Data junkies, rejoice: there's a fun new tool called Guesstimate for calculating uncertain values. Or in founder Ozzie Gooen's words, "a spreadsheet for things that aren't certain." Instead of a stack of Excel tabs with Solver, Guesstimate offers a simplified Monte Carlo simulation in your browser. I ran through a quick example that nerd parents wi...

Social froth is thick with talk of unconscious bias in Silicon Valley. Amidst it, I was bemused to see that my last 500 Women lightning talk had inspired this Medium article from Deema Tamimi...on ponytails. (Photo credit: Swirl Ponytail Barbies by RomitaGirl67) Every entrepreneur I know has worried about image, but asking if you should wear your h...

The sharp and fabulous Zahavah Levine, VP of Global Music Partnerships at Google Play, shared a number of insights in discussion with Ted Cohen of TAG Strategic at today's SF MusicTech Summit. One thread that stood out for me: much ado has been made on the death of downloads. But is instead of streaming being a downloads killer, is it really the mu...

There's a practical, less-controversial, economic reason for marketers to stop using booth babes...they are a hopelessly outdated marketing technique. Booth babes aren't targeted, can't be a personalized experience (wearable LEDs aside), and aren't strategic to my tech brand. (Unless, of course, I am running a modeling site.) Not to mention that I ...

Thanks to the success of platforms such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, crowdfunding has become mainstream. Even among the trailblazers here at CrowdConf 2012, however, it's still a controversial topic. The impending passage of the JOBS Act has highlighted many practical challenges. What can crowdfunding be used for? Who benefits? How does it work? C...

Rebel Unit is looking for three interns (20-40 hours/week) to support production, operations, and creative. Paid positions. Office in downtown SF, walkable to BART. (Transparency note: my husband Shannon is the CEO/co-founder and positions would report to him.) Rebel Unit clients are primarily tech - Salesforce, Zuora, Docusign, etc ? and they prod...

Earlier today, Dave McClure of 500 Startups wrote a controversial (surprise, surprise) TechCrunch post, exhorting women that want more representation in tech to "shut up and put your money where your mouth is." The essential point is that you can't change the ratio just by adding women speakers to conference agendas, or by investing in a few token ...

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We recently announced that Intel Capital Director Baris Aksoy is headed to Turkey to lead our new Istanbul office. As suspected, this means that we are seeking a new Director to join us on the Consumer Internet team at Intel Capital. Interested? Read on. Who are we looking for? Ideally, our new partner is based in the Bay Area, has a great network,...

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Debate is already starting around Instagram's recently-announced acquisition by Facebook. e.g., Why the heck would Instagram sell a stake of its soon-to-be-acquired company to Sequoia (and Thrive, and Greylock, and Benchmark?) The reason is simple: playing chicken with a potential acquirer can drive a much higher valuation. And more importantly, th...

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Love food? Delicious semantic search engine Yummly has just raised $6M in Series A financing to continue expanding into a complete digital kitchen platform. (Disclosure: Intel Capital is an investor in Yummly.) I'm happy to welcome Physic Ventures and Unilever to the board, and even more excited that the team can start expanding. (Note: Giant gratu...

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SXSW Interactive enables the usual tech crowd license to follow fascinations for a few days....like a clean (I mean this both literally and figuratively) version of Burning Man, or an enormous, structured version of FOO Camp. But let's not pretend we aren't also here to Get Things Done. Here are a few great places to start building connections this...

It must be hiring season for venture capitalists - VC compensation talk has been coming up recently. If you're a partner, VC compensation is pretty straightforward - you get a piece of the partnership's profits, aka a "carried interest" in the fund. (See my presentation on VC 101 to dig in more on this.) But how can you provide the best incentives ...

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Despite best intentions, the feeding frenzy over at Y Combinator (which reminds me...I need to post my top ten list!) kept me from posting the fan favorite recipes from Open Kitchen Camp. But if you're headed to Burning Man tomorrow, there's one recipe you'll want to make ahead of time - and that's Bacon Burner Mashed Potatoes. Boiling potatoes on ...

Much to the community's detriment, I lost this year's game of "new parent roshambo" and will be staying home in San Francisco instead of hosting potlucks on the playa. In the spirit of community, however, I've decided to share a few of my Burning Man recipes. You too can eat well with a trip to Costco, some advance prep, and a chest freezer. Unsurp...

