I met with Peter from DailyDinner.tv and I was delighted to hear about his entrepreneurial story. He did not have any previous experience in programming, video editing nor starting up a business, but he is an example of a true entrepreneur who is self-reliant and self-learner that can exceed anyone’s expectation.

I checked his website about recipes for dinners and I am impressed by the quality of the recipes, videos, structure of the website and one interface innovation. Don’t be fool to judge the simple design of the website. The site is useful, loads quickly and that’s what a user wants nowadays.

Serving calculator

I visited other recipes and they do have similar features, but they are slow and confusing. Here, you just have to check for the appropriate amount and the AJAX magic updates the page without having to reload the whole pages (other websites reloads the whole page and it’s a hassle).

The website has hundreds of recipes and the only thing that I wish was that the organization of the recipes could be better. Maybe a directory of the recipes would help in this case.

This picture was taken on March in Omaha. I was in this event where we had a Q&A with him. Most of the questions were related to the U.S. and China economies. Also, there were some other interesting topics about his story as a successful business person. It was great.

Warren Buffett was really nice to share his time to have lunch with the MBA students and he took pictures with each of us in the event. That was an unique experience.

I found out a quality of life index of over 100 countries. Canada is positioned at 11th together with other 8 countries.

Quality of Life Index 2009

Read more here.

The smartphone industry is moving to follow the same path of the personal computer (PC). Both industries have a lot of manufacturers. For example, Dell for computers and Motorola for smartphone. PC and smartphones have operating systems. For PC, the major OS is Windows and for smartphone, there are more than one major operating system. There are iPhone OS, Blackberry and Android (Google). It seems that there is a platform war among the manufacturers and Google. Imagine that a company can implement a system that is used by most of the cellphone manufacturers. This company will be able to control the smartphone industry, just as Microsoft controls the PC industry.

Nexus One Homepage

Google launched its official cellphone with Android operating system today. It is entering the smartphone market by providing a free OS to cellphone and aligning with manufacturer to provide a better user experience through better applications and superior hardware.

Google may reach a dominance in the smartphone market if it can have more manufacturers using its OS. However, manufacturers are not going to rely 100% in one software company. At the same time, most industry players do not have core competency in software development, thus they may rely on Google Android this time.

Meanwhile, iPhone is growing and Blackberry is responding to the new threats in the market. Nokia and other cellphones company are losing ground. It is an interesting time for this fast changing industry.

My 2 cents.

Very very interesting way to see history, politics and graphics.

These guys are great in doing info visual stuff.

http://www.blog.biggerpicture.dk/our-history-visualized/

The Science of Managing Search Ads

There is an amazing article about Google AdWords from the New York Times.

It illustrates the management of an online campaign in AdWords for a company called Tiny Prints. This company advertisers on Google and gets a substantial part of its revenue and customers from AdWords. The company has stopped advertising for a day, trying to decrease its acquisition cost, but it ended up losing customers and allowing competitors to grow. Its management team decided to advertise again and it started to manage its campaign more closely, balancing the ads spending, competitors’ bids and profits.

The article gives an accurate view of how advertisers live with AdWords. To have success in that platform, you need to have quick decision, money and knowledge to use this powerful tool.

Read more here: The Science of Managing Search Ads

Zynga is the company responsible for all those spam like games, such as FarmVille or MafiaWars. All these games are targeted to Facebook and they make money by showing advertisements. All these social type of games target the very basic human emotion of achievement. Most people play these games because they want to receive a higher status or position in their character or their skill level. In Facebook, players can show off their “new virtual and acquired ability” and get recognition from friends and other players. This is a big driver for the success of these games.

Zynga

I wonder why Facebook doesn’t merger or buy these game companies. It is part of Facebook anyway. It should acquire and get the game revenue. Currently, game companies can show ads from AdSense or any other place. Facebook loses ads revenue because of this.

The impressive thing is that the company is receiving more $180 million. I wonder what they are going to use that money for.

