FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - July 6, 2017
FundersClub Portfolio News
Coinbase added one million new users in June, demonstrating a massive increase in its user base in a relatively short period of time in "Bitcoin User Base Surges, Coinbase Adds 1 Mln Users in 1 Month."
Thalmic Labs has filed a patent as it continues to work heads-down on its next product that describes a wearable heads-up display, a photopolymer “often using in holography,” and curved eyeglass lens designs in "Thalmic Files Patent Describing Hologram Lenses."
BitAccess is promoting cryptocurrency in Canada by allowing government employees to receive CA$5 worth of Bitcoin or Ether free of charge for singing up for the service in "BitAccess Wants to get Canadian Government Officials Excited About Cryptocurrency."
The Flex Company, inventor of FLEX, a tampon alternative, is working to erase the harmful and unnecessary stigma around menstruation by sparking the conversation worldwide in "If We Want To Erase The Stigma Of Menstruation, We Need Men To Be Period Allies."
Mentat launches Mentat Junction, a technology-driven outplacement service to help startup founders during a reduction in force on ProductHunt.
Le Tote allows shoppers to rent clothing and accessories on a rotating basis for a single monthly fee, and is reshaping the retail industry in "These Subscription Boxes Want to Change the Way We Buy Clothes, so We Put Them to the Test."
Kiwi Crate is a subscription that grows with your child, ranging from newborn to preteen, that concentrates on STEAM learning with hands-on projects that are age-appropriate in "This Box Rocks! Kids Edition."
Bluesmart Luggage offers a host of technical features for their bags, including a digital scale, GPS tracking, and remote suitcase locking by a cellphone app in "Did You Pack Too Much? Your Suitcase Knows."
Aircall and Kustomer announce a partnership that adds your Aircall phone experience to the rich customer information you have in Kustomer in "The Aircall voice channel integrates easily into the Kustomer timeline and the rest of the Kustomer platform."
Investor Thoughts
Martin Casado of Andreessen Horowitz shares his commencement speech delivered to Northern Arizona University’s Class of 2017 about how a new college grad, or anyone looking to make a change, can navigate all the uncertainties involved in doing anything worthwhile in "Navigating Uncertainty: Advice for Graduates (and Others Changing Course)."
Satya Patel of Homebrew writes about how the best investor and founder relationships are built on trust and mutual problem-solving, not surprises in "No surprises: The key to the founder/VC relationship and avoiding the “Oh shit” board meeting."
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures outlines how as the world becomes more globalized, we can do business more easily across time zones in "Working Across Many Time Zones."
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures dives into five difficult to answer, but necessary questions founders must ask in order to create an enduring business in "The Five Questions You Need To Answer About Your Startup's Strategy."
Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital talks a bit about his view on Product/Market Fit and how they try to detect it when looking at SaaS startups at his firm in "WTF is PMF? (part 2 of 2)."
Barry Schuler of DFJ Growth chats with Harry Stebbings of The 20 Minute VC about how to get back to 200 tech IPOs per year, why we are in a ‘bulge” not a bubble, and the impending flat & down rounds to come in "20VC with Barry Schuler, Partner @ DFJ Growth."
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Aubrey Blanche of Atlassian leans into empirical research to prescribe two seismic mindset shifts, and a set of principles proven to increase Diversity & Inclusion in "Atlassian Boosted Its Female Technical Hires By 80% — Here’s How."
Eric Blondeel and Moufeed Kaddoura of ExVivo Labs describe ways
to build a good culture that can evolve and grow with a similarly evolving startup in "Making Culture a Tangible Metric."
Jason Lemkin of SaaStr details three ways that power laws come into play with angel & seed investing in "Why do American investors like taking risks and pay a huge amount to a startup that eventually might fail?"
Alex Wilhelm of Crunchbase News examines the aftermath of Blue Apron’s IPO and considers whether public investors are less willing to assign tech company multiples to non-tech stocks in "Morning Report: Is That A Tech Company Or Non-Tech Company That Just Wants A Tech Company Valuation?"
Justin Bariso of Insight highlights a tweet by Elon Musk of Tesla to share four simple steps to take advantage of opportunities to show appreciation to others in "Elon Musk Just Sent a Beautiful Message to Tesla Customers."
Chargify rounds up advice from an impressive group of product leaders and uncovers four key themes, and Liz Cain of OpenView describes how sales enablement should take a page out of this product management playbook in "Why Sales Enablement Should Take a Page Out of the Product Management Playbook."
Preethi Kasireddy, Software Engineer dives into the cryptocurrency market, and explains the behind-the-scenes catalysts driving the market, which is the “token sale” or “Initial Coin Offering (ICO)” phenomena in "Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Tokens, ICOs: Why should anyone care?"
Beau Carnes of freeCodeCamp teaches readers about 10 of the most common data structures  with video and code examples in "10 Common Data Structures Explained with Videos + Exercises."
In Other News
Microsoft Corp plans to cut "thousands" of jobs, with a majority of them outside the United States in "Microsoft plans to cut 'thousands' of jobs: source."
A patent filed by Apple further confirms rumors that they're testing facial recognition via a more powerful 3D camera on the iPhone, which would do away with Touch ID in "This Apple patent could describe facial recognition for the next iPhone."
Did You Know?
Did you know that Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, invented an artificial heart? Source