Are you more than just a profile? Join me at SXSW to discuss how to build an online persona. Think about it: What does your twitter feed say about you? What reputation does your blog cultivate? Whether developing a public persona for yourself or for your business, establishing an authentic online persona is a key strategic decision. Be proactive an...

Big congratulations go out to the well-prepped companies that painted compelling pictures at 500 Startups Demo Day this week. (Disclosure note: I am an advisor to 500 Startups.) It's hard to pick just one favorite, so here are my personal top ten, clustered along leading themes from the evening. Given that most of my interest nowadays follows a mob...

If you're figuring out which mobile platform to launch on, here's a quick sketch on why you should choose iOS today, but maybe start with Android in the future. (Thanks to Matias Duarte (Director of User Experience, Android), Steve Jang (CEO, Schematic Labs), and Jake Mintz (Co-Founder, Bump Technologies) for sharing their experience here at the Mo...

If you're headed to SXSW this year, it's a great opportunity to start forging relationships in the VC community. There are a number of Austin events (including one co-organized by yours truly) designed to drive dialogue and develop awareness around the business side of startups. Here are five good connection opportunities: 1. 10 Minute VC - Sunday ...

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Everyone knows that I love startups. I love working up logic models and key metrics on a whiteboard. I love brainstorming on product. I even love sitting on the floor with a stickered laptop at SXSW. All of which is precisely the work I've been enjoying at First Round Capital. So I have a surprise play to announce....I'm changing jerseys to Intel C...

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Whether you're hoping to flip your business to Google in one year or planning long-term M&A, you should take a close look at this excellent infographic from Scores.org. One part Mythbusters and one part opportunity eye-opener, this Google acquisition analysis comes courtesy of Scores and ByJess. (Cheaper than hiring an MBA for sure!) Research by Sc...

It's been almost two years since venture capitalists moved the cheese on startups, demanding more robust testing of a business hypothesis before writing a large check. Have incubators evolved to meet the new standard of proof? In the briskly moving startup ecosystem of the late 2000's, Y Combinator created a new breed of incubator, one with the exp...

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Paypal's Osama Bedier announced that Rentalic and appbackr are the PayPal X Developer Challenge winners today at DEMO Spring 2010. Over 650 submissions were reviewed by the community, with the final winners selected by Pierre Omidyar, Scott Cook, Scott Thompson, Mark Andreessen and Roelof Botha. First-place finisher Rentalic faciiltates peer-to-pee...

Just a quick post to take care of two VCTips housekeeping items: 1. A big thank-you to Amish Jani from FIRSTMARK Capital, Oren Netzer from DoubleVerify, and Avner Ronen from Boxee for joining me and Bryce Roberts at this week's VCTips workshop at Web 2.0 Expo New York. 2. If you'd like to get a copy of the workshop slides, you can download or view ...

Aaron Patzer, CEO of MINT.com, dropped by The Funded and Vator.tv's Juice Pitcher tonight to share some secrets of the company's success. (Just in case you don't plug the TechCrunch feed directly into your brain stem: MINT is the wildly successful, soon-to-be-acquired-by-Intuit, #1 personal finance site...and oh yes, full disclosure that First Roun...

I haven't been a heavy user of the Twitter shout-out before, but I had such great response and feedback yesterday that I wanted to share. Before chatting with a reporter this morning about woman-founded startups, I thought it would be worthwhile to ask the Twitter community if there were any such companies that they thought were interesting. The re...

A great question came up recently in discussion with one of First Round's CEOs: how much equity should I allocate for hiring my next round of employees? For a company that has raised a first institutional round of capital, this question is important not only when making competitive job offers, but also when calculating what size option pool the com...

Yes, it's true - for the first time, First Round Capital Office Hours will actually be held in our offices. Our San Francisco doors are open and entrepreneurs are welcome to drop on by for a few minutes of conversation. The entire First Round Capital investment team will participate, and Josh, Howard, Chris, Rob, Kent, and I will all be available f...

Rafe Needleman continued his developers-in-the-cloud theme at the Microsoft campus this afternoon, with an Under the Radar judging panel that includes First Round Capital's very own Rob Hayes. Here are the presenters, roughly in my order of personal preference: Twilio helps developers to build and run voice applications cheaply. Their core XML API ...

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I just wanted to share news of what may be the largest, longest online conference call ever: the Women Who Tech telesummit on May 12th, 2009. Conference organizers have put together an agenda that includes: ? Launching Your Own Startup ? Women and Open Source ? Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling ? Tech Marketing in a Recession ? Social Networks a...

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