More at http://www.businessinsider.com/zynga-takes-180-million-venture-round-from-dst-others-cue-russian-mafia-jokes-2009-12

http://squareup.com/

Square is a startup based in San Francisco and promised to revolutionize the payment for small and medium size companies. It provides an almost free add-on to your iPhone, so you can slide your customers’ credit cards and the iPhone will take care of the payment transfer from the credit card into your Square account.

They are offering the device for almost free because they gain money through each transaction.

The idea of mobile payment is not new, but this is a strange and somewhat innovative way to make payments. However, there will be more competition for micro-mobile-payment systems and I’m not sure if this is a definite winning proposition. The mobile payment system is really well developed in Japan and some parts of Scandinavia and they do not need to use any add-on system to make transaction. Most of the cellphones in those countries have microchips that register payments to the carrier. The carrier becomes the middle man in the business.

If that’s true, the mobile carriers could release a mobile payment system that avoids the use of the add-on device. That would block the development of this company.

But, maybe this company is just growing in a way that will sell itself to those big carrier companies. Who knows?

Times Skimmer

I was reading this news Google Faces A Different World in Italy from the New York Times and it is about Google’s criminal charges related to privacy in Italy. A senior executive in Italy may get to jail because of an outcry over an online video involving an autistic boy.

The implication if Google loses is that opens the discussion of who should be liable for information in the internet platforms, such as YouTube and even Google Search, in Europe. In the US, most of this discussions were solved by the Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act that creates a safe harbor for online service providers. Basically, people can only sue internet companies if it’s proven that the company hasn’t  done anything to stop the offence (copyright or other legal offences). I’m impressed that Europe does not have such laws protecting online service providers yet.

It reminds me of a similar situation when the Google Brasil’s managing director was being held accountable for pedophile pictures on Orkut. Google Brasil and US created huge task-force to curb the infestation of that problem with people and new tools for the federal police. The initiative went really well and the government abandoned the charges. However, there is still no laws defining clearly what the responsibilities are for online service providers regarding about illegal or offensive material in their websites in Brazil.

I’m worried if governments start demanding companies to act as a censor for information flow. The cornerstone of Internet as we know is sharing information. When companies and government start blocking access to information, the internet will not be the same. Consequently, the way we use and do business on the Internet may also change.

I am very impressed and glad by the speed that Stribe has replied to my post. A good entrepreneur should be able to react to the current dynamics of how people comment and make opinions about his product. A fast reply like that is a plus. He got me from this positive attitude.

I registered for the beta and I will check it out and compare with other similar tools from the web. I will update my findings in another blog post once I tested them all.

Below is the reply from Kamel, the CEO of Stribe.

———————————————————–

Hello Chim Kan,

Thanks for sharing. it’s very interesting to have your point of view. I am going to try to show you the key differences between Stribe, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect :
- Stribe is an embeddable White Social Network. That means the social network can be fully branded with look & feel of the website;
- Stribe is a B to B service. The ownership of data and content generated by the users of the community is the ownership of the “Stribed” website.
- Stribe provides the analytic of the social activity of the community to let the website drives and understand their members online;
-There is no downloading neither technical requirement to stribe a website. Indeed, you just a Javascript code let you embed a Stribe Social Network. All Internet users will be able to see/join/share with your community IN your website without downloading anything.

Finally, the speed of the website is not impacted by the Stribe Social Network because it is loaded only if the end-user want to interact or engage with the community.

What do you think about these explanations? it is helpful to better undersdand our value proposition?
Feel free to contact me to move forward.

Thanks again for sharing.

All the Best,

Kamel
@stribe

——————————————————————————–

Share and Enjoy:

]]> http://www.chimkan.com/2009/12/13/stribe-fast-response-to-my-previous-post-about-its-product/feed/ 1 http://www.chimkan.com/2009/12/12/stribe-the-top-startup-from-le-web-2009/ http://www.chimkan.com/2009/12/12/stribe-the-top-startup-from-le-web-2009/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:45:37 +0000 Chim http://www.chimkan.com/?p=834

http://www.stribe.com/

People from the Le Web 2009 in France was making such a fuss for Stribe. Stribe is a company puts a social network bar in your website. Basically, people who are signed in to the Stribe network will be able to have social network experience in websites that installed their Stribe social bar.

http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php

http://www.google.com/friendconnect

Honestly, this is similar to what Facebook and Google Friend connect already provide. These services allow publishers or website owners to know who the visitors are by asking users to sign-in using their Google or Facebook account. Then, the FB or Google Friend Connect bar can link people who are visiting that website and provide guestbook and comment tools to the publishers.

