Getaround was the big winner at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2011 . Since then, the startup has continued to lead and dominate the car sharing space. This year, Getaround will be back in New York to help us hand off the massive Disrupt Cup to another deserving company yet to be discovered. Not only will they be there during the conference, but Getaround is co-hosting an awesome after party with us on Monday, May 22nd. You need to come. Next Monday night, both Getaround and TC will be at Greenhouse in New York City, a nightclub Getaround calls “as green as the Getaround service.” Greenhouse has plants on the walls and inside the tables, fancy lights everywhere, and two floors of party space. There will be famous DJs sponsored by Future.FM, a signature Getaround cocktail and open bar, an interactive photobooth, real-time video updates provided by Tout, fun door prizes and tons of tech VIPs. Not only are they hosting an after party with us, they have graciously offered to give four of their Disrupt passes away (a value of $2,995 each) to four of our lucky readers. If you want one of these passes, all you have to do is tweet about how you’re disruptive. Your tweet can be an innovative idea, company, project, or something creative. Be sure to tweet it with the hashtag #GETDISRUPTIVE by Friday at 5pm EST. Getaround will be choosing the winners and they will be notified via Twitter direct message Friday evening. Good luck everyone. Hope to see you in New York!

View original here….

Here’s an iPhone app for those moments when you’re wondering, “Okay, I’ve got some free time right now — what should I do?” Weotta Go is actually the latest product from Weotta , a startup that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt last year. At the time, the company had built a website that helped people make plans, such as figuring out where to eat dinner tonight. The iPhone app, on the other hand, is more focused on spontaneity — say you’re at work and want to find somewhere nearby to grab a sandwich, or you’ve just met up with some friends and don’t know where to head next. So when you open up Weotta Go, the results are tailored to the time and location. For example, when Grant Wernick came by the TechCrunch office on Tuesday afternoon, the app showed us lots of nearby lunch spots. Then he changed the clock on his iPhone to later in the day, and we started to see happy hour recommendations. When I opened the app this morning, it listed coffee shops near my apartment in Noe Valley. You can also filter the results based on how far you’re willing to go (the narrowest filter is “2 blocks”), the price, the category (activities, attractions, coffees and sweets, food, and sporting events), and the context (is this just for guys, girls, kids, or a couple on a date?). Even better, the app changes the results on-the-fly. Its recommendations are delivered as a stack of photos, which you can tap on for more information, drag down to save in a list, or swipe across to say that you’re not interested. As you do that, the list will change to show you more items in the categories that you’re interested in and less of everything else. After you’ve created a list of things you find promising, you can also share it with your friends via email. Wernick says Weotta Go is built on top of the same platform that powers the company’s earlier products. (Eric Chin, a partner at Weotta investor Crosslink Capital, describes the company as sitting “at the intersection of a large and growing market…mobile, local, real-time, and big-data algorithms.”) The platform pulls unstructured data from across the Web, allowing it to create a more complete and accurate picture of a location. For example, Yelp can give you a star rating, plus a few basic descriptions and facts about a restaurant, but after that you have to just read through all the reviews and draw your own conclusions. Weotta, on the other hand, can look at the reviews and generalize about what type of restaurant it is and what kind of person/event it’s appropriate for. The app also offers integrations with other services, like purchasing tickets from StubHub for a sporting event or from Fandango for a movie. However, Wernick says the affiliate model probably won’t be a big moneymaker. Instead, he sees partnering with enterprises who want access to Weotta’s data as the real business model. You can download Weotta Go here . As for the planning product, Weotta Make Plans, Wernick says it has been taken temporarily offline in advance of the launch of a new version.

More….

