News & Analysis
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The “Series A Crunch” survivor’s guide
Got a ton of feedback on my email from Christmas Day titled “There is no Series A crunch.” But if headlines, and people’s attention spans for them, allowed for completer arguments, the headline could have been expanded to: “There is no Series A crunch for startups with these characteristics. Besides, headlines are best when they seduce you with only partial... -
FireEye takes the next step in IPO prep, files confidential registration statement
For months now, we’ve been hearing public statements from cyber security company FireEye that it plans to IPO in 2013. It seems the company has finally taken the next step. PandoDaily has learned from a source with direct knowledge of the situation that FireEye has filed its registration statement with the SEC, the first step towards making an IPO... -
Yes, it does matter that Samsung announced an Evernote-equipped refrigerator
Gadget reporters are a fickle bunch. The same people who get excited about the Internet of Things and the blurring distinction between the online and offline worlds had a field day with Samsung’s new, Evernote-equipped refrigerator, even going as far as calling it the worst thing ever. That’s something we’re going to have to get over if the... -
ResearchGate wants academics to be successful by admitting when they’ve failed
If you’re doing everything right, your LinkedIn profile is pristine. At least that’s the conventional thinking: Respectable photo with 1,000-watt smile, complete timeline of employment history, detailed yet succinct descriptions of duties. It’s the perfect, mistake-free, ever-so-employable version of you. A ResearchGate profile in part now has the opposite goal. It wants members to show how unsuccessful they’ve been in... -
Good news for publishers: tablets are going gangbusters
Software might be eating the world, but increasingly it’s going to be doing its munching from a shiny plate. Reverse eating! Global sales for tablets are going crazy, way ahead of expectations, potentially spelling an end to netbooks. That’s probably good news for content creators and publishers, because it opens up a strong opportunity to explore new business models. Tablets have…
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Portlanders love vodka, Detroiters volunteer and New Yorkers play board games: What HowAboutWe’s 1M dates say about the way we go out
HowAboutWe knows dates. Two years into its existence, the online dating site is responsible for facilitating a million of them (1.4 million technically, at latest count). Today HowAboutWe released a pile of dating data in the form of an infographic (below), revealing that New Yorkers and Austinites prefer board games, Detrioters love to volunteer, St. Louis is a hot... -
Game discovery platform Chartboost is on fire, scores Sequoia in $19 million Series B
There are two principal challenges facing mobile game developers today. The first is app discovery. Amid an increasing sea of choices, it’s never been more difficult to gain user mind share and crucial mobile device home screen real estate. Secondly, once a developer has acquired its users, it still has to figure out how to monetize them. Given the trend... -
FCC chairman touts Silicon Valley entrepreneurs’ new Internet of Things Consortium
A group of start-ups, which are making internet-connected devices, are taking the anti-Apple approach to developing products– one in which they develop products that are open and connect to each other. They don’t want to be like Apple’s set-top box, AppleTV, where no one can write any apps or services to connect to it.
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Cleantech investments fall 33%, continuing to disappoint as “the next computer”
Last week, I was interviewed on Las Vegas NPR about Tony Hsieh’s chances of building “the next Silicon Valley” in Vegas. While encouraged about a lot of what’s going on in Downtown Vegas, I flatly said the only way that was happening is if Hsieh could use his $50 million to build a time machine and go back to the... -
GoalHawk helps people achieve — its young founder included
We’re about a week into the new year, and you may have already failed on your resolution to lose weight or quit smoking. Last week, I wrote about another website that hat solicited New Year’s resolutions from entrepreneurs. That idea was novel, but the biggest problem was that there was no real accountability to hold people to their goals. GoalHawk hopes to... -
How Google Author Rank could change content marketing… and journalism
Here’s a little piece of SEO nerdery that affects us all: Google is using Google+ to influence search results in a big way, and brands and media organizations alike have yet to wake up to the reality of it. Search Plus Your World — the function that prioritizes content from your Google+ connections — got started a year ago,... -
Odds defying hardware startup Mobiplex goes back to the well, comes up with another $1.3M
Not too long ago, it was unheard of for an unproven team to raise private capital for a hardware startup. But a combination of factors, including the success of Kickstarter combined with an overall Apple-led renewal in appreciation for industrial design, have made it a far less radical concept today. Nonetheless, when I first covered the product launch of sports... -
How to tell the difference between a social media maven, a ninja, and a guru
Social media can be a beautiful thing. It can bring people together in times of crisis. It can be a self-regulating “truth machine” during breaking news events, and as a delivery system for wit and humor, it’s without rival in the modern era. But for every @acarvin and @robdelaney who prove the value of... -
How did a mega bank nail a mobile app better than most tech companies?
All day long, we write about startups who are frequently struggling to find some way to make an existing solution on the market much better. As a result, I see a lot of companies that focus on tweaks and incremental changes on existing products. And then, when I return to my regular life as a consumer, I find myself bitching... -
If top startups are “Thunder Lizards,” top VCs are radioactive cockroaches
More money going to fewer people. That’s generally going to be the theme, when it comes to all things fundraising in the startup world in 2013. Last year, I compared the Series A crunch to a game of musical chairs where thousands of companies are vying for a few hundred seats. The numbers may be less extreme when it... -
We don’t have a trailer or an elaborate set, but Nathaniel Mott is headed to CES
You may have heard, what with the dozens of announcements and predictions, that CES is this week. Vegas is now host to a lot of companies, a lot of consumer goods, and a lot of tech reporters who may or may not be feeling the same way a bunch of frat guys feel when they visit the Strip. I am...