I don’t know what the differentiations from Stribe, FB Connect and Google Friends Connect are.

Plus, when you install these bars, your website gets slower because the user has to load the extra bar in your website. I do not advise installing this for now. Check my new post: http://www.chimkan.com/2009/12/13/stribe-fast-response-to-my-previous-post-about-its-product/

It is hard to make money on the Internet. Currently, there are two famous ways to monetize on the Internet: advertising and e-commerce. In the advertising side, we have Google AdWords, Yahoo Marketing or Microsoft Advertising. These companies make money by having big audience that attracts advertisers’ money. For instance, Google gets money when users click ads. In the e-commerce side, we have eBay, Amazon, Newegg, etc. They gain profit from buying low and selling high price. They have strong brands and first-mover advantage. It is almost impossible to create a company to compete against these behemoths.

However, that did not stop entrepreneurs to come up with more startups. A lot of entrepreneurs created other viable ways to make money on the internet. One of the most interesting way is the Make-Your-Own-Stuff Web 2.0 companies. They are characterized by Ajax site structure with big buttons and fonts and crowdsourcing or customization features in their websites. They make money by selling cool things that a lot of people like. Some companies sell t-shirts, mugs or print arts for your iPhone.

I’m going to present four companies that fit in this Make-Your-Own-Stuff Web 2.0 category:

Threadless home page 2009 winter

Threadless is a company that sells crowdsourcing designed t-shirts (from Chicago). Simply, people send their t-shirt designs; other people vote for the best and cool designs; Threadless make t-shirts from those winning designs to the mass. People buy them. [This is a classic successful web 2.0 company that relies on crowdsourcing and social interaction.]

Gelaskins Canada Startup Homepage 2009

Gelaskins is a Canadian company that sells cellphone and other electronic gadget special skin protection with very interesting design. They have a lot of designers that create cool designs for all those cellphone protectors. The protectors are made of a special plastic-rubber easy to remove and glue that not only make your iPhone or Blackberry more beautiful, but also protect your gadget from scratches. [Great potential to grow.]

Scarfmaker an Estonian startup

Scarfmaker.com is a startup from Estonia and it allows users to customize scarf with their own designs. I think the idea is great and it may grow very very fast. Currently, I think the company is backed by Swedish VCs. I will be watching the developing of this company.

Crazy Custom Caps Home page 2009

Crazy Customs Caps is a typical company that offers customized caps. There are many many companies that allow people to create customized caps but not many of them set up a website. Although, the idea of this company may not be original, the business framework of allowing users to customize their products is definitely catching on in the web 2.0 landscape.

All these companies belong to the e-commerce category of money making website, but they are able to compete against big players because they have a special value proposition to customers. Most of them offer unique items created by the crowd or by user’s customization of the product. Interesting niche market.

I’m currently taking the MBA course at Ivey business school here in Canada. I started on August and it is impressive how many things we learned until now. I am very sure that I do not see business, organizations, finance, accounting and career management in the same way as I used to. Even though I’m just here for about 4 months in the course and in Canada, my knowledge about business has improved significantly. For instance, I can provide assessment in the optimal capital structure of a firm, I can read and understand balance sheet in the point of view of managers, investors and shareholders, also I am starting to see how strategy can drive employees and managers behavior and how a leader can drive the direction of a company.

The course lasts for 1 year and its main focus is in general management.

Besides the academic life of an MBA, I’m participating in many different activities. Maybe too much.

I’m one of the four Executive Directors of LEADER Project, a student run not for profit organization aimed to teach entrepreneurship in universities in Eastern Europe countries (Russia, Macedonia, Moldova and Ukraine). I founded with Ali the Innovators club. I’m member of the Finance, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Wine and Presentation Skills clubs in the MBA side and I’m member of the French, Portuguese and Visual Arts clubs in the University of Western Ontario side.

