Mayfield Fund partner Raj Kapoor says between $1 mln and $5 mln is typical"Venture capitalists are asking that question too," said Raj Kapoor, managing partner at Mayfield Fund, which raised a nearly $400 million fund in September 2008. Raj was responding to a question I asked about how an early-stage startup should value itself. I asked this question because of one of our Vator members, Jeremy Campbell commented on an interview I had done with angel investor Aydin Senkut, titled: How to hook this angel. In that post, Jeremy said: "Valuation is such an important topic, and I feel there is a lack of information out there on the subject."

• 12/16/09
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How a bunch of ex-Google Reader guys are building a social media reader, using Twitter and FacebookBrizzly, a popular new Twitter and Facebook app, just went into public beta this November and closed a $600,000 round. I recently had a chance to sit down with Brizzly founder and CEO Jason Shellen to talk about his new startup.

• 12/15/09
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Forbes Midas List VC and partner at August Capital says it's a good time to investIt's often said that startup founders should choose their venture capitalists wisely because the partnership is like a marriage. The two sides have to work together and stick it out with one another for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until... a funding gap or exit do they part.

• 12/8/09
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Interview with Robert Acker, CEO of Aha Mobile, a provider of road information on the goAha Mobile is one of the many iPhone app makers racing to be the killer platform for a new "augmented reality" era. Augmented reality, as defined by Tim Chang, a venture capitalist at Norwest Venture Partners, is about making the physical world accessible around you. For now, Aha Mobile wants to make information you need while driving - like nearest gas station, coffee shop, road congestion - readily accessible. Additionally, Aha Mobile connects fellow drivers with one another, allowing them to share road rage and stories, and giving listeners another form of talk radio to entertain themselves with.In my second-part interview with Robert Acker, CEO of Aha Mobile, a young startup that received $3 million in financing from Venrock this ... [http://vator.tv/n/c1a read more]

• 12/3/09
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From yoga classes to Turkey Trots, Eventbrite's business is adding up to billionsIt's no secret that traditional businesses continue to be under assault and consumers are increasingly empowered on the Internet. It's particularly noticeable in traditional media, where consumers are producing a large part of material consumed and in many cases, creating a whole new genre of content and displacing certain jobs, notably editors. In like vein, consumers are producing a whole new category of tickets available and accessible and at the same time supplanting some jobs, notably event managers. That's thanks to Eventbrite. As Kevin Hartz, CEO and founder says, he's "democratizing tickets," giving anyone the ability to easily create, organize, market and sell tickets to an event - from a yoga class, Turkey Trot to a conference. While some of ... [http://vator.tv/n/c0b read more]

• 11/30/09
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Social media may usher in a new era of brand loyalty. Are we going back to the future?Brand loyalty is back in vogue, according to marketing thought leader, Yak Gertmenian (co-founder of Social Method and former Buddy Group director). Why? Because of social media and the limitless

• 11/29/09
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August Capital VC shares his investment thesis on his two investmentsSince Howard Hartenbaum joined August Capital in 2008, he's led two key investments - Swoopo and Pixazza.

• 11/25/09
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Modern Mom founder's goal is to create a hub for moms and kidsMany people may know Booke Burke as a model, host of Wild On, and winner of the seventh season of Dancing with the Stars. But she's also an entrepreneur and mother of four. Burke is the co-founder of Modern Mom with co-founder Lisa Rosenblatt (wife of Richard Rosenblatt, CEO and co-founder of Demand Media). It's an ideal partnership as both Brooke and Lisa have seven children among themselves, making them pretty good mommy experts. Additionally, Demand Media's Demand Studios creates original content for Modern Mom.

• 11/24/09
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Angel investor Aydin Senkut on where he'd invest and sectors he'd avoidAydin Senkut, an early-Google employee-turned angel investor, is becoming known as one of the more prolific seed-to-early-stage investors in Silicon Valley, having invested in 40 companies since 2006. His portfolio consists of some well-known consumer Internet companies, such as Mint, which was recently sold to Intuit for $170 million, Aardvark, Disqus, Dogster, BrightRoll and Rapleaf.

