VatorNews - Vator contributor stories

Standards behind online video ads

by Jeremy Liew, February 2, 2009 | Comments (1)

Advertisers and big Internet companies get behind 'The Pool' iniative

Last week I missed the announcement of “The Pool," a new initiative to help build standards in online video advertising: Media companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, CBS’s CBS Interactive and Hulu.com are joining forces to attract more money to the fledgling online-video advertising marketplace by testing ad formats. The project, dubbed “the Pool,” is the brainchild of Publicis Groupe’s Starcom MediaVest, ...

New Year's Resolutions from startup CEOs

by Jeremy Liew, January 19, 2009 | Comments

From getting simple to realistic to showing the love

I asked my CEOs what their New Years Resolutions were. Here is what they resolved: Jonathan Kibera of specialty ecommerce company Mercantila was alliterative in his focus on revenue:Simplicity: Reduce the # of components necessary to generate revenue. Stability: Be consistently excellent at each of these components. Scale: Drive as much business as possible.Lance Tokuda of social apps developer Rockyou ...

Mobile predictions for 2009

by Jeremy Liew, December 18, 2008 | Comments

From 3G networks breaking down to a plethora of iPhone-like products

Despite the troubles in the economy, the mobile industry is as dynamic as it has ever been. The changing landscape creates significant opportunities for entrepreneurs and should deliver exciting products and services to the consumer. Here are our predictions for what’s to come in mobile in 2009: 1. The iPhone’s impact is not directly due to iPhone usage. With all ...

Traditional media are unlikely buyers

by Jeremy Liew, December 17, 2008 | Comments

Don't expect TV and Print establishment to buy up consumer Internet startups

Over the last few years TV and Print publishing companies have been acquiring internet companies and providing the primary source of exits as IPOs have been few and far between. Exits have included MySpace and CNet on the top end to last.fm; Plaxo in the middle; Kaboodle and LX.TV on the smaller side. It looks like there will be fewer ...

Consumer Internet predictions for 2009

by Jeremy Liew, December 12, 2008 | Comments

From consumers seeking cheap thrills to the raised value of user-gen content

For the last two years I’ve been making predictions about the consumer internet, and this year is no exception. First let’s take a look at how I did on last years predictions: 1. Social Media advertising, Online Video advertising and In-Game advertising start to become scalable. Grade: B-. We’re seeing much greater scale on social media and online video advertising, ...

How bad is it for startups seeking financing?

by Jeremy Liew, December 1, 2008 | Comments (1)

Angel financing dried up; We're in a recession; VCs are focused on existing portfolio companies

It is difficult for startup companies to raise venture capital at the best of times. A venture capitalist might get emailed 5-10 pitches from startups each day. Over the course of a year that adds up to 2,500-5,000 pitches. Of those pitches, that venture capitalist might fund one or two companies. Not great odds for a startup. Granted, some of ...

Founders be ready for the long haul

by Jeremy Liew, November 12, 2008 | Comments (3)

You can't start a company and expect a quick flip

The chart below shows the average time in years between a startup’s first equity investment (usually Series A) and its sale, for companies sold in each year from 1997 to 2007. (Source is Dow Jones Venture One/E&Y study) As you can see, companies sold in 2007 had seen almost seven years pass since their first financing. Often they were founded ...

How robust are communities?

by Jeremy Liew, November 5, 2008 | Comments

	Redesigns almost always creates negative feedback Wired has an article in its November issue about Urban Baby and You Be Mom. Urban Baby is an anonymous forum for Moms. Like 4chan, its anonymity makes for a mix of candid discussions, raw honesty and trolling, but with a mommy bent (think cheating, divorce and public schools). Says Wired: Then in May, UrbanBaby, which was purchased by CNET ...
	Read more »

Tips on cost reduction

by Jeremy Liew, November 3, 2008 | Comments

	Don't be a wimp; do the best for your company PE Hub has an interview with one of the cofounders of Sherwood partners, a company that has helped close or restructure almost 200 startups. It includes some specific advice for startups looking to extend their runway.On cutting once, or cutting multiple times: Once you know who is getting axed, what’s the best way to do it? If you do cut, ...
	Read more »

Survival in an advertising recession

by Jeremy Liew, October 10, 2008 | Comments (1)

Which online media companies will make it through

As I have mentioned previously, we are entering an overall advertising recession and even online advertising growth has slowed. Notes the LA Times in August: “Advertisers have pulled back in a pretty meaningful way, and display is feeling the brunt of it,” said Clay Moran, a Stanford Group analyst who recently wrote a research report called “Online Advertising: caution required.” ...