Also, I’m creating a business plan with John, John, Matt and Pema. We think we may have a great opportunity in the online advertising industry (I always worked in Internet monetization, my expertise). Besides, I’m participating in the Canada’s next top ad executive competition with John. I will also participate in some others competition in the beginning of next year.

After all of this, I’m also making some new friends! Friends from China, India, Venture Capital industry, Automobile industry, Canada, Peru, etc.

A lot of things are happening, that’s why I am not updating my blog as much as I used to. The great thing is I’m able to manage and prioritize all my activities. Thanks for my Google experience where I learned how to do things fast.

My next posts will be focus on the monthly Canada’s Venture Capital Firm list (I’m posting on December 3rd). I will add more information for each of the firms. Also, I will resume my posts about the case studies from the Entrepreneurial Finance from the MIT OpenCourseWare. I promised in the beginning of this year that I would go through all the cases from that course at MIT and I think I am much more prepared to discuss the cases in that course.

Here are some of my previous posts about the Entrepreneurial Finance course:

Horizon Communication

Venture Capital Valuation Method

What happens when the schedule slips in startup?

Technical Data Corporation

I will resume from the Horizon Communication case. Probably, I will make a podcast for about it.

Stay tuned!

This is a very interesting and basic book about Venture Capital industry. It does inform you some tips about what kind of skills and career path that you should take before joining in. Also, it provides and introductory level of terms and vocabulary for you to get used to before trying to get in a VC firm.

I do not recommend just to read this book alone as a way to have a strong idea of the industry. You should read a lot of other materials spread all over the Internet so you can really have a better idea if you really do want to invest your time and money into the career of a VC.

MaRS

Mars

Entrepreneurship 101

Stanford University

Entrepreneurship Corner

Entrepreneurship Corner

Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES)

Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES)

Stanford Technology Ventures Program

Stanford Technology Ventures Program

Carnegie Mellon University

Entrepreneurship and Business Planning

MIT Open Course Ware

Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Managing Innovation: Emerging Trends

Managing Innovation: Emerging Trends

Early Stage Capital

Early Stage Capital

Designing and Leading the Entrepreneurial Organization

Designing and Leading the Entrepreneurial Organization

Law for the Entrepreneur and Manager

Law for the Entrepreneur and Manager

Entrepreneurial Marketing

Entrepreneurial Marketing

Entrepreneurial Finance

Entrepreneurial Finance

Listening to the Customer

Listening to the Customer

Pricing

Pricing

The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans

The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans

Technology Strategy

Technology Strategy

G-Lab: Global Entrepreneurship Lab

G-Lab: Global Entrepreneurship Lab

Share and Enjoy:

]]> http://www.chimkan.com/2009/10/21/resources-to-support-entrepreneurs/feed/ 0 http://www.chimkan.com/2009/10/18/book-review-the-back-of-the-napkin/ http://www.chimkan.com/2009/10/18/book-review-the-back-of-the-napkin/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:23:06 +0000 Chim http://www.chimkan.com/?p=638

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

I read this book and it is really great to show a new way of structure problem solving framework.

It provides a a good introduction about the benefits of the visual thinking. Then, it provides a step-by-step walkthrough about how to detect, solve and show problems through the use of our visual faculties.

It first shows us how we can enhance our ability to see critically by looking, seeing, imagining and showing. Then, it provides the SQVID method of analytical thinking. It helps our right-side of the brain to be better connected to the left-side. So, we can draw and think at the same time. Moreover, it provides the [6][6] framework that helps us to problem solving.

The book is very easy to read, but it does not lack anything from its simplicity. It provides a complete framework solution for business issues and it’s a great book for those who wants to see creative ways of problem solving.

I would also recommend this book for those who loves TUFTE. Tufte’s books give guidelines of what is good or not in the information design knowledge. The Back of the Napkin provides the how to create amazing graphics and pictures of our problems.

