startup

How to cope with the emotional stress of a startup

Imagine experiencing the pain, sorrow, and misery of a breakup. Now imagine winning the lottery the next week. That's the kind of emotional roller coaster a new startup founder can expect.

"The emotional ups and downs were the biggest surprise for me," a founder of a Y Combinator-funded startup says in one of Paul Graham's essays. (Graham is a co-founder of Y Combinator.) "One day, we'd think of ourselves as the next Google and dream of buying islands; the next, we'd be pondering how to let our loved ones know of our utter … Read more

Sexy, six-legged robot Hexy wants to get friendly

You'd be surprised at the number of people who crave spider-like robots.

Boston-based ArcBotics is gathering funds for its Hexy kit robot, billed as a low-cost, completely open-source critter that is easy to program.

It has six legs instead of eight, but Hexy can walk, dance, bang some keyboard keys, and do whatever else you can imagine.

It comes with a few installed moves, too. It's so cool, it even plays electric guitar. … Read more

Stealth startup Airtime raises $25M, buys Erly

Airtime, the video startup founded by Napster duo Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, announced today that it had closed a second round of funding and had purchased another startup.

The mysterious company raised $25 million, according to a TechCrunch report. The startup also announced the acquisition of Erly, a company founded in 2011 that claims to provide a "new social platform for organizing and sharing your personal content." Terms of the deal were not revealed.

Erly was founded by CEO Eric Feng, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which led Airtime's round of financing. … Read more

Is it a problem if Windows 8 boots too quickly?

Really fast boot times on Windows 8 hardly sounds like a problem. But it is. Here's why.

Startup can be so fast that you whiz by familiar sign posts that prompt for input, wrote Chris Clark, a program manager in the Windows User Experience team, today in a Building Windows 8 blog post.

"When you turn on a Windows 8 PC, there's no longer [enough time] to detect keystrokes like F2 or F8, much less time to read a message such as 'Press F2 for Setup'," Clark said.

On a solid-state drive-equipped ultrabook, for example, Windows … Read more

Magnetic football perfect for butterfingers

I'm not one to watch an NFL game on TV or toss around the pigskin in the park, but if I did I would probably benefit from this magnetic football.

Ultimate Reception is a campaign on crowd-funding site IndieGoGo aimed at developing a magnetic football and gloves that improve catching ability.

Actually, the gloves are embedded with powerful magnets that attract a special layer in the football's skin. They're strong enough so that the ball will stick to the glove when the arm is outstretched and palm down. … Read more

Leap Motion: 3D hands-free motion control, unbound

Hands-free motion control, a technology pioneered by Nintendo's Wii and later improved upon by Microsoft's Kinect, just took a very big leap forward. Industries from gaming to surgery to architecture, engineering, and design may never be the same.

With the unveiling today of its Leap 3D motion control system, a San Francisco startup called Leap Motion has, well, leapfrogged the state of the art in this young field, giving users the ability to control what's on their computers with hundredth of a millimeter accuracy and introducing touch-free gestures like pinch-to-zoom.

Leap, which comprises both a small USB … Read more

Singularity University launches synthetic biology accelerator

Synthetic biology startups have a new friend in Silicon Valley.

Today, Singularity University pulled back the wraps on its new SynBio Startup Launchpad, an accelerator program designed to boost the prospects of entrepreneurs in the blossoming field.

As part of the unveiling of the accelerator program, Singularity University announced the first three companies that are "seeking to apply the rapid-cycle, low-cost approaches employed by tech and biotech startups."

Those companies are Evolutionary Solutions, which is building a genome synthesis device; Modern Meadow, which is using tissue-engineering techniques to generate large amounts of animal protein for textiles and food; … Read more

Turns out investing in venture-capital funds isn't a great idea

In order for venture-capital firms to invest in startups, they need funding from institutional investors. In many cases, such investors are happy to drop some cash in a fund. But a new study warns that doing so might not be the best idea.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, an organization that promotes entrepreneurship by investing in venture-capital funds, found things might not be as bright as some firms would have investors believe. In fact, the organization found that over the last 10 years, the vast majority of venture-capital funds have failed to outperfom the public stock market. In the last … Read more

Growth, revenue, focus: How to get an investor's attention

When it comes to courting investors, especially venture capitalists, for your startup, the recipe is simple: stop worrying and start focusing.

Most investors have a singular goal -- to fund a startup that eventually becomes a large, independent, defensible company. Finding an Evernote, Airbnb, or Instagram provides the kind of return that makes or breaks a venture capital firm.

But how do VCs find a company that is going to become big? It's not an easy task, but there are a few clues investors look for in order to determine your chance at hitting the jackpot. Here are a … Read more