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Author: Bonnie

The Lessons Tech Can Learn from the 2016 Elections

The Lessons Tech Can Learn from the 2016 Elections

The Presidential election is over. The electorate has spoken, and we do know that there is great discord in the tech sector that a particular candidate failed to win, and considering the shockwaves that went through that sector, in particular, we’ll take it as a sign that there is indeed a tech bubble. Has tech totally lost touch?

We thought it would be interesting to view the election as a lesson in brand-building and how to not simply launch a company, but some pointers on how to take it to the finished line.

Customers vs Investors. One of the investors who spoke at a recent SOS Breakfasts mentioned a company in which she had invested. The company had a growing sales pipeline – until the founder started focusing on raising the next round of funding. Fund raising is a full time job, as we know, and when you have a skeleton staff, hard to keep all of the balls in the air. Nor do paying customers understand it when they’ve purchased a product and have to wait for it, as the CEO is busy raising funding. The company was falling off the cliff, and the investor suggested that the founder focus on sales and put the fundraising on hold. Result: the sales pipeline grew to the point where the company no longer needed to raise funding. One candidate focused on wealthy donors, qua investor; the other crisscrossed the country relentlessly, reaching out to the electorate, qua customers. At some point, you have to stop fundraising and focus on business. Read More...

And the Number 1 Deal-Killer Question in Tech Is…

And the Number 1 Deal-Killer Question in Tech Is…

Full disclosure: the subject of today’s newsletter comes at the request of a number of investors, advisors and startup consultants whom we know.

We all know the old tech adage: if you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money. Some entrepreneurs genuinely do want advice, especially from a consultant, advisor or investor, which is when they reach out and ask that question that is the #1 deal killer for d) all of the aforementioned:

“Do you mind if I pick your brain?” Read More...

How to Get Luckey in Silicon Valley

How to Get Luckey in Silicon Valley

That’s not a typo. We’re referring to Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey and bear with us…

Silicon Valley is often referred to as a monoculture, and it’s something of a misnomer, as lately especially, it’s gone well beyond that. True, it’s basically a one-industry town, but in order to work in that industry, you also need to be of a certain mindset – and political bent. Of course, all are entitled to their opinions, and all well and good, even in Silicon Valley – as long as you move along lockstep with the accepted opinions.

Republican and staunch supporter of a certain candidate for President Peter Thiel comes to mind who, as a gay man, an immigrant and an extremely successful serial entrepreneur and investor, was practically a poster child for success/diversity/acceptance in Silicon Valley – until he expressed his political views and turned out to be – gasp – supporting a supposed homophobic xenophobe for President, who invited him to speak at the party’s convention – and Thiel accepted! Oh, wait, isn’t Thiel both homosexual and foreign-born? Never mind. Not all things have to track. Let’s stay on point here. Read More...

The Internet of Things and the Great Disconnect

The Internet of Things and the Great Disconnect

It’s been over a year since we sounded the alarm on the lack of security on the Internet of Things, and in fact, we first mentioned it when it was back in its extremely nascent stage. While it is arguably still early days, we now have connected toasters, home alarm systems, refrigerators – and heaven forfend we should be out grocery shopping and can’t ping our refrigerator to tell us which staples we need to replenish.

We have a digital native friend who is always trying to get us to download some app or other, every time we see him. We rarely comply – primarily because it seems to be the latest iteration of something we already use, and the differentiators are not great enough to convince us that the app/company are necessarily going to be around in the next few months. He’s a young entrepreneur, who is also big on having connected devices all over the home, to make his life as easy and as remotely controllable as possible.

And therein lies the rub. Read More...

Yahoo, Twitter and Inside Baseball

Yahoo, Twitter and Inside Baseball

We came across this piece that we just had to share: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary Welcome to Silicon Valley. We’re smart enough to solve real problems, but we don’t. Again, it reminded us of Startup L. Jackson’s reference to Silicon Valley as assisted living for the young, and truth be told, we now have pause to consider if those visionaries are true visionaries, considering that a number of the so-called visionaries have been having quite a few problems lately. For example, no one seems to want to buy Twitter, despite the fact that visionary CEO Jack Dorsey is back at the helm.

