They came from districts afar – Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Slovenia, Italy, Japan, Australia, Canada, India, Philippines, China, Austin, NYC, DC, Chicago.

For the next 3 months, these 27 startups will fight to gain customers, revenue, and investor dollars.

Welcome to the 4th Annual FUNDING GAMES.

The chosen ones, in alphabetical order:

ActivityHero
Yelp for kids activities.

AngelList: http://angel.co/activityhero
Founders: Chandini Ammineni, Shilpa Dalmia, Peggy Chang
From: Hacker Dojo
Fun Fact: We don’t hire interns, we hire momterns
Theme songs:  Phineas and Ferb – 104 days of Summer & Phineas and Ferb – Squirrels In My Pants
Superhero/villain: Activana. Her mission is to save the world from child boredom, and guide frazzled moms on their way to achieving activity nirvana. More here: http://blog.activityhero.com/about-me/

Bluefields
Intelligently organising recreational sports, in order to engage the 2.3billion strong amateur sports audience.

AngelList: http://angel.co/bluefieldscom
Founders: Andrew Crump, Piers Rollinson
From: London
Fun Fact: In real life you rarely actually see a blue field.
Theme song: Ed Jaentschke – Bluefields Song ‘Bluefields, Bluefields, thats the place you want to be.’
Superhero/villain: Pepe

Bombfell
Bombfell is a monthly subscription for men’s clothing built to enable guys who lack time or don’t know what to buy to dress well.

AngelList: http://angel.co/bombfell
Founders: Jason Kim, Bernie Yoo
From: SF Bay Area
Fun Fact: The founders are honorary cowhands at a working cattle ranch in Wyoming. Our stylist is a former pastry chef at 25 Lusk
Theme song: Hall & Oates – You Make My Dreams Come True
Superhero/villain: Edna ‘E’ Mode from The Incredibles: we dress superheroes

CardFlick
Create and share beautiful digital cards. Meet smart people, today.

AngelList: http://angellist.co/cardflick
Founders: Ketan Anjaria
From: San Francisco
Fun Fact: We thought of the idea for CardFlick in the shower
Theme song: It’s Tricky
Superhero/villain: Gambit

Chalkable
Chalkable is an app store for school and a platform to make those apps work.

AngelList: http://angel.co/chalkable
Founders: Michael Levy, Zoli Honig
From: New York City
Fun Fact: Michael’s brother set Zoli up with his wife. He’s been “paying Michael back” everyday since.
Theme song: Bangarang by Skrillex- Seriously, we are eating fun dip RIGHT NOW.
Superhero/villain: Uhh yea. We are Superman AND Lex Luthor. Strongest being in the universe with the brains to have some fun!

Fontacto
Virtual phone system for entrepreneurs and SMBs in Mexico & Latam. We help them to sound more professional and take their business’ calls anywhere.

AngelList: http://angel.co/fontacto
Founders: Daniel Martinez, Joaquin Martinez, Jose Antonio del Rio, Ricardo Cacique
From: Mexico!
Fun Fact: When a customer called our office (Ricardo’s house) his mom shouted “Ricardooooo you have a customer on the lineeeeee”. Weeks later there was an early version of fontacto.
Theme song: Black Eyed Peas – Time of my life
Superhero/villain: The pizza/sushi/food guy! / Time

Groupiter
We make your Dropbox… social! Groupiter adds group conversations to the files you share on Dropbox.

