   _______________   En esta página encuentras las notas del episodio de hoy: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/mpe003    Esta es nuestra página oficial de Facebook: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/facebook Nuestro grupo de Retos para emprendedores: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/retos   Además, recuerda que puedes suscribirte al podcast en: - Nuestra página: https://librosparaemprendedores.net/feed/podcast - iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/mx/podcast/libros-para-emprendedores/id1076142249?l=es - Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/LibrosparaemprendedoresNet - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0qXuVDCYF8HvkEynJwHULb - iVoox: http://www.ivoox.com/ajx-suscribirse_jh_266011_1.html - Spreaker: http://www.spreaker.com/user/8567017/episodes/feed - Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=81214   y seguirnos en Twitter ( https://twitter.com/EmprendeLibros ) y en Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/EmprendeLibros/ ).  

We hear a lot about growth hacking, but often forget about the true fuel for any business: organic growth. Today our guest is Ashley Greene, the founder of Instratify. You'll learn how to discover precious customer insights, run interviews and surveys, manage analytics, and achieve sustainable organic growth for your product. Podcast feed: subscribe to http://simplecast.fm/podcasts/1441/rss in your favorite podcast app, and follow us on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play Music. Show Notes Instratify — Ashley's consulting and training company ZenTribes — peer support group for entrepreneurs by Sherry Walling AARRR! Dave McClure’s “Pirate Metrics” And The Only Five Numbers That Matter "Toyota's 5 Why's — the iterative interrogative technique Rev — Ashley's transcription service of choice FourEyes, SurveyMonkey — survey tools Amplitude, Kissmetrics, Woopra, Mixpanel, [Google Analytics — analytics tools FullStory, Hotjar — more tools for tracking user experience What is a North Star Metric? What Is Net Promoter Score? The Spotlight Framework by David Cancel 5 Habits to Building Better Products Faster — a book by Hiten Shah Hypergrowth — a book by David Cancel Lean Analytics — a book by Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products — a book by Nir Eyal with Ryan Hoover To Sell Is Human — a book by Daniel H. Pink Uncover Insights in 60 Minutes for Rapid Growth with a Single Survey — Ashley's workshop Visit Ashley's website Follow Ashley on Twitter: @AshleyKGreene Drop Ashley a line at ashley@instratify.co Today's Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Jamf Now. This service helps businesses manage Apple devices in the workplace. It makes managing and securing every work iPhone, iPad, and Mac easier than ever. See the power of Jamf Now for yourself! Create an account today at jamf.com/uibreakfast and start managing your first three devices for free. Interested in sponsoring an episode? Learn more here. Leave a Review Reviews are hugely important because they help new people discover this podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. Here's how.

Welcome back to TFR for another Cram Session. In these special releases, we have aggregated the takeaways and tips from previous episodes. In this installment, we will be recapping the following episodes: 87. Fintech Investing, Part 1 (Sheel Mohnot) 88. Fintech Investing, Part 2 (Sheel Mohnot) 90. SpaceX & Elon Musk's Mission to Mars, Part 1 (Tim Urban) 91. SpaceX & Elon Musk's Mission to Mars, Part 2 (Tim Urban) 93. What's Wrong with Venture? Part 1 (Dave McClure) 94. What's Wrong with Venture? Part 2 (Dave McClure)   To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.  

Negative / Visible / Social: Sexism in the tech industry Show Notes We look at the tech industry’s persistent habit of treating women badly – both overtly, in terms of sexual harassment, and less overtly, in terms of simply hiring and mentoring fewer women. What can we do to improve matters? What is the responsibility of individuals? Of companies? Of culture at large? Of the government? Links Recent examples of sexism in the tech industry: “Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber” – Susan J. Fowler, with the piece that plunged Uber into its current, very much deserved, hot mess by explaining just how sexist its internal practices were. “The fall of 500 Startups CEO Dave McClure” – Marisa Kendall, writing for the Mercury News, on Dave McClure of 500 Startups, who was forced to resign after (apparently well-founded) allegations of sexual harassment. Binary Capital “Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment” – Katie Benner, writing for the New York Times, on women harassed by Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital. “Binary Accused of Post-Resignation Harassment by Ex-Employee” – Emily Chang and Sarah McBride, writing for Bloomberg, on Justin Caldbeck’s threats to a woman who had stopped working with Binary Capital on account of pervasive sexism. “The long-term cost of sexual harassment” – Catherine Shu, writing for TechCrunch, with a description of her own experience of being harassed and the way it affected her long term. “Can Venture Capital Be Saved?” – Mitch and Freada Kapor, making a case for their own VC fund’s approach, with a clear recognition that (awful as it is) sexual harassment is a symptom of yet deeper problems with VC culture: How can the industry celebrate people who glory in breaking all the rules, ask forgiveness not permission, and then be surprised when people are predatory, abusive and pursue their own desires at the expense and over the objection of others? “I’m a startup founder and I had sex with an investor — and I am sorry” – Perri Chase, writing for Business Insider, with a really thoughtful reflection on the current state of affairs, including a frank admission of her own choices and how they have played into things, but without blaming victims (a hard line to walk). Previously on the show: Season 3 – many reflections on business success by way of taking the slow road. 3.07: One Size Does Not Fit All – Amazon’s workplace culture as a view into corporate ethics and responsibility. Music “Jonah 2” by The Jonah Project. Used by permission. “Winning Slowly Theme” by Chris Krycho. Sponsors Many thanks to the people who help us make this show possible by their financial support! This month’s sponsors: Andrew Fallows Kurt Klassen Jeremy W. Sherman If you’d like to support the show, you can make a pledge at Patreon or give directly via Square Cash. Respond We love to hear your thoughts. Hit us up via Twitter, Facebook, or email!

Diversity advocate and Kickstarter director Erica Baker and ProDay CEO Sarah Kunst talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about the conditions that led so many venture capitalists to abuse their power over female tech founders. Kunst, who was sexually harassed by 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, says the time has come to "turn the lights on full blast" and expose bad actors rather than tiptoeing around the problem. Baker, who gained a reputation as a "troublemaker" from her efforts to make Google salaries more transparent, theorizes that harassment and exclusion have run rampant because of the cult of specialness around coding ability, and calls out tech companies that are not holding themselves accountable. Kunst also explains what's wrong with Reid Hoffman's decency pledge and why former Uber engineer Susan Fowler was the "perfect victim." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest for Episode 57 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, is Rachael Neumann, the new Venture Partner and Head of Australia at 500 Startups. If you are connected to the startup ecosystem, I am sure you have read the accounts of the sexual harassment scandal sweeping the startup world over the last few months, thanks to some courageous women sharing their story and shining a light on this issue. These accounts led Uber's Founder and CEO Travis Kalancik to resign and one of the bigger pieces to come out recently was a New York Times article that named several influential VC's such as Chris Sacca from Lowercase Capital and Dave McClure from 500 Startups. Following subsequent revelations of sexual harassment by Dave against a 500 Startups entrepreneur, he has since resigned his post as general partner. All of this was against the backdrop of Dave McClure being in Melbourne just a few weeks ago to officially launch the 500 Startups Melbourne program which was part funded by the Victorian State government's $60M ecosystem development fund - LaunchVic. Caught in the middle of this firestorm was Rachael Neumann, the new Venture Partner and Head of 500 Startups in Australia who I had arranged a podcast interview with on the 29th of June, the day before the New York Times article was published As a result, this podcast is split into 2 parts; the first one covering Rachael's background as the former Head of Eventbrite in Australia where we talk about her experiences and insights into launching into new markets, the importance of having a mindset of abundance and why you shouldn't build with a focus on being acquired. The second part of the interview was recorded a few days ago over Skype, so please excuse the audio quality). In this part of the interview we cover what's happened since the New York Times article was published, how much was shared internally at 500 Startups before the revelations came out, the KPI's for the future program and Rachael and 500 Startups's plan and next steps in building a safer and more inclusive ecosystem. If you want to jump to part 2 of the interview, skip to the 47:51 mark.  Show notes: - Eventbrite - Startmate - 500 Startups - LaunchVic - Minister Philip Dalidakis - Kate Cornick - Dave Scheine (podcast interview) - 500melbourne.co - Rachael Neumann (Twitter) - Rachael Neumann (Email) - New York Times Post - Program update from LaunchVic - Event at One Roof  - Eloise Watson - Vanessa Hutchinson - Paul Naphtali - Rampersand VC - Vicky Lay (podcast interview) - Drew Corby's Pathways Podcast LIVE PODCAST WITH KATE MORRIS (FOUNDER - ADORE BEAUTY) Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound Other channels: Don't have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Stitcher & Soundcloud The post Ep057 – Rachael Neumann (Head of Australia – 500 Startups) on rebuilding trust and listening to the ecosystem appeared first on Startup Playbook.