To wit,  “It’s been a banner year for corporate scandals in Silicon Valley and beyond,” writes General Catalyst Managing Director Phil Libin, (Rate company scandals with this handy five-point system.) “but until today there hasn’t been a crisp way to categorize them. Are all scandals the same? Hardly! When you’re experiencing these problems from inside a company, everything feels like the end of the world. Sometimes it’s not. For your convenience, and to put things in perspective, I hereby present my five-point scale for company scandals.” Of course, Theranos and Zenefits come to mind, and let’s not forget Yahoo! and Marissa Mayer’s failure to tell users – for two years – that their information had been compromised. Half a billion of them, to be a bit more exact, but when there’s money on the table, ah, details. Or maybe not, considering the fact that Verizon walked – so far – on the acquisition.

What should Twitter do to survive and thrive? For one, visionary Dorsey might want to try showing some vision. Twitter, you’re a publishing platform. So, why aren’t you a publisher? You might also want to consider rethinking the censorship of writers and articles that aren’t lockstep with the Silicon Valley talking points, or you will lose part of your audience, which is already happening (How a GIF of Aly Raisman’s Floor Routine Got Me Permanently Banned From Twitter Update: After this story picked up enough steam, my permanent Twitter suspension was coincidentally lifted. Funny how that works) “It’s disappointing that Twitter will throw users under the bus to do it by permanently banning the very users that built Twitter into the vibrant community it is today,” writes Jim Weber. “It’s even more frustrating that I didn’t have a single human interaction but was delivered form letters determining my fate — likely sent from somewhere halfway around the world… Not only do I not plan to start a new Twitter account, I’m hesitant to post anything to social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat with the knowledge that they can and will permanently shut down your account with the snap of their fingers. As idealistic as social media platforms make themselves sound, at the end of the day, they’re just like every other business: They only thing they have to answer to is money.” Read More...

Just When You Thought It Was Game Over, Oh, Snap!

Just When You Thought It Was Game Over, Oh, Snap!

It wasn’t all that long ago that so-called ephemeral messaging app Snap (nee SnapChat and SnapChat is less private than you think, as we know) hit the zeitgeist, and quickly seized a sizeable share of one-time Facebook users – especially the younger ones. Now, as Business Insider notes, Snap is working on an IPO for March that would value the company at $25 billion, and “…as part of Snap’s evolution, it’s become an increasing threat to Facebook and Instagram in terms of both attracting younger users and chasing ad dollars. A Nielsen study from September 2015 showed that the company was reaching 41% of all 18- to 34-year-olds.

“That number is likely higher now. A recent eMarketer study said that Snapchat will have reached 58.6 million people in the US, or 31.6% of social media users, by the end of 2016.”

And to think that founder Evan Speigel was considered non compos mentis for having turned down a $3B offer from Facebook just a few short years ago, although as we ourselves reported back in 2013, “right or wrong, Snapchat skated to where the puck is going.” Read More...

Trust, Transparency and Totalitarianism

Trust, Transparency and Totalitarianism

Don’t look at us: Mark Zuckerberg started it.

Last week, The Guardian published a piece entitled Facebook and Google: most powerful and secretive empires we’ve ever known, and, considering the power and reach of the platforms, they’re not merely tech companies: more accurately, they are perhaps two of the most powerful nation-states in the world at the moment and given how ubiquitous they are in our lives, they arguably wield more power/have a larger reach than any corporation or government that the world has seen, to date. As Ellen P. Goodman and Julia Powles state in the piece, “We call them platforms, networks or gatekeepers. But these labels hardly fit. The appropriate metaphor eludes us; even if we describe them as vast empires, they are unlike any we’ve ever known. Far from being discrete points of departure, merely supporting the action or minding the gates, they have become something much more significant. They have become the medium through which we experience and understand the world.

