Posts from 2017

NYC Open Source FinTech Meetup

Open source software is a critical part of the tech stack for many organizations, both large corporations and early-stage startups alike. For various reasons, the financial services industry, one of the dominant industries in NYC, has lagged other sectors in adopting and contributing to open source.

That is changing, pushed partly by the strategies and success of high-growth fintech startups, as well as a broader recognition of the benefits of an open source strategy. A number of financial services and fintech companies here in NYC play significant roles as contributors and maintainers for open source platforms, tools, and languages popular in the industry.

To better connect people in NYC working with open source software in financial services, my friend and AVC community member Rob Underwood of TTM Advisors has teamed up with the Symphony Software Foundation to create the NY Open Source FinTech Meetup. Its inaugural meetup is January 8th at 6:30pm at Rise NY. Aaron Williamson of the Symphony Software Foundation will be moderating a panel discussion with John Stecher of Barclays and Mazy Dar of OpenFin on the 2018 outlook for open source projects in the finance industry.

If you’re working at the intersection of financial services and open source you should check it out.

#hacking finance

How To Deal With Trolls

I have dealt with social media trolls a lot over the years.

I have found that these things work best:

1) Ignore them

2) Don’t mute or block them

3) Let their ridiculous comments/tweets/etc stay up to show how crazy they are

4) Ignore them

5) Ignore them

6) Ignore them

What they want and crave is attention.

Don’t give it to them.

#life lessons

Last Minute Etsy Shopping

If you really want to buy someone a gift that is unique and special from a real live person on Etsy vs some mass produced crap from Amazon, but you think it might be too late for that now, don’t fear. There are plenty of last minute items that can be bought and shipped directly to your friends and family from an Etsy seller.

Here is an Etsy Holiday Gift Guide for items that can be shipped in one business day.

And here is a blog post from Hello Giggles that features sixteen awesome last minute gifts on Etsy.

This is my favorite item from that Hello Giggles post:

I told that to my friend Josh who is the CEO of Etsy and I think he bought it on the spot for me. I should do that more often 🙂

Anyway, you can shop on Etsy for a few more days and get gifts that are fun, special, and wonderful and you don’t have to leave your home or office to do it.

#Current Affairs

Crypto Explorers

Crypto Explorers is a community that got it start here at AVC earlier this year with this post.

Crypto Explorers is a group of crypto enthusiasts that travel to Zug Switzerland (“crypto valley”) together and engage in discoveries and discussion.

Typical participants include folks running small crypto hedge funds, VC’s re-calibrating their business models, academics making sense of things, crypto holders figuring out their next moves, hackers/makers, and the generally curious and deep-thinker types around all this.

Their next trip is Jan 29-31 and you can apply to join it here.

They do roughly one per quarter so if you can’t make this one, there will be another one in the spring.

#crypto

Playing Your Role

Investing in many different companies, with different founders, different cultures, and different missions requires the ability to adapt to each and every one. I like to think about it as playing a role in a play.

Even though I am the same person, with the same fundamental beliefs, I end up playing very different roles in the companies I invest in and work with. The Fred Wilson that works with Coinbase is different than the Fred Wilson that works with Kickstarter and the Fred Wilson that works with Etsy and the Fred Wilson that works with SoundCloud and the Fred Wilson that worked with Twitter.

It starts with the founders and the mission. They set the course for the company. As an investor, you show up and something is already underway. You have to take the time to understand where the company is headed, why it was formed in the first place, where it is going and why. You have to figure out how to insert yourself into that journey in a way that is constructive and value adding. And you have to do that work before you invest because if you can’t figure out how to play a role that is constructive and value adding, you should not make that investment and join that Board.

Some founders start companies to make money first and foremost. It is important to understand that. They will be “coin operated” and transactional.

Some founders start companies to solve a very specific problem, often one that they themselves have. They will be very product and market focused.

Some founders start companies to chart a course that is different from others. They will be iconoclasts who like to zig when others zag.

Some founders build companies to sell.

Some founders build companies to go public.

Some founders build companies to outlive them.