Customers of Time Warner Cable have some reason to rejoice today, as the cable company has gotten the go-ahead to add channels like MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central to its live streaming iPad app . The addition comes after the channels’ owner Viacom has settled its differences and resolved litigation with Time Warner Cable. The legal fight erupted last year , after Time Warner Cable released its iPad app, which lets subscribers stream live shows to tablets inside their homes. While many networks grumbled about the app, Viacom was most vocal in rejecting the app, taking its distribution partner to court over whether or not it had the right to stream to other devices. Time Warner Cable’s argument was that the iPad was just another TV in the home, while Viacom argued that the tablet was a new device and required additional rights for distribution. Not to mention, the networks were probably annoyed because Nielsen wasn’t able to measure consumption of video delivered to the iPad — which meant there were eyeballs not being counted, and subsequently not being sold to advertisers. But that’s all over now. Hooray! Although, even with the legal case settled, both are sticking to their original legal positions. One aspect of the settlement that sticks out is Time Warner Cable’s agreement to carry Viacom’s Country Music Channel (CMT). As is usual with these types of deals, the content provider (in this case, Viacom) tries to get the distributor (Time Warner Cable) to pay for a whole bunch of channels, and often lumps in those that aren’t that highly rated and, in the cable company’s view, doesn’t provide a whole lot of value. CMT was one of those channels, and its carriage was apparently a sticking point in the negotiations. Official comment below: Viacom and Time Warner Cable have agreed to resolve their pending litigations. All of Viacom’s programming will now be available to Time Warner Cable subscribers for in-home viewing via internet protocol-enabled devices such as iPads and Time Warner Cable will continue to carry Viacom’s Country Music Television (CMT) programming. In reaching the settlement agreement, Time Warner Cable and Viacom were also able to resolve other unrelated business matters to their mutual satisfaction. Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment.

See original here….

It’s hard to underestimate how important ranking in Apple’s top 25 in the iTunes store is for mobile app developers. After all, the top 25 is probably the single most important app discovery mechanism for most iOS users. But how many downloads does it take to rank in the top 25? Mobile app store analytics firm Distimo today published some interesting data that answers just this question. Turns out, in the U.S. store, the answer currently is about 38,400 daily downloads for free iPhone apps and 3,530 for paid iPhone apps. To rank in the top 25 per category, of course, takes significantly fewer downloads, with games unsurprisingly being the most competitive category. It takes 25,300 daily downloads to rank in the gaming top 25 for free apps and 2,280 downloads for paid apps. For free apps, other competitive categories include ‘entertainment’ (6,700 daily downloads), ‘social networking’ (5,800), ‘lifestyle’ (3,900) and ‘music’ (3,900). Interestingly, in the paid app charts photography apps rank just behind games and entertainment apps. Still, it currently only takes about 270 daily downloads to rank in the photography top 25 for paid apps. These numbers, of course, are always changing and this just represent a snapshot of what Distimo found when it compiled this data last month. Given the popularity of games on iOS, Distimo also took a closer look at the various gaming subcategories. Here, arcade and action games lead the pack: This is the first time Distimo is releasing a detailed set of these numbers. It’s worth noting, though, that at the end of 2011, the company reported that it still took about 45,000 daily downloads to rank in the top 25 of most popular free apps. Since then, though, Apple has been working hard to shut down various scams and bots that automatically downloaded apps and allowed developers to rank in Apple’s charts without having a real user base (then, once you are in the top 25, of course, real users will automatically find you, of course). Judging from Distimo’s latest data, these efforts are starting to pay off and will hopefully make life a little bit easier for legit developers.

See more here….

