Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

There were many moments in each space when pioneers were funding startups and the press hadn’t written much about them and if you were a typical investor you were still funding the last trend while some VCs were trailblazing into new categories. But deep down I personally yearn for bigger ideas and more profound products.

funders 362

funders culture incumbents technology 362

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

They just announced their Android app (you can download here if you’re on Android or the iOS version if you’re on that platform ). Draft is a Fantasy Sports app designed for the mobile world and the busy lifestyle founded by Jeremy Levine. Last year I began playing with an app called Draft that was in its infancy.

enablement 302

enablement consulting development support 302

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 23, 2018

I had a connection to my own personal trip concierge and a custom app that outlined my trip. The tours are an order of magnitude less expensive because the company doesn't have to pay for infrastructure on the ground--it's all in your custom app. Thanks to Noken , there are no more excuses not to travel.

culture 265

culture education VC opportunity 265

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MARCH 18, 2020

Physical and Mental Health Apps. Meditation apps like Headspac e and Calm will provide opportunities for users to unwind after a long day of solitary work or managing a household full of kids off school. Brands like ClassPass can draw customers to their database of online yoga, pilates and HIIT classes. Games, Toys & Projects.

health 307

health accelerator opportunity hospitality 307

Entrepreneurs' Organization

MAY 15, 2024

The top three categories of techniques make up 80 percent of the most effective strategies entrepreneurs use to build mental resilience. Enhance Your Mental Resilience As entrepreneurs, each of us must find the activities we love in the categories of Movement, Mindset, and Connection. Sounds luxurious, doesn’t it?

peer-to-peer 253

peer-to-peer founder health entrepreneurship 253

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 8, 2024

However, unlike our original analysis — in which we first ranked companies according to web traffic, then added in mobile app data for those companies — this time we split web and mobile gen AI products into two separate lists. This distinction allows us to examine the full universe of top AI mobile apps for the first time.

mix-use 145

mix-use mentorship development communities 145

American Entrepreneurship

APRIL 24, 2025

Its core product suite includes: Scan&Score : Scans all incoming communicationemails, texts, social media DMs, messaging apps, QR codes, and even imagesfor scam indicators in real-time. This end-to-end solution has positioned the company as a category creator in digital safety.

startup ecosystem 89

startup ecosystem SaaS accelerator education 89

The Zapier Blog

JULY 1, 2025

Pen and paper set a very high bar to clear, but these are the six best mind mapping apps that manage to clear it. How we evaluate and test apps Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Mind mapping with a pen and paper is a joy.

collaboration 105

collaboration support education creativity 105

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 16, 2024

for the following venture strategies: American Dynamism ($600M), Apps ($1B), Games ($600M), Infrastructure ($1.25B), and Growth ($3.75B). I am pleased to announce that we have just raised $7.2B This marks an important milestone for us.

venture capital 144

venture capital networking health VC 144

Andreessen Horowitz

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

In which categories do incumbents dominate—and where are new companies breaking out? We relied on web traffic vs. app traffic to “qualify” companies for the list, as most consumer GenAI products have been website-first so far (more on this below!). Who might be the next “big winner”? Here are our top 6 takeaways. GPT wrappers”).

incumbents 145

incumbents creativity VC technology 145

Y Combinator

MAY 6, 2020

Consumers’ desire for social engagement while shopping is highlighted by sales within categories. Social shopping is particularly important for categories where consumers seek feedback or recommendations from friends. To maximize this effect, Pinduoduo launched in the fruits and vegetables category.

accelerator 140

accelerator networking enablement opportunity 140

The Zapier Blog

JUNE 19, 2025

I've grouped them into categories to make things easier to scan, but keep in mind: the best ads don't always fit neatly into a box. Visual proof of ease: The demo walks viewers through exactly how tap-to-pay works in the app, making the product feel approachable and foolproof. 5 from 8K+ reviews) is front and center.