What I have learned is that there is no right way to build a business, no right way to exit a business, no right way to operate a business. There are many different ways to do the startup thing. And I have learned that getting everyone on the same page about the specific way you are going to do it is critical. If everyone on the management team, investor group, and Board are bought into the long term vision and wanting to go to the same place, on that specific opportunity, then great things can happen.

If, on the other hand, there is tension between the founders about the direction, or between the Board and founders about the direction, or between the management team and the founders about the direction, or between members of the management team about the direction, then it makes it very hard to move things forward.

I know that people who read AVC, who follow the investments we make at USV, who work in USV-funded portfolio companies often scratch their head trying to figure out why what is right for one company is not right for another.

Why is it that its a great idea for one of our portfolio companies to move to a token based business model and do an ICO when it is not a great idea for another one of our portfolio companies to do that?

Why is it that it is a great idea for one of our portfolio companies to accept an M&A offer before they have reached their potential when it is not a great idea for another one of our portfolio companies to do that?

Why is it that it is a great idea for one of our portfolio companies to go public when it is a bad idea for another one of our portfolio companies to do that?

To understand these conflicting choices that companies we work with make, it is important to understand how these companies were funded, what the vision was, what they founders wanted out of the effort, what the investors signed up for, how they were capitalized, how they were managed, and how all of that changed over the years. And it is hard to understand those things from afar.

To understand it better, you need to think about each company as a different journey, to a different place, and all of us – the employees, the management, the founders, the investors, the board members – as role players in that journey. And when you choose to join a company as an employee or an investor or as the CEO, you really need to take the time to understand that journey before you step into that role. Because you will be playing it, possibly for a long time.

#entrepreneurship#VC & Technology

Funding Friday: Save Gawker.com

I backed this project when it launched last week.

Here’s the pitch:
Gawker isn’t gone, it’s up for auction. The person who drove the site into bankruptcy wants to buy it.
We’re a group of former Gawker Media employees across editorial, tech, and business, and we want to put in our own bid to buy it back.
We believe the site can thrive in an entirely membership funded model.
The Gawker Foundation is a non-profit with a dual mission:
1.) Preserve the Gawker.com archives and make them accessible.
2.) Relaunch the site under the stewardship of former editors, new writers, and an entirely membership-funded model.

Here’s the video:

Click here to back this project.

#crowdfunding

SoundCloud Home

Our portfolio company SoundCloud, which makes one of the most popular apps in the world, is launching a new Home experience in it’s mobile apps today.

SoundCloud is the first place musicians post their music and it is the first place listeners discover new artists.

In the past, listeners had to use a feed experience (like Twitter) to discover new artists and new music. This experience works well for power users who take the time to curate a following list. But it doesn’t work great for most users.

So SoundCloud is launching a new Home experience today which moves the feed to a second tab and replaces with a curated and personalized experience for users.

Here is what the new Home looks like:

 

If you have the mobile app, you should get pushed an update today or tomorrow with the new Home experience

It is also available on the web at https://soundcloud.com/discover.

If you want to stay current on the latest in up and coming new artists, SoundCloud is the place to do that and it just got a lot better at doing that for you.

#Music

Return On Hard Decisions

I spent much of yesterday going through board decks and other year-end reports.

It was an incredibly gratifying experience after a hard year.

I spearheaded quite a few restructurings this year. A lot of people lost their jobs as a result of those efforts.

It was a year of hard decisions and hard conversations.

But as I sat in my office and read through the reports and decks, what came across loud and clear was that we had made a bunch of right decisions.

A lot of companies that were wandering in the wilderness are now headed in clear and exciting directions.

I continue to feel badly for the people who lost their jobs or quit their jobs in the wake of these restructurings. I realize that many of them had a hard year too and I am sorry for that.

But I feel great for the companies who have been revitalized and for the people who are working in them with a jump in their step and a feeling of optimism and purpose.

This time last year I had a bad feeling in my gut and was having trouble sleeping. I knew what I had to do and dreaded doing it.

Right now, I have a good feeling in my gut and am sleeping like a baby.

That is a nice return on hard decisions.

#management