Discover more tech podcasts like this: Tech Podcast Asia. Produced by Pikkal & Co - Award Winning Podcast Agency. Dave McClure, Founder of 500 Startups, announces he's stepping down this week on the back of a series of sexual harassment allegations. Not a big surprise! Rather than dissect the news, we're going to look at this in the light of the recent episodes we broadcast on female entrepreneurs. How does the startup world's macho culture inhibit female founders? What good will come of this news long term?

It started with a handful of women who called out Binary Capital co-founder Justin Caldbeck for what they call inappropriate behavior, making unwarranted advances towards women who approached him for funding. He and his business partners at Binary Capital have offered to resign. Then 500 Startups co-founder Dave McClure was called out for alleged inappropriate behavior. And in a public apology, said he is a self-proclaimed "creep'. This has caused a long overdue stir in Silicon Valley. But this shake-up is far from over. I’m just waiting for the next shoe to drop as female entrepreneurs, who've long joked about going in for a check and out with an unwanted date, get up the courage to come forward. And taking it to the next level, other women may come forward shedding light on investors who simply wouldn’t invest in women because they were in 'child bearing years'. Beyond that, even men may start coming forward and express an abuse of power by the venture capital community as well, showing that the bad behavior in the rich and powerful investing market actually doesn’t doesn’t discriminate. It may be worse for women, but the abuse of power also transcends across the board. It's not to say that all VC's are acting in inappropriate ways. They're not. And I would hate for the venture capitalists and angel investors I work with, who are amazing, respectful, have diverse portfolios, and are incredibly supportive off all people no matter, race, gender, or sexuality, to get looped into the group of bad seeds. They should be celebrated. And in this show we have a great group of powerful women who are choosing to focus on those men AND women in Silicon Valley that support great innovation by ALL. They have great solutions to eliminate the "Creeps" in Silicon Valley and to create a more comfortable, safe, and equal working environment. If you have other suggestions, please share with any one of us personally, join us on Twitter using #GirlsInTech or #StandTogether, or in the comment section as well. Let's keep this conversation going.

Brianna, Christina, and Simone discuss Dave McClure's resignation at 500 Startups and VC harassment. Then it's a light show, with Simone's massive feelings on Overwatch's Doomfist and some frenzied praise of Edgar Wright's Baby Driver.

On this episode, Julien Meyer & Paul Meyer discuss..... Topics discussed: Dave McClure out at 500 Startups! Billy McFarland and Fyre Festival The future of Wall Street Links mentioned in this episode: http://www.businessinsider.com/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcfarland-has-a-lavish-lifestyle-2017-7 http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/goldman-commodities-trading-review-blankfein.html http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/chris-sacca-and-dave-mcclure-confess-to-sexist-behavior.html http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/silicon-valley-sexist-culture-is-broken-so-lets-fix-it.html This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

My guest for Episode 50 of The Startup Playbook Podcast is Adam Stone, the Founder and CEO of Speedlancer. At just 22 years of age, Adam has already had several successes under his belt. He started his first company at the age of 12 (selling BB guns online) before founding his second company in the Telecommunications space at the age of 14 providing mobile phone unlocking which scaled to 120,000 paying customers from around the world. His latest company, Speedlancer, which provides the fastest way to hire freelancer and get projects done (within 4 hours!) went through the highly competitive 500 Startups Accelerator program in the US. Adam was also recently named as one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia for Consumer Technology. In the episode we chat about the basics of SEO, how to network effectively, bootstrapping vs fundraising, how to get the most out of outsourcing and how to built an effective distributed team. Show notes: - Speedlancer - Dave McClure - 500 startups - Wil Schroter - startups.co - Adam Stone - Adam's Twitter - Adam's Medium Blog: 50 Lessons from 50 successful founders, investors & experts (Part 1)  Feedback/ connect/ say hello:  Rohit@startupplaybook.co @playbookstartup (Twitter) @rohitbhargava7 (Twitter – Rohit) Rohit Bhargava (LinkedIn) Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound The post Ep051 – Adam Stone (Founder & CEO – Speedlancer) on teams and trust appeared first on Startup Playbook.

In Episode 50 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I did followup interviews with 6 previous guests on the show to checkin on their progress and learnings over the last 10 months. The first guest is Tom Ellis, the Investment Director of Mai Capital, a VC fund that invests in opportunities looking to expand into the Chinese market. I first interviewed Tom in episode 17 where we spoke about his experience from both sides of the table and what he looks for in investment opportunities. In this follow up interview we talk about; finding your strengths, the need to ask for help and the importance of listening The 2nd returning guest is Matt Allen. I interviewed Matt in episode 28 where we spoke about his experience as a tech recruiter and his advice on how to find and attract tech cofounders. Matt has recently taken on a new role as the Startup Business Development Manager at AWS and in this follow up, we chat about the startup ecosystem, building networks and being authentic. The 3rd of our follow up interviews is with Adir Shiffman. In episode 12 I spoke with Adir about his change in career path from medicine to business, his experience in starting and selling multiple business and his role as the Chairman of Catapult Sports which he took to an IPO in 2014. In this follow up interview, we discuss Adir's new model for startup structuring and some of the common pitfalls and the fallout from founder breakups. Next up we have Paul Naphtali. Paul is the Cofounder and Managing Partner at Rampersand, a $50M venture capital fund for early stage technology startups. Paul was one of the earliest guests on the show and in episode 5 we spoke about the investment process at Rampersand and the common ingredients of successful startup founders. In this interview we talk about the things that attract and turnoff investors.  Our 5th guest is Justin Dry the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Vinomofo. In episode 3 Justin shared his and Andre's journey of 4 pivots over 4 years before turning to the current model. When we last spoke with Justin, they had recently closed their $25M investment round and were about to start expanding globally. In this interview we checkin with Vinomofo's global expansion, their learnings over the last year and the need to discuss failure. Our 6th and final guest is Tim Mundy. Tim is the Cofounder and Director of Digital Affair, an HR branding company that has gone through incredible growth since launching 3 years ago. In this follow up, we talk about retention, over delivering to customers and getting by giving. SHOW NOTES: Tom Ellis: (1:17 - 19:04) - Episode 17 w/ Tom Ellis on opportunities in China - Dave McClure - Mai capital website - Mai capital Twitter Matt Allen: (19:05 - 33:20) - Episode 28 w/ Matt Allen on how to attract tech cofounders - Nick Crocker - Nick Crocker Podcast interview (Ep39) on people, culture and values - Kyall Walker (Audience question) - Matt Allen Twitter - Matt email Adir Shiffman: (33:21 - 41:11) - Episode 12 w/ Adir Shiffman on the challenges of scale and the characteristics of fast growing startups - Michael Dodge - Arnold Bloch Leibler - Catapult Sports Paul Naphtali: (41:12 - 58:48) - Episode 5 w/ Paul Napthali on how to contact VC's, ingredients of successful founders & the Rampersand investment process - Patrick Poke (Audience question) - Simon Sinek - Star with Why - Rampersand Justin Dry: (58:49 - 1:18:41) - Episode 3 w/ Justin Dry on building communities, deciding when to pivot and choosing between multiple options - F'Up Nights - Pathways Podcast - Jesse Wilson (Audience question) - Justin Dry (Twitter) - Justin Dry (Facebook) - Justin Dry (Instagram) Tim Mundy: (1:18:42 - 1:37:49) - Episode 1 w/ Tim Mundy on how to get clients,