Lenovo rolled out its latest notebook today. It is, in a word, spectacular. The Chinese company proves time and time again that Apple isn’t the only company capable of producing class-leading designs. Lenovo’s 14-inch X1 Carbon shown here by Engadget is everything an anti-MacBook Air should be. If there was ever a true MacBook Air competitor, or, if you will, a notebook that lives up to the ultra part of the Ultrabook name, it’s the new Lenovo X1 Carbon. This Lenovo X1 Carbon is a refresh of last year’s X1, but it’s more than just a spec bump. The computer is mostly all-new and manages to weigh less than the older version even though it packs a larger, 14-inch 1600 x 900 screen. Packed inside the carbon fiber chassis is an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU, optional 3G connectivity, and Lenovo’s Rapid Charge feature that promises to refill the battery to 80% in just 30 minutes. Lenovo has yet to announce the price or release date, but don’t expect this notebook to have a low price tag. The current X1 starts at $1000, but can quickly climb north once options are checked. Lenovo took the reins of IBM’s personal computer division in 2005. The company wisely changed very little concerning the notebook design. A ThinkPad from 2004 looks very similar to a ThinkPad of today save for a few millimeters trimmed here and there. Everything from the logo placement to the trademark red pointer nipple is in the same spot. Even the casing’s color is the same. But overtime Lenovo’s designers have kept up with the Joneses and added chiclit keyboards, button-less touchpads, and the like. Lenovo changed the minor things while still maintaining the ThinkPad’s trusted identity. Meanwhile the rest of the PC industry seemingly fired their design staff and instead bought a photocopier and a MacBook Pro. It’s hard to look at the rest of the PC notebook scene and not see Apple’s influence. The latest Dell XPS is a Dell-ified MacBook Pro. Vizio’s first notebooks are exact copies of the MacBook Air. Samsung’s latest ultrabooks might as well say MacBook Air instead of Samsung under the screen; they are nearly the same thing. Toshiba, once a staple in the PC world, is even using Apple’s trademark design cues to attempt to bolster sales. HP is the worst offender though. The original HP Envy was a blatant MacBook Pro ripoff when it debuted in 2009 and several generations later it is still hard to deny the influence. HP’s latest model lines still use the MacBook Pro’s design as a springboard. Companies often deflect questions concerning similar designs by saying something about how there are only so many ways to design a thin laptop. That’s pure malarkey and they know it. Design is what sets products apart. It’s the great differentiator and often wins out over even price. When Art. Lebedev Studio introduced the Optimus Maxiums keyboard in 2006, it was instantly praised for it’s forward-thinking OLED keys even though it was projected to cost north of $2000. Design wins when done well and first. History does not care about the clones. While Lenovo is in the minority, the company is not alone at designing notebooks without Apple’s help. Asus knows how to make a good looking kit as well. A designer at Dell clearly managed a sort of coup with the company’s first ultrabook, the XPS 13 . Sony does it model after model, seemingly designing its notebooks in a vacuum, void of any external distractions as they look like nothing else. Right now the new Lenovo X1 Carbon is the only notebook I would get save a MacBook Air. I would opt for this Windows machine over a current gen MacBook Pro. I’m not loyal to either operating system anyway. The Lenovo gets everything right including integrated 3G wireless and high resolution 14-inch screen. But that might change once Apple rolls out its next iteration of the MacBook Pro that’s said to have a thinner design (no optical drive), a super high resolution screen, and an Intel chipset with an Nvidia GPU. That said, even if the next MBP is a sort of wunderkind, Lenovo will continue to find success and fans as long as they stay the course and produce notebooks like the X1 Carbon.

Excerpt from….

You’ve heard the stories, the rumors, and the speculation. Our recent string of TC Mini Meetups have been staggeringly successful , which is why we’re bringing the fun to some of the most badass cities in the country: Savannah, GA; Atlanta, GA; Raleigh, NC; and Charlotte, NC. You’re excited already. I can feel it. These will be social networking events, in the truest sense. Sure, Jordan, Matt and I would love to hear your pitches (and we will), but these meetups extend far beyond that. Maybe you’re a developer looking for work, or maybe you’re an investor with some cash to throw around, or maybe you just want to learn about the tech scene in your area. And you may just be in the idea phase, but we’d love to give you some feedback, as would just about any of the attendees. In any case, these meetups are can’t-miss. We’re in the early planning phases, which means we’re still looking for sponsors and spaces, but we have at least nailed down some dates with links to Plancast pages (where you can RSVP). We would like to focus our North Carolina and Georgia events on LGBT founders, start-ups, and employees and would, in fact, welcome speakers to say a few words. Please contact us with recommendations. We obviously welcome any and all folks who would like to attend or say a few words, although we’re keeping the speechifying to a minimum. Although I often feel politics has no place in what we do, this is far to big to be kept out of a technology discussion. We would be remiss not to address the problems associated with anti-gay legislation in places like North Carolina (and, arguably, 29 other states in our union) and the effect legislated homophobia has on the start-up community and entrepreneurship. Savannah, GA: July 5, 6pm-10pm Atlanta, GA: July 6, 6pm-10pm Raleigh, NC: July 7, 6pm-10pm Charlotte, NC: July 8, 6pm-10pm The idea is that each meetup needs to be even better than the last, which means you and I have quite a bit of work ahead of us if we’re going to top the TC NYC Mini Meetup . But I believe. If you’re interested in being a sponsor or have location recommendations, email john@techcrunch.com and mention the city of your choice in the subject line.

Read more….

