www.ben.vc - Latest Comments

Re: Autobutler and the Six Characteristics of a Successful Online Marketplace

birthday-mates.com — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 08:04:25 -0000

Though in its infancy, http://birthday-mates.com/ is a website and concept I would like to discuss with someone at your firm at some point in the future, to see if we can collaborate in some way to take it to higher heights.

Re: Autobutler and the Six Characteristics of a Successful Online Marketplace

Rob Phipps — Thu, 21 May 2015 04:59:12 -0000

Dear Ben, given your experience with multiple marketplace businesses, do you have any tips on how to avoid disintermediation?

Re: Autobutler and the Six Characteristics of a Successful Online Marketplace

Tania Vynokurova — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:06:16 -0000

Hi Ben, my name is Tania, co-founder of wishwant.co.uk. I tried emailing Nina Moir earlier about the possibility of arranging a meeting, but unfortunately didn't get a response. What would be the best way of reaching out to you? Thanks!

Re: WSJ Article: A Different Tech Model in Europe

Chris Sargent — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 09:11:40 -0000

Ben,

Nice article, thanks for writing it. It's very interesting to read about how you see the different tech-startup clusters in Europe.

Hope you don't mind if I share this with a few more people?

Chris

Re: How Shapeways landed a landmark $30m financing round

brandy micksom — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 19:52:03 -0000

Any comments on how kraftwurx patents will affect shapeways business model. I've dug around and it's apparent that they were very early in this. I read somewhere where the kraftwurx system is actually shapeways or kraftwurx or I.materalise in a box. Would that mean that shapeways could be run on their software and replace shapeways system? What would happen if more shapeways - like sites started popping up? I visited their site and it looks like I can get a site for a hundred dollars a month that would serve the same purpose that shapeways site would but without the capital cost to build my own version.all this leads me to believe that the 3D printers are not so important and the software tying into them is.

Re: How Shapeways landed a landmark $30m financing round

Carl Stratton — Sat, 07 Dec 2013 06:05:20 -0000

Thanks for sharing Ben, it's always nice to hear more around how investment goals are achieved. The Shapeways concept and model is excellent and I'm looking forward to seeing where it's at in a few years time - 3D printing is such an exciting space, for so many reasons.

Re: The Economics of Freemium games

Eric Stevens — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:59:43 -0000

My favourite point about he freemium model is its ability to reduce the likelihood of piracy. Freeconomics explains that people 'bootleg' media because they don't think they should pay 'that' price and it has continually defined the future of what media costs or how to pay for it. It also provides an opportunity to revise business models and seek alternative methods of generating revenue, see the music industry for example. Revenue is mostly from concerts, merchandise and sponsors nowadays, as opposed to mp3 and cd sales...but it works.

Re: How Shapeways landed a landmark $30m financing round

indexben — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:53:40 -0000

Thanks Josh. Very happy with everything they achieved since arriving in NY

Re: How Shapeways landed a landmark $30m financing round

Josh Wolfe — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:23:36 -0000

Couldn't be more excited about Ben & Index's leadership in 3DP and Shapeways bright future. Here's Lux's reasoning for doubling down: http://www.luxcapital.com/3...

Re: Just Eat – how they delivered to become Europe’s Global Leader

Ash Ali — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:56:53 -0000

4 excellent insights into why investing in a company with these sound principles is the route to success.

What would be your thoughts on future growth opportunities for Just-Eat?

Re: Just Eat – how they delivered to become Europe’s Global Leader

Irshad Khan — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:38:20 -0000

Good article...

Re: Just Eat – how they delivered to become Europe’s Global Leader

Kn — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:18:06 -0000

Thanks Ben, and thanks for the support as the first VC investor in Just-Eat -;)

Re: Shapeways – Thoughts on a pioneering investment

Nick — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:55:36 -0000

I do hope those involved have read Cory Doctorow's "Makers". It's a nice thought experiment on where 3D printing might take business models.

Re: Shapeways – Thoughts on a pioneering investment

amamujee — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:36:13 -0000

This is awesome innovation to commercialise rapid prototyping devices which are traditionally used by engineers to help visualise and test out product components.

I remember building a CAD model at university and getting it built using 3d printing and thought it was fantastic.

If Shapeways can make it easy for the user to design items and replicate other items this has got loads of potential. The user education piece is probably the hardest part...

Re: Shapeways – Thoughts on a pioneering investment

PPM Template — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:58:16 -0000

"As with every investment a founding team with passion, determination, insight and openness to learn and experiment is what we look for and these guys have that in spades."

What is it about passion, determination, insight, and openness that keeps on popping up when hearing about successful Venture Capitalist, of any kind.

Congratulations, and Godspeed to Shapeways.

Re: UK Election – Betting vs. Polling: who will win?

indexben — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 18:31:00 -0000

Just checked again now and seems there is still a big delta. Think the actual volume of money on this specific market is still pretty small, pollsters probably have more invested in the result than betters at this point. They almost certainly will have in play during election night.

Re: UK Election – Betting vs. Polling: who will win?

chrisdee — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:14:18 -0000

Ben - I agree that this is interesting and having watched this situation for some time (with money at stake!) Betfair users do seem particularly convinced of a Tory win despite the well known (boundary commission) seat bias towards Labour. Also the recent Lib Dem surge would impact far more on the Tories than Labour and now most polls are predicting a Labour "most seats" win.