Bill Clerico is the Co-Founder & CEO @ WePay, the most complete payments solution for platforms. To date, they have raised close to $75m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including Max Levchin, Dave McClure and August Capital just to name a few. As for Bill, alongside his role with WePay, Bill is a part-time partner @ Y Combinator and an angel investor. Prior to startups, Bill cut his teeth in the industry at Jefferies in investment banking. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bill made his way into the world of startups from investment banking? 2.) How does Bill assess the pivot? What is required to pivot successfully? How can this be communicated to both your board and your team? 3.) How does Bill look to relationship build with investors? What are the fundamentals to a healthy and sustainable investor relationship? 4.) Why should founders ensure they are not the only company representative with the board? What are the benefits of the board having many touchpoints within the family? How can this be done effectively? 5.) What does Bill mean he says you must have an 'opinionated culture'? How can this be conveyed to the team and across the organisation? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Bill’s Fave Book: Failure Is Not An Option Bill’s Fave Blog: The Information As always you can follow Harry, Bill and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eight is a sleep innovation company. With their latest product, the Eight Smart Mattress, being a bed that literally tells you how well you slept last night, paired with an intelligent sensor cover that measures the quality of your sleep and delivers a daily sleep report. In order to bring you the best product, Eight used anonymized sleep data and feedback from over 10,000 people, to understand which materials and types of mattresses give customers the best sleep resulting in their unique blend of four responsive and high-density foam layers plus one layer of proprietary technology that helps people track and improve their sleep. You can check it out on Eightsleep.com – and if you use the code 20VC you will get a whopping 20% discount! FullContact provides the ability to organize your contacts, gain rich insights into them and therefore build deep relationships. With features like automatically identifying and merging duplicate contacts to the ability to snap a photo of a business card and FullContact will transcribe them for you, so no more lost and loose business cards at events. It is with these features just being the tip of the iceberg, FullContact really is the best all in one solution for contact management and you can check them out on fullcontact.com.

Today we sit down with Dave McClure under the cherry blossoms and talk about startups, funding, failure Dave has long been involved in Japan and in the startup community here, and in this episode, we talk about the progress Japan has made in the past decade and the changes that still need to be made. We go over what Dave sees as the gaps in the Japan’s venture capital ecosystem and also dispel some of the pervasive myths that have spread throughout Silicon Vally and the entire startup world. We spend a bit of time diving into what Dave and 500 Startups consider to be a risky business model, and it may not be what you expect, but it’s great advice for anyone thinking of starting a company. It’s a great discussion, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Show Notes for Startups Who is doing most of the investing in Japan right now Why Japan needs more angel investors What startups should be looking for in investors How to find a startup idea What Japan should learn from Silicon Valley and what it should ignore Which business models are truly unproven The one thing Japan should change to encourage startups How to really learn from failure Links from the Founder 500 Startups 500 Startups Japan Follow Dave on Twitter @davemcclure Friend him on Facebook Connect with him on LinkedIn   [shareaholic app="share_buttons" id="7994466"] Leave a comment Transcript from Japan Disrupting Japan, episode 84. Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from CEOs breaking into Japan. I'm Tim Romero and thanks for listening. Japan, well most of the world really has an unhealthy obsession with Silicon Valley. I’ve been to Japanese language start-up events here in Tokyo where the phrases Silicon Valley, or San Francisco, were mentioned more than twice as often as Tokyo or Japan. And yes, I actually did keep count. And I’m sure none of my friends are the least bit surprised by that. My point is that while Japan can learn a lot from Silicon Valley, the reverse is also true. There are a lot of things going right in Japan, and many things that are developing differently here than they are in Silicon Valley. Well, today we sit down with Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups, and we talk under the cherry blossoms about start-ups funding failure, and about some of the most pervasive myths surrounding start-ups and start-up founders. For our listeners who are not familiar with the Japanese tradition of Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, I’ll explain it to you in both theory and practice because those two can be a bit different. In theory, Hinami is a time to reflect on the transitory nature of beauty, of our possessions, and of life itself. The cherry blossoms bloom only for a few days a year before their pedals fall. And almost everyone in Japan no matter how busy or sick will make at least a little time to go out and walk among the blossoms. The trees really are beautiful, and that beauty is made all the more precious by the fact that they can only be appreciated for such a brief period of time. In practice, people from all over Japan get together with their friends under the cherry blossom trees, get rip-roaringly drunk, sing karaoke, and have a great and boisterous time.  So when Dave and I are talking and in the background, you hear school girls laughing, drunken cheering, and people suddenly breaking into song, you’ll know what’s going on. It was a great party and a great discussion. So let’s hear from our sponsor and get right to the interview. [pro_ad_display_adzone id="1411"  info_text="Sponsored by"  font_color="grey"  ] [Interview] Tim: Cheers. Dave: Cheers. Tim: So I’m sitting hear with the indomitable and encourageable Dave McClure. Dave: Encourageable sounds right. Tim: So thanks for sitting down. I really do appreciate your time. Dave: Yeah. Tim: You’ve had ties to Japan for a long time. Dave: Yes,

In this Topical Zoom episode, I talk about goals for each of the stages in Dave McClure's AARRR Startup Metrics and share some common mistakes, pitfalls I've seen early-stage startups make and share some tips. What will you learn about AARRR Startup Metrics? You will learn how to set goals for each of the stages […]The post DYT 080 : AARRR Startup Metrics – Goals, Mistakes & Tips | Karthik appeared first on .

Indrek Rebane (@RebaneIndrek) spoke with us about the Garage48 Hardware and Arts hackathon, hardware incubators in Estonia, linguistics, hydrology, and startup investments. Garage48 Hardware & Arts hackathon is February 17-19, 2017 at the Institute of Physics, University of Tartu (Tartu, Estonia). The event is organized by Garage48, University of Tartu and the Estonian Academy of Arts. Indrek is CTO of Build It Hardware Accelerator and electronics engineer for Hedgehog Engineering. Recommended book: The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you Other resources Indrek mentioned after recording: Why to Not Not Start a Startup by Paul Graham (blog) Why not to do a startup by Marc Andreessen (blog) Don’t Follow Your Passion by Ben Horowitz (video) Why Not To Do a Startup by Dave McClure (video)