• 11/17/09
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Can Facebook-funded Thread take a piece of the billion-dollar online dating business?Playing matchmaker online can be a lucrative business. Hundreds of dating sites are raking in a total of a $1 billion dollars each year, with popular sites, like Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo Personals and Plenty of Fish, taking the lion's share. But there's always room for newcomers who design a different offering for today's generation.One such newcomer is Thread, whose co-founder and CEO Brian Phillips would describe his rationale for starting the online dating site that leverages Facebook like this: "Not everyone is on dating site... But the best people are all on Facebook." See my first interview with Brian, in which he explains how Thread works as an online dating site on top of Facebook.In this second part of our ... [http://vator.tv/n/ace read more]

• 11/14/09
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Foundation Capital Charles Moldow views on the financiers of innovationThis year has been one in which the venture capitalists and their business model have been called into question.The venture industry is heading into a perfect storm of problems, according to one writer. Union Square Ventures Fred Wilson says there's a venture capital math problem. A number of venture capitalists have chimed in as a chorus, saying it's broken. Many say there are too many venture capitalists, and that it's not good for America and that the industry is undergoing a substantial reduction in size.Charles Moldow, a venture capitalist at Foundation Capital, weighed in with his thoughts about the venture industry. He doesn't think it's broken, but he doesn't believe it'll change in five years. What will happen between now ... [http://vator.tv/n/ba3 read more]

• 11/14/09
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CEO Richard Rosenblatt on his new media's financing future, and his Godly goalsWhen you listen to Richard Rosenblatt, CEO and co-founder of Demand Media, explain his company's mission, it has a sort of Google-esque ring to it. Google's missions is simple: to organize the world's information. "We want to publish the world's content," said Richard, in a recent interview with me, at the Web 2.0 conference.If search is the primary online conduit to finding knowledge, then Demand wants to be the deliverer of that information and the beneficiary of all those clicks from billions of people seeking answers. So far, so good. Since launching in 2006, Demand has grown to publishing 4,000 pieces of bite-sized nuggets of daily content - pumped out with scientific precision - that now attracts 80 million unique ... [http://vator.tv/n/b6e read more]

• 10/29/09
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CEO Richard Rosenblatt is creating an assembly-line approach to content creationImagine an assembly line, of title creators, writers, fact-checkers, editors, etc. all lined up and working on one article or video. Each person touches a piece of content in a sequential manner using optimally-planned logistics.That's the methodology behind Demand Media's content creation. And, it's getting noticed.

• 10/29/09
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Investor in Mint, Aardvark, Disqus is still looking to place betsAydin Senkut, an early-Google employee-turned angel investor, is becoming known as one of the more prolific seed-to-early-stage investors in Silicon Valley, having invested in 40 companies since 2006. His portfolio consists of some well-known consumer Internet companies, such as Mint, which was recently sold to Intuit for $170 million, Aardvark, Disqus, Dogster, BrightRoll and Rapleaf. Aydin, who's taken a hiatus from investing since he's become a new father to son Henry, plans to continue investing this year. So far he's invested in 10 companies, including Practice Fusion, Crowdflower, Weatherbill, Outright, Foodzie and Bump Technologies. He plans on investing in a couple more startups before the year is up.So, what is he looking for and at what valuation?He's looking for small, ... [http://vator.tv/n/b39 read more]