culture 98

culture pitching media education 98

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 28, 2020

The rivalry between China’s top online learning apps has become even more intense this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another popular online learning app in China is Yiqizuoye, which is backed by Singapore’s Temasek. Chinese live tutoring app Yuanfudao is now worth $15.5 billion valuation after closing a $2.2

education 133

education finance financing capital 133

The Zapier Blog

JUNE 30, 2025

We independently review every app we recommend in our best apps lists. This year, to help you avoid analysis paralysis, I researched more than 50 free invoicing apps and spent several days testing the top contenders. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

consulting 98

consulting media investment investing 98

American Entrepreneurship

JULY 2, 2025

Co-founder and President Stan Garber emphasized the broader vision: “We’re not just building procurement tools.

accelerator 56

accelerator innovation entrepreneurship SaaS 56

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2018

When you think about the category of scooters you think about Bird and that becomes a brand your friends want to try. The more people that see your brand as the innovator the more “earned media” the company gets and the product becomes synonymous with the category. Another obvious advantage is a term that often feels amorphous?—?“brand.”

transportation 256

transportation innovation leadership capital 256

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 15, 2022

Real estate investing app Fintor raises $6.2M is a really apt term is I’m just naming certain categories of software that I know well, but I fail to see a future where all of those [categories], given the advances in compute and data and algorithms, don’t get more intelligent. Food for thought. Fractional lands $5.5

startup 130

startup real estate frameworks disruption 130

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 25, 2021

Joining the fray is Heart to Heart , an audio-first dating app aiming to bring back some intimacy to the process of finding the right person for your next foray, whether that’s a saucy encounter or a mate for life. “When it came down to the dating apps, it was never something I could get into. .

creativity 142

creativity energy media ventures 142

The Zapier Blog

JUNE 5, 2025

Based on all my testing, here are the vibe coding apps that'll make you feel superpowered—understanding of niche memes not included. Before this category came into shape, we had a loosely formed category named AI app builders. I kept about 15 browser tabs open to vibe code all kinds of stuff to answer that question.

development 52

development technology frameworks support 52

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 10, 2021

Homa Games then takes care of publishing the game on the App Store and Play Store. All of Homa Games’ success that ended up in the top 20 of most downloaded games in the App Store and Play Store have been developed in eight days or less. Homa Games call this the ‘arcade idle’ category. So far, the company has released 40 games.

startup 145

startup development board innovation 145

TechCrunch

AUGUST 30, 2021

To that end it made three announcements last year: Zoom Apps development tools , the Zoom Apps marketplace and a $100 million development fund to invest in some of the more promising startups building tools on top of their platform. Zoom launches $100M Zoom Apps investment fund.

investing 102

investing investment startup collaboration 102

StartupNation

OCTOBER 18, 2021

Imagine that you are setting up a dating app. You begin to think through your sign-up workflow – the process that your users have to complete in order to be able to use your app. You should collect only what you need to set them up on your app. are defined in law as “special category data” to which more onerous rules apply.

health 128

health innovation technology development 128

TechCrunch

JULY 27, 2021

Twitter’s recent acquisition spree continues today as the company announces it has acqui-hired the team from news aggregator and summary app Brief. Before starting Brief, co-founder and CEO Nick Hobbs was a Google product manager who had worked on AR, Google Assistant, Google’s mobile app, and self-driving cars, among other things.

accelerator 145

accelerator media strategy support 145

TechCrunch

JUNE 27, 2021

The pandemic has spurred interest in saving and investment apps around the world , especially ones geared toward newer investors. Infina launched its app in January 2021. Like other investment apps with many newer investors, Infina also creates its own educational content, like blog posts, daily newsletters and videos.

investing 119

investing investment real estate education 119

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 17, 2021

Gen Z isn’t satisfied with the social media they grew up with, so they’re building the apps that they want to use. ” Depending on what you want to use your profile for (you might want a social profile, or you might want to promote your art and network), you can choose from five profile skins when you onboard into the app.

peer-to-peer 118

peer-to-peer creativity media collaboration 118

TechCrunch

MARCH 11, 2021

We found seven categories of VC theses, plus an eighth: the non-thesis. and Germany; and “tech” means B2B SaaS/fintech or consumer apps. We found seven categories of VC theses, plus an eighth: the non-thesis. Our four primary conclusions: Public theses are often inconsistent with how firms actually deploy capital.

