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Month: April 2017

134. The Importance of Storytelling, VC EQ, and the LP-GP Dating Game, Part 2 (James R. ‘Trey’ Hart III)

by Nick Moran

Trey Hart of Northern Trust is back to cover Part 2 of the GP-LP relationship. In this segment we address:

- Key mistakes that GPs make

- The key characteristics that successful GP’s share

- The importance of an ownership focus

- What winning really looks like for GPs, in terms of metrics (ie....

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

133. The Importance of Storytelling, VC EQ, and the LP-GP Dating Game, Part 1 (James R. ‘Trey’ Hart III)

by Nick Moran

Trey Hart, SVP of 50 South Capital at Northern Trust, joins Nick for a deep dive on the relationship between LPs and GPs. In Part 1, we will address questions including: Trey’s path to becoming an LP His thoughts on being a GP The types of GPs and categories they...

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

Quora

by Sam Altman
This post is by Sam Altman from Sam Altman

I'm a strong believer in the importance of the internet in helping people to share knowledge and learn from each other.  So I’m delighted to share, on behalf of YC Continuity, that we’re investing alongside Collaborative Fund in Quora.

Quora is doing extremely well. They now have more than 190 million monthly unique visitors, almost doubling from a year ago. The combination of their ever-improving machine learning and the increasing amount of knowledge shared means the product gets better as it gets bigger. The content I see from Quora constantly gets more personalized for me.

I also believe they have some of the highest-quality user-generated content on the internet, and a real chance at being one of the few places that contain all human knowledge. The engineering challenges between here and there are great, but if there’s a team and product to bet on, this is one we're backing with confidence.

Adam is one of the few names that people consistently mention when discussing the smartest CEOs in Silicon Valley. And he has a very long-term focus, which has become a rare commodity in tech companies these days. 

My relationship with Quora goes back to May 2014 when the company participated in YC.  Funding an already successful company was an unusual experiment for us.  At that point we didn't have any specific thoughts on how YC might invest in graduates from our program and help them scale.  In a way, Quora was the inspiration for deciding we needed to figure (Read more...)

Quora

by Sam Altman
This post is by Sam Altman from Sam Altman

I'm a strong believer in the importance of the internet in helping people to share knowledge and learn from each other.  So I’m delighted to share, on behalf of YC Continuity, that we’re investing alongside Collaborative Fund in Quora.

Quora is doing extremely well. They now have more than 190 million monthly unique visitors, almost doubling from a year ago. The combination of their ever-improving machine learning and the increasing amount of knowledge shared means the product gets better as it gets bigger. The content I see from Quora constantly gets more personalized for me.

I also believe they have some of the highest-quality user-generated content on the internet, and a real chance at being one of the few places that contain all human knowledge. The engineering challenges between here and there are great, but if there’s a team and product to bet on, this is one we're backing with confidence.

Adam is one of the few names that people consistently mention when discussing the smartest CEOs in Silicon Valley. And he has a very long-term focus, which has become a rare commodity in tech companies these days. 

My relationship with Quora goes back to May 2014 when the company participated in YC.  Funding an already successful company was an unusual experiment for us.  At that point we didn't have any specific thoughts on how YC might invest in graduates from our program and help them scale.  In a way, Quora was the inspiration for deciding we needed to figure (Read more...)

132. Nick Moran is Interviewed on Bootstrapping in America

by Nick Moran

TastyTrade was kind enough to invite Nick on their program, Bootstrapping in America.  In this episode the interview audio will be available on the podcast and the video is here on the blog.  Hosts Kristi, Ross, and Tony Batista interview Nick about the Podcast, the investment group and what types...

 

To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes.

Also, follow us on twitter  for updates and more information.

Accel SaaS 100 Europe 2017: Calling the Leaders

by Philippe Botteri
This post is by Philippe Botteri from Cracking The Code


Nominations are now open for the 2017 edition of Accel SaaS 100 Europe, the list of the top 100 leading SaaS companies emerging from Europe & Israel.

Last year, after many months of research, we published alongside our Article “SaaS Wars: Europe awakens” the first list of 100 leading SaaS companies from Europe & Israel, in conjunction with SaaStock 2016, the first large scale SaaS event taking place in Europe. In front of the enthusiasm raised by the post and the conference, we have decided to renew the initiative this year and update our Top 100 for 2017. We will even go further and invite the founders of the Top 100 companies to a unique half-day event organised by Accel in partnership with SaaStock 2017, on Monday September 18th, right before the start of the conference. 

This past year’s winners have raised a combined $2.5 billion to redefine industries on a global scale. They include Trustpilot, Intercom, Doctolib, Showpad, Zerto, Algolia, Qubit and Typeform among others. To compile last year’s list, we screened more than 1,000 companies across 12 countries in Europe, met hundreds of them, and spoke with dozens of entrepreneurs & investors from the SaaS ecosystem. Nobody is perfect - we know we might have missed some amazing companies, so this year we are opening up the entry. 

Do you think you are ready to join the ranks of Europe & Israel’s most promising SaaS Leaders? If so, it is easy to apply, just fill the official (Read more...)

Accel SaaS 100 Europe 2017: Calling the Leaders

by Philippe Botteri
This post is by Philippe Botteri from Cracking The Code


Nominations are now open for the 2017 edition of Accel SaaS 100 Europe, the list of the top 100 leading SaaS companies emerging from Europe & Israel.

Last year, after many months of research, we published alongside our Article “SaaS Wars: Europe awakens” the first list of 100 leading SaaS companies from Europe & Israel, in conjunction with SaaStock 2016, the first large scale SaaS event taking place in Europe. In front of the enthusiasm raised by the post and the conference, we have decided to renew the initiative this year and update our Top 100 for 2017. We will even go further and invite the founders of the Top 100 companies to a unique half-day event organised by Accel in partnership with SaaStock 2017, on Monday September 18th, right before the start of the conference. 

This past year’s winners have raised a combined $2.5 billion to redefine industries on a global scale. They include Trustpilot, Intercom, Doctolib, Showpad, Zerto, Algolia, Qubit and Typeform among others. To compile last year’s list, we screened more than 1,000 companies across 12 countries in Europe, met hundreds of them, and spoke with dozens of entrepreneurs & investors from the SaaS ecosystem. Nobody is perfect - we know we might have missed some amazing companies, so this year we are opening up the entry. 

Do you think you are ready to join the ranks of Europe & Israel’s most promising SaaS Leaders? If so, it is easy to apply, just fill the official (Read more...)