Category Archives: Startups

We’re all pretty busy individuals, whether it’s in our personal lives or when we’re at work. Quite frankly, I don’t think anyone would mind some help when it comes to getting things done, right? Take for example if you’re at work jam-packed with meetings and deliverables, but you’re hungry and also need to pick up your dry cleaning or even buying that new jacket you know is on sale, which ends today. Just how are you going to be able to do all of that? You might be able to source it out to TaskRabbit or even Zaarly, but you want someone dedicated and vetted, not necessarily crowdsourced. Don’t get me wrong, I’d totally use TaskRabbit and Zaarly, but I consider them more of a crowdsourced assistant for a variety of other things besides just deliveries. But in the example given above, I’d have to give my trust over to Postmates, an on-demand delivery service that is disrupting the way traditional couriers are currently operating. No longer are they just business resources, but for personal use too.

A battlefield finalist at a recent TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, this “stealth startup” (as listed on Crunchbase) is geared to help make your life simpler by having anything delivered in three simple steps: by using the Postmates app (currently available only for the iPhone), just enter the locations where you want pick-up and delivery, a brief description, and delivery time. That’s it! If you want, feel free to include a photo of the item you want to pick up/deliver. This might make it easier for both the courier and the recipient to know what’s coming. The Postmates app also will allow you to track your delivery in real-time so you know when it will get there–no more waiting around because the courier service said it’ll be there between 7-11am or other ridiculous times. Oh, and Postmates will deliver it within two hours or less!

Being hailed as the “Uber for courier delivery” by PandoDaily, Postmates is looking to bring more luxury and professionalism into the traditional courier industry. In fact, they’re totally disrupting it by offering dedicated couriers that have been vetted and they’re levering cool technologies to make it happen–very much like what Uber did with car service.

Reality TV has finally arrived in Silicon Valley. That’s right, Bravo TV, the cable network that brought you such great shows like Kathy, Project Runway, Shahs of Sunset, Real Housewives of [name your city], Top Model, America’s Next Top Model, and many others, is perhaps the first network to try and break through and pioneer a reality/docu-series about the tech industry right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s tentatively called “Silicon Valley” and it’s being produced by the network with advised by Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, former marketing head at the social network, and now an entrepreneur with her R to Z media company.

In typical Bravo TV fashion, “Silicon Valley” looks to be similar to their other reality shows, but the goal appears to be to cast a spotlight on the inner workings of the what life is like in the tech capital of the world. Expected to air this season, “Silicon Valley” has received some mixed reactions–in fact, it’s become quite polarizing. Mrs. Zuckerberg defends what is portrayed in “Silicon Valley” when in a statement to the local NBC affiliate here: “I’m a strong believer in innovation and entrepreneurship and hope that through this series, other people will be inspired to build the next break out companies and technologies.” The hope is sincerely there and for many people who happen to be involved in that hustle, they’re praying that the series does what they do here some justice and brings honor to their profession and their quest in trying to create something that will change the world.

Instagram just proved that it was definitely the top dog of the photo-sharing market. Announced today was a monster deal that pairs the largest photo-sharing app in the market today with the largest social network in the world. Yes, that’s right, Facebook has jumped and bought Instagram for a whopping $1 billion. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, posted that they’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently and there’s no indication that it would act otherwise.

This acquisition totally makes sense and is probably a perfect one–as Mr. Zuckerberg mentioned in his post, the social network for years has been “focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family” and Instagram now gives users the ability to be totally creative and help post (what some may think) better photos to the social network. After all, a photo-sharing feature currently does not exist on Facebook’s mobile app and there are some who think that their native mobile app just plain sucks. Now, Facebook owns one of the most popular apps and will be able to integrate both the team and the app right into its collective and build something great.

Everyone knows that there are plenty of ways to get funded–you can either start your company bootstrapped or seek investment from an investment firm or agency and you can also find an angel or a venture capitalist to give you some cash to help you along your way. Here in Silicon Valley, one of the most prominent angel investors out there that is taking names, meetings, making dreams come true for some of the tech industry’s best and brightest startups is Dave McClure. As a staple of Silicon Valley, he’s definitely one of the most recognizable names out there and has made it his goal to help as many startups as possible. From helping provide needed resources at Founders Fund to organizing a global tour bringing some of America’s brightest minds to other countries with his successful Geeks on a Plane tour, no one can discount Mr. McClure’s determination and dedication to helping the innovators of the world succeed.

And that’s probably why 500 Startups was created–this part-fund, part-startup accelerator is geared to help early-stage companies with a bit of seed investment to help get them started. Eligible startups can also enroll in their popular startup accelerator program and in an effort to promote some of their most popular portfolio platforms, mico-fund models are available to fund startups who leverage them (e.g. Twilio Fund). Mr. McClure started 500 Startups just 18 months ago, but within that time span has been, as The Next Web called “dazzlingly prolific“. From investments in startups like Curebit, 955 Dreams, SendGrid, LaunchRock, Visual.ly, Udemy, AwayFind, Zozi, VidCaster, TaskRabbit, WillCall, Miso Media, Twilio, Votizen, OtherInbox, OneTrueFan, Flowtown, MogoTix, Rapportive, Wildfire Interactive, Tello, and many others, 500 Startups has had much success changing the way people do business.

Well the time for rumors and speculation is over. They said it would be done in the “near future” and today, they’ve made it happen. Android users rejoice because now you’re going to be able to use the top photo-sharing app out in the marketplace on your phones without fear of being shunned by your iPhone peers simply because the app never was made available for the Android platform. That’s right, Instagram has finally come to the Android platform.

A couple of weeks ago, news broke that Instgram was moving ever so close to their goal of releasing an app for the Android that they set up a landing page that interested users could sign up and receive an email notification to tell them of the release. Well surprise! The app is now in Google Play (formerly the Android marketplace), but alas, no one seems to have received that helpful email notification telling them of its launch. I suppose the “early adopters” have leaked the word on Twitter and Facebook (that’s where I found out) and an email will go to the masses a little later on to inform them–maybe this is a way to make sure the enormous amount of people who are on Android don’t flood the marketplace and shut it down because of the demand. The Verge reports that when Instagram started accepting notification sign-ups, the service received over 430,000 responses. This isn’t bad, but definitely pales in comparison to the amount of iPhone users that the service already has (~30 million). So in order for this to have been worth something to Instagram, more people have got to start downloading the app.

Instagram for Android is free to download, but when I went to search for “Instagram” or “Instagram for Android”, I found it a bit difficult to see in my search results. Luckily, I had my Google account logged onto my desktop and installed it through the computer instead of through the phone. Now I’m able to check it out in all its photo-glory. The release of this version helps Instagram close the loop on one of their hopes for the app. As their founder, Kevin Systrom told VentureBeat:

We’re really excited about Instagram for Android as the next big step for our company…this release brings us closer to the idea that we can help every person on earth share their lives and discover the world through a series of beautiful images.

I’d say that Instagram has very much help accomplish that idea.