AngelList: http://angel.co/groupiter
Founders: Chris Dyball (Vicki Luisi and Christopher Bradford on founding team)
From: San Francisco
Fun Fact: A number of our early users are VFX artists from ILM. George Lucas has called them away from their desks to play roles in the movies they’ve made… so we have a number of Jedis, rebel fighter pilots, and even the Hulk on Groupiter.
Theme song: http://youtu.be/w7JthgTMHDU
Superhero/villain: Hero: Tony Stark / Villain: Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (once you defeat him, you can eat him)

Happy Inspector
Revolutionising Inspections

AngelList: http://angel.co/happy-inspector
Founders: Jindou Lee, Andrew Mackenzie-Ross, Philip Mayes
From: Australia
Fun Fact: We used to make video games for a living.
Theme songs:  waltzing matilda
Superhero/villain: Three Stooges

Ingresse
Ingresse is Brazil’s first social ticketing company. We allow people to find events they love and event organizers to reach their audience. Anyone can post an event for free and sell out like a pro.

AngelList:  http://angel.co/ingresse   
Founders: Gabriel Benarrós, Marcelo Henrique, Megan Lin, Sébastien (“Robi”) Robaszkiewicz
From: The Jungle (Amazonas, Brazil)
Fun Fact: As a team we have worked on 26 different startups
Theme song: Hakuna Matata (although our server indicates that the most often played song is “I am Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO)
Superhero/villain: Freakazoid vs. The Ticketmaster

Monogram
Monogram is the Flipboard for fashion. We help you curate the best fashion items based on your taste; it’s like having a personal shopper on your iPad.

AngelList: http://angel.co/monogram
Founders: Leo Chen, Josh Chen (no relation)
From: Seattle & China
Fun Fact: Leo and Josh are sharing an apartment in Mountain View. Josh sleeps in a tent in the livingroom.
Theme song: MIMS – This Is Why I’m Hot
Superhero/villain: Ari Gold

PocketOffice
PocketOffice makes it fun and easy to grow your small business from your smartphone.

AngelList: http://angel.co/pocketoffice  
Founders: Alan Wells (product & design, just enough front end coding to be dangerous), Glenn Allen (sales&marketing, ops, anything else)
From: San Francisco, California
Fun Fact: Alan & Glenn have been working together for more than 15 years, shortly after Alan finished breast feeding.
Theme song: Small Businesses get Back in the Black using PocketOffice (And just to be clear, Alan did NOT make this video, he was working on product when glenn did this behind his back)
Superhero/villain: PocketMan

PublikDemand
PublikDemand helps consumers launch viral complaints against big companies and use the power of the collective voice to get their problem solved.

AngelList: http://angel.co/publikdemand
Founders: Courtney Powell, Jim England, A.T. Fouty
From: Austin, Texas
Fun Fact: PublikDemand is the first 500 accelerator company from Texas, and true to form we actually love to two-step, eat Barbeque and say “y’all”.
Theme song: Muse, “Uprising”
Superhero/villain: “V” from V for Vendetta

Reclip.It
Social Catalog for Coupon and Deal Lovers

AngelList: http://angel.co/reclip-it
Founders: Cheryl Yeoh, Jhony Fung
From: New York City
Fun Fact: Reclip.It was actually conceived on a team trip in Miami, FL. We unknowingly swam into a sea of jellyfish and lost our Ray-Bans while escaping. Yes, our mascot is now a jellyfish wearing Ray-Bans.
Theme songs: Requiem For A Dream and Palladio
Superhero/villain: Mr. Okeechobee (the jellyfish)

Sqoot
Sqoot powers local deals in the things you use. Think Twilio for deals. Our local deal API helps publishers & developers add revenue & engagement, & advertisers gain targeted distribution.

AngelList: http://angel.co/sqoot
Founders: Mo Yehia & Avand Amiri
From: Chitown
Fun Fact: Hustler, hacker, hipster
Theme song: Good Feeling
Superhero/villain: “By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!”

Storypanda
Next-gen interactive iPad kids books that bring families together around reading.

AngelList: http://angel.co/storypanda-enterprises
Founders: James Chutter and Pavel Bains
From: Vancouver, Canada
Fun Fact: James’ nephews call Pavel “Panda” and Pavel’s daughters call James “Red” Beard,” so naturally we started a company for kids with a Red Panda as a mascot.
Theme song: Gotta Have It – Jay-Z and Kanye West
Superhero/villain: Batman and Robin – the dynamic duo

Teamly
Teamly makes you awesome at work by helping you stayed focused, collaborate better, and celebrate your achievements.

