Dave McClure: Startup Metrics For Pirates

Startup Metrics 4 Pirates (DogPatch Labs, Boston, March 2010) from Dave McClure

Ben Horowitz And Dave McClure

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeBen Horowitz: Why Has Andreessen Horowitz Raised $2.7B in 3 Years?

I was just reading this blog post by Ben Horowitz - great blog, by the way - and could not help thinking this guy sounds a lot like Dave McClure, only at a much larger scale. Dave McClure wants to help build your accounting department.

Investment firms aspire to be incubators. It is not like, here's the money, and now go build. The money is good, heck, it is the primary thing. But then there's the advice, the network.

I mean, look at this, this looks like a FoxConn report. As in, we cooked 30 tons of rice today and 12 tons of pork.

Image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2659065551/ via CrunchBaseIn 2011, we hosted over 600 portfolio presentations to corporate customers and partners at our office in Menlo Park. These presentations resulted in more than 3,000 introductions between portfolio companies and prospective Fortune 500/Global 2000 senior executives.

We’ve built relationships with over 4,000 engineers, designers and product managers, and we’ve made more than 1,300 introductions to our portfolio companies, resulting in 130 hires within the portfolio.

We added over 550 executives to our network in 2011 and made more than 300 executive introductions to our portfolio companies.

We’ve had nearly 400 interactions with media on behalf of our portfolio companies.

Dave McClure's Incubator

Dave McClure is a dude to watch, sure. The guy is a major mover and shaker in the early stage game. You might not do business with him, you might not agree with him, but his insights are hard to ignore.

FoodSpotting's Dish As Starting Point

Image via CrunchBaseOkay, so I am breaking my April Fool promise of restraining from blogging about FoodSpotting.

Yesterday, or the day before, I read that both inDinero and FoodSpotting are Dave McClure companies. I kind of, sort of knew that. But it was one of those flash moments. I also have known FoodSpotting is an Angel List company.

But then I expect FoodSpotting's next round of funding to come from one of the major VC firms in the range of 10 to 20 million dollars, whenever that might be. In a year or less perhaps?

This reinforces my point that it is not either or. Old school VCs still matter, actually they matter big. But The Angel List, Y Combinator, TechStars, 500 Startups, they have changed the early stage game fundamentally, irrevocably. In short, they have innovated.

And FoodSpotting is proof. (Twitter ---> Instagram ---> FoodSpotting)

Dave McClure: Fighting Words For The Angel List

If you follow tech in the blogosphere, it is hard to miss out on Dave McClure. I read this blog post of his the day it came out, but only today found out he was one of the people behind something called the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network. This guy is of interest. I have been meaning to comment on his post about The Angle List.

The Angel List Controversy, Fred's Marketing Controversy

Dave McClure: Super Angel: Foulmouth

Master Of 500 Hats: July 2010: MoneyBall for Startups: Invest BEFORE Product/Market Fit, Double-Down AFTER.

Super Angels are a recent enough phenomenon that even Paul Graham only very recently wrote about it. There used to be angels and venture capitalists. Super angels have wedged themselves between the two, supposedly wanting to threaten both. Super angels are not your rich uncles, they are not family and friends, they have millions of dollars that they themselves raised, but they are not VCs. They pay way more attention to you than VCs can, they are agile, they have way more money than the traditional angels, and in many cases they are out to make quick money. They are not looking for the next Google, they are looking for the next company Google will buy.

Facebook Alternative? Dave McClure Is Full Of It

I am not thinking in terms of a Facebook alternative any more than I am thinking in terms of a Google alterntive, or an alternative to the high end giant Apple. These are stellar companies. Although I do think social is a pendulum swing. Just like social came after search, social is not the final word. There will be a paradigm shift of some sort in a few years. Facebook will also become a giant that no longer occupies the buzz center.

But that is not what Dave McClure is saying. He is talking in terms of an alternative to Facebook itself, another social network that is not Facebook, that is not Twitter. I don't agree, I think Facebook has got the social right, and it keeps innovating the way only having a founder CEO in the driver's seat ensures.

500 Hats: How to Take Down Facebook -- Hint: It Ain't Twitter. (aka: An Open Letter to the Next Big Social Network): Facebook has firmly fixed itself into the fundamental fabric of our friends & families