Today Amazon announced the acquisition of Victoria-based AbeBooks, the company I have been involved with…
Entrepreneurship, Crypto / Blockchain
It was 20 years ago next month that we started JustBooks, creating a marketplace that connected buyers and sellers of used, rare, and out-of-print books. We initially launched in Germany before expanding into the UK and France, and then sold the company to our North American competitor AbeBooks in 2001. My co-founder Hannes Blum and […]
Today Amazon announced the acquisition of Victoria-based AbeBooks, the company I have been involved with…
I recently returned to Harry Stebbings’ 20 Minute VC Podcast, where we chatted about all…
It was 20 years ago next month that we started JustBooks, creating a marketplace that connected buyers and sellers of used, rare, and out-of-print books. We initially launched in Germany before expanding into the UK and France, and then sold the company to our North American competitor AbeBooks in 2001.
My co-founder Hannes Blum and I joined the AbeBooks HQ and co-led the company for many years until we sold it to Amazon in 2008. It was an incredible entrepreneurial ride with many ups and downs (and ultimately, a very happy ending) and created a rich experience base that I still draw from today when working with our portfolio founders.
Looking back, it’s amazing to think about just how much has changed when it comes to building start-ups since my time with JustBooks/AbeBooks. For example, back then…
It’s simply a great reminder as to how much progress has been made and how much more efficiently start-ups can be built these days. Today, there’s AWS and payment infrastructure like Stripe; you can easily reach the right customers with hyper-targeted, efficient online marketing channels like Google and Facebook. The way we built our start-up 20 years ago now feels like the stone age.
There is a huge parallel to what we are seeing with blockchain and decentralized computing today: costs are high, dev tools are missing and rudimentary, and there are still very few people that have engaged in crypto. But given how the speed of technical innovation has accelerated over the past few years (and continues to do so), this time around it will not take 20 years to make building start-ups much easier and cost-efficient.
Data / AI / ML
This November marks three years since the launch of ChatGPT. That moment brought AI into the mainstream, with large language models (LLMs) seen as the breakthrough technology powering it. Since then, innovation in AI has been relentless — perhaps one of the fastest cycles we’ve ever witnessed in tech. It’s worth pausing to reflect on […]
It’s hard to believe that it has been three years since my first day at…
“It takes 10 years and $30m to become a great investor.” This quote has stuck…