In this episode of the SaaS Business Podcast, Ron Gaver's guest is Dave Koslow, co-founder of DocSend. Dave and Ron discuss how Dave and his co-founders discovered the problem that led to the creation of DocSend, a document sharing and monitoring tool. Dave details the various ways DocSend provides users with seamless, real-time feedback, listing its advantages over tools like email attachments and screen-sharing programs. This, in turn, opens a conversation about promoting asynchronous communication for business success and how businesses can use DocSend to bridge the communication divide separating them from their clients. Along the way, Dave discusses opportunities and pitfalls for early-phase startups doing product research and design. The full show notes contain a thorough listing of all resources mentioned in the episode and a full transcript of the entire episode. Get the Full Show Notes! NOTICE After clicking the link above, you will be asked to enter your name and email address. By entering these, you are agreeing to receive email from us. To be removed from the email list, unsubscribe from any email message from us. Episode Outline Click any timestamp on the website to start listening at the noted time. [00:00] Intro [02:24] Attachments and the Failure of Transparent Communication [05:15] Purpose-Built Platform for Data Sharing [06:11] External Communication Beyond Shared Content [08:39] Using DocSend to Study the Effectiveness of Pitch Deck Slides [09:08] Using DocSend with Your Existing Documents [10:11] Raising Funds with DocSend [11:53] Investors Value a Solid Startup Team [12:43] DocSend's Study of Sequoia Capital's Recommended Pitch Deck Slides [13:19] Using DocSend for Lead Capture [14:55] Using Lead Capture for Organizational Mapping and Networking [16:35] What Happens to Your Documents after You Hit Send? [17:36] How Are Attachments Performing? [18:17] Using DocSend to Evaluate Page Engagement [19:16] The Importance of Asynchronous Communication to Business Success [21:20] Getting User Feedback from DocSend [21:57] What Feedback Are You Missing with Email Attachments? [23:40] DocSend's Feedback Is Easier Than PDFs [24:24] Using DocSend for Remote Live Presentations [25:55] DocSend's Live Present Advantages over Screen Sharing Apps [27:35] DocSend's Highlighting and Cursor Tools [28:00] DocSend's Advantages over WebEx [28:42] DocSend's Origin Story [29:33] How DocSend's Team of Founders Met [31:55] How DocSend's Founders Entered the Industry [34:20] The Character of DocSend's CEO – Russ Heddleston [35:20] The “Perfect Co-Founding Team” According to Dave McClure [35:48] Brainstorming the Idea of DocSend [36:14] Finding the Need [37:06] The Need-Finding Hustle [39:16] DocSend's Dachshund Delivery Service Marketing Campaign [40:28] Building with Heroku [41:07] Scaling with Heroku [42:25] Real-Time Messaging with Off-the-Shelf Components [43:09] DocSend and User Privacy [43:40] DocSend's Experience Working with Ruby on Rails [44:30] DocSend's Experience Creating a Website with Bootstrap [44:57] Funding: Seed Round and Series A [45:42] The Future of DocSend – Upcoming Developments [46:36] DocSend's First Conference Experience [47:19] Dave Koslow's Personal Influences [51:18] Conclusion

‍Those of you familiar with this podcast would know I’m a big fan of Dave McClure and his Pirate Metrics approach to customer acquisition - well, Dave is the founder of 500 startups, the venture capital seed fund and accelerator based in the Valley that has invested in more than 1500 companies across more than 50 countries. In this episode, I speak with Arnaud Bonzom, Director of Corporate Innovation at 500 Startups. Arnaud’s recent report on How do the World’s Biggest Companies Deal with the Start­up Revolution? (goo.gl/UEmt4i) details the bullish efforts by Multinational Corporations to engage start­ups and leverage on their capabilities. Prior to 500 Startups, Arnaud was part of INSEAD, where he was responsible for facilitating interactions between MBA students/alumni and the Entrepreneurship ecosystem. Arnaud also developed the Asia Funding / M&A Newsletter & Singapore startup ecosystem and entrepreneur toolbox.   Topics Discussed: - How large corporations are engaging startups - Challenges of corporate startup partnerships - How software companies are disrupting industries not synonymous with software - The hierarchy of needs for corporate innovation - The Singaporean and Southeast Asian startup and innovation ecosystems   Show Notes: - ArnaudBonzom.com - Asia Funding / M&A Newsletter: eepurl.com/b2G18D - Singapore startup ecosystem and entrepreneur toolbox: bit.ly/SingaporeEcosystem - Arnaud on Twitter: @aurnaudbonzom - 500 Startups Report on How The World's Biggest Companies Deal With The Startup Revolution: http://698640.hs-sites.com/500corporations   --- I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to receive a weekly email from me, complete with reflections, books I’ve been reading, words of wisdom and access to blogs, ebooks and more that I’m publishing on a regular basis, just leave your details at www.futuresquared.xyz/subscribe and you’ll receive the very next one. Listen on Apple Podcasts @ goo.gl/sMnEa0 Also available on: Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and Soundcloud Twitter: www.twitter.com/steveglaveski Instagram: www.instagram.com/@thesteveglaveski Future Squared: www.futuresquared.xyz Steve Glaveski: www.steveglaveski.com Medium: www.medium.com/@steveglaveski

Dave McClure is the founding partner of 500 Startups, who have made over 1500 investments in the likes of Twilio, SendGrid, Intercom and Makerbot just to name a few. Prior to 500 Dave was on the investment team at Founders Fund, he also led the Facebook Fund Incubator and was Head of Marketing @ Paypal pre IPO. In Today’s Episode with Dave You Will Learn: How Dave made his way into VC and came to found 500 Startups? Do you need unicorn exits to have significant venture returns? What is the 500 view with regards to the hit ratio of finding unicorns? How much ownership does 500 typically take? Does this allow Dave enough of a right to follow on in further rounds with such a small initial slice? How does Dave and 500 avoid the inherent signalling risk involved with their fund and accelerator? How prominent is signalling in today’s market? What did Dave think of Sam Altman’s statement on YC not accepting companies from other accelerators? How does Dave view YC companies? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Dave’s Fave Blog and Newsletter: Brad Feld, AVC, Mark Suster Dave’s Fave Book: Guns Germs and Steel, The Mystery of Capital Dave’s Most Recent Investment: Markhor As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Dave on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Eve make 1 perfect mattress - made with 3 layer technology and next generation memory foam. It comes packaged in a beautiful box and arrives the day after you order. You get 100 nights to try it with free return pick-up - it really is the perfect mattress for everyone. Just go online to evemattress.co.uk and enter the code 20VC for £50 off. Everybody deserves the perfect start with Eve.

Today we cover Part 2 of “What's Wrong with Venture?” with Dave McClure of 500 Startups. In this segment we address: Are there any problematic issues that you've observed w/ founders? Any thoughts on who might be one of the most misunderstood people in the venture ecosystem? How do you...   To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Welcome back to TFR.  We've got a good one today as we welcome one of the most respected and polarizing figures in venture, Dave McClure, to the program.  Dave, of course, is a founding partner at 500 startups and, with Christine Tsai, they have built an organization that may be...   To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Michael Kim is the founder and Managing Partner of Cendana Capital, a fund of funds which invests in seed VC funds. Michael has many of our previous guests in his portfolio including the likes of SoftTech, Freestyle, Founder Collective, Collaborative Fund and many more, clearly great minds think alike! Prior to Cendana, Michael was one of the original partners of Rustic Canyon Partners a VC firm with $1bn AUM. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Michael made his way into VC and then made the transition into the world of LP? 2.) Why have we seen the proliferation of seed funding? Is this a good thing for the economy? Is dumb money good or bad for the early stage environment? 3.) Chris Douvos states we will begin to see the hybridisation of LPs and GPs, does Michael agree? What are the inherent problems with this happening? 4.) What is Michael's blackbox for assessing emerging fund managers? What does he look for? How can they present their edge? 4.) How does Michael respond to Dave McClure's portfolio construction theory of allocating capital to many startups with the realisation that 0.5% become unicorns? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Michael’s Fave Book: Catcher & The Rye Michael's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Techcrunch, The Twenty Minute VC As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Michael on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Snapchat here!   This episode was brought to you by DesignCrowd, the online marketplace for custom graphic, logo and web design that helps startups, entrepreneurs, web developers and agencies outsource design projects to designers from around the world.   How Does It Work? Once you have launched your brief, designers will begin submitting quality designs for you to review. With some constructive feedback, you can quickly generate a large gallery of designs that really do fit your needs. You can have exactly what you need within just three days. Once you have selected your favourite design, you will be sent all the files you require to update your branding. If you don’t like any of the submitted designs, then DesignCrowd offers a money back guarantee. So checkout designcrowd.com/VC and enter the promo code VC100 to get an astonishing $100 off your next project.

