Should we even be encouraging founders outside of the Bay Area and NYC from taking on large amounts of VC funding?
I'm hesitant to push middle America founders in this direction... their ecosystems don't have the infrastructure to truly support the companies. Taking on too much VC money is dangerous for them!
firms are evolving, though, with changing demographics and locations--as they should. many firms settling in new startuplands are from those places, trying to help those communities and local industries. their models are changing too, dif fund sizes, financial models. taking on too much VC is dangerous for ANY founder! i've checked out the holloway guide and it seems to be really careful about protecting founders.
Danielle explains this clearly in the article. Mattermark "couldn’t raise a traditional Series A on acceptable terms."
"I quickly discovered expectations for a B2B Series A were $1.5M in annual revenue run rate — we were growing fast, but still only 1/3 of the way there at the time."
They don't have enough revenue so they went for another seed round instead. It's not questionable; it's logical and helped her to keep the company moving forward.
At Quirky, we believe that the best ideas in the world aren't actually in the world -- they're locked in people's heads. We exist to solve that problem.
We are looking for senior developers in many departments. We have three main applications:
- Quirky.com Rails / Backbone application
- Quirky iOS and Android apps
- Wink - Our app-enabled product line launching this fall
A successor to Apple's current desktop display is more likely at least 7 months out. Look at the historical data: ignoring the outlier, Apple releases a new screen every 25 months - we're 18 months in. The last update was timed so because Apple switched from Mini DisplayPort to Thunderbolt.
As for Apple releasing a TV screen, I don't see it happening for at least a couple of years, if ever. There are too many things that need to be in place for Apple to be able to really change how people watch TV. For it to really shake things up, we need fast broadband everywhere, more (live) content in iTunes, a better input method (hand gestures? voice? touch?) to control the screen, and a more reliable wireless technology than (the current) WiFi.
Not to mention the state of the art hasn't moved very much - that 27" IPS LCD panel is still the very same that's being used by Dell, HP, et al.
There's been a lot of development on both smaller and larger screen sizes, but the 27" form factor seems to be at a relative standstill.
I don't expect to see an update unless there is a major change to either the panel tech or the interface tech. I really do hope that Apple reopens the >= 30-inch space though.
My pet theory[1] is that they'll jump to 4k/QFHD (3840x(2160,2400)) by using the same panels for a desktop Retina Display and as a stand-alone Apple TV. I think this would "shake things up" without having to sell in iPhone/iPad volumes.
A desktop Retina Display would be a great pairing with a Mac Pro replacement, which one might expect when Intel's Haswell starts shipping, which happens to be around 106 days from now. And they could retain the existing Thunderbolt Display as a lower-end model. (It also helps that Apple's current models all support outputting that resolution.)
A 4k Apple TV would allow them to differentiate from most of the TV market and soak up a fat margin in an area where only one of their major competitors (Samsung) as any position. And it wouldn't cannibalize the $99 Apple TV box in the process. There's still the chicken-and-egg problem of getting 4k content, but Apple, with iTunes and as a pipeline for Netflix, et al., seems to have a good position to get it.
[1] As a person so hip he doesn't own a TV or a Mac, yet finds the speculation irresistible.
I came by this information second-hand so I can't verify it, but I have been told that there aren't enough PCIe lanes going to each Thunderbolt port to drive a 4K panel at 60Hz. Which makes me as a rMBP owner super, super sad if it's true.
The 2011 MBP could drive two 2560x1600 displays (chained) through a single port, which requires about the same bandwidth as a single 3840x2160. So I don't think that would be an issue, though obviously the GPU is still a limitation.
I appear to be hellbanned from posting links, but I gather this from page 8 of AnandTech's review of the Thunderbolt display and the Wikipedia article for DisplayPort.
Shortly after that, Best Buy discounted them a bit ($50), suggesting to me they wanted to empty the shelves for new models (as they surely aren't automatic sales like iPads).
However, at this point I'm not convinced it'll be too soon, as whatever momentum the "signs" pointed to seems to have worn off.
I just want the current Thunderbolt display with the current iMac's screen, which has less glare. I'm hoping that they're only waiting on that until supplies aren't constrained by iMac production.
1. Four of my friends have subscriptions, the only items we have all received were a pair of dark jeans.
2. The fit has been excellent for me. I am a slim build between small and medium so I get shirts in both sizes. They know their brands and how they run.
3. They have a settings page with on/off switches that let you opt in or out of all clothing items. You can even send the stylists pictures of clothing you already have and ask them to find something that matches.
