Sramana Mitra on Strategy

The Web Startup Success Guide (Part 2): Case Study of Mint.com

bobwalsh — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:56:06 +0000

[Bob's interview with Aaron Patzer, founder and CEO of Mint.com, continues with a discussion of the company's funding and how it tackled the security issue. For more information, see Bob's new book, "The Web Startup Success Guide", which will be published on July 22.]
Bob: OK, let’s talk more about money. Specifically you’re saying that when you [...]

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 4)

Jared — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:59:43 +0000

SM: Since the dot-com crash we have seen a few different things come together. The SaaS market has really developed, and the Web 2.0 and cleantech markets have also developed. SaaS and Web 2.0 are not capital intensive areas which have had a lot of investment while cleantech is very capital intensive. What is your [...]

The Web Startup Success Guide (Part 1): Case Study of Mint.com

bobwalsh — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:33:18 +0000

By Guest Author Bob Walsh
[Bob Walsh begins a series of excerpts from his new book, "The Web Startup Success Guide", with a case study of personal finance startup Mint.com and an interview with the company's founder and CEO, Aaron Patzer.]
Bob: Let’s start with how you decided that Mint.com was something you wanted to do.
Aaron: I [...]

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 3)

Jared — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:59:47 +0000

SM: You are a $300 million fund, but is your structure a standard 2 + 20?
GT: We don’t discuss the actual structure of our fund, but it is identical to our historical structure. When we started, [we were] circulating the idea that we would raise Trinity 10 with an identical focus to our other funds. [...]

Social Gaming on the Rise, and Lessons for Would-be Entrepreneurs

saadfazil — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:17:05 +0000

By Guest Author Saad Fazil
Social gaming is changing the way games are marketed and distributed. Rather than relying on big publishers and distributors such as Electronic Arts, studios are leveraging the power of social media to virally spread their games. In order to better understand how they have built sustaining businesses, I talked to the [...]

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 2)

Jared — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:59:56 +0000

SM: You are saying the early venture capital industry was performance driven? You could not get a lot of management fee-driven income with $31 million.
GT: Yes. The mentality of the people who entered the business in the late 1980s, the early 1990s and when I entered it in 1996 was that you joined the [...]

Postcard from Paris

Sramana Mitra — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:35:09 +0000

In Paris for a few days, my favorite city.
Paris seems melancholy, perhaps even a bit scared. The economic crisis has knocked the wind out of the city that depends so heavily on tourism. Cafés, restaurants, boutiques — the lifeblood of Paris — the chief contributor to its incredible ambiance, sit empty.
Here are some pictures … [...]

More Reviews Of Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction

mkelly — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:36:53 +0000

Peter Christensen of GeekStack reviews EJ2 on his blog: “I was very excited to hear about [Sramana’s] new book Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction. It’s a book full of interviews with entrepreneurs who have successfully bootstrapped their companies from a kitchen table to millions of dollars of revenue or an acquisition. I like this kind of book because [...]

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 1)

Jared — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:59:27 +0000

Gus Tai is a General Partner at Trinity Ventures and joined the firm in 1996. He focuses on consumer-enabling technologies and services and enterprise software. His past investments include Blue Nile, eSurance, Photobucket and Sygate. He has an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Harvard and an MS in engineering and an MBA from MIT.
SM: Gus, [...]

Optical Component Makers Struggling

Sramana_Mitra — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:17:38 +0000

With telecom operators slowing purchases, depleting inventories and reducing IT spending, optical component providers JDS Uniphase (NASDAQ:JDSU) and Finisar (NASDAQ:FNSR) are having a tough time. Let’s take a closer look.
On April 29, JDS Uniphase, a leading optical component provider with annual revenue of $1.53 billion, reported third quarter results that missed estimates. Revenue was $280.6 million, [...]

From Startup To 500 Million Dollars: VistaPrint CEO Robert Keane (Part 7)

Jared — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:59:19 +0000

SM: Earlier you explained how you made a transition from your core business to a much wider variety of businesses. One area that seems like an obvious opportunity for you is in the software-as-a-service business. SaaS does carter to a lot of small businesses with various solutions, including email marketing and CRMs. Have you considered [...]

Paychex Should Follow In Intuit’s Footsteps

Sramana_Mitra — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:51:00 +0000

Last week, the leading payroll processing company, Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) reported fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 results that missed analyst estimates as the weak economy and rising unemployment — according to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, new unemployment claims were higher than expected — finally take a toll. Let’s take a [...]