Everyone wants a piece of Facebook, so the company will likely allow underwriters to sell a “greenshoe” of up to 50.6 million additional shares, and definitely will increase its IPO share price range from between $28 and $35 to $34 and $38, I’ve confirmed with sources very close to the IPO. This means Facebook could sell up to 388 million shares to raise between $13.1 billion and $14.7 billion at a CNBC-reported valuation between  $92B and $103B . A greenshoe is an SEC-permitted over-allotment option that can stabilize a stock’s price by allowing underwriters to sell up to 15% more stock than the company originally planned to sell, but with the option to buy back the stock at the offering price if the actual price drops below this. The greenshoe would allow Facebook to raise up to an additional $1.72 billion to $1.92 billion by selling up to 50.6 million shares through Morgan Stanley, J.P Morgan, Goldman Sachs and other underwriters, which could prevent high demand and limited supply from causing the share price to skyrocket and making the stock seem volatile. “Quite likable indeed, har har” laughs some monocle-wearing banker on Wall Street.” The greenshoe is named after the first company, Green Shoe Manufacturing , to give underwriters the over-allotment option. Offering a greenshoe means Facebook could take advantage of stellar demand by selling more stock and raising more money. Alternatively, in the event that the share price falls below the offering price, Facebook’s underwriters could buy back all or some of that 15% at the offering price without losing money. In this way the greenshoe gives Facebook and its underwriters more control over the total pool of stock being traded and the price. One source confirmed the greenshoe and another said it was very likely to go through. TechCrunch is the first to report on the Facebook’s big blue greenshoe. The fact that 526 million people use Facebook every day may have a lot to do with the strong demand for its stock. People around the world may be thinking to themselves “I can’t live without Facebook. It’s going to be around for a long time. I should invest.” They may be right, at least about the first two parts. Facebook’s network effect is so strong that to be truly disrupted and fall from its place as the premier social network for everyone, another company would have to provide a something much, much better than Facebook. Not just cooler features or faster apps or ties to search and other services (*cough* Google+ *cough*). But truly, revolutionarily better, and with a brilliant distribution strategy. Whether that longevity makes Facebook a wise investment will depend heavily on its ability to make money on its mobile site and apps where it doesn’t currently show as many ads as its web interface. Its Sponsored Story in-news feed ads are a good start, but it will either need to show a lot of them or come up with another ad format or revenue stream. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook introduce full-screen, glossy, old magazine-style ads mixed in between organic news feed stories and more subtle Sponsored Stories. Investors will need to make their plans quickly. Facebook will likely update its S-1 filing with the SEC over the next few days to make the $34 to $38 price range official, and possibly note the greenshoe. On Thursday it’s expected to set the actual IPO share price. And on Friday it all goes down with CEO Mark Zuckerberg opening trading of his company’s stock by ringing the NASDAQ bell from Facebook’s headquarters at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California. [Image Credit: Green Shoe , Alamy ]

View original post here….

By now nearly everyone knows that China has emerged as an increasingly massive and very lucrative market — it’s not for nothing that Apple is doubling down its sales efforts in the country, Facebook is said to be very keen to establish a foothold there, and Evernote has gone so far as to rebuild its entire system from the ground up to offer a totally standalone China-specific version of its service. But because of major differences in culture, language, business practices, and the like, it is incredibly challenging for even the most well-capitalized of U.S.-based technology companies to break into the Chinese market. And for small U.S.-based startups, it’s nearly impossible. The same is true in reverse: Chinese startups have a very tough time entering into the U.S. market and gaining traction here. That’s where a new startup incubator called Innospring is looking to help. Touting itself as the first U.S.-China startup incubator in Silicon Valley, Innospring opened its doors on April 11 with the goal of helping technology startups with roots in the United States expand into the Chinese market, and vice versa — to give China-based startups the tools and connections to expand into the U.S. Startups that participate in Innospring receive the typical incubator perks — funding, mentoring, workshops, access to VCs and angel investors, and physical space — and most importantly, special referrals to help foster cross-border development. Right now, there are fewer than 20 startups in the program, and the current space it is in has room to house some 40 more. The whole program is backed by some big names in both countries: Tsinghua University Science Park , Shui On Group , Northern Light Venture Capital , and Silicon Valley Bank are all founding partners, and people such as Kleiner Perkins investment partner Wei Zhou have stopped by to provide mentorship and advice to the entrepreneurs there. So, TechCrunch TV stopped by to check out how things are going so far at Innospring’s office in Santa Clara, California. In the video above, you can watch its founder Eugene Zhang discuss the idea behind starting Innospring, why the US and China have such a gap between them right now, the incubator’s plans for the future, and more. And in the video below, you can watch the pitches from a number of startups who are in the Innospring program today — a wide variety of companies are there already, from a semiconductor maker, to a health app developer, to a food sample delivery service, to a super innovative Facebook gaming company, and others.