• 10/23/09
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GP Charles Moldow explains why he invested in Pixazza, Project Fair Bid, Powerset, Xoopit and moreIn the past couple years, exits have been tough to come by. Yet Charles Moldow, General Partner, Foundation Capital, has managed to get a few executed. Charles has taken the lead on roughly 10 investments since joining Foundation in 2005. Four of them - Xoopit, Powerset, Weblistic and AdWhirl - were sold in the past couple years. Powerset was sold to Microsoft for roughly $100 million, Xoopit was sold to Yahoo for $20 million, Weblistic sold to Spot Runner for about $20 million as well, and AdWhirl was sold to AdMob for an undisclosed amount. In this interview, Charles talks about what Foundation, and, specifically, he invests in. Charles invests across the board - early to late stage. But he's ... [http://vator.tv/n/ab1 read more]

• 10/22/09
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Foundation Capital's Charles Moldow says buyers still have their claws inThere are a few positive signs that mergers and acquisitions are on the upswing. Intuit bought Mint for $170 million recently. Facebook bought FriendFeed for $50 million and Yahoo bought Xoopit for $20 million. But while buyers may be open to stock transactions, it'll be another six months before the M&A market rebounds to more healthy levels of activity, according to Charles Moldow, General Partner, Foundation Capital. And, the prices on acquisitions will depend largely on whether public market investors have any appetite for IPOs, Charles said. "The biggest challenge is that the buyers know that there aren’t a lot of alternatives," said Charles. Until the IPO market comes back, the lack of alternatives will keep a lid on activity ... [http://vator.tv/n/ae3 read more]

• 10/22/09
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Aaron Patzer tapped to run Intuit's entire personal finance division, targets foreign markets.In this segment, Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint.com, shares the inside story of his company's acquisition and his plans for the next three years at the helm of Intuit's personal finance division. Mint.com is a personal finance tool with a beautiful user interface that saw astronomical growth from the time it launched at TC 50 in 2007. In two years, it has gained over 1 million users. On September 13, 2009, Mint announced its acquisition by Intuit for $170 million. VatorNews caught up with Patzer at the Vator.tv and The Funded's Juice Pitcher event last night, where Patzer gave a presentation on the cost side of building a business.

• 10/22/09
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Aloqa CEO on the four business lines of his mobile discovery serviceThumbtack recently won the people's choice award the Juice Pitcher event. It seems the audience liked Thumbtack because its goal is to bring local service providers together with consumers. Thumbtack isn't alone, many startups are trying to make money by bringing these two sides together. Aloqa, a mobile discovery service, is trying to get local service providers, like plumbers, to be matched with consumers. Aloqa is hoping to capture lead-generation dollars for that.

• 10/22/09
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CEO and co-founder Andy Dunn on building an online pants store to $6 mln in sales a yearIn this segment, Bambi Francisco interviewed Andy Dunn,. CEO of Bonobos, a two-year-old Manhattan-based designer and retailer of casual and dress trousers and polo shirts for men. BF: Are you expanding to female clothing at some point?

• 10/22/09
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Traffic iPhone app goes national and launches Twitter and Facebook sharingIf you ever wanted to share your “road rage” while in a traffic jam and broadcast it to all of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers, now you can. Aha Mobile, which makes a free iPhone app to let you know information around you while your driving – road congestion, nearest gas stations, coffee shop, etc. – just released on Wednesday a national version of its newly-launched service, plus a way to share experiences on the road with social network buddies by simply talking into the iPhone. “People are always leaving traffic reports [on their Twitter and Facebook accounts],” said Robert Acker, CEO of Aha Mobile, a young startup that received $3 million in financing from Venrock this past spring. ... [http://vator.tv/n/ae5 read more]

• 10/22/09
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The thin-client virtualization startup has captured 15% of the K-12 education market in two years.President Obama has earmarked billions of stimulus dollars for education technology. If the education system holds true to form, that money will be summarily devoured, leaving the bureaucracy hungry for seconds. The problem is that short-term windfalls can easily go to short-term programs. On the other hand, investing in long-term technology infrastructure can require ongoing IT support, which means a minor glitch turns a classroom into a digital graveyard. Virtualization startup NComputing thinks they have a solution. The two-year-old startup provides thin-client virtualization that enables up to 30 screens to run off a single computer, at a cost of $70 per station. The company has sold millions of stations to schools internationally, including 180,000 in Macedonia schools and 50,000 Andhra ... [http://vator.tv/n/a73 read more]

