FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - January 7, 2017

FundersClub Portfolio News

Slack announces that it’s making 11 new investments in its Slack Fund, which makes investments in startups that are building tools on top of Slack, as part of its continuing effort to invest in the ecosystem in "Slack makes another 11 new investments in its Slack fund."

Wheelys Inc, a startup bike cafe franchise that is currently in over 60 countries, has acquired technology for running unmanned stores, expanding the brand’s retail revolution to a new field in "Wheelys expands to unmanned stores."

GitLab CEO, Sid Sijbrandij, chats with Forbes about current and future trends in web development in "The Future Of Web Development With GitLab CEO Sid Sijbrandij."

Bitso President and co-founder, Daniel Vogel, discusses why their volume is exploding, the five segments of their customers, how the Peso has factored into their business and more in "Why Volume Is Exploding at Mexican Bitcoin Exchange Bitso."

Investor Thoughts

Christine Georghiou of FundersClub chats with FC member Ellen Uhrbrock of Palo Alto’s Comprehensive Plan Update Leadership Group and shares her experiences with her lifelong focus on technology and transportation in "A Breaker of Barriers Stays Plugged in To Silicon Valley Past 80."

Scott Kupor of Andreessen Horowitz discusses which investments he’ll jump on in 2017, which he might skip, and what he would do if he weren’t a venture capitalist in "Andreessen’s Scott Kupor says 2017 looks bright for tech startup market."

First Round Capital curates a list of the 30 most impactful and incisive advice from their articles in the last year in "The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2016."

Semil Shah of Haystack Fund lists technologies, networks, products, and services which he believes could thrive in a world of increasing uncertainty in "Looking Ahead To 2017."

Pitchbook lists the top 9 VCs investing in bitcoin & blockchain, along with their investment counts, as $575 million has been disbursed in 2015 and 2016 across 63 deals in the space in "The top 9 VC investors in bitcoin & blockchain."

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures shares his big predictions for 2017 regarding IPOs, SaaS, AI and more in "What Is Going To Happen In 2017."

Harry Alford of Humble Ventures offers the first installment of a series covering methods of determining pre-money valuations, starting with the Scorecard Valuation Method in "How Angel Investors Value Pre-Revenue Startups (Part I)."

Sam Gerstenzang of Sidewalk Labs shares what he is interested in investing in and how he hopes to add value as an investor in "How I’ll be investing in 2017."

Founder and Operator Thoughts

Sam Altman of Y Combinator shares some notes about how he thinks ambitious young people should think about their careers in "Notes for the New Year."

Alex Iskold of Techstars interviews Moisey Uretsky of DigitalOcean and focuses on the customer’s elevator pitch, as it is more important than that of a founder or investor in "What is the Customer’s Elevator Pitch for Your Startup?."

Blake Bartlett of OpenView Partners interviews Scott Voigt of FullStory who shares that the secret to sales is a bionic approach of "man plus machine" in "Sales is Not Binary."

Charles Chu of Market Meditations believes that to help you make 2017 a year of big wins, fruitful relationships and dreams achieved, you should make it a year of failure in "Make 2017 A Year of Failure."

Scott Belsky of Behance writes about how employees, and prospective employees, of unicorn companies can protect themselves in a rapidly changing environment in "Don’t Get Trampled: The Puzzle For “Unicorn” Employees."

Henry Ward of eShares shares a presentation about how those within a company should engage with one another for CEOs wrestling with company building in "IQ and EQ."

In Other News

Snap Inc. was sued by a former employee who says the company was inflating growth metrics ahead of their planned initial public offering that could be valued at around $25 billion in "Fired Snap Employee Sues, Saying Company Inflated Growth Stats."

Tesla said it delivered approximately 76,230 vehicles in 2016, which is short of their 80,000 vehicle projection it set for the year in its fourth-quarter earnings report at the beginning of the year in "Tesla falls short of its projected vehicle deliveries for 2016."

Did You Know?

Did you know that there used to be a fake Apple store in China so convincing that even the staff thought they were working for Apple? Source