Thursdays at Abnormal Returns are all about startup and venture capital links. You can check out last week’s links including a look at the danger of reading ‘struggle porn.’
Quote of the Day
"It is easy and natural to critique an investment on the headline number. But the headline number is only half the story. You really need to see how it pans out to know if it was an overpay."
(Fred Wilson)
Pivots
- The many downsides of a hard pivot for both founder and investors. (avc.com)
- Why a hard pivot is not always the right way to go. (hunterwalk.com)
- One founder's decision to give back the bulk of investor capital instead of pivoting. (medium.com)
Ideas
- The 'Uber for tailgates' is off to a good start. (finance.yahoo.com)
- How focus led Farmgirl Flowers to early success. (cnn.com)
Growth
- How to shift from early adopters to mass adoption. (seths.blog)
- How to build a growth team - lessons from Uber and Hubspot. (andrewchen.co)
VC
- Alex Ohanian on why former founders make for good venture capitalists. (fastcompany.com)
- General Catalyst is exploring a credit fund for startups. (recode.net)
- How Softbank structured its most recent investment in WeWork. (ftalphaville.ft.com)
Startups
- Benedict Evans, "Tech is building different kinds of businesses, and so will take different shares of that opportunity, but more importantly change what those industries look like." (ben-evans.com)
- How the period from Seed to Series A is like "startup puberty." (venturebeat.com)
- Will this down market clear out all the bad actors and ideas in the blockchain space? (startupmanagement.org)
- Why is Israel such a hotbed for computer vision startups? (ft.com)
- An interesting presentation from Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital. (youtube.com)
