(This is the second in a two part post.  You should probably start at part one which contains a framework for thought.  Part two contains recommendations and my philosophy for first-time entrepreneurship). The most basic principle of business is that profit is revenue minus costs.  Try considering all fixed costs as a rate — especially [...]

This post about competitive dynamics has been stewing in my mind for months now and it’s still a work in progress.  At its heart is a framework for thinking about a common type of tech company:  the aggregator.   The aggregator takes disparate items, gathers them, and presents them as a unified front. Aggregators can exist [...]

In a sleepy corner of Brooklyn, a technological revolution is taking place.  DUMBO is now home to over a dozen of New York’s hottest startups.  Among them is Sawhorse Media, the company behind Muckrack.com, which took a big step today towards revolutionizing the modern press release. Early this morning Muckrack began selling “one line press [...]

(This is the second of a two part post.  The first part contains a profile of a startup.  This part contains numbers and analysis related to that startup.) First, some background.  I became interested in the mobile coupon business space a few years back when I started thinking about how mobile coupons could effectively be [...]

I’m in love with an animal! No, this isn’t some kind of bestiality confession.  I’m talking about Aardvark — a 15-person San Francisco startup made up largely of ex-Googlers and backed by $6 million from top investors.  Like many relationships, this one started with a friend’s introduction.  In February, Omar Christidis had been waxing poetic [...]