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I am hard pressed to think of a company run by just a handful of people— with less than 100 million users and no revenue at its peak — that has had such a transformational impact on the consumer Web than Instagram.

Had Instagram stayed independent, it may well have wound up looking a lot like Twitter, today.

Had Twitter bought Instagram, everything would look different: Facebook struggles more with teens and mobile just after it’s IPO, and Twitter doubles down on photos/expression/celebrity and pop culture.

But instead, Facebook bought Instagram and that one move made the strongest market player way stronger than the $1 billion it “overpaid” for the asset. Not only did Instagram give Facebook youth again, celebrity, it’s first successful “m...

Venture capital, when provided by venture capitalists, serves a crucial role in stimulating economic growth and fostering innovation. Without it, the market landscape would be devoid of innovative startups with groundbreaking ideas. Fortunately, this form of funding gives life to these businesses, which in turn promotes progress for all. In this blog post, we discuss how venture capital works from its structure and ecosystem to potential risks as well as rewards that come along with it.

Short Summary

• Venture capital is a form of private equity investment that provides capital to high-potential startups and small businesses.

• It involves an extensive process of due diligence, term sheet negotiations, and post-investment support for portfolio com...

Pandora was never the darling of Silicon Valley. Ever. It never had the hype of Spotify, the scale of a hot social app, or the vision of Netflix. And yet, what it has always had is a leadership team that would not quit and a passionate user base who wouldn’t quit on the product either.

You hear a lot about the great entrepreneurs not giving up… but you hear less about founders pitching 348 investors before they got a yes, less about founding teams who went years without pay, less about founders who personally racked up half a million in debt trying to stay afloat. It took three acts of Congress to save Pandora at one point… and that was when a grassroots campaign by its users bailed the company out. More people complained that Congress migh...

Several years ago, we joked that Lyft’s investors— a motley crew that includes Japanese conglomerates, billionaire hedge funds, other ride-sharing startups, sharp elbowed activists like Carl Icahn — and major venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Floodgate — as the coalition of billionaires investing against Uber as much as they were investing in Lyft.

On October 19, another one joined the ranks: Alphabet — Google and Waymo’s parent company — lead a new $1 billion Lyft round. The same one embroiled in a multi-billion trade theft lawsuit with Uber. The same one that was once also an investor in Uber. This has never been an industry where allies stay allies forever. And Lyft’s co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green ...

The old days of having to grow our staff by promoting them into a management pyramid are (thankfully) wasting away. Startups can do way more with fewer people, which means fewer management layers and more empowered staff.

Yet, we're still stuck in the old thinking of "I can only progress if people are reporting to me." It's a dying notion, yet one we struggle with as startup Founders to replace. But we have to figure out how to recast the career paths of our teams if we're going to learn to work in a new world of smaller teams doing 10x more than they used to.

A startup is a company that's in the early stages of development, usually characterized by a small team, fast growth, and limited resources.

Most startups fail, but some create amazing ...

Failed Founders are some of the best investments because they understand precisely how hard it is to build a startup, and most importantly, are willing to do it again.

Yes, Founders fail. Sometimes, they fail in spectacular fashion (which is harder than it looks), but they do indeed fail. We seem to understand that part well, but what tends to confound many of us is why those same failed Founders can continue to raise more money from investors.

Haven't investors learned their lesson? Don't they understand that the last time they gave that Founder money, they took a monumental loss? Why, with so much evidence that the Founder has practically set their money on fire, would they even think about giving them more?

Well, friends, it turns out t...

Now that we know how to set up our income statement and what the major parts of our financial statements look like, let's create a little monthly accounting system to manage the financial records of your own business.

This is where most people freak out and shout “Good God! It’s Accccounnttttinnnnng!”

Yes, friends, it is indeed the sneaky devil that we call "business accounting". But guess what? Accounting for startups, or just keeping track of basic financial health isn't that hard because initially it'sj ust basic bookkeeping. Our bank accounts aren't exactly processing "millions" (yet!) so we can stick to some startup business accounting that's easy.

A Simple Accounting Method

We like to keep startup accounting easy, so that as the business ...