Companies that would do best without venture capital. Posted: January 24th, 2012 | Author: Dan | Filed under: Startups | 20 Comments I just got the following email. Subject: Small taxi company looking to expand Hello, I run a small taxi company outside of Boston Massachusetts. For someone who lives in the startup world, this looks pretty silly. Well, you know what they say: when the internet fails you, make more internet. 1. First day of Founder’s Institute I ask how many people want to raise venture capital. The funny thing about this is – VCs don’t actually like their companies to be profitable.
This seems odd, but think about this for a minute. They like this for two reasons. Of course, this is something of an over-broad generalization. A taxi business should be run for profits. 2. As a general rule, VCs don’t like reasonable margins. In particular, VCs don’t like businesses that are people-powered. So the rule of thumb is that VCs like product companies: software, drugs, cleantech, and so on. Every new taxi requires a… well, a new taxi. Better Boost Your Stats: Gild Turns Hunting For A Tech Job Into A Game. If you’ve ever gone job hunting online (and who hasn’t these days?) You know just how incredibly inefficient the process can be. Job listings are littered across the web, making it difficult to filter for the ones that match your skillset.
And then when you actually go about applying to a job, you have no idea how you stack up against the competition — or even how many other people have applied. Gild is a new site launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt that wants to make the whole process more efficient for technology professionals.. and maybe even a bit more fun. Gild is social gaming meets career advancement, which sounds like a contradiction but looks like it might just work in practice. Gild invites companies to set up competitions, like ‘Brain Buster’ programming puzzles. Gild presents your recent activity and new inbound messages in a news feed on your dashboard.
The site is free for job-hunting technology professionals, and charges recruiters. Card.biz - Your online business card. Home. NewsBasis. NewsBasis Wants To Unload 75% Of My Inbox By Changing The PR Game. Every morning I wake up and find 50 to 100 new emails in my inbox. Am I really that popular? Sadly, no. About 75 percent of it is unsolicited PR pitches. Delete. Delete. Delete. As fun as that morning ritual is, I would much prefer not having to take the time to look at those emails. When we last caught up with NewsBasis they were still called Plato’s Forms — yes, this name is much better — and they had just raised a seed round of funding. The service, which is currently in beta testing, asks you to sign up as either said journalist or representative of a company. The request is the most interesting aspect because it’s how the two sides (journalist and company) interact with one another.
The main idea is that PR people (on behalf of companies) don’t have to waste their time sending me stuff and I don’t have to waste my time reading it. Obviously, I’m not naive enough to think this will wipe out the PR spam I get. And they have some interesting tech to make that happen. Viadeo.