Asides

Equity Funding – Additive, not Dilutive

Matt Robinson GoCardless - Raising Money Additive Not Dilutive
Matt Robinson, from GoCardless, at Google Campus’ fund raising #campusedu event

What?

Dilutive = money out (previous stakeholders cashing out)
Additive = money in (to company’s coffers)

Continue reading Equity Funding – Additive, not Dilutive

Risk – Statistics, norms & decision fatigue

They wouldn’t think of preventing many statistically riskier parenting decisions so long as those decisions jive comfortably with social norms.

Source: Working Mom Arrested for Letting Her 9-Year-Old Play Alone at Park – The Atlantic

This problem is everywhere – social behaviour decisions, government policy implementations, day-to-day corporate decision-making. The reason, hinted at in the quote above, is two-fold:

  1. Strength of ingrained social norms
  2. Mental effort required to understand statistical risk of decisions

Other potential reasons, I guess, are:

  1. Decision fatigue, or coping mechanisms for it – people avoid making decisions requiring involved thinking if they can get away without them , and
  2. Conflict avoidance – going with less controversial, more socially accepted option, even if it may be the worse/wrong choice.

What can (should) be done to overcome these hurdles? (Other than defining regulation more rigidly to take decisions out of hands of people, and/or ‘educating’ people)

My 2011 startups-to-watch list

stripe-logo-black trello-logo-blue

Came across my list of startups-to-watch from late 20111, while doing some spring cleaning yesterday. It was interesting to go back and see how the companies had fared over the 2-3 years since.

The Risers:

The Survivors:

The Pivotor:

The Acquired:

The Departed:

The list mostly conforms to my 3 key areas of interest in startups in 2011:

  1. TV interfaces (Plex, Snapp.tv, Corvair)
  2. Finance – Payment – Money Transfer (Stripe, Dwolla)
  3. ‘Easier’ Business Card solutions (CardFlick)

1st & 3rd were, and to an extent still are, areas that I looked at starting up  something of my own if no good solutions emerged. While my itch on bringing business cards to the digital century has been slightly sated by CamCard, the TV itch continues unabated…

If you made similar lists, do share who was on it, and how they did. Might just make an interesting comparison.

And if you too have an itch to work on solving the TV interface problem, get in touch!

Continue reading My 2011 startups-to-watch list

Company-watch on reddit

reddit-logoPro-tip for marketers:

Learn what people are saying about your company on @reddit with a simple URL:

http://www.reddit.com/domain/[your-domain]

Example: Track any posts on reddit mentioning/linking Europe’s leading seed investment program here:  http://www.reddit.com/domain/seedcamp.com

P.S.: If the scarcity of posts on that Seedcamp mentions page bothers you, get in touch with the program here: Wanted: Head of Content.

Which Came First – Sherlock S3E1 Or Google Smart Lens?

Google Smart Contact Lens

On Sunday, 12th Jan 2013, a Sherlock episode airs hinting at the key antagonist wearing a Google Glass like device, except it’s not in his glasses, but in his eye or in his contact lenses. 4 days later, Google publicly announces its Smart Contact Lenses project. Coincidence?

Apple + Sprint – Exclusives.

Sprint - Apple exclusive
(click image for original BGR article)

With $20 billion worth of inventory involved, I believe it’s more a case of Apple getting exclusive access to Sprint’s customers than Sprint getting exclusive rights to iPhone 5.

With such a huge inventory to push, I doubt Sprint will want to sport any high-end Android or WP phone for the next few years.