54+ reasons I suck

Damn, I’m an F up

Hi there,

Yo.

So this year’s newsletters have started out rocky.

I wrote about my 54 mistakes as a startup CEO a while ago, and I’ve got several more to add after just 2 days of 2017 newsletters. F me.

A few mea culpas below:

• Yesterday, I talked about Fred Wilson’s predictions on IPOs and said he was wrong. But he said there would be more IPOs in 2017 than there have been in any year “since 2000,” not more than in the year 2000. And 4,000 loyal AVC readers were nice enough to send me emails telling me I f’d up. So yeah. Mistake #1.
• In Tuesday’s newsletter, we did a survey about which company you’d want to be founder of and the survey design was poor resulting in people clicking on responses they didn’t mean to. So we’re redoing the poll below.

2 digressions:

1. You should read Fred’s blog (www.avc.com). Based on all the emails telling me I screwed up, it seems everyone does but in case you don’t.
2. We internally refer to Fred Wilson as Freddie Dubs. Let’s get it trending.

Google and AI

We churn out a lot of reports but our most read (20,000+ times) of 2016 was our Google Strategy Teardown where we dug into Google’s patents, M&A, investments, and more to figure out where it’s going. AI was a key area.

The Economist recently dug into what Deep Mind brings to Google (sorry, I meant Alphabet) and used some of our data. Check out the article in the Industry Standard.

Living Proof

In December, Unilever announced its plans to acquire Living Proof, a hair care startup that aims to use science and technology to design improved products. We looked into Living Proof’s patent activity focused on a number of areas, from mending damaged hair to skincare applicators, and more.

__________

Join 200k+ marketers on eMarketer Daily for your down-low, daily briefing on the latest digital marketing, advertising, and media trends. Stay ahead of the curve with reputable, industry-standard research right in your inbox. Every morning. Rise and shine.
__________

Let’s try this one more time

Survey time.

Below are sales growth, revenue, and VC funding statistics from CB Insights for 3 real companies who are all direct competitors. Read through their descriptions and then answer below.

Which company would you like to have founded?

Company 1 did $200M in revenue in 2016. It has raised $70M in VC. It is losing money. 2015 to 2016 revenue growth rate was 167%.

Company 2 did $175M in revenue in 2016. Besides a $500K bank loan it took recently, it is bootstrapped/revenue-funded. It is profitable. Its 2015-2016 revenue growth rate was 198%.

Company 3 did $180M in revenue in 2016. It is 100% bootstrapped/revenue-funded. Its 2015-2016 growth rate was 121%.

So, which company would you want to be the founder of?

When will we learn?

Yesterday, Medium laid off some peeps. And then there was this article about publishers being annoyed cuz they depended on it for revenue.

Whether it’s Twitter, FB, or LinkedIn’s API, it seems we regularly forget that building your castle in someone else’s sandbox is almost always a bad idea. Or as Fred Wilson more eloquently said it, “be your own b_tch.”

HR tech landscape

We created a periodic table of HR tech of over 130 startups and investors. The table covers startups targeting a variety of HR tech categories, as well as top exits and top investors in the space.

Reality check

We look at financing trends to the AR/VR private market space since 2012. AR/VR funding in 2016 totaled $1.8B, which translates to 140% growth over 2015, and was far and away the largest year for funding to the space.

Pumping it out

In our recent 2017 Tech IPO Pipeline report, we identify tech’s 369 most highly-valued and high-momentum private companies. Andreessen Horowitz has emerged as the investor with the most investments in the companies surfaced as well as the most unicorn companies among those investments. 

Reality check 2

On the survey above, a bunch of folks emailed saying they can’t make a call without knowing EBITDA margins or CAC/LTV.

C’mon guys.

These are private companies and we gave you revenue, funding, and revenue growth. Don’t make it complicated.

I very infrequently (thankfully) will demo prospective clients who say things like “We’d definitely buy if you had private company P&L and balance sheet details.”

Oh really?
That’s all you want?

When someone asks that, I’m tempted to offer up the below if it’ll let me get off the call early.

The Industry Standard

CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.

The Economist. A look at what DeepMind brings to Alphabet with a reference to CB Insights AI deals data.

Deal Street Asia. Shiwen Yap (@shiwenyap) writes about the wave of Chinese M&A transactions and the likelihood that trends will continue in 2017, and references CB Insights acquisition data.

Observer. Brady Dale (@bradydale) dives into how virtual reality meetings will “shake up” office culture in 2017 and refers to CB Insights investment data.

Ozy. James Watkins (@j_watkins1) writes about the Irish fintech scene and quotes CB Insights senior analyst Matt Wong (@mlcwong) on the subject.

Love you always.

Anand
@asanwal

P.S. Join us on January 9th for our Digital Media briefing, covering multimedia content trends, media startups to watch, investment trends in the space, and more. Save your spot here.