What incentives are best for decentralized platforms?
One of the major advantages of the blockchain is that token models make it much easier to incentivize users. For example, during the early days, you can hand out tokens to reward early users and solve the chicken and egg problem that so many social platforms face. With decentralized platforms, the value that is created […]
Introducing the Second Edition of “The Guide to Marketplaces”
Note: We’ve updated this handbook — read the latest and greatest 3rd edition here! About two years ago, we put together The Guide to Marketplaces. It compiled many of the insights we’ve learned from working with great marketplace companies and analyzing the industry. One third of Version One portfolio companies are marketplace companies, and with […]
Helping our founders by supporting the whole team
When we developed our core beliefs, we spent considerable time thinking about our investment philosophy, as well as how we should work with our portfolio companies and what kind of resource we want to be. Specifically, we included two points involving our role: 5) We can make the greatest impact as a Seed investor. The seed […]
Having the greatest impact requires believing when others don’t
As investors, we want to have an impact. We want to help entrepreneurs, build sustainable companies, improve lives, and change industries. When I think back to those situations where we’ve made the biggest impact on entrepreneurs, they’ve all got one thing in common: they were all times when we believed when others didn’t. For example, […]
Optimizing the trade-offs between centralized and decentralized platforms
Decentralization maximalists argue that you cannot trust a centralized organization and thus, everything should be decentralized. And thanks to the advances in blockchain technology, that’s now technically possible. These proponents of decentralized platforms can offer up numerous reasons why the decentralized world is superior; the chief two reasons are avoiding censorship and eliminating the rake […]