Thanks Googlers!

Last Friday (July 17th) was my last at Google as a AdWords Product Specialist in Brazil. It was a fun, growing, interesting, deep, challenging and awesome experience.

As a Google fan, I was lucky enough to work in the product development, engineering, marketing, project management, education, training and sales sides of this great company. I was able to see the wholeness of how this behemoth company works and the more I knew the company, the more I admired Google.

Besides that, I admired Googlers the most. Googlers are extremely smart, intelligent and nice to work with. They do have a really high standards about any kind of work. That environment challenged me to do my best and to grow even more.

It was sad my last day, but I believe I will see my coworkers from Google someday again.

Now, I’m focus on my MBA in Canada.

Some of my Google experience left on the Internet:

Novos Recursos do Google Analytics (in Portuguese only)
Google University – AdWords Além da Busca? – SMX Sao Paulo
Google Developer Days 2007

Evan Williams

I became aware of Evan Williams from Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. He had a great and very interesting story about how he founded Blogger and all the hardship he had with it. I think one of the most interesting point is the disagreement he had with the other founders and employees from Pyra Labs. Given the Internet burst, it was really hard to sustain Blogger at that time. The whole team, except Evan, left the company and he worked to have the company running alone for a couple of months.

From the book, you can see that he could sustain Blogger for a while by himself. This happened because there were some paid services from Blogger. Also, in the very beginning of the service, he had asked the users to donate money to buy more servers and other thing.

Of course, all of this became history when Google acquired Pyra Labs. Read more about this here: http://searchenginewatch.com/2165221

Not only, he could cash in his project, but he could develop Blogger in a very different way within Google.

However, he didn’t stay long. After 1 year and 8 months, he left the company by his own decision and he was planning to start another company. You can read his blog post about his decision to leave Google.

Instead of founding a very different company in a different industry, he founded a micro-blogging site that everyone knows now! Twitter.

It looks there is a pattern in the way how he works. He founds a communication platform company, the company gets huge buzz and he sells it to other company. Interesting indeed.

A new study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Right-Sizing the U.S. Venture Capital Industry, states that venture capital industry’s return is under performing because of the current size of the industry. It says that by reducing the it, this industry may increase its return.

The logic is that the VC firms won’t have that much money to make high valuations in startups, so the return will be higher naturally.

Kauffman says The US VC industry must shrink

This report is in tune with what I am reading from The Money of Invention, How Venture Capital Creates New Wealth: Paul A. Gompers, Josh Lerner. Josh Lerner’s book states clearly that if the supply of money from limited partner is high, while the demand of investment from startups is the same, the consequence is lower return.

This is incredible.

You can read more about the Kauffman’s paper here: http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/venture-capital-industry-must-shrink-to-be-an-economic-force-kauffman-foundation-study-finds.aspx

What is negotiation?

Last weekend, I had an introductory training about Negotiation at Dale Carnegie. It was a very interesting experience to know other people, different negotiation techniques and negotiation styles.

Starting today, I will post a lot of little posts about what I’ve learned during the two day course. 

Today, I’m going for the definition of negotiation.

Negotiation is an art where two sides discuss and agree on terms leading to achievement of their goals.

Human beings negotiate every single time. For instance, salary, prices, services, what restaurant to go, etc.

Personally, I see that if I get myself prepared to the negotiation, the odds to have more success is much higher for me. I will be able to defend my interests better and I even know when I have to stop negotiating when something is not favorable to me.

There is an awesome place to read negotiation deeply: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiation

Differently from Wikipedia, I will show the techniques and advices that are different from what is being told from Wiki.

DreamingWith BRICs: The Path to 2050

BRIC is an acronym which means the fast growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The BRIC concept was developed by Goldman Sachs’ Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050 article.

The article states that if these countries follow some of the recommended conditions for growth such as macro stability, institutions, openness and education, the BRIC countries will be better prepared to achieve economic hegemony in 2050.

