Startup

Former TechCrunch reporter Sarah Lacy launched a tech news site today called PandoDaily that is geared toward documenting every startup that pops up in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Lacy, who has covered tech for more than 15 years, says she quit TechCrunch in November because its AOL buyout was affecting the site's content.

In a manifesto called "Why I Started PandoDaily," which Lacy wrote and published on the news site, she said that her goal is to not sell PandoDaily. "Selling is not success to me. If I wind up selling, I've failed in some … Read more

Fab.com, a design-focused e-commerce site that's growing by leaps and bounds, acquired online independent fashion marketplace FashionStake for an undisclosed sum.

FashionStake carved out a niche for itself in the e-commerce world by allowing independent fashion designers to sell their goods on the site, rather than gambling on getting products into name-brand stores can be difficult to crack. According to FashionStake's Web site, it offers products from 240 designers in 16 countries around the world.

Fab.com was one of the more surprising Web standouts last year. Since launching its site in June 2011, the company has … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Most of the attention at CES, naturally, is on the big guns: Microsoft, Samsung, LG, Sony, and on and on.

And then there's Eureka Park.

This is CES' first big attempt at creating a place specifically for startups. It takes up a couple of big rooms in the Venetian Hotel. I walked around this morning, while many of the exhibitors were just setting up. There are 96 in all, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

A range of businesses are here, and some, like Kogeto, which makes the Dot camera lens I wrote about, have some impressive technology … Read more

"Attach yourself to a tornado."

--Aaron Levie, CEO, Box

I'm impressed with Box and with its founder, Aaron Levie. His company has managed to find traction in a murderous commodity space: online storage. Box did it by focusing on the enterprise market, which is smart, but also unusual for a company run by such a young guy. Aaron is 27 and started Box when he was 20. Usually, I think, the whippersnappers build products for other kids. Think Jobs and Zuckerberg. (Gates was an anomaly).

Aaron is aggressive beyond even what I see in most startup founders. … Read more

"Big companies are riskier than small companies."

--Laura Yecies, CEO of SugarSync

Unlike most of the small tech company CEOs I interview, Laura does not come from a family of entrepreneurs. She told me that, growing up, she learned to "misperceive risk" in business. She believed, as I think many people do, "that smaller companies are inherently riskier than big companies."

Over time, she has come to understand that she was dead wrong, at least from the perspective of modern career management. "In small companies you know better what's going on," … Read more

"Don't be afraid of raising money."

--Chris Reid, co-founder of Sortable

One piece of advice I hear frequently from entrepreneurs is this: "Don't take money before you need to." Especially if your company is pre-revenue, taking money early means that investors will be placing big bets on you, and they often compensate for that by insisting on onerous terms. You could be left owning very little of the company you're founding.

But Chris Reid of Sortable has a different opinion. "Don't worry about raising early," he told me after I … Read more

"Learn finance."

--Rafat Ali, founder of paidContent. Currently founder of Skift, a travel intelligence startup

Rafat Ali started his influential site about digital media in 2002. He took funding from Greycroft in 2006, sold the company to Guardian Media in 2008, and left Guardian in 2010. He's working on another startup now. (Side note: Guardian recently put paidContent on the block.)

I got this tip by asking him for something that came from his experience moving his company from idea to his own departure. He added:

"These days it is trendy to tell people to learn … Read more

Re-reading a piece I wrote a few weeks back about the uptick in online sales during Black Friday, I started to wonder if real-time customer intelligence is what is driving online retail growth.

There are undoubtedly a number of aspects to the growth in online sales. But after spending some time with a few of the major online retailers last week--including one who might not be considered a "retailer" in the traditional sense, I realized that the online world has a huge competitive advantage in its predilection toward data analysis with actionable near real-time results.

Amazon's suggested … Read more

"Get out while you still can."

--Ranjith Kumaran, founder of PunchTab, co-founder of YouSendIt.

When do you leave a startup? If you're the CEO, you're kind of obliged to stay at the helm as long as possible, right?

Ranjith Kumaran says that you have to weigh your responsibilities (to funders and employees) against your own skills and interests. "If you feel you have another startup in you, and especially if you are running a successful company, now's the time. Use your founder DNA."

His story: He co-founded the large-file transfer service YouSendIt … Read more