This intrigues me because I think Betfair usually gets things right (money where your mouth is etc) and the market flows that dynamically drive pricing on Betfair respond quickly to news - will be interesting if things hot up on Betfair as we approach polling day - wonder if they will have "in-play" betting on election night?

Re: The mobile black hole – can VC finally escape?

indexben — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:31:57 -0000

I think that's the my first blog comment from an iPod touch! thanks

Re: The mobile black hole – can VC finally escape?

James Sherwin-Smith — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:49:56 -0000

I would also agree that the next decade will see these inhibitors as
you mention above become increasing marginal.

On 1, the emergence of the apps/widgets model served over saas will
overcome this. Thanks to Apple's big push into this space (cf their inescapable
"there's an app for that" campaign), consumer awareness has increased
massively, and established players have had to work fast to keep up
(cf. RIMs announcement re the BlackBerry AppWorld at last years sxsw).
With another open platform in the form of Android hitting the
mainstream, this will put further pressure on Apple's closed AppStore
platform, and add some much needed competition.

On 2, the key remains to deliver your app as a browser based session
if you can, that way you negate some of the issues you raise here. But
even so we've seen significant consolidation in the device market with
Symbian and Windows ME and now Android. Outside those three, you will
have the BlackBerry OS and the Apple OS, but those 5 will take you
above 95pc market share I'd wager. The key point here is that its not
just first adopters who change their phone every 12 months, pretty
much everyone does. But these mass market users probably hold on to
their desktop or laptop for 36 months or so, which means change and
adoption cycles are much faster in mobile. So if I was a developer
today, I'd probably only bother coding for apple, blackberry and
android (I wonder if google were tempted to name it after a fruit
instead :-)

3 and 4 strike me as entirely related to one thing, bandwith. There's
little to no point having a fantastic device if you can't get the
media on an off it easily - my poor analogy would be there's no point
having a high spec laptop if the only input/output method is via
floppy disc. I'd be fascinated to see the upgrade stats from iPhone
2.5G to 3G users, but my guess is that most have done it as soon as it
was available and economic.

I think the key turning point will be the growing adoption of
connecting your mobile device to a WiFi base station when at work or
home (or even potentially on the go, with taxis, trains, planes and
hotels all offering WiFi now). In my opinion it will be this
proliferation of "wirefree" Internet that will really grease the
wheels. By wirefree, I mean not only going wireless, but more
importantly, that this is being offered for free, with only minor log in
requirements, which means it is actually usable to the masses.

As users become accustomed to the fact that they can connect their
devices at broadband speeds, leapfrogging 3, 3.5 and 4G connections
that are offered by the mobile network operators, then the full
potential of having a smart phone in your pocket will be realised.

With Skype (send and receive calls), email (send and receive text
messages and attachments) and Google voice (transcribing any voicemail
I receive to text) running over WiFi everywhere I go on my iPod touch, enabled
with Push technology (aka notifications) - remind me again why I would
even need a sim card, let alone a contract with a mobile network
operator?

Sent from my iPod touch over hotel wirefree in Mumbai.

Re: The mobile black hole – can VC finally escape?

indexben — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:33:05 -0000

Agree Patrice - Europe used to be ahead of US in the mobile area, but last few years have totally changed the picture. All the best and thanks for yr comment. Have a great 2010

Re: The mobile black hole – can VC finally escape?

Patrice Peyret — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:02:48 -0000

All true. But I would like to add that several impediments faced by many VCs w.r.t. mobile have been of their own making:
- lack of international savvy: unlike with the Internet, mobile is not the same model everywhere. I bet many US-based VCs would still be surprised today to hear that consumers in other parts of the world do not pay for receiving mobile calls or messages...
- lack of cultural understanding: how many VCs have I heard lecturing me about how SMS / texting would never make it in the US because "we are an email country"?
- lack of interest for consumer-facing ventures during the earlier industry years before Facebook/ Google. How many millions sunk in "mobilizing the enterprise" when it was obvious that most employees walk into the office every morning with their own cell phones, not cellphones imposed on them by their CTO....

The next billion mobile subscribers will not be in the developed / Western world, so VCs also need to be prepared to dust off their passports.

Re: The social media investment conundrum

indexben — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:35:23 -0000

Thanks Nic - was meant to be pretty schematic, agree its tough to time an investment right in this space, but definitely worth trying.

Re: The social media investment conundrum

brisbourne — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:35:24 -0000

Hi Ben - great to see you blogging. And nice URL!!

This post captures the pros and cons of social media investing well, although it seems to me that revenues sometimes lag traffic a little more than you suggest. My other thought is that short investment windows and rapid value creation create an environment where it is challenging for VCs to invest effectively.

Re: Playfish acquired by EA

Nicholas Lovell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:14:27 -0000

It's a great deal, Ben, and I'm sure you've had fun working with Kristian and the team.

You may be interested in the analysis that I posted at Gamesbrief both on EA’s strategy (http://www.gamesbrief.com/2... and on the acquisition (http://www.gamesbrief.com/2...

Re: Top 5 pitfalls for VC bloggers

disqus_6JfARSjr0d — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:10:59 -0000

Chris Dixon (cdixon.org) does a great job blogging and tweeting about the VC industry ... while also running his company hunch.com.