Our investment thesis on healthcare
A few months ago we started spending more time on the healthcare vertical and got extremely excited about the amount of innovation that we were seeing. It felt like the healthcare industry was at a similar tipping point than education a few years ago. Yesterday we published a guest post on VentureBeat outlining our investment […]
Growth versus capital efficiency
I often see two entrepreneurs executing on similar opportunities, but with two very different capital efficiencies. First, there’s the aggressive one who spends money very quickly, building a large team, buying early growth through aggressive marketing and sales, and hoping for a large upround in the next financing round. Then, there’s the bootstrapping entrepreneur who […]
Bitcoin: its future as a platform and protocol
I recently started to spend some more time on the Bitcoin ecosystem and while I have not yet fully wrapped my head around all of the opportunities and challenges (or even developed an investment thesis), I wanted to write down some early thoughts and observations. Thoughts on the current ecosystem The recent Bitcoin rally might […]
The future of online marketplaces: “complex” transactions
The most successful online marketplaces today facilitate relatively simple transactions. There’s eBay and Etsy for buying/selling goods, AirBnB for short-term accommodations, and Uber for local transportation. While reputation mechanisms (i.e. user reviews) play an important role on these platforms, the price tags involved are typically low enough that customers are ready to deal with strangers […]
3 lessons from a customer-obsessed company
Last week, I attended a fascinating talk about Customer Obsession given by Kim Rachmeler at version one’s portfolio company, Frontdesk. Kim spent 10 years at Amazon.com, where she served as VP of Worldwide Customer Service, CIO International, among several other critical roles. While it’s no secret that Amazon.com is a customer-centric company, Kim shared a […]