1. We keep track of friends via the personalized invite codes to prevent just that. Even if you don't use those codes, every item is picked for your body shape, skin tone etc. so odds of that happening are low.
2. Already answered :)
3. You can also set preferences in your dashboard to NEVER receive categories (eg you can turn "jeans" off).
I am really excited to see what companies like Boundless (http://boundless.com) do to disrupt the college textbook market.
Boundless is taking OER resources and syncing it up to the chapters in existing textbooks, so a student can enter the textbook for the course and get a customized online replacement.
As a college kid who refuses to pay for textbooks: Thanks!
When you go to the site it already knows what school you go to (or at least it did for me). There's more then one school in my town, so I don't know if they just do geo-location and go with the larger school, or if they have some other source (I don't see how or what though). On one hand very cool, on the other a little worrying.
I like the idea of using stars to indicate favorite tracks. iTunes has a 5 star rating system that I use to keep my music organized and I wish Rdio had the same.
It's all about optimizing recommendations.
If you just have a star or not starred. There's a chance the service will recommend a song you will likely hate (now you could be clever here and factor in skips).
So now we have Hate, Love, Unrated. This works except for your OCD users will want to rate everything. And the more ratings you have, the better your recommendations will be.
I only use one, three, and five stars, and it determines the "mood" of the song. One star songs are slow and chill, Three star songs are upbeat, and five star songs you'll want to rock out to.
We totally would, but a class-action isn't possible under US law. The Supreme Court ruled for AT&T in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion:
"Under the Federal Arbitration Act, California must enforce arbitration agreements even if the agreement requires that consumer complaints be arbitrated individually (instead of on a class-action basis)." - http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/att-mobility-v-co...
Actually, class action lawsuits can be more easily dealt with, since the lawyers on both side negotiate the terms of the settlement.
A litany of small claims court settlements would put more money in the hands of plaintiffs, not lawyers, and would be available in the news cycle for much longer than a class action lawsuit/settlement.
'One random guy wins $850 in small claims court from AT&T' - you think that is newsworthy? I disagree. We wouldn't have been hearing about this had AT&T not tried to shut him up.
> We wouldn't have been hearing about this had AT&T not tried to shut him up.
We did year about it on the day the guy won his case. Yes, they are making more news out of a story they could have easily squashed, but it wasn't an unknown event that the guy won the initial case.
Right, but 10 different people winning $850 in small claims court from AT&T would be newsworthy. It might convince more people to follow in their footsteps.
The recent Honda hybrid battery debacle, and the woman who decided to opt out of the class action, chose small claims instead and kept more small claims winnings than she would have received from the class action, shows that small claims can be the more effective route. Notwithstanding appeals.
Class-action lawsuit so the lawyers can get all the money? Also, class-action lawsuits are far more of a collective pain in the ass than just going to small claims by yourself.
A huge judgement against a company makes big news and makes a loud statement that the company did something bad. That is how you get them to change. Not by winning $850.
However perhaps if publikdemand is successful in driving media exposure though means such as this, it could have the same impact (or greater?).
Chipping away at them silently in small claims court isn't going to change their practices though.
If every potential class member shows up to small claims court instead of joining the class, it'll cause much more headache for T and send a much larger message. By bringing a class action, you let them hire lawyers and keep their entire defense in a single place and the plaintiffs get a pittance while the lawyers on both sides win the lottery.
"If every potential class member shows up to small claims court"
They wont though. Nowhere near every potential member.
That is why class actions for small amounts exist. Most people either wont know they can sue, wont know how to sue or wont bother to sue. I applaud this gentleman for his efforts but he is the very small minority with the free time, know-how and balls to pull this off.
Hi Jim - thanks for the comment. What's proven is that hormones affect behavior (to a certain degree). It remains to be seen if there's such a direct link that you can write content around it to describe each day. But we're certainly doing our best! ;)
This looks great. The "recap" email after SXSW with videos, photos, etc from the sessions sounds interesting...how often does Lanyrd send these types of emails?
These will be the first we've sent! We've been planning a single follow-up email a week or so after any event you attend highlighting coverage for a while now, so we're using SXSW as an excuse to build the feature.
Sounds great. A key section to this email could be showcasing the sessions I actually attend (which is often quite different than what I RSVP for!). Will there be any check-inesque functionality for sessions?
I'm hesitant to push middle America founders in this direction... their ecosystems don't have the infrastructure to truly support the companies. Taking on too much VC money is dangerous for them!