• 10/3/09
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CEO Sanjeev Agrawal on how Aloqa helps you discover who and what's around youAloqa is a mobile services company that recommends Facebook friends around you and things to do. It recently raised $1.5 million in venture funding from Wellington Partners and angel investors. This past July, Aloqa was awarded the people's choice award at VentureBeat's MobileBeat conference. Aloqa launched as an Android app, but has since expanded to Blackberries and as early as the end of this month, the company's services should be available on the iPhone. Essentially, the Aloqa service wants to help in the discovery process by recommending places - events, restaurants, movies, friends - to people while they are on the go. Their goal is to have a number of venues and vendors on their service, creating their own presence ... [http://vator.tv/n/a55 read more]

• 10/3/09
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User-generated directory on track (yet again) to double sales this yearThis is the second part of a three-segment interview with Jim Fowler, CEO of Jigsaw, a fast-growing, user-generated business directory. (See interview No. 1)Jigsaw has been profitable for the past three quarters and its revenue has been doubling for the past four years. Despite the economic slowdown, Jim doesn't see sales slowing. He predicts 2009 will prove to be another healthy year in which revenue will double, again.What's the business model? Jigsaw has several revenue lines. Individuals pay a monthly fee of some $20 a month for access to names. But the big bucks come from corporations paying hundreds of thousands in annual licenses to access Jigsaw's entire database of 15 million records. Currently, Jigsaw has nearly 1,000 corporate customers. ... [http://vator.tv/n/a67 read more]

• 10/3/09
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CEO Andy Dunn introduces polo shirt line and says the retailer is on track to hit $5-$6 mln in salesIn the old days (or pre-commercialization of the Internet), the idea of buying clothes, particularly pants, without the tactile experience of trying them on probably seemed a tough concept to grasp. But that's slowly changing. Bonobos, a two-year-old Manhattan-based designer and retailer of casual and dress trousers for men is proving that buying pants online is something men really enjoy doing. After all, they're not exactly the type that like to go to malls. The trick was coming up with trousers with a great fit. The pants have been selling so well (12,000 in the first year of operation), the company this week is launching its new Polo line of shirts selling for $69.But the signature items at Bonobos are ... [http://vator.tv/n/a71 read more]

• 10/3/09
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Interview with Brian Phillips, CEO of Thread, an online dating site on top of FacebookAlmost three years ago, I wrote a piece called "Online dating vs. social networks." The premise was that social networks were a better place to find dates. In December 2008, Brian Phillips and his friends from PayPal and YouTube came together and basically thought the same thing. He and his co-founders started Thread, an online dating site that leverages the voluminous data on Facebook.

• 10/3/09
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How will people use location-based discover, and how Aloqa stacks up against competition "We're bringing together your whole context," said Aloqa CEO Sanjeev Agrawal, in this second segment of a four-part interview I had with him recent. Sanjeev was responding to a question I asked about the difference between Aloqa, Loopt and Google Latitude.

• 10/3/09
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Turnaround guru and Symark CEO John Mutch offers advice for Vator entrepreneursAs mid-stage startups make their way through the funding freeze, many entrepreneurs are faced with the task of redirecting their team towards new goals--sometimes changing the entire business model. They might take a page from John Mutch's handbook.

• 10/3/09
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Vator Box and Javeline Venture Partners Noah Doyle take a look at the young photo-printing serviceDuring Noah Doyle's recent vacation, his wife lost about 4,000 pictures she had created a photo album on one of the leading photo-sharing sites and lost their photos. To this end, there's a lot of room for innovation in the crowded, yet promising photo-sharing space. In this Vator Box, Noah, managing partner at venture firm Javelin Venture Partners, helps us analyze Picwing, a young company whose goal is to become the easiest way to print photos online.

• 9/9/09
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