AngelList: http://angel.co/teamly
Founders: Scott Allison, Matthew Berman and Edward Robertshaw
From: Teamly was born in the UK and our founders are from Scotland, England and California
Fun Fact: A random meeting in Omaha, NE with led to the idea behind Teamly! Since then our users have created over 250,000 priorities so far.
Theme song: Come Together, The Beatles
Superhero/villain: Iron Man

TeliportMe
TeliportMe is the Streetview for every place.

AngelList: http://angel.co/teliportme
From: India, Bangalore
Founders: Vineet Devaiah, Abhinav Asthana
Fun Fact: Once a very big client gave us a surprise visit to our office/apt only to find us in shorts and working on a broken table. Needless to say we didn’t get the deal ..
Theme song: The Sunscreen Song
Superhero/villain: Naruto and Rock Lee – We compete hard and never give up.

TenderTree
TenderTree helps families find a caregiver for the elderly or disabled.

AngelList: http://angel.co/tendertree
Founders: Andy Agrawal, Dana Wu
From: SF Bay Area
Fun Fact: Although TenderTree is a site to find caregivers, people use it as a dating site and refer their friends because they find our caregivers so attractive.
Theme song: What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong
Superhero/villain: Wonder Woman

Tie Society
Netflix for ties and more, a try-before-you-buy subscription service for men’s neckwear. When you have to look good, we help you look your best.

AngelList: http://angel.co/tie-society
Founders: Zachary (Zac) Gittens; Otis Mason Collins, II
From: Washington, D.C.
Fun Fact: 1) We haven’t worn the same tie in over 10 months. 2) We are honorary members of the National Dry Cleaners Association.
Theme song: Outkast – SpottieOttieDopaliscious
Superhero/villain: Bruce Wayne

Timbuktu Labs
The iPad magazine for you and your children.

AngelList: http://angel.co/timbuktu-labs
Founders: Elena Favilli, Francesca Cavallo
From: Italy
Fun Fact: The annotation on our visas says “Prospective Investor”.
Theme song: Human – The Killers
Superhero/villain: Corto Maltese

TokyoOtakuMode
TokyoOtakuMode is a place to share Japanese OTAKU culture like MANGA and ANIME. In just 1 year,
we’ve received over 3.7M Likes on our Facebook fan page.

AngelList: http://angel.co/tokyo-otaku-mode
From: Tokyo in Japan
Fun Fact: 4人ではじめたサービス、今ではボランティアを含め30名以上で運営。
翻訳や投稿など、日本の文化を愛するクラウド忍者と呼んでいるメンバーが世界中に散らばっている。
月に1回、コスプレ・デーがある。メンバー全員でアニメや漫画のキャラクターで出社するスペシャルな日。
(English translation:) At first, we started Tokyo Otaku Mode “TOM” for 4 members, but we have over 30 members right now which includes volunteers from all over the world. There are a lot of cloud NINJA who love Japanese culture and they are cooperating in terms of translating and posting on Facebook. TOM has a special day to cosplay once a month. We come to the office with Manga or Anime character cosplay and get down to work with that.
Theme song: We Found Love ー Rihanna · Calvin Harris
Superhero/villain: Naruto Uzumaki(NARUTO), Necomimi, Monkey D., Luffy(ONE PIECE), Miku Hatsune, Mark Zuckerberg(Facebook)

Toshl
Making finance fun. Super easy personal finance manager and bank data aggregator.

AngelList: http://angel.co/toshl
Founders: Matic Bitenc, Miha Hribar
From: Slovenia
Fun Fact: We can even make pancakes sound dirty.
Theme song: Magnifico – Here I Come, Here I Go
Superhero/villain: Banananjam (Banana Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRMYz1vfcQ) & Gargamel (from Smurfs)

TwitMusic
Twitmusic.com lets musicians effectively share & promote their music on Twitter.