The article says that in 2050, Brazil, Russia, India and China will become a larger force in the world economy. Goldman Sachs used the latest demographic projections, model of capital accumulation and productivity growth to map GDP growth for each of these countries. Some of the highlights:

- The BRICs economies together could be larger than the G6 in US dollar terms
- About two-thirds of the increase in US dollar GDP from the BRICs should come from higher real growth
-The key assumption underlying our projections is that the BRICs maintain policies and develop institutions that are supportive of growth
- Higher growth may lead to higher returns and increased demand for capital
- Rising incomes may also see these economies move through the ‘sweet spot’ of growth for different kinds of products, as local spending patterns change

Read more at: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/brics/book/99-dreaming.pdf

I’m posting this news because it is very impressive this merger of two most important food company in Brazil. It is going to create some market concentration concern. At the same time, it shows the M&A market potential of this country.

Sadia and Perdigão are forming one of the biggest food company in Brazil. It will be called Brasil Foods.

Sadia and Perdigão Merging to Brasil Foods

After a disastrous finance decision that Sadia made about currency investment last year, losing roughly $ 2 billion dollars, it had decided to merger with Perdigão, a similar size food company.

One of the things they will start to do is the release of  US$ 2 billion of new shares of the new company. The money will be used to decrease the company’s debt to US$ 3 billion from US$ 5 billion.

The new company will be the tenth biggest food company in the Americas. 

Brazil Foods will have over 120.000 employees with EBITDA of R$ 2.4 billion.

One of the biggest concern as a consumer is the possibility of monopoly. Both of the are strong players in the consumer food market in Brazil. They have over 70% of the frozen food market.

This is a very good example of the M&A market landscape in Brazil.

In a academic view, we could define venture capital as those firms that invest in early stage startups and private equity are firms that invest in later stage companies or public companies. However, both have the same investment style. They invest in companies in exchange for equity of a company. Also, venture capital is a subset of private equity investment. Private equity investments include leverage buyouts, distressed investments and mezzanine capital. With the economic crisis, venture capital firms  are more conservative, so a lot of venture capitalists are investing more in later stage companies which the risks are lower.

This is a rough view of the venture capital investment stages. These stages are for guidance only. In the real world, there is no standard in the classification of the investment stage. Sometimes, you can read number of rounds of investment. Other times, people will use the classification as stated below.

Angels investors

Angels investors are wealthy individuals who can invest in ranges from $50,000 to $1 million or more. They also provide expertise, experience and networking. They may perform the same roles as a venture capitalist.

News related to Angels investments

Getting Your Due
Angel investors commit less, but stay active in 2008
Houston tech startup wants to be all about you
Hoosier startups a bright spot in venture capital market

Seed stage

It is also a concept stage financing. The VC invests to allow the entrepreneur to spend on marketing research, patent application, incorporation, formation of the senior team and the company. Most VCs do not invest startups at this stage.

Funding value range around: US$ 100K to US$ 4 million (internet companies receive the least amount and the medical/green tech/energy companies receive the most)

News related to Seed investments

Burnaby startup finds inspiration in the sun
Automation Alley Invests $350K In Two Firms

Startup or Early Stage

In this stage, the entrepreneur already incorporated the business, but it has not yet started the commercial operation. Usually, it has the prototype or the final product developed.

Funding value range around: US$ 500K to US$ 5 million

News related to Startup investments 

Providence DNA research company receives $4 millioin
Tech new engine of Central Canada
Monica Healthcare, neonatal care startup, gets $1.6M
Investing dropoff hurting biotechs
Capital Factory Invests in Five Startups for 2009 Fund; Early Stage Technology Incubator in Austin, Texas AlsoRecognizes 5 Additional Finalist Startups
Prize CapitalTM Announces Due Diligence Phase for $10 Million Algae Fuel Prize 

First Stage or Round/Series 1/A or Formative Stage

Most startups in this stage already commercialize their products and have less than 3 years of existence. There is already a management team. Some companies have reached the breakeven point.

