511
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 1,552 posts.
512
513
Uber's Failure in Japan
Uber’s disastrous failure in Japan was not caused by local competition, but by a uniquely American strategy that simply could not work in Japan. You see, Uber represents a new kind of startup. The very thing that makes them so successful in America dooms them to failure in Japan.
514
Tips for selling your side project
All I did was put together a trivial web app to scratch my own itch, and it keeps scratching it, while I drink my free beer.
515
The meeting that showed me the truth about VCs
I had a meeting with a well-known startup investor yesterday. The talk somehow pivoted from my seed-seeking startup into talking about the…
516
517
518
519
From Losing Money to a Profit Margin in 5 Months
A few months ago I wrote about the difficulty of self-funding a rapidly growing startup. If you haven’t read that yet, go and do that now. I’ll wait. Here’s the quick timeline: JAN 2013 — Started on the idea for ConvertKit JUN 2013 — Reached $2,000 a month in recurring revenue (MRR). SEP 2014 — Revenue declines to…
520
Twilio's Seed Pitch
I read yesterday evening that our portfolio company Twilio, which priced its IPO last night, is going to live code from the NYSE this morning. That brought a powerful flashback to the first time I met Jeff Lawson, founder and CEO of Twilio. It was 2008 in our old offices on the 14th floor of […]
521
'We're in a Bubble'
A lot of people have been saying we’re in a tech bubble for quite some time. Someday they’ll be right, but in the meantime, I thought it'd be fun to look back at some articles from the last 10...
522
523
524
Who really gets hurt when startups blow up, and what to do about it
Yesterday, Theranos announced that it would void two years of diagnostic test results from its Edison blood-testing device. Pulitzer…
525
Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old
I’m tired of reading about investors and journalists claiming there’s a bubble in tech. I understand that it’s fun to do and easy press, but it’s boring reading. I also understand that it might...
526
Automattic Purchases .blog TLD for $19M
It’s now public that Automattic is the company behind Knock Knock Whois There LLC, the registry for the new .blog TLD. (And a great pun.) We wanted to stay stealth while in the bidding process and …
527
uBeam's insider story by ex employee?
Today is the 6 month anniversary of my resignation from uBeam, a startup I'd spent the previous two and a half years working on. I had...
528
Aggregation Theory
The disruption caused by the Internet in industry after industry has a common theoretical basis described by Aggregation Theory.
529
530
How to ace a YC interview
Spring has sprung, and the smell of fresh YC applications is in the air. It’s that special time that happens twice a year where thousands…
531
532
Frog and Toad are Cofounders
The Characters you loved as a child, all grown up and working in San Francisco
533
Solving the cash problems from self-funding rapid growth
“If you grow too fast it can kill the business.” After spending years fighting for even a tiny bit of growth, ConvertKit was now facing a totally different kind of problem: more growth than we could support. In October, November, and December we were averaging growing 40% per month. Recurring revenue went from $25,000…
534
Asana
I’m delighted to finally be investing in Asana, which I’ve wanted to do for a long time. One of the things I’ve learned about companies is that 1) clear tasks and goals, 2) clearly communicated,...
535
536
Hard Tech is Back
First of all, congrats to Kyle, Dan, and the rest of the Cruise team. You all have made amazing progress and we look forward to seeing more in the future. A popular criticism of Silicon Valley,...
537
538
539
540
How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone
A few years ago I saw an early stage startup that I knew I had to be a part of. The only problem was that it was 900 miles away and I had no connection to them. The startup was Formlabs . At the time they had 10 employees, and like most startups reduced risk by hiring people they knew. They were also situated…