Startups

Square's Jack Dorsey to tech founders: Question everything

SAN FRANCISCO -- Square and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said today that founders must be willing to accept new ideas -- which can come from anywhere -- if they want their companies to evolve and to keep disrupting existing industries.

Opening his keynote address at TechCrunch Disrupt here today, Dorsey noted that he didn't grow up wanting to be an entrepreneur. Now that he's helped start two of the most important companies in Silicon Valley, though, Dorsey said he wanted to share some of the lessons he's learned during his career, ideas that he clearly thinks can … Read more

Ben Horowitz: I feel your IPO pain, Facebook

SAN FRANCISCO -- Venture Capitalist Ben Horowitz, half of the powerful Andreessen Horowitz duo, talked about how a lousy performing IPO -- are you listening, Mark Zuckerberg? -- can be a wrenching experience.

"The biggest pressure is on the employees who go home and someone in their family says, 'I read in the paper that you guys are bunch of idiots'," said Horowitz, who was interviewed at Techcrunch Disrupt by Silicon Valley veteran Bill Campbell. "It's a really hard thing to take."

Horowitz was talking about his experience as CEO of LoudCloud, a 1990s-era company … Read more

Technology vs. traction: The two types of startups

One of the most important qualities investors look for in a startup is defensibility. Can a startup's product quickly be copied? Does it have technology or patents no company has had before? Are users flocking to its product like locusts?

At the seed stage, when startups are in their infancy, I believe there are two type of startups. The first is the technology startup -- it's a company that is defensible because it has built unique technology nobody else has. The second type of start is the traction startup -- unlike technology startups, the traction startup is defensible … Read more

AngelList attacks another startup pain point: Legal fees

AngelList -- a booming site where angel investors find tech startups to back -- is rolling out a product today that should please a lot of would-be Mark Zuckerbergs and, in theory, worry a lot of lawyers.

Ultimately, it could help both.

The site, founded in early 2010 by entrepreneurs/angel investors Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi, is now offering standardized online documents that will make it faster and cheaper for any of the thousands of startups on AngelList to close their first round of funding.

AngelList Docs, as it's called, breaks down the money-raising paperwork process in a … Read more

Would you like a patent search with your recruiting tool?

If you thought patents were intruding into the tech industry just a wee bit too much, brace yourself. Now they can be part of the recruiting process.

TalentBin, a San Francisco startup that scrapes social media sites ranging from Quora to Twitter in order to index hiring prospects for recruiters, has added the U.S. Office's patent database to the sources it scours for information on prospective employees.

Call it novel or horrifying, but I can see how it would be useful for recruiters, particularly in areas like biotech and manufacturing. And, yes, software, though you could argue that … Read more

With Pinpointing, Zappos hooks up Pinterest with e-commerce

Amazon's online shoe seller Zappos is combining the popularity of Pinterest with its own products in a new service.

Dubbed Pinpointing, the service delivers Zappos products based on what a user has pinned. In addition, the service will list products that had been pinned recently. Pinpointing lists a host of product categories, including shoes, skirts, dresses, and jeans.

In order to take advantage of the features, users can enter their own Pinterest username to see what sort of Zappos recommendations might relate to their previously pinned items. They can also input another person's username to see recommendations based … Read more

Entrepreneur sees tech startup potential in Arab world

In a region plagued by religious tensions and violent political strife, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Nima Adelkhani sees economic opportunity.

Through Progress in Technology Middle East, a company that launches today, Adelkhani plans to connect startups in the Arab world with the American technology industry's movers and shakers, part of a larger plan to help a fledgling ecosystem grow and foster stability in the area.

But let's be clear -- Adelkhani doesn't see any of the 27 businesses he is working with as charity cases. These are ideas that bring him goosebumps because he believes they are original … Read more

Y Combinator founder: Startup funding could get scarce

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The future for startup funding is "getting more unpredictable."

That's what Y Combinator founder Paul Graham said today, theorizing that because there are so many more young companies getting off the ground these days, venture capitalists may well have a much harder time predicting winners than in the past.

It makes sense. Startups can get going today for as little as a few hundred thousand dollars, so there are many more of them. "But the funnel at the top is the same," Graham said during the Y Combinator Demo Day. "… Read more

Bing Fund unveils first two startups enrolled in incubator

Less than a month after unveiling the Bing Fund, Microsoft's startup/accelerator incubation effort announced today the enrollment of its first two startups.

App development services provider Buddy and online games advertising service Pinion will get access to the software giant's technology assets and expertise, as well as its funding, the Bing Fund said today.

Buddy was founded by former Microsoft employees Dave McLauchlan and Jeff MacDuff. The Kirkland, Wash.-based company aims to reduce the amount of time mobile and Web app developers spend writing, testing, and managing server-side code. Bellevue, Wash.-based Pinion helps gaming communities … Read more