The Zapier Blog

APRIL 11, 2023

What have you done today? Click on any app to learn more about why I chose it, or keep reading for more context on journal apps. What makes a great online journal app? For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog. Who are you, really?

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media support creativity health 105

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

The deal also included a “strategic investment,” which TechCrunch reads as a modestly sized check, given that the dollar figure was not disclosed. Airbase’s last known price tag was set at $600 million on a post-money basis after the company raised $60 million last year, according to Crunchbase data.

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capital investing investment startup 79

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 8, 2022

I’d rather ask questions: Poshmark’s acquisition is at somewhat of a discount, so what does that tell us about the state of marketplace startups and their valuations? Duolingo is finally becoming an acquisition-friendly company; what does that tell us about their priorities and expansion efforts? Your favorite tech podcast.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 19, 2021

Though startup history is littered with would-be “business card killers” that eventually died, what makes Popl different from early contenders is that it combines both an app with a physical product — the Popl accessory. “So I was like, what’s the closest way we can get the phone tapping?

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technology networking media founder 97

Berkonomics

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

It is not uncommon for a sharp investor to discover a “stinky” clause or two in such agreements when reading them in preparation for signing. Bill Payne came across just such a stinky clause in a deal we both were joining as investors late in the process. So, what does the latest tag–along investor do?

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investing investment entrepreneurs 62

Smart Hustle Magazine

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

The first two Summits were held virtually in April and August 2020. Read on to learn how Dell technology might be able to support you and your business as you shift to manage COVID-19. Dell has worked to get them what they need quickly, as the goal is to not have any downtime. . The next one will be in the spring of 2021.

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support advice technology financing 112

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 7, 2022

We hope you’ve had a peaceful weekend and that you were able to stay clear of social media for a few days. Now, if only Mastodon would call its posts something other than “toots,” we might be able to get behind those. Twitter wants you back : If you were recently laid off from Twitter, would you return?

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 2, 2022

The ideas that I’m looking toward throughout the end of the year are as follows: What happened to the black swan memos? I want to talk to people impacted by tech’s 2022 layoff wave and hear what next steps look like. ” Finally, what are startups preparing to actually do differently? A reminder that pivots work.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

My favorite two quotes of the weekend were: “Never trade your cat for somebody else’s dog” (referring to selling your company for stock to another privately held company – quote was from Alan. I’m going to save that for a future blog post. Nail it before you scale it” – I missed who said this but I love this quote.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 1, 2022

were shuttering to slow the spread of the then-novel coronavirus. Eighteen months ago, many people were still getting comfortable with no-code and low-code. Thanks very much for reading TechCrunch+ this week! Now that the Momentive deal is dead, Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm performed a post mortem. Walter Thompson.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

If you’re not a TC+ subscriber, and you’re curious what a critique of a $65 million funding round at a $1.7 Deal terms were not disclosed, but Reddit says Spiketrap’s AI-powered contextual analysis and tools will help Reddit to improve in areas like ad quality scoring and will boost prediction models for powering auto-bidding, Sarah reports.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . It’s what makes you stand out from the rest. The one you were counting on. They were in LA and I was in LA. I knew what this meant. I HATE LOSING. I hate it. I really, really, really hate it.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . It’s what makes you stand out from the rest. The one you were counting on. They were in LA and I was in LA. I knew what this meant. I HATE LOSING. I hate it. I really, really, really hate it.

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consulting advice collaboration VC 328

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Those were the dog days of entrepreneurship. I explain the difference later in the post or you can click through on this link above for an explanation). They were nonplussed.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 12, 2010

I basically took some time on a weekend and just hacked out what was on my mind. If I were to re-write the original post I would have taken out the section on “how to get better intro’s from VC’s&# and made it it’s own post. This post is really about getting information to the board faster.

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board advice VC development 267

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. Because more technology people probably read startup blogs I’m guessing this post will come under more scrutiny. This post is designed mostly for non-technical founders. What makes a great tech team? I don’t believe that one exists.

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Smart Hustle Magazine

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

What social networking activity he does has seemed to be mostly automated, reposting directly from his blog, and there wasn’t much custom content for social media platforms. Seth’s brand already had a strong tribe that was willing to meet him where he was—listening to podcasts, reading his books, and visiting the blog.

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media education strategy networking 49

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

I was reading Chris Dixon’s blog tonight. He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. I came across this blog post about getting a computer science degree as the best degree for getting into venture capital or working at a VC-backed start up. I had to laugh a bit reading it. What you gain: 1.