Read the original here….

Editor’s note: Andy Hickl is the co-founder and CEO of A.R.O ., a stealth mode Seattle startup. He previously served as CEO and chief scientist of Language Computer Corporation and as co-founder and CEO of Swingly. Follow him on Twitter @andyhickl . Did you hear that 2012 is the year of the assistant ?  It’s clear: Siri was only the beginning . Today, assistants can perform a small set of tasks, each saving me a few precious steps (or clicks) along the way. That’s not the way it’s always going to be. In the future, assistants will be capable of doing more and more non-trivial things. And Norm Winarsky is right — Siri isn’t one assistant to rule them all . We’re soon going to have a whole posse of specialized software agents on our side. Even so, the assistant conversations here on TechCrunch have focused for the most part on pretty cut-and-dried vertical uses, such as e-commerce. I’d argue that the ultimate use case for assistants, however, is a much more basic one: it’s helping me make the most of my life before I run out of time. One school of thought says that assistants should be all about delegation. I pass tasks downstream, and in doing so, I reclaim my time and energy. I think that several companies will achieve big things doing just that. But it doesn’t have to be this way. What about an assistant that doesn’t take things off my plate — but rather, wants to put things on it? What about an assistant that guides me down paths less traveled? What about an assistant that aspires to help me be a better version of myself? What about having a colleague instead of a secretary? A mentor instead of a student? What would it mean to have a rewarding, mutual relationship with a computer — not in a GTD sense, per se — but rather in my private life? A relationship that was based on mutual admiration, a high level of trust, and a secret handshake? We need a corollary to the notion of an assistant. I like having an assistant. But I want a companion too. A companion is more intimate. That’s the allure. It’s more personal, more…me. It’s additive, bringing new data and new considerations, looking around corners and recognizing patterns I can’t yet see. With a companion, you’ll have to give more to get more, too. It’s more of a partnership, and a true love. A companion is an emotionally evolved species. Better put, a companion actually aspires to help me be a better human, and lead a better human life. A companion is about more than just finding me an ATM, conducting a web search, or deleting a calendar entry. It’s about achieving goals, and revealing truths. At a time when Siri clones are sprouting up left and right, users are wondering what’s next. Their eyes have been opened to the possibilities. We’re ready to let software assistants into our lives into a new way. We’re ready for a companion. Technologically, we’re at the confluence of three major trends right now that make the notion of building a software companion a realistic endeavor, each of which points to what makes a companion special, and differentiated. Here they are. The Transparent Self The first challenge is figuring out how companion apps are going to acquire all the personal data that they’ll need to transform our lives. If trends hold, most of us will be happy to give it away. Apps like Highlight — and more recently, Placeme — are perfect examples of exactly how much personal data we’re willing to fork over if we’re promised enough value. We’re all playing a semi-risky game: we expect that if we give some piece of ourselves away, we’ll ultimately get something in return that makes all that disclosure worth it. The real question remains, however: do apps today give us a fair return on our personal data? That was one of the knocks on Highlight coming out of SXSW. We quickly found that the tool that made it easy to spot the Facebook recruiter at the Foursquare party wasn’t all that fun (or valuable) when we were sitting in the airport lounge, hungover and ready to go home. Wasn’t anything wrong with the app; it was just that it was no longer the assistant we needed at the time. We uninstalled. In order for apps like Highlight or Placeme to be successful, they have to convince us that there’s real, persistent value in handing over personal data to the man (or woman) behind the curtain. And there’s a real race to find the killer value proposition that will unlock the mother lode of data from users. Will it be automatic checkins? Real-time friend tracking? Or something deeper and inherently more valuable? We’ve only seen the opening acts so far. Location-based apps may have the inside track. We’re already seeing location services being used in a variety of clever ways. There are apps that can automatically check me in, apps that tell me who’s nearby, apps that can recommend new BFFs, based on where I’ve been and what I happen to like on Facebook. Whether we find them personally valuable or not, these apps aren’t going away. In fact, I believe they’re going to be an integral part of the companion apps that I’m so fond of. Here’s why. If you know where I go on a daily basis, you can infer a lot about both who I am and where I’m likely to go next. See me at a bar (or a tech startup) at 1:30 am three nights a week? You can start predicting whether or not I’m married, have kids, or will need a pick-me-up on the way into work the next morning. Pair that with some estimate of how likely I am to stop