FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - June 15, 2017
FundersClub Portfolio News
Jerrod Engelberg of FundersClub hosted a Q&A on FC Live with Brayton Williams of Boost VC, and the full video can now be watched here: Q&A with Brayton Williams of Boost VC — FundersClub Live Series.
ShipBob, a Chicago based company that gives the power of Amazon logistics to every small business, raises $17.5 million with plans to open e-commerce distribution centers in more cities in "Warehouse Startup ShipBob Raises $17.5 Million Amid Expansion Push."
Shortlist, a company that lets you manage all interactions with your external workforce of contractors, freelancers, and suppliers, raises a $1.5 million seed round with plans to continue to work on its product and to improve its payouts and payments product in "Shortlist raises $1.5M to help businesses manage their freelancers."
Instacart and Publix, the largest employee-owned grocery chain in the U.S., strengthen their relationship with a plan to bring same-day grocery delivery to all Publix customers in "Publix and Instacart Expanding Service Across Southeast Due To Customer Demand."
ClearTax launches a software which will help dealers and retailers in preparation of tax returns under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime in India in "ClearTax launches software for return filing under GST."
Investor Thoughts
FundersClub explores the gender diversity of U.S. technology startup founders and how that affects the gender diversity of the employees they hire in "The 2017 US Startup Team Gender Diversity Study."
Alex Mittal of FundersClub takes the guest spot for a Q&A with Laura Behrens Wu of Shippo on FC Live, and shares some key takeaways from their conversation in "Silicon Valley is a surprisingly clubby ecosystem: FC's Alex Mittal."
Boris Silver of FundersClub offers a summary of his advice to a founder on best practices when joining an accelerator, stemming from his own experience at Y Combinator in "What do the best founders do in accelerator programs?"
Christopher Steiner of FundersClub draws upon his own and other founders' experiences to create guidelines on what to do and what not to do when trying to create an environment that seeks to maximize the creativity, productivity, and happiness of engineers in "Keeping Engineers Engaged And Happy Is Critical - Here's How To Do It."
Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz discusses why you should never begin with the sales channel itself when designing a distribution strategy in "Distribution."
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures emphasizes the importance of company culture, and how by inculcating values, management teams are able to influence decisions in "The Intense Power Of A Strong Company Culture."
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures draws parallels between ICOs and private investment rounds and lists some key points to think about regarding ICOs in "Buyer Beware."
Brad Feld of Foundry Group uses his own experience discussing the venture seed fund landscape to highlight the lack of meaning of 'differentiation' in "Does VC Fund Differentiation Matter?"
Cankut Durgun of Aslanoba Capital posts a short observation on directly asking for a view on the range of outcomes which your counterpart will accept during a negotiation in "Providing ranges in a negotiation."
Jake Fuentes, Angel Investor, details the different level of involvement investors can take in their portfolio companies in "Finding Investors Who Are *Actually* Helpful."
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Prayag Narula of LeadGenius (FC Portfolio) sits down with Demand Gen Report to discuss how B2B sales and marketing organizations are prioritizing personalization with the help of micro-segments, the right data and efficient campaign planning in "LeadGenius CEO On Prioritizing Sales With Data, Micro-Segments & Personalization."
Connor Murphy of SAP.iO Foundry highlights the importance of getting a warm introduction, noting his experience with Ron Conway, Angel Investor, in "The Power of Introductions: What I Learned from One of the Best Investors in the World."
Michelle Wilson, board member of Pinterest, Okta and Zendesk, defines an independent board member and shares why it’s a key role for a founding team and a startup’s board of directors in "A Field Guide to Identifying and Integrating Independent Board Members."
Ali Rowghani of YC Continuity answers the questions: How do you retain executives? What are the most common mistakes you have seen growth stage founders make? What does an ideal board look like? and more in "Office Hours with Ali Rowghani."
Steve Blank of Lean Startup explains why Wall Street values Tesla higher than any other U.S. car manufacturer, while Tesla shipped only 76,000 cars in 2016 and automobile manufacturers shipped 88 million in "Tesla Lost $700 Million Last Year, So Why Is Tesla’s Valuation $60 Billion?"
BlockGeeks offers an in-depth guide that explains the basic difference between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, starting with its history in "What is Ethereum Classic? Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic."
CB Insights chats with Dan Preston of Metromile to hear his perspectives on how the company’s strategy has evolved over time, partnering with comparison engines, and more in "Q&A: Dan Preston, CEO, Metromile."
Steven Loeb of Vator continues his series, When they were young, which looks back at the modest days of startups, what traction they had in their first few years, and how they evolved, featuring Wikipedia most recently in "When Wikipedia was young: the early years."
Ellis and Morgan Brown of Hacking Growth talk about the notion of growth hacking and debunk some myths, walk through a smart process you can use to start running a growth engine strategically, and more in "NextView: How to Ditch the False Silver Bullets and Run a Growth Hacking Process."
In Other News
American Airlines began the first U.S. test of new airport-security scanners that provide a more detailed view inside carry-on luggage and may allow travelers to keep laptops in their bags in "American Airlines Tests CT Scanning to Keep Laptops in Carry-Ons."
Amazon patents storing packages underwater by putting packages into pools, lakes, or rivers for storage, and retrieving them via sound wave in "Amazon Patents Underwater Warehousing."
Spotify is preparing for an initial public offering, however, the music-streaming site has flagged a number of errors in its previous results, revealing a significant increase in losses in "Spotify Losses Widen After Music Site Flags Accounting Error."
Did You Know?
Did you know that with an area of 12 million square kilometers (5 million square miles), the Arctic Ocean is the smallest ocean - more than five times smaller than the Indian and Atlantic oceans? Source
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