“As their users, we are like the blinkered young fish in the parable memorably retold by David Foster Wallace. When asked, “How’s the water?” we swipe blank: “What the hell is water?” Read More...

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

While we do realize that many tech companies have young founders whose youthful missteps can sometimes be forgiven, yea, even in business, neither companies nor founders stay young forever, and we were just wondering what the benchmark is for when certain tech companies will grow up and take responsibility.

It recently came to light that Yahoo! was compromised back in 2014, but waited two years to confirm a data breach “affecting 500 million user accounts, which would make the breach the largest in history.” In fact, according to Recode (who broke the story), If you’ve ever created a Yahoo account, take these steps immediately to protect your data – it’s not just your Yahoo account that’s vulnerable. Lest we forget, we sometimes share sensitive information in email, and two years, Gracie? We realize that Yahoo mail is free, but does that mean that the company doesn’t have some sort of responsibility to inform its users when there’s a major data breach? Don’t ask. Or in this case, given that it took two years for the story to come out, more like don’t tell.

Zuck up of the week: Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg admitted last week that for the last two year, Facebook has been systematically overestimating the time its users spent watching videos on the site by ignoring views that lasted less than three seconds – a ‘miscalculation,’ according to Facebook’s David Fischer, that amounted to an overestimation of some 60 to 80 percent. The company’s spin is priceless and definitely worth a read. Read More...

Grey Is the New Black

Grey Is the New Black

Not in a good way.

Bloomberg News recently published a piece reminding us that It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley. Reminding, as this is not exactly breaking news, and nothing has changed since it first surfaced in the days of Web 1.0, and even then, it was getting old fast.

The tech sector is one of the biggest proponents of not discriminating on the basis of  sexual preference and welcoming immigrants of all stripes – all well and good, but if you happen to be African American, female or over 40, it’s quite another story and truth be told, ageism is the most socially acceptable form of discrimination. “…When it comes to race and gender bias, the people running Silicon Valley at least pay lip service to wanting to do better — but with age discrimination they don’t even bother to lie, noted Dan Lyons. “People born after 1980 do not possess some special gene that the rest of us lack. But Silicon Valley venture capitalists and founders somehow seem to believe this is the case. I suspect the truth is that tech startups prefer young workers because they will work longer hours and can be paid less.” Read More...

The Technology Sniff Test

The Technology Sniff Test

As we were riding the Citibike down 9th Avenue early one morning, the exhaust fumes from the buses heading into the Lincoln Tunnel conjured up memories of London and the early morning smell of the traffic exhaust there. Funny how certain smells can almost fool the senses and transport one to a different time and place. It also got us to thinking about New York and San Francisco/Silicon Valley, which will never cultivate certain big city smells of either New York or London.

Technology recently saw two multi-billion dollar exits: Dollar Shave Club and Jet.com – both of which were acquired by large corporations – Unilever and WalMart, respectively. This does give one pause to consider the types of businesses that gestate best in Silicon Valley – the Ubers and Airbnbs and yes, even Theranos’s of the world: companies that do tend to run into regulatory issues and even tax issues, given the European Commission’s recent ruling against Apple, and Amazon and Google are also in their sights; companies with a certain amount of hubris, if not a shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude. These are companies that aim high and go big, although in the case of Theranos, well, it doesn’t always work out as planned, and the company crashed hard.

The Grand Central Tech piece that we cited last week notes that “The gulf between the corporate world and the startup world is shrinking from both sides… Much was made of a “funding slow down in 2016”, but from our view, more than any slow down, the rules changed. For startups, successfully raising a Series A now increasingly requires not just growth statistics (i.e. users), but revenue growth and the existence of large, scaled customers.” Which, in case no one ever mentioned it, is the basic foundation for building a business. Read More...