at McDonald’s on my morning commute, and you’re on your way to pegging me as a hard-working, junk food junkie who probably needs to find time for a run. From examples like these, it’s easy to see how location data – of the type that many of us give up freely now – can be used to build a personalization layer that could power a pretty invaluable companion app. The Aspirational Self This brings us to our second challenge. Once they’ve got the data they need, how are companion apps going to be able to keep us using them? Venture capitalist Tim Chang may have just hit the nail on the head with his piece on the Aspirational Self, which he defines as the rich intersection of gamification and the Quantified Self. If you’re not familiar with it already, the Quantified Self movement is a trend that Kevin Kelly and others have been blogging about for years, but that has only recently become a mainstream concept. Nicholas Felton’s annual Feltron Report is the defining example of the category. Wearable technologies like Nike’s Fuel Band, the FitBit, as well as apps ranging from Runkeeper to Xobni are good examples. The Quantified Self is about charting my progress and “interactive personal infographics” – the idea of looking backwards at one’s activity and habits as a delightful new kind of science. Tim argues that games are powerful motivators simply because they let us have fun along while we’re on the path to self-improvement. But what if we didn’t have to play games? What if we could just cut to the chase? When my wife insists that I go to the doctor, or suggests that I try a new taco joint she knows I’ll love, I (often) just go. She doesn’t have to “game” me because we’re long past playing games at this point. And that’s the way we like it. A great companion (human, software, canine, or other) knows me well enough that I trust it implicitly. It’s that kind of trust (such as those between intimates or between a boy and his app) that could make companion apps so valuable – and so hard to put down. Just like gamification, companionship brings levity and fun back into the equation – while introducing a sense of mutuality, and “otherness” that we don’t normally get from games. It’s all so much eating your vegetables and “self help” – right up until it’s suddenly and delightfully living life the way you want to, and making the most of every opportunity, collaboratively. It’s a fine line, but if you crack the code, you’ve got something grand. The Quantified Self has always been a mostly solitary endeavor. Yes, I might share my victories or shortcomings to Twitter and Facebook as a victory cry, or some kind of outsourced motivation, but who really cares that I ran 6.3 miles today or that I’ve dropped 10 pounds this year? Your followers might tolerate it. Your friends might be marginally interested. But you can always count on your companion. Let’s just put it this way. What’s the biggest pain point available to us entrepreneurs? It’s got to be death and dying. The elixir of life? That’s the ultimate killer app, and the foundation of the entire pharmaceutical industry, among other things. But what’s next in line? What’s just below a fountain of youth? Well, it’s making the most out of the time you do have here on earth. This is precisely why both assistants and companions are so compelling. But assistants just work on the outside world, whereas companions work on…me. The Clued-In Self So far, we’ve talked about how companions need to understand both the past and the future in order to be effective. They document where I’ve been and what I’ve done – all in the service of helping me better understand where I might go, whom I might go with, and what the ramifications of my choices might be. So, what about the present? Here’s where companions face some of the biggest hurdles – and where they could also really shine. Why? First, companions are proactive.  While it’s in an assistant’s very nature to be reactive, companions have to work on your behalf, unbidden, behind the scenes. An assistant like Siri, again, takes orders – and with a little conversational poking and prodding — fulfills them. Companions on the other hand jump up, grab you in the moment, forcing you to pay attention to the stuff you might have missed otherwise. They’re the capricious, know-it-all little brother (or sister) that Siri never had. Second, companions are infinitely adaptable in the present, on the fly. As humans, our interests, needs, and desires are constantly changing. We need software companions that keep can keep up and understand exactly what we need in the moment. A great companion is with me all of the time, it’s always on. And because of that fact, it’s better able to mold itself in my image. A true companion can accommodate the self that I am always becoming – it’s adaptable to the core. Conclusion Is this all going to come true overnight? Absolutely not. What I’m trying to evoke here is a notion of advanced, personal software that aspires well beyond the apps and services that catch our eye today. We’re seeing little hints and signals of the future – that’s exciting. But I’m worried we’re also instigating a kind of modern clone war – a fast-follower culture that prizes mimicry over true risk. It ain’t going to be easy.  And yet, at the end of the day I still feel that longing – not for an assistant that does my bidding, but for a more evolved species that provides…great company.

Read the original here….