Funding value range around: over US$ 1 million (depending on the industry, the value can change drastically, the focus is on the company’s organization and the commercial stage)

News related to Series A investments 

Weekly Investor Round Up
Burnaby startup finds inspiration in the sun
AXIGEN Announces 2 Million EUR Investment
WebEx Founder Backs Chint Solar, Contributes to $50M Round
Energy Storage Rumors: Deeya Raises a Round; Bloom Piles Up Customers
Photovoltaic cell co B-Solar raises $3 million

Second stage or Round/Series 2/B

The startups at this stage already have a clear business model and they are already making some money. It has the management team and some employees. Usually, companies at this stage need capital to advance quickly the marketing and commercial efforts.

Funding value range around: over US$ 5 million (depending on the industry, the value can change drastically, the focus is on the company’s organization and the commercial stage)

News related to Series  B investments 

Auditsolutions is now Lavante, closes $5M in series B financing
May 2009 BUSINESS BRIEFS 
Microsoft: Restart or Logoff?
Turning Out The Lights: Ugobe, Maker Of Robotic Dinosaur
10-K/A: VANDA PHARMACEUTICALS INC

Third stage or Round/Series 3/C

If the company reaches this stage, it has a strong sales and customer base. Sometimes, it also has mid-level managers. The fund is used to increase more marketing, working capital, product development and expansion.

News related to Series  C investments 

Australia snares Silicon Valley wireless start-up

Mezzanine or Bridge or Expansion or Later stage

At this point, the company is going to IPO. The money is used to clean the balance sheet, remove debt and buy out any problematic investors or founders.

Initial Public Offering (IPO)

This is the checkpoint that all venture capitalists want to reach. The company’s shares are totally liquid. It means that they can sell the equity / shares they bought from the founders in the early stages of the company.

This is a free online and offline magazine about Brazilian startups. Portuguese only!

ResultsOn.com.br

http://www.resultson.com.br/

Facebook valuation again...

Some highlights:

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg just had a board-level conversation about possibly accepting money at a $4 billion valuation, but decided against doing so…

Also, the company has more than $200 million in the bank, which is enough to cover its costs for up to two years…

 TechCrunch says it hears Facebook also received investment offers from two private equity firms that value the company at $2 billion. However, Facebook internally is valuing itself at $4 billion. And if Zuckerberg rejected the $4 billion offer, he’s certainly not going to be interested in a $2 billion offer…

Read more at : 

http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/15/facebook-rejects-funding-at-4-billion-valuation-may-not-raise-more

So, it seems that the $15 billion valuation was certainly overrated.

Another news:

…one potential investor submitted a term sheet for a valuation in the neighborhood of $2 billion.

What we’ve heard: Facebook stock trades privately at between a $2 billion and $3 billion valuation. That’s consistent with the numbers that everybody else is tossing around. And we’ve known for a while that when the ConnectU vs. Facebook legal spat was settled, Facebook valued itself around $3.7 billion.

What’s new this time around is that reports indicate Zuckerberg is extremely adamant about rejecting investment cash at a valuation he considers too low. When Facebook took a $240 million stake from Microsoft in November 2007, the investment was at a $15 billion valuation. Since then, it’s become clear that it was a preferred-stock deal and that Facebook’s true valuation has never been that high. But from what it sounds like, Zuckerberg would like it to get up there.

It was long before the massive Microsoft stake, after all, that Yahoo offered to buy the social network for $1 billion.

Read more at:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10220845-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Flip your words

This is a fun tool that flips and invert the words that you type.

Take this example:

I love venture capital and entrepreneurship. I also love Google too.

Using this tool, I get:

˙ooʇ ǝlƃooƃ ǝʌol oslɐ ı ˙dıɥsɹnǝuǝɹdǝɹʇuǝ puɐ lɐʇıdɐɔ ǝɹnʇuǝʌ ǝʌol ı

It was a success in my facebook.

Check out for this tool at http://www.revfad.com/flip.html

This is one of the most impressive findings from this year. Yesterday night, I discovered this song “Dark is the Night” from A-Ha, the Norwegian pop band from the 80s. I remember that 19 years ago, when I immigrated to Brazil, I used to listen a lot of this song but I didn’t know who sang that. Now, I do.

A-Ha, the Norwegian Pop Band from the 80s