Make a To-Don’t List

How to deal with too many ideas that bring your efficiency down?

http://thenextweb.com

 

It’s the distracted generation, the ADD generation, and the target of countless articles by The New York Times bemoaning its loss of attention and focus; yes, it’s the millennial …

Moonfruit Finally Exits For $29 Million In Cash To Re-energize Yell | TechCrunch

Moonfruit Finally Exits For $29 Million In Cash To Re-energize Yell | TechCrunch

http://techcrunch.com

 

In the white heat of the current tech market it’s sometimes easy to forget that some companies, although taking their time, simply become viable businesses – instead of waiting for a call from Facebook or Twitter that may never come. I’ve been covering web site and shop builder Moonfruit for longer than I care to remember (they launched in 2000), but along the way husband and wife team Joe and Wendy White kept on pushing the company until it was one of the most innovative of its kind out there. Today that hard work is rewarded in Moonfruit’s acquisition by directories giant Yell for $29 million (£18m) in cash. Unusually for a UK acquisition announcement, Yell has also made the golden hand-cuffs explicit for the founders. Retention bonuses of £5.2m (£2.7m grossed up) will be paid to Moonfruit’s executive management team of Joe White, Eirik Pettersen and Wendy Tan-White after two years, provided that they remain exclusively employed by Yell.

Duck Duck Go – Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing

Duck Duck Go – Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing

http://www.usv.com

 from Union Square Ventures:

When I first got into the venture capital business in the early 90s, it seemed to me that half of the deals I brought to the partnership were dismissed with the line “sure it’s cool but what the heck do they do if Microsoft decides to enter this business.” Today the role of the dominant player is played by Google (and increasingly Facebook). So as an investor, one has to consider how a potential portfolio company can thrive in the shadow of Google. No where is this more true than in Search.

So, as you can imagine, we had a lot of interesting conversations in the process of evaluating our latest investment in Gabriel Weinberg’s alternative search engine,DuckDuckGo. Our confidence in Gabriel and DuckDuckGo is informed by having watched the decline of Microsoft’s hegemony in the 90’s.