Editor’s note: Sunil Rajaraman is the co-founder and CEO of Scripted.com , a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. Follow him on Twitter @subes01 . When I talk to my friends who are not currently at startups, or the Silicon Valley, the perception is that VCs and individual investors are throwing around investment dollars like drunken sailors. Outsiders think that there is a bubble , and that any company with two engineers and an idea will get funded (though there is some truth to that in certain cases). The reality is, competition has never been fiercer for startups, especially at the seed stage, to close a round. The pendulum may have swung for Y-Combinator companies, but not everyone else. I am a non-technical co-founder of Scripted.com – a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. We recently closed a $1M seed round led by an institution (Crosslink Capital) – I wanted to highlight some of the lessons I learned along the way, and pass along a few tidbits for those of you who may be in the same situation. Get Ready for an Uphill Battle Both my co-founder and I are non-technical (even worse, we are MBAs). We both hail from highly quantitative backgrounds, and I worked for one startup previously, but nothing of note. If you are in the same boat as us, get ready for a long, uphill battle. We had a VP of Engineering lined up at the start of our raise, but he was not full-time when we were going around and making our pitches. If you aren’t ready for your raise to take a full 6 months, you should find a plan B ASAP. Looking back at my inbox, it looks like we received a total of around 120 intros to individual angels and institutions – a little over 10 folks invested in our round. Remember that batting average does not matter when it regards to funding, just results. Lose Your Pride With Regard to Valuation Everyone talks about the crazy valuations that YC companies are getting these days, the uncapped notes, and other miscellaneous things we have not seen in previous years. I have unfortunate news for you if you aren’t in YC, or another reputed incubator – you are not going to get those kinds of terms, so check your ego at the door. Referrals Work, but only if the Right People Refer You In It goes without saying that the best VCs will not take your meetings unless you get a referral from a strong source. We learned early on that entrepreneurs who have successfully raised or exited companies are the best way to get in the door. We were fortunate enough to put together a really strong advisory board before we went out for our raise, and it helped quite a bit. We tried a more scattershot approach with regard to referrals very early on in the process, and it did not work. Stay away from people who want equity, or compensation in return for intros. We had one guy who had the audacity to ask us for equity in exchange for an audience with an angel group. I recorded my conversation with him and play it back for my own amusement on occasion. Traction Matters Much More For You You need to have traction, and paying customers if you want to complete a seed raise. YC entrepreneurs have a great reputation, rightfully, for being product visionaries. The use case for their seed funding is much different than yours – they receive a lot of seed funding to build product – you will need a lot of seed funding to grow a business. By the time we completed our raise, we were already doing tens of thousands in revenue a month, and it was still an uphill battle. You Need a Business Model You Can Explain in One Sentence For us the pitch was: “We sell content to businesses for a flat rate, and take a percentage of each transaction.” Whatever the equivalent is for you, you need to be able to explain it clearly and concisely. You Are Going to Get Your Market Size Numbers Ripped to Shreds No matter how you size the market, be ready to get ripped to shreds. It goes without saying that VCs want to see a multi-billion dollar market, but how a VC reacts to your numbers could depend on what they ate for breakfast that morning. The way we started pitching our market, was very similar to the way we explained our revenue model: “our market is any business that needs written content”. We found that worked better than trying to walk through a bottoms-up analysis of each segment within the market for writing. Play to Your Strengths, Have a Great Story I realize that I am not a product visionary, nor will I ever be. I am good with numbers, and so is my co-founder – we are also hard-working and successfully pivoted the company from a previous product. Our story was compelling, we figured out how to acquire customers, and it was very clear to the folks that decided to invest in us that we are not going to give up. Whatever the story is for you, figure it out what it is, and back it up with facts. Our story was about execution – we had a decent (not great) product at the time, but we were raking in cash. Now that we have a full-time engineering team, the product has gotten better, which has made the sales cycle easier. Besides, being a product visionary doesn’t sound all that fun to me…I don’t want to have to take a bunch of glamour shots and play the role of tortured artist. The Slide that Made the Difference Between Getting Funding/Not Getting Funding Riffing off the theme from above, my co-founder and I gradually got better at focusing on the actual numbers during our pitch. It was the moment we put together the below slide that things started taking a turn for the better with our pitches: If you can convey to VCs that you have a repeatable business model, and understand the microeconomics of your business, then you are golden. [ image via flickr/epSos.de ]

Here is the original post….