We recently had our mid-year internal review of our funds. In going through our many investments, one factor that emerged was that we have three fundamental “flavors” of investments. We found that we actually use slightly different language when we discuss each of these investment flavors, because our perspective and expectations of the companies are distinctly different.
Where We Are Investing Now: Immersive Storytelling
Content, and the marketing tools and analytics that support its business models was one of our earliest areas of investment focus. That seemed natural. We had domain expertise, great contacts, and strong reputations. But, perversely, our deep involvement actually led to quick, radical shifts in our views here.
New Vertical SaaS Investment Areas: Dirty but Good
Our funds adjust their investment theses as we analyze changes in the world around us. One of the emerging areas where we see promise is Vertical SaaS. We feel that, among companies, software hasn’t actually eaten the world, it has simply grabbed the most obvious dishes from the biggest tables. Huge opportunities remain largely untouched […]
The Short and Unhappy Reign of Subscription Boxes
If you looked at internet commerce ten years ago, you might well have imagined that the future belonged to the box. Specialized goods subscriptions boxes suddenly popped up everywhere, like mushrooms after a strong rain.
Entrepreneurism and Your Cat Pan: A Horror Story?
I have often said that entrepreneurism is a socially acceptable form of mania. By that, I meant that entrepreneurs, by definition, see themselves as standing apart from the crowd. They take on risks that cause other to quail, drive themselves and their teams to peak levels of performance, and sometimes over believe in themselves and […]
Where We Are Investing Now: Market-Based Education
When it comes to education, two things stand clear to us. Millions of people of every age and situation require education. It might be to improve college entrance potential or to better one’s job prospects, to acquire a skill or to belong to a community. The need is manifest. At the same time, it is […]
We Propose a New Stack for the Net
Back in the ancient tech times, when phone signals traveled over wires and TV signals traveled through the air, the limitations of then-existing hardware and software compelled a layered, flexible approach toward getting any information from Point A to Point B. The most elegant and powerful solution to this situation was the TCP/IP stack, which […]
Social Networking and Society: It’s Not As Bad As You Think
There has been an outbreak of recrimination and angst about the impact of online social networks on society. One of the early team members at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya, decried that “We’ve created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. If you feed the beast, the beast will destroy you.” Sean Parker, another […]
Blockchain without the BS
We at Social Starts and Joyance Partners see distributed trust networks (aka blockchain) as one of the most powerful technological ideas in decades. It’s an idea on a par with TCP/IP, the backbone of today’s internet, in the long-term impact it can have. Tech innovation from innumerable directions points toward blockchain-like requirements as an essential. […]
5 Tech Trends We See Right Now
We base our funds around deep research and evaluating lots of new companies. As a result, we can discern trends in tech and human behavior, sometimes long before they become widely recognized. Here are some of the most impactful trends we see right now: Merchant prince and media king: One person. In the past, media and […]
Where We Are Investing Now: Biosciences
Health is a remarkable area for early-stage investment. It shows more activity, more exits, more corporate involvement, and more overall value over the past five years than any other segment. However, it is also an extremely crowded area; the number of active health investors has more than doubled to more than 1500. There has also […]