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VC peer-to-peer advice consulting 337

TechCrunch

APRIL 10, 2022

I’ll be publishing this every Sunday, so in between posts, be sure to listen to the Equity podcast and hear Alex Wilhelm , Natasha Mascarenhas and me riff on all things startups! The announcement wasn’t a complete shock considering there were hints of trouble, as reported by The Information, the week prior.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

Paul explains the rationale behind HackerNews this way : “We wanted to try to recreate the way reddit felt back in 2006, when the users were mainly hackers. I only read HN comments when I want to get upset.&#. Overwhelmingly people were against my views. This is what many of the comments descended into.

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entrepreneurship culture innovation startup 258

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 6, 2022

When I recently talked to the DocSend team about what the most important slides are in a deck, they shared that the summary slide is starting to be more and more important. Vori does a great job at showing off — in a delightfully visual way — what the problem is. Three things to love. I love a good summary slide.

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pitching SaaS VC opportunity 94

StartupNation

JANUARY 6, 2021

More than ever, people are watching videos, consuming stories, reading posts and scrolling newsfeeds. What problems do you solve, how do you improve your customer’s life, how do you meet your audience’s needs? What problems do you solve, how do you improve your customer’s life, how do you meet your audience’s needs?

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peer-to-peer creativity collaboration mix-use 143

TechCrunch

AUGUST 7, 2022

If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. What about the acquisitions that are still taking place? The regulatory action follows a months-long probe into Tag, which offers banking and financial services to users in Pakistan.” ” Personnel.

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real estate VC mix-use opportunity 106

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

As in real life – those that rush into marriage often find out what their partner is really like after the fact. I wrote a post linked as follows about how to build relationships with VCs over time. But what about once you have a term sheet? What I mean is that this is the “friendly&# list. After Sept 11th?

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VC advice entrepreneurs venture capital 288

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. I commented briefly on his blog and made a mental note to write a blog post. They wanted to employ our entire team post acquisition. university in math or science&# (Thomas Friedman).

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education creativity innovation entrepreneurs 282

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. In the following post I argue that this increased pace may be temporary. When the market run started in March people were relieved that “the world wasn’t ending” so they started spending again.

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VC startup advice innovation 269

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

What are you on about? I’m writing this post to make sure you’re all on that same playing field. It was originally COBOL and DB2 – so what? I had to read each report, synthesis it and then come up with our best estimate of the markets going forward. They were more scientific.

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consulting data analysis advice construction 415

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

I have recently written extensively on what I believe the 12 characteristics of an entrepreneur are. The comments were littered with nature vs. nurture discussions / debates. That is true of all my blog posts. It is what I love the most about debates and one of the things I love most about blogging.

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entrepreneurship entrepreneurs advice VC 289

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

There’s been a lot of debate recently in the market about what kind of investment structure is best for angel and seed arounds. Don’t think for a second that what happens in YCombinator is indicative of the whole seed funding market. In all four deals that I’ve worked on, we were the first ones to the table.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 11, 2010

I haven’t written a blog post in a week. But what has really killed me is email. I’ve written about the topic before when I wrote the post “ I emailed a VC but never heard back.&# As in, what do you do now that you’ve written them. When I read Fred’s post it resonated for two reasons: 1.

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advice VC entrepreneurs entrepreneurship 265

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

If you didn’t read that yet it might be worth having a quick skim as a primer. Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “ Crossing the Chasm &# the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore. We like to use new product and gain benefits before our peers.

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peer-to-peer advice innovation support 294

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 4, 2009

If you sell a product direct to a customer – in person or on the phone – you need to understand what their pain points are and position your product benefits against those pain points. I’ll do a full post on this another day. They end up building what is called a FNAC (feature, not a company) as most people won’t pay for them.

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startup advice entrepreneurs networking 319

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2009

So what do we mean by in-stream advertising? Turns out this conversation is pretty important and what many people want to do. not all the other applications that were competing for user attention in Facebook). The first ads I remember were on HotWired. OK, many of you will know this but just to base line.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org. They picked apart holes in our strategy and they were right.

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VC venture capital pitching capital 274

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

When I first read Paul Graham’s blog post on “High Resolution&# Financing I read it as a treatise arguing that convertible notes are better than equity. As I’m generally a believer in ‘pricing rounds’ I initially didn’t agree with the premise of the post. Photo credit: D.

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financing finance advice VC 286

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. One theme that I always get is, “I’ve gotten an offer from a VC, but they want me to do X, what do you think?&# X is always something non-standard that the entrepreneur knows in his gut isn’t right. They were smart and accomplished.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 18, 2009

Yesterday I wrote a blog post ( here ) in which I urged people to not have too many founders. If you’re not an overnight success or if you do struggle what happens? . What if one guy needs to pay bills and takes a full time job somewhere. In yesterday’s post; however, I did not advocate being greedy.

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founder advice entrepreneurs VC 251