Texting generation

by Jeremy Liew, September 30, 2008 | Comments

U.S. teens send 7.5 times more text messages than they make calls

Neilsen Mobile recently reported on US 2008 Q2 mobile phone usage. They find that the number of calls made per month averages 204 across all users but does not vary all that much with age between 13-54: On the other hand, as stereotypes would suggest, teens drive by far the highest number of text messages per month. Although the average ...

Shifting away from early rounds

by Jeremy Liew, September 15, 2008 | Comments (1)

Early-stage financings decline as percentage of deals; a quarter of deals are down rounds or flat

Cooley is one of the largest and most respected law firms in Silicon Valley. It recently released its Private Company Financings Report for Q1 2008, based on the 66 completed deals that the firm worked on in that quarter. The report confirms that early-stage financings have declined as a percentage of total deals -- 59% of all financings, the lowest ...

If you don't get Facebook and Twitter

by Jeremy Liew, September 9, 2008 | Comments (1)

Read this NYTimes article; it lives up to its excellent reputation

The NY Times is often considered the US newspaper of record, and it lives up to its reputation with an excellent article in today’s Sunday NY Times Magazine about the ambient awareness enabled by Facebook status updates, Twitter and other microblogging tools. Even readers familiar with both popular microblogging tools and their history should read this article. High points: Microblogging ...

Facebook dramatically increases digital goods

by Jeremy Liew, September 2, 2008 | Comments (1)

The popular social network is selling items at a $35 million run-rate

In January of this year, we estimated that Facebook was selling digital gifts worth $15m per year. We based this estimate on an analysis of the number of each gift available each week over a 7 week period. Facebook creates a certain fixed number of each type of gift. When the number remaining for any particular gift drops below 100,000, ...

How to interview key hires

by Jeremy Liew, August 28, 2008 | Comments

There are things that you should test a potential hire for

Startup founders often need to hire people into areas that they don’t know anything about. This can be a technical founder hiring a VP marketing, a business development founder hiring a VP Engineering, or a product management founder hiring a VP Ad Sales. Often these hires are some of the most important that a company makes as they fill the ...