Parker Thompson, aka Startup L. Jackson, sits down with us to talk about the meteoric rise of Twitter's most popular startup parody account.  We’ll cover what it was like to be the man behind the mask, why vanity metrics can be hurtful to your business, and how 500 Startups founder Dave McClure lost his title as the most profane motherf*$@er on Twitter.  If you like this episode and are listening on iTunes, make sure to subscribe for weekly updates! Big thanks to the team at AdHawk for making this possible. AdHawk is the digital advertising assistant you've always wanted. Learn more at www.tryadhawk.com 

Today's guests include Hood River Mayor Paul Blackburn & City Manager Steve Wheeler, and Dave McClure and Denny Newell from Klickitat County Economic Development.

In this interview, Dave McClure ​highlights the importance of taking a niche approach when launching a ​product. We touch on the ​main ​difference​s​ between 500 Startups and Y Combinator before analysing the ​growth and customer acquisition methods that help startups grow.

“When people ask me what I think about their business idea I say, ‘It doesn’t matter what I think. What do your customers think?'”  As part of a continuing series of interviews with various entrepreneurs at the tops of their industries, I sat down with 500 Startups Founder, Dave McClure, to talk about what else, money and diversity in Silicon Valley. Dave McClure is a venture capitalist & founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. He likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally invest in startups foolish enough to let him. He has been an investor in over 250 companies including Mint.com, Twilio, Wildfire Interactive, SendGrid, TaskRabbit, SlideShare, Mashery, CreditKarma, KISSmetrics, and MakerBot, among others. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twilio, Mint.com, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter. He barely graduated from Johns Hopkins University and also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don’t hurt. Never one to hold back, Dave waxes poetic (not really) on: His own journey from Johns Hopkins engineering student to being one of the original PayPal employees to angel to juggernaut The lack of diversity in Silicon Valley His ‘Why’ for founding 500 Startups What companies need to do to position themselves for venture capital What he looks for in an investment Where’s he’s looking to invest next The BIGGEST mistakes startups make And most importantly…Why the hell he curses so much!!!!????!!!

Today we have an amazing chat with the founder of 500 Startups Dave McClure, interviewed by our chapter director in Gaza Palestine. The audio quality is slightly reduced and the power goes out at 1 point during the interview but it is a great opportunity to hear advice from a silicon valley entrepreneur/venture capitalist given to the community in palestine.  Dave is the founding partner of 500 Startups, a venture capital firm and startup incubator in Silicon Valley with over $125M under management. He has been an investor in hundreds of companies around the world including Credit Karma, Twilio, MakerBot, Wildfire Interactive, Viki, Mashery, SendGrid, Mint.com, and SlideShare, among others. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty-five years as a developer, entrepreneur, blogger, investor, and internet marketing nerd. 

On part one of this two part series, we discuss a startup's funnel and Dave McClure's pirate metrics (AARRR). We also caught up with Tim Sprinkle, author of "Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture" to hear his views on what it's really like to build a company outside the valley.      All this and more on this episode of Inside Outside. Music: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Panel members: David Krane, General Partner, Google Ventures Jeff Clavier, Founder and Managing Partner , SoftTech VC Ann Miura-Ko, Managing Partner, Floodgate Aydin Senkut, Founder & Managing Director, Felicis Ventures Dave McClure, Founding Partner, 500 Startups Source: http://podfm.ru/goto/b811dbb

Brady Forrest of Highway1 visits with the California Business Incubation Alliance on this edition of Temples of Technology. We talk about the resurgence in hardware, the maker movement, supporting entrepreneurs, the rise of accelerators, and more. We also get a sneak preview of SyFy's new series The Bazillion Dollar Club, featuring Brady with Dave McClure of 500 Startups.

FounderLine host Joe Beninato and guest Dave McClure of 500 Startups answer listener questions including: - So many people who worked at PayPal went off to found companies like Tesla, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, Yammer and 500 Startups…how was Paypal able to hire such great people? What did you learn there? - What benefits are typically offered to or expected by employees? Do the benefits change as a company grows and matures, or is an early stage company expected to offer benefits comparable to a mature one? - What services do you provide your investments after you invest? With so many companies, how can you keep track? - How is a seed financing different than a Series A? What happens to seed financing when Series A funding comes through? - How do we get into 500 Startups? We've applied for the upcoming batch…any tips in improving our chances of getting in?

Note: I want to apologize up front for the sound quality on this episode. We tried everything we could to get it as clear as possible but we thought this interview was so good we didn't want to discard it. Thanks in advance for struggling though - I promise it will be worth it. Dave McClure has taken a slightly different path towards the funding of startups. He gets in early in a lot of company's and expects about a third to fail. He didn't start investing as a venture capitalist until a little later in life and wasn't sure if he was already too old. Dave's story runs through some of Silicon Valley's best companies Facebook, PayPal, Mint.com, Simply Hired and others. So how did he deal with the fact that many of the people he worked side by side with wound up becoming billionaires? By being so well connected and knowing so many people opens the door to a lot of opportunities but that doesn't always mean your smart enough to pick the right ones.  Dave tells James the story of how he passed on being one of the first investors in Uber. He passed on the investment and that decision has probably cost him millions. He tells James why he's taking his company 500 Startups global. Valuations around the world are often cheaper outside the US but the real benefit may be to find companies that no one else is looking at. Listen today to a great story of someone who may have started a little later in life but has built an amazing company P.S.  Hi James here... My new book is finally out! It's taken me a year to put together all the skills I think are needed to create abundance in this new economy. I hope you write me with feedback and questions. I have more books coming.  Here's what the initial reviews on this book have said:  "James Altucher did it again. I just finished and have to say it was a great read. Great insight into the future of wealth." "I couldn't wait for this book to come out. It was well worth the wait! Very short and jam-packed with good ideas and advice for the budding entrepreneur. A must read!" "This is the road map out. Very specific ideas to get you unstuck and to thrive in the 21st century. If you follow the ideas in this book your will receive 1000% or more in return on your investment." I'm really grateful for the response I've received so quickly. I feel we are quickly building a strong community of people who are deciding to "choose themselves".    If you want to get it exclusively in hardcover, plus several other special reports, and a subscription to my brand new newsletter, which is essentially like the equivalent of two additional chapters every month, claim your copy here. ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn

