Agile VC

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

GrabCAD today announced their acquisition by Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS). He was wrapping up GrabCAD’s participation in the Seedcamp accelerator program, and the Seedcamp startups were in the US to visit potential advisors and investors in Boston, New York, and SF. I first met Hardi at the beginning of 2011 here in Cambridge.

Boston 154

Boston Acquisition Estonia Viral 154

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. But its not really viral growth, even when its exponential.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

Online social networking is a concept still being evangelized even in Silicon Valley… Friendster is in private beta (wasn’t until Oct 2003 they received Google acquisition offer which they turned down for Kleiner/Benchmark round). I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Products can find sources of validation with impressive stats along a number of dimensions, such as high engagement, viral coefficient, or long-term retention. Go on an agile diet quickly. With a product development team that is not shipping, any agile methodology will surface major problems quickly. Great post! Expo SF (May.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. I think its helpful to think about two kinds of competition for distribution: acquisition competition and retention competition. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. So what can you do? Its like knowing the future. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

This is a common problem that results from viral-loop optimization. By copying the exact same registration flow as every other successful viral app, many viral apps completely lose their positioning. Heres why I dont think engagement loops are that helpful: unlike viral loops, its not bad if its not self-sustaining.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. Let’s look at a viral growth company, like Facebook. If you are building a large, viral, ad-support consumer internet property, you just want to go big! They’re off to cross the chasm. As soon as possible!&#

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156