« First ‹ Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next ›

Jeremy Liew Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Jeremy's feed

Other contributor channels

99 Desk	Abrar Ahmad
Adam Hoeksema	Adam Sachs
Alain Chuard	Albin Serviant
Alex Kutsishin	Alex Mermod
Alexa Lee	Alia Knight
Anannya Debnath	Andy Freeberg
Andy Parng	Ane Howard
Angelica Davis	Anne Frisbie
Antonio Saillant	Auren Hoffman
Awais Khan	Aylon Steinhart
Bambi Francisco Roizen	Banckle Collaborative & Social
Barry Graubart	Ben Casnocha
Ben Elowitz	Bethany Wesch
Bjoern Herrmann	Brad Feld
Braden Kelley	Bradly Couch
Brian Prows	Brian Rayve
Brian Solis	Brittany Laughlin
Bryan McClain	CandleStick Advisors
Carey Ransom	Carl Brown
Carloans Forall	Charlene Li
Chris Arsenault	Chris Caceres
Chris Cunningham	Chris Petrovic
Christine Herron	Cole Flournoy
Constance Hammond	Dan Edwards
Dan Verhaeghe	Danah Boyd
Daniel Ketter	Daniel Sontag
Dave Lavinsky	David Hornik
David Howard	David Jakubowski
David James	David McGee
David Saad	Deborah Deragon
Demian Entrekin	Dennis Drake
Dominic Marc	Dominique Molina
Don Dodge	Doron Jampolsky
Douglas Zanger	Dr. Steven Pouls
Duncan Davidson	easy unlock
EchoChief.com Editor	Eddie Kim
Eldad Matityahu	Eray S
Eric Manlunas	Eric Mieras
Eric Remer	Eric Ries
Eric Yang	Erin Håkansson
Ethan Kurzweil	Eze Vidra
Ezra Roizen	Faith Merino
Focus.com .	Forrest Kolb
Fred Wilson	G S
Gagan Biyani	Gary Silver
Gerard Szatvanyi	Gerhard Gschwandtner
giles richardson	Glenn Pingul
Gregory Ness	Gregory Pleshaw
Hannah Young	Hans Peter Brondmo
Howard Fried	Immad Akhund
J.D. Rucker	Janine Popick
Jasmine Powers	Jason Carbin
Jason Nazar	Jason Ng
Jayasri Gill	Jean Blaise
Jeffrey Bussgang	jenifer smith
Jeremy Beck	Jessica Altieri
Jessica Miller	Jessica Washington
Jessica Laine Simmons	Jill Asher
Joe Gagliano	Joe Peacock
Joel Passen	Joey Tamer
John Bautista	John Greathouse
John Im	John Mcbill
John Shinal	jonathan bergstein
Josh Chandler	Julie Trade Levitch
Kanya Goldman	Katie Gatto
Kedric Van de Carr	Kevin Cimring
Kevin Hsu	Koby Biller
Konstantin Tovstiadi	Krista Paul
Kristin Karaoglu	Krystal Peak
L.B. Higginbotham	Larry Chiang
Larry Irons	Larry Kless
Larry Kramer	Larry Lisser
Lars Hard	Lauren Perkins
Lis Hubert	Lisa Anderson
Lisa Constance	Live Octane
Lorenzo Carver	Louis Gray
Luara Simpson	Marc Dangeard
Maria Victoria Beltran	Mark Cuban
Mark Evans	Mark MacLeod
Martin Zwilling	Matt Bowman
Matt Curcio	Melih Oztalay
Meliza Solan Surdi	Merrin Muxlow
Mia Saini	Michael Blend
Michael Bowers	Michael Burke
Michael Harries	Michael Kriz
Michael Ostendorff	Michael Stocker
Mike Cuesta	Mike Fruchter
Mike Rehan	Mikita Tseplavukhau
Mitos Suson	Nabeel Ahmed
Nagy Erzsebet	Nathan Lands
Nathan Pensky	Nelson Tan
Nick Such	Nikko Marasigan
Nir Eyal	Niraj Patkar
Norm Strassner	NuNet *
Olya Shabanova	Pascal Bensoussan
Patrick Haynes	Paul Schwartz
Peak Adventure	Per Håkansson
Pierre Coupet	Projector 123
Rachel Barge	Rakesh Verma
Raksh Martin	Ray Grieselhuber
Rebecca Fannin	Rebecca Weeks Watson
Reena A Jadhav	Research Mindz
Resource Nation	Rich Reader
Richard Kastelein	Roger Royse
Ron Levi	Ronny Kerr
Roy Stewart	Russ Whitman
Ryan Bagueros	Ryan Downs
Ryan Roberts	Samantha Spuckler
Samir Soriano	Sean Anderson
Seth Godin	Seth Lieberman
Sharad Saxena	Shavkat Karimov
Shiva Badruswamy	siraj deen
Sponsored Story	Steffen Heringhaus
Stephen G. Barr	Steve Anderson
Steve Blank	Steve Patrizi
Steve Ragan	Steve Rosenbaum
Steve Slepcevic	Steven Loeb
Subhash Kandpal	Susan Payton
susan solovic	Sutapa Kasibhatla
Sylvie Leotin	Tara Hornor
Taylor Buley	Tech Startups 3.0
Ted Hollifield	Ted Rheingold
The Editor GreatStartups.com	Theresa Johnson
Thom Calandra	Thomas Korte
Thomas Rigler	Tim Flannagan
Tim Marman	TJ Marsh
Tom Patterson	Tony Dillistone
Tony Shaw	Vahid Dejwakh
Victor Hanna	Winson Ng
Xtreme Labs	Yield Software
Zahra Siddique	Zamic Michael