Note: I want to apologize up front for the sound quality on this episode. We tried everything we could to get it as clear as possible but we thought this interview was so good we didn’t want to discard it. Thanks in advance for struggling though – I promise it will be worth it. Dave McClure has taken a slightly different path towards the funding of startups. He gets in early in a lot of company’s and expects about a third to fail. He didn’t start investing as a venture capitalist until a little later in life and wasn’t sure if he was already too old. Dave’s story runs through some of Silicon Valley’s best companies Facebook, PayPal, Mint.com, Simply Hired and others. So how did he deal with the fact that many of the people he worked side by side with wound up becoming billionaires? By being so well connected and knowing so many people opens the door to a lot of opportunities but that doesn’t always mean your smart enough to pick the right ones.  Dave tells James the story of how he passed on being one of the first investors in Uber. He passed on the investment and that decision has probably cost him millions. He tells James why he’s taking his company 500 Startups global. Valuations around the world are often cheaper outside the US but the real benefit may be to find companies that no one else is looking at. Listen today to a great story of someone who may have started a little later in life but has built an amazing company P.S.  Hi James here… My new book is finally out! It's taken me a year to put together all the skills I think are needed to create abundance in this new economy. I hope you write me with feedback and questions. I have more books coming.  Here's what the initial reviews on this book have said:  "James Altucher did it again. I just finished and have to say it was a great read. Great insight into the future of wealth." "I couldn't wait for this book to come out. It was well worth the wait! Very short and jam-packed with good ideas and advice for the budding entrepreneur. A must read!" "This is the road map out. Very specific ideas to get you unstuck and to thrive in the 21st century. If you follow the ideas in this book your will receive 1000% or more in return on your investment." I'm really grateful for the response I've received so quickly. I feel we are quickly building a strong community of people who are deciding to "choose themselves".  If you want to get it exclusively in hardcover, plus several other special reports, and a subscription to my brand new newsletter, which is essentially like the equivalent of two additional chapters every month, claim your copy here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this 'almost' inaugural episode (Episode 0.5) of the Her Power Hustle podcast, host Michelle Y. Talbert, walks you through the purpose of Her Power Hustle, how it came to fruition and shares clips of upcoming episodes with Guy Kawasaki, Dave McClure, Caroline V. Clarke and more! So be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Thanks for tuning in. Her Hustle is Real!

Alex Moore, Founder and CEO of Boomerang, talks with us about viral tactics he used to grow a product that most people didn’t want others to know they were using. He also shares a hilarious story of how he got his first investor, Dave McClure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trevor Owens comes on to the show to chat about how he's been able to connect with some incredible people that eventually became trusted mentors, advisors, and investors. The caliber of people in his life is truly amazing ranging from investors like Mark Suster and Dave McClure to entrepreneurs like Seth Godin and Scott Heiferman. You'll learn exactly how he did this with an initial cold email and we'll actually break down the logic behind each one. This is truly a unique episode and plays into some excellent psychology that is imperative for anyone looking to start relationships via cold email should understand. 

TwitterFAIL! Also, Apple podcast fail, Amazon keynote on September 6th, possibly two Apple events, a new Facebook iOS app, and Dave McClure says VCs are A-Holes! But wait, there’s more! Microsoft has a new logo! SQUARES! All this and meandering talk about old MMOs, courtesy of Warren and Chip. Tweet This Post

Steve Espinosa, the Founder of AppStack, joins Adam to tell his story of hustling his way to the top, gaining the trust and friendship of Jason Calacanis, Dave McClure, Eric Schmidt and the awesome team behind Google Ventures, what it means to focus and much more. This is a jam packed episode with tons of energy and lots to learn from Steve. Also, check out “After Dark” for an extended chat with Steve.

Steve Espinosa, the Founder of AppStack, joins Adam to tell his story of hustling his way to the top, gaining the trust and friendship of Jason Calacanis, Dave McClure, Eric Schmidt and the awesome team behind Google Ventures, what it means to focus and much more. This is a jam packed episode with tons of energy and lots to learn from Steve. Also, check out “After Dark” for an extended chat with Steve.

Dave McClure of 500startups got on his soapbox to talk about how he invests and what he looks for in entrepreneurs.

O Man in the Arena é um videocast sobre empreendedorismo e cultura digital apresentado por Leo Kuba e Miguel Cavalcanti.   Neste episódio (#020):   Uma análise do mercado brasileiro de startups e venture capital por Edson Rigonatti, partner da Astella Investimentos, que tem em seu portfolio empresas como Navegg, Portal Educação, Help Saúde, entre outras.   Alguns dos temas abordados:   - Histórico profissional do Edson. - O posicionamento da Astella e as fases de uma operação de VC. - O que a Astella avalia num empreendedor e num modelo de negócio? - Sua visão sobre o mercado brasileiro de startups. - A importância da agilidade no aprendizado para o empreendedor. - Cases do portfolio da Astella. - As 5 verticais que a Astella investe. - Dicas de livros sobre vendas. - Dicas para empreendedores.   Para saber mais:   - Site: http://astellainvest.com - Twitter - Astella: http://twitter.com/astellainvest - Twitter: http://twitter.com/erigonatti   Dicas mencionadas:   - Startup Genome: http://startupgenome.cc - Metodologia AARRR! (Dave McClure): http://bit.ly/aarrr-500hats - Resultados Digitais: http://resultadosdigitais.com.br - Livro: Spin Selling (Neil Rackham) http://amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/0070511136 - Livro: Getting to Yes (Roger Fisher, William Ury) http://amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-Without/dp/0143118757 - Livro: Ultimate Sales Machine (Chet Holmes) http://amazon.com/Ultimate-Sales-Machine-Turbocharge-Relentless/dp/1591842158 - Livro: The Dip (Seth Godin) http://amazon.com/Dip-Little-Book-Teaches-Stick/dp/1591841666 - Videocast: Mixergy (Andrew Warner) http://mixergy.com   Acompanhe e participe nos canais do Man in the Arena:   - YouTube: http://youtube.com/maninthearenatv - Facebook fan page: http://facebook.com/maninthearenatv (cadastre-se na fan page e receba nossa newsletter)