VC 136

VC investing investment venture capital 136

Andreessen Horowitz

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

This move alone spawned a flurry of new apps that use and extend the model to help people create tracks. We demonstrate the overlap below: Real-Time Music Streaming Thus far, most of the emerging generative streaming products have been in the functional music category: apps like Endel , Brain.fm , and Aimi.

mix-use 28

mix-use creativity enablement pitching 28

TechCrunch

MAY 11, 2023

SLAIT School aims to change that with an interactive tutor powered by computer vision , letting aspiring ASL speakers practice at their own rate like in any other language learning app. It’s high quality and much of it is free but it isn’t the kind of interactive experience people have come to expect from apps like Duolingo.

education 120

education opportunity support communities 120

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 4, 2022

Duolingo has acquired its first startup, an animation studio that has created art for the language learning app and for Amazon, Dropbox, Spotify and Google. And then this year we were a fair bit more proactive in terms of defining what would be the best fit for the company in terms of categories and and targets.”

creativity 97

creativity education founder startup 97

TechCrunch

JUNE 23, 2022

In freight brokerage, Convoy and Uber Freight digitized the traditional process of matching truckers with loads, enabling them to streamline hours of emails and phone calls with simple app-based workflows. Again and again, we see these call-and-response patterns of disruptive innovation across supply chain categories.

incumbents 92

incumbents innovation disruption enablement 92

TechCrunch

APRIL 5, 2022

Mobile apps have become part of the bedrock of how the world at large gets things done and spends a lot of its leisure time, so it’s no surprise that the development of them has become increasingly democratized, too. There are a number of apps out there (and more being built) to build mobile apps without the need for coding expertise.

development 99

development mix-use education VC 99

The Zapier Blog

JULY 4, 2025

We independently review every app we recommend in our best apps lists. How we evaluate and test apps Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. I didn't just read these apps' marketing materials and customer reviews.

frameworks 66

frameworks enablement consulting SaaS 66

The Zapier Blog

JUNE 3, 2025

I use some of these apps daily as a prompt to make my writing more concise and, hopefully, more enjoyable. I considered dozens of apps and did in-depth testing on the top contenders to narrow it down to these six apps. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

creativity 98

creativity mix-use support advice 98

Andreessen Horowitz

MAY 7, 2024

It’s the lifeblood of an app and the hardest metric to move, as I learned viscerally during my time running the growth team at Snap. For a social app, this may be having 5 friends on the platform, for a work collaboration product, it may be joining a few channels. For consumer products, the rubber hits the road at retention.

creativity 104

creativity strategy communities collaboration 104

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 22, 2022

On the left web3 app marketers (advertisers) gather analytics on their users. Some will build this in-house, but over time, it will emerge as a separate category. Having driven a user to a web3 app, the advertiser will employ Virtual Wallet Infrastructure. Behind the scenes, the app creates a wallet for the user.

networking 142

networking education enablement development 142

The Zapier Blog

APRIL 18, 2023

While email services haven't changed a lot over the past two decades, email apps keep getting better. There are some great native Mac email apps that make the whole experience better and more Mac-like. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

coworking 105

coworking support collaboration media 105

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

On its app, students watch live classes from educators and later engage in sessions to review topics in more detail. Even as most Indians tend not to pay for online services — just ask Google and Facebook, both of which count India as their biggest market by users but make little in the country — the education category is an outlier.

investing 118

investing investment education innovation 118