FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - June 1, 2017

FundersClub Portfolio News

Jerrod Engelberg of FundersClub will host a Q&A on FC Live with Adam Draper of Boost VC on June 13th. Submit questions and watch the full event here: Q&A with Adam Draper of Boost VC — FundersClub Live Series.

Flexport will build warehouses in Hong Kong and Los Angeles for consolidation and rerouting purposes, due to the increased frequency of cargo moving between China and the U.S. in "Flexport to open global network of consolidation centers."

Cleanly announces that it has purchased dry cleaning delivery service The Dhobi and its laundry counterpart, Do Laundry for Me in "Cleanly Consolidates New York: Laundry & Dry Cleaning Startup Buys The Dhobi and Do Laundry for Me."

BlueCrew is an on-demand staffing platform for temporary workers that allows them access to hundreds of job opportunities with one interview in "The Millennial 'Try Before You Buy' Job Hunt Boosts Work-Life Balance."

GO1, the world’s largest onboarding, compliance and professional development platform, expands their user base by more than 2,000% to 10 million following their Totara partnership in "GO1.com grows user base by more than 2,000% to 10 million via Totara partnership."

Parse.ly analyzes more than 10 million online articles to show how readers find their way to articles on the Internet, and reports that Facebook is now the largest source of external referrer traffic in "Online Traffic Sources Often Determined by Topic."

Reebee partners with Air Miles, and the 11 million members of its loyalty card program, to develop a new search feature that allows people to see offers from their favorite retailers and discover more bonus mile opportunities in "Reebee flying the same skies with Air Miles."

KiwiCrate opens a new fulfillment warehouse in Lathrop that is approximately eight times the size of the previous facility, which will be used to complete 100% of their fulfillment services in "KiwiCrate brings jobs to Lathrop, creativity to life."

Investor Thoughts

Alex Mittal of FundersClub describes the rise of functional blockchain protocols, their evolving nature, and current key challenges in "The evolving Blockchain."

Boris Silver of FundersClub shares his key takeaways about the digital currency/token space from the inaugural Token Summit in NYC in "My 6 Takeaways from Token Summit 2017."

Christopher Steiner of FundersClub discusses why most people at big companies aren't incentivized to take risks, even calculated ones, in "Big Companies Aren't Geared For Innovation."

Benedict Evans of Andreessen Horowitz dives into the sequence of conversation when talking about new technology and the way that people tend to dismiss and defend it in "Not even wrong - ways to dismiss technology."

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and William Mougayar of The Business Blockchain discuss the future of bitcoin, and how blockchain technology and digital currencies could change the way business operates in "The Token Summit Talk Between William And Me."

Medha Agarwal of Redpoint Ventures shares a market landscape and post on computational biology and the potential for machine learning to disrupt healthcare across the value chain in "Radical Approaches to Healthcare: Our Thesis in Computational Biology."

Harry Stebbings of The Twenty Minute VC chats with Brian Ascher of Venrock on how both founders & GPs should construct their pitch, why VCs are eternal optimists, and what makes the best post-investment VC/founder relationship in "20VC with Brian Ascher of Venrock."

Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures sits down with Anu Hariharan of YC Continuity to talk about the belief systems around hiring and how to manage your company’s growth internally in "How to Build and Manage Teams."

Joanne Wilson of Gotham Gal Ventures gives a TEDX talk on the importance of having persistence, ambition and confidence while on the road to success in "Unbridled Ambition – The Path to Gender Equality."

Scott Maxwell of OpenView Partners makes the case for why there is an AI solution to every business problem in "3 Reasons Every Startup Needs to Experiment With Artificial Intelligence Now."

Founder and Operator Thoughts

Jeremy Stanley, Udi Nir and Guissu Baier of Instacart (FC Portfolio) break down how they are building a more transparent and trustworthy compensation culture and more in "How Instacart Uses Data to Craft A Bespoke Comp Strategy."

Villi Iltchev of August Capital chats with Marc Teillon of Vista Equity, Emilie Choi of LinkedIn, and Monty Gray of SAP on the future of M&As in SaaS, their thoughts on the kinds of companies they look out for when buying, and more in "How to Get Bought For $1 Billion or More: The Future of SaaS M&A."

Brad Feld of Techstars and Foundry Group discusses mental health awareness & the startup community in the first post in a series on the topic in "Mental Health Awareness & the Startup Community: A Chat with Brad Feld."

Courtney Rogin of Mattermark introduces two data points that help sales teams with territory planning: revenue range and U.S. zip code in "Introducing Territory Planning in Mattermark."

David Bailey of Never Give Up shares practical tactics other than a good pitch that can leave a great impression on investors in "How To Make Investors Love You."

Claire Lew of Know Your Company lists five questions she recommends asking in an interview to know if a company has a good culture in "5 questions that reveal if a company has a healthy workplace culture."

Thomas Oppong of All Top Startups highlights how cultivating the right system can make all the difference in your productive life in "Setting up a Great System Can Help You Achieve Almost Anything."

In Other News

Airbnb Inc. names Hong Ge as vice president in charge of its business in China, the world’s second-largest economy, after a long search for an executive to run their operations in "Airbnb Appoints Head of China Operations After Long Search."

Lyft Inc. releases its first staff diversity report, revealing more women and minorities than Uber Technologies Inc. in "Lyft Releases First Diversity Report, Showing Edge Over Uber."

Did You Know?

Did you know that when looking forward towards the bow of a ship, port and starboard refer to the left and right sides respectively?

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