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Laura Fitton CEO and Co-founder, OneForty Date: April 25, 2011 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes: Interview with Laura Fitton [musical introduction] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of NCWIT, the National Center for Women In Information Technology. This is the next interview in a series of interviews we've had with women who have started wonderfully successful tech companies. We're always interested to catch up with our latest entrepreneur and see what she's doing. With me is Larry Nelson, W3W3.com. What's going on at W3W3, Larry? What's the news? Larry Nelson: Well, I'm trying to learn more about Twitter. Other than that, things are going good. We've got a number of business people who tune into the various shows with NCWIT. It's not only business leaders and parents, but also many young women who listen for some great ideas. Lucy: Today we're interviewing someone who is known as the Queen of Twitter, Laura Fitton. I guess that's why you said something about Twitter, isn't it? [laughter] Well, you need to get the number right in your Twitter. Larry: I was just trying to check her out there. Lucy: We're interviewing somebody who is known as the Queen of Twitter, Laura Fitton. Laura Fitton: [laughter] I think Lady Gaga deserves the crown now. Lucy: Lady Gaga! Laura: Once upon a time. Lucy: [laughter] That would be great, maybe we should try to interview Lady Gaga. Any way, Laura is the founder of oneforty.com. Oneforty.com helps people understand Twitter and the exploding ecosystem of applications and services built on it. Oneforty.com has been called the "app store" for Twitter by TechCrunch and others. It's really a place to find awesome tools that really help you use Twitter, not just in ways for yourself but also for your business and so forth. I went and looked at some of the apps there and it just shows how much I need to catch up on the world of Twitter. [laughter] Laura: It's so true. We started out the Consumer App store and quickly learned from our users that they need us to cut through all the noise and provide them with reporting, with solutions to streamline their social business. Oneforty.com is really the place where tool providers, experts, and business leaders are sharing all their advice and lessons learned regarding social business. If your business needs to be getting into social media, this is the place to start. Lucy: Well, Laura, we're really happy you're here today. Maybe you could start off quickly telling us the latest news from oneforty.com. I think it's a place that most of us really need to know about. Laura: Sure! Thank you. In the last four months, we've done a pretty significant pivot, again user-led. We offered people a little thing we called "Toolkits," which were these humble little lists. The idea was, well you're using Twitter online but you're also using it on your phone and a few other places, using a lot of different tools. People came in and said, "Well, here's how to market a car dealership," "Here's how to market a restaurant." Or, "Here's what a realtor needs to know about social media and social business." So we responded to our users like any good startup does. In the last three weeks, we have completely relaunched the site centered around four business personas. All of the directory is still there, but we're really focusing it on connecting people with what they need to streamline and scale social. Lucy: So oneforty.com three weeks ago had a relaunch? That's pretty exciting news. Like I said, the site was just great and I really enjoyed looking at it yesterday. Laura: Thank you so much. The other thing that's new is that I was just on a webinar where I gave a sneak preview of some products that we're just launching that put everything you need for social all in one place-tools, all the workflow, all the guides on what to do next. Kind of training wheels for social engagement, making it really easy. Lucy: So Laura, it's really pretty exciting times at oneforty.com. Thanks very much for telling us all about the new site launch three weeks ago. It's really a great site and we really appreciated taking a look at it earlier this week. One of the things we like to find out from our entrepreneurs is how they first got interested in technology, as well as ask them a follow-up question to that where we ask them to look into their crystal ball regarding which technologies they think are out there that will change things even more? Laura: Awesome. Well I was a kid who was really into science, so I came to technology through science. In fact, my degree is in Environmental Science and Public Policy. I always played around with consumer web technologies, but never got involved in software development or anything like that, quite up until I did the startup. So it was a very odd choice for me, because I'd never seen software built. I knew tons of people in the interactive industry who did build software. I had lots of friends who had invested in it, had worked at startups, had run startups. But I myself had never done it. My connection to startups was that I was kind of a communications consultant. I did a lot of work on helping people to present and speak more effectively. And obviously entrepreneurs are constantly on the hot-seat having to present, so I stayed very close to the startup community but never dove into it myself. Long story short, I moved to Boston in 2006 just in time to have my second kid. They're like 14 or 15 months apart. I've no business network up here and I have to restart that communications consulting firm after nearly two years out of the market. So I get into blogging. I hear about this Twitter thing. I blog how stupid this Twitter thing is, around March 2007. And then two months later, the nickel drops and I say, wait a minute. I can surround myself with successful, interesting people and still be this home-based mom of two kids under two, and yet stay motivated and inspired throughout my workday. And that is exactly what appealed to me about Twitter when Twitter finally did appeal to me. Then I got so emphatic over how so much it was changing my life and how amazing and exciting it was for me that I just ran out there with this blog post called, "Ode to Twitter" on something like August 11, 2007. I mailed it to Guy Kawasaki, who, believe me, had never heard of me. And I just started telling everyone who would listen. To my great luck, Guy Kawasaki did listen and then turned around and trumpeted to the rest of the world. So in this very short time, I went from not even really knowing what the term "web 2.0" means in March 2007 to being profiled by the author of "Naked Conversations," one of the first major books in the space, less than a year later in April 2008. The next month, Wiley is coming to me asking me to write "Twitter for Dummies." I'm relaunching my communications consulting firm as a Twitter for business consulting firm, which was a little insane to do in September 2008. It was still really early on the concept and I'm just incredibly lucky that I staked my career on Twitter and not on one of the competitors like Pounce or Plurk, most of which have dried up or disappeared. I got very excited about a technology, because it made huge personal and professional changes in my life. It's like the classic adage to follow your passion and you can't go wrong. I was still was dragged into it kicking and screaming, though. For four months after having the idea for oneforty.com, I was trying to pawn it off on somebody else. But hey, you go build the startup and I'll advise. I'm smart enough to not do a startup. I know they're kind of hell. I'm in the middle of a divorce and have two very young kids. (They were two and three at the time.) And yet I failed at quitting it. I kept trying to quit it and I kept failing at quitting. So in March 2009 I finally started it up in earnest and it's been two years now. Lucy: You know, your comments kind of lead to our second question. Larry: Boy, I'll say, is that a fact. Here you came into this thing through science. You've been through all the different types of things, you knew you wanted to give it up. But... Lucy: And she tried to not be an entrepreneur. Larry: Yeah, exactly. Laura: I tried so hard. I'd worked for a startup in my 20s and the guy was nuts. [laughter] Laura: I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and I love entrepreneurs. You have to be fundamentally out of touch with reality on some level to be an entrepreneur, because otherwise you would know that your idea can't possibly work. You need enough detachment from that to be able to go make it work. Which is great, but boy, it puts you into some weird places, doesn't it? Larry: Boy, I'll say so. What is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Laura: I don't know, because I never thought I was an entrepreneur until this happened. [laughter] I have mad curiosity. I love to see things for myself. One of the people who has been kind enough to mentor me is Tony Hsieh, who is the CEO of Zappos. I won't be able to remember exactly what they were, but he asked me three very simple framing questions when I was kind of whimpering and whimpering and saying that I couldn't possibly be the CEO. It was, "Do you have that natural drive and curiosity?" "Do you want to see things for yourself?" And one other thing. He said, "If you have that, you're good. Everything else, you can learn." Lucy: Zappos is a great company. I just ordered my son four birthday shirts from them. Larry: Oh, all right! [laughter] Laura: That's the [inaudible 9:00] , girl. Tony is a fantastic human being, very generous with what little time he has. Lucy: It sounds like Tony definitely supported you on your way on your career path. Do you have other role models or mentors or other people who influenced you? Laura: I was carried by this net, literally my network. When I first did my angel pitch, there were a few people I knew in the investment community who charitably dialed in to hear it and asked me leading questions to help me understand what I was missing. One of them was Christine Herron, who at the time was with First Round Capital and now is with Intel Capital. She literally had to ask me in my first angel pitch, "Laura, where's the pricing coming from?" And I didn't even know what the word "pricing" meant at that point. [laughter] I was that naive. I tried to answer it. Later another person-again, these were friends because of social networking-Dave McClure was kind enough to take the time to listen to the recording. He asked, "Do you know what Christine was trying to tell you, Laura?" I said candidly, "No." And he explained it to me. So I was carried by this huge network of cheerleaders and supporters and mentors. One of the weird, kind of, "rags-to-riches, Cinderella" aspects of all of this is, I was so completely unknown, and then a year later I was in a book by Seth Godin and I was being mentored by Seth and by Guy Kawasaki and by people whose blogs I'd been reading for a long time and looking up to. And it actually took awhile to come to terms with accepting that. Like I felt guilty. I felt like, why am I getting all this time from all these busy people, there's nothing that special about me, I'm just sort of whatever. And then the way I came to peace with how incredibly generous the world was being with all of this was just like, OK, maybe they see a chance to get something done in the world by helping me get it done. So my responsibility to pay back the debt of all this mentorship is not only to do mentoring when I finally have bandwidth to do it, but to follow through and to make sure I realize the riches I've been given and try to create something with it. So that's been incredibly powerful to keep me going. Lucy: Well, and you know this interview is part of a give back. We have had a lot of people listen to these interviews, we have a social networking campaign with Twitter right now, on this interview series, so we really thank you for being with us and giving some of that advice back. Laura: Thanks. Larry: Well you know with all of the neat things you've done, Laura, what is the toughest thing that you've ever had to do in your career? Laura: That is such a great question. I was going to say that, the days after you run into a wall, because make no illusion, you run into a wall time, time and time again when the start-up [inaudible 11:46] , you fail all the time. Investors flake, co-founders drop out, people you hired don't work out, whatever. It's constantly running into a wall. And the next moment where you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, is really painful, it's hard. And just staying calm and.. and one lesson I've learned? Being radically nice to everybody, even if they kind of screwed you over. Because it preserves the relationship and you never know where that relationship leads in the future. That said, I'm very lucky, in that the energy just kept surging back to get through those times. I can't even take ownership of that, it was like being a lightning rod. I would give up, I would go to sleep like, "OK it didn't work, tomorrow I'll figure out something else," and I'd wake up still hell-bent on making it happen. So I was lucky. Lucy: Wow, it's great advice to be radically nice to people, even if you think they screwed you over. [laughs] I mean, it's powerful advice and I think it's advice that you might give to any young person who was thinking about being an entrepreneur. Do you have any other advice that you might tell a young person if they were on this call right now or listening to this interview? Laura: I think it's really important to not discount the most trite, childhood, what-your-mother-tells-you of all, is really be yourself. People told me that. I really struggled growing up, I was not socially well adapted, I was very emotional and kind of out of touch with my colleagues, like had a hard time in elementary school. And everyone was like, "oh just be yourself!" and I'm like "yeah, right." You know, "everybody hates me, I can't be myself." But it is so true that the more I was able to connect with "OK, that is what makes me tick, I'm just going to go with it." I mean, I never set out to think, "I'm going to rave about Twitter for a year and a half and someday it's going to be my job to do that." I just couldn't contain my excitement. So things worked out really well for me. I was very lucky. Larry: You know, with all the things that you've been through, in your childhood, preschool and everything else, what are the personal characteristics that really give you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Laura: Definitely resilience. Some of the greatest gifts that I've been given in life were times that frankly sucked. I won't trot them all out, but... a couple tough things here and there. A couple really scary things that ended really well, like a premature baby and a very minor stroke, and things like that. But those are huge gifts and I don't think people see them in the moment when they're first happening. Again, I want to fall back to the trite, "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger," but there is huge, huge, huge silver lining in every negative thing that happens to you. Even if it's just making up a story in your head like "hey, that felt really terrible but I actually just dodged a bullet, because it could have been this," and I look back at the tough times and I am so grateful for every single one of them. I'm sad for the places where something terrible happened and it made other people sad, but I'm so grateful for how much strength they gave me and how much ability to bounce back and how much calm they gave me. I would not give up a single one of them. Lucy: That's just wonderful advice. That's so true of life in general, right? Being able to learn from tough times. Laura: Yeah. Lucy: And really integrate that into how you're looking at situations. Laura: I really do just straight-up cherish some of them. Lucy: Yeah, I think personally I had some in my corporate career that ultimately led to me coming here and doing what we're doing now with MC Wit, and it's just kind of interesting when you look back and thing "gosh, if that hadn't happened I wouldn't be here." Larry: Yep. You bet. Laura: Right! Lucy: It's totally the case. Laura: You know one of the more bizarre things I did was when I was about 26 or 27 I kind of more or less adopted one of my nieces. Who was, you know, "go and live with your aunt for the fun of it," right? So she had a couple things. And my mom was so, like, almost mad at me. She thought I was crazy to do it. But it was huge, I got so much more out of that experience than I put into it. A lot of growing up, a lot of taking responsibility, a lot of learning about how radically permanent love for a child is, because she really was functionally my daughter for three years, when she was 15, 16 and 17. And I remember thinking, "oh how hard can it be?" And wow, it was really hard. You know, being a teenager is tough, and being a teenager who's had a crappy run-in up to there was tough, too. But it took me out of my shell, it made me connect to people in new ways, my career catapulted because I had to get my act together. And I just love her so much, it was just incredible, it taught me a lot. Lucy: Well and that kind of gets to our next question we were talking some about, sometimes people say "oh, you should have balance between your work and your personal life," and how do you bring balance. We've talked to people about it really being an integration, and we're just curious to get your point of view on this issue of work- life balance and how you achieve it? Laura: It's tough and I don't think I'm super good at it. Yeah, not enough. I try to be really present with my kids when I'm not working. I would really love to bike commute more often, because it's about a nine mile, very flat, ride, very easy, takes the same amount of time the train does but forces me to exercise. And I think that's really important in managing the stress. Again, in a twisted way, I'm lucky that I'm divorced, because my ex is a fantastic dad, and he and his fiance are a great family for my girls in the 50 percent of the time I don't have them. I use that 50 percent of the time I don't have them to do all the extremes like, stay up late and work, or travel, or the different things you have to do to do a start-up. And I think that it would be tough if it was an intact marriage, and I didn't have that really clear-cut line of "OK, you are not a mommy right now." Yeah, of course I call them and stuff like that. But I'm not functionally needing to be there for them. And being more present when I am there with them. Larry: My goodness, I must say that you have really done a great deal, you've achieved a lot. What's next for you? What's on the horizon? Larry: You know, I don't think you ever feel like you've achieved a lot. I always feel just like, "oh crap, what's next? Oh my god, we've got to surmount this, we've got to surmount that." It's not like our company's profitable. It's not like we have a billion users. And I think if you asked everybody along wherever they are in the entrepreneurial process, they'd probably talk a lot more about what's yet to come than about what they feel they've achieved. So there's a ton of professional development I want to do, a lot of skills I want to improve upon and learn. I have this little fantasy about joining a team in the future where I'm a relatively junior part and I can really stretch and grow and learn from others who are just the best at what they do. I still don't have very much management experience, I never had an employee before oneforty.com, and so that means it's been really tough for me and for my employees to learn how to manage on the fly, learn all about software on the fly, learn all about business on the fly. And I just feel like I have so much more growing to do. Lucy: Well we have no doubt that oneforty.com is headed towards great success. Laura: Thank you very much. Lucy: We really do thank you and wish you the best of luck. So I want to remind listeners that they can find us at w3w3.com and also mcwit.org and to tell their friends this is a great interview, and to go visit oneforty.com and learn more about how to use Twitter. I know Larry's going there! Larry: I'm going to oneforty.com . Lucy: I saw him underline "Twitter for Dummies." [laughter] Laura: It's tough, right, I can't really give out my book as a gift because it's a bit insulting, isn't it? Thank you so much for the opportunity, such a salute out to, it shouldn't matter, but to the women in technology who are my heroes. Because it is inspiring to see, you know, Padmasree Warrior as the CEO of Cisco, Kara Swisher just tearing it up in tech journalism, Katarina [inaudible 19:01] , one of the first social media founders of a company. Rash [inaudible 19:12] is running slideshare.net, Marissa Meyer who's done phenomenal things at Google. It shouldn't matter whether, you know, I'm inspired by lots of men, too, but it really does mean a lot and I'm just so grateful for all of them and their work. Lucy: Well thank you, and I know people are really going to enjoy this interview. Larry: Yeah, thank you. Laura: Thank you. Lucy: All right, bye Laura. Laura: Take care, bye bye. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Laura FittonInterview Summary: Once upon a time known as "Queen" of Twitter, Twitter's own mom-at-home to tech CEO Cinderella Story is CEO/Founder of www.oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies. You can read her story in the Boston Globe, on Xconomy.com or watch her Mixergy interview. Release Date: April 25, 2011Interview Subject: Laura FrittonInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 20:12

Episode 10 Download the show We ventured to SXSW where the whole TWIT crew was hosted very hospitably by the beautiful Texas co-working space. We also got the have the unique experience of seeing each other in person while we […]

Join us for a discussion with the Dave McClure and Chris Heuer as we talk about Monday's Social Graph Unconference. The main driver for the unconference is the belief that the social graph should be a community asset, utilizing the data from all social networking sites. Let's talk about it.

Join us for a discussion with the Dave McClure and Chris Heuer as we talk about Monday's Social Graph Unconference. The main driver for the unconference is the belief that the social graph should be a community asset, utilizing the data from all social networking sites. Let's talk about it.