AngelList: http://angel.co/twitmusic
Founders: Stefano Fazzini, Christian Fazzini
From: Manila, Philippines
Fun Fact: We got to party with Mike Posner, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Pitbull’s DJ Syphe – all because of Twitmusic!
Theme song: Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me
Superhero/villain: Optimus Prime –  He is depicted as a brave, powerful, wise and compassionate leader who puts his talent to use improving the universe around him.

UmbaBox
Umba Box allows people to effortlessly discover handmade products by delivering monthly curated packages of women’s goods to subscribers.

AngelList: http://angel.co/umbabox
Founder: Lauren Thorp
From: Washington, DC
Fun Fact: One of our artists is a former bird flu researcher who makes handbags for us from leather scraps from factories in Indonesia.
Theme song: “You are the Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne
Superhero/villain: Glitter from Marvel Comics. Besides having a kick-ass superheroine name, she can “engage in physical activity for long periods of time without tiring” (like us), “lift approximately one ton” (kind of like us), run 40 mph (more-or-less like us), and has a “reaction time about twice as fast as the average human” (we have cat-like reflexes).

Uscoop
Uscoop is a social commerce platform for preps. We aggregate small and large all-American brands and sell them on one platform. We are disrupting the retail world by allowing the customer to be the stylist and model.

AngelList: http://angel.co/s/7tCLkT
Founders: Jocelyn Gailliot, Madeline Moore, September Rinnier
From: Washington, D.C.
Fun Fact: We pay our models in beer.
Theme song:  “Tea Partay” by Prep-Unit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6XsIL0jIBI
Superhero/villain:  She-Ra, for all the fierce female founders keeping up with the he-men.

Wanderable
Honeymoon registries for couples who want experiences, not stuff.

AngelList: http://angel.co/wanderable
Founders: Marcela Miyazawa and Jenny Chen
From: Santiago, Chile and Dallas, TX
Fun Fact: Puffins are delicious…and we met because we were randomly assigned as freshman roommates.
Theme song: We don’t have a theme song, we have a theme poem: http://www.qu-i-x.com/woulda.html
Superhero/villain: Matt (from wherethehellismatt.com) and Dr. Horrible

Yogome
Fun & educational games for kids ages 6 – 12 on iPhone & iPad.

AngelList: http://angel.co/yogome
Founders: Manolo Diaz and Alberto Colin
From: San Luis Potosi, Mexico, hometown of the famous Mexican beer-mix, Micheladas!
Fun Fact: We have a Squirrel that loves to eat Doritos Nacho Cheese and gets crazy when you don’t give some (we have photos to prove it)
Theme song: Bob Esponja – Soy un Cacahuate (Spanish version of SpongeBob)
Superhero/villain: Kung Fu Panda

Guest posted by Darius “Bubs” Monsef, a 500S mentor & founder living on the Big Island of Hawaii eating malasadas and smelling the plumerias. Follow him @bubs or at his blog (hellobubs.com)

I was signed up to be a judge & mentor at StartupWeekend Honolulu this weekend, but the more I thought about how I could best help local founders, I decided that maybe the best thing I could do would be to back my talk up with some walk.  So, I’m going to go with an idea, and leave with a launched product… hopefully leading by example and documenting everything along the way to give more inexperienced founders a solid road map for launching their ideas.

And with that idea in mind, I thought I’d pre-event share my thoughts and strategy going into the weekend…

My Founder Story

I’m a fan of StartupWeekends.  Having lived in Portland at a time where there weren’t many signs of life of actual startup companies, it brought in an opportunity to get networked with actual builders & founders.  Amongst a sea of events for wantrepreneurs, it was a chance to see people actually build and launch things.

The first weekend I participated in was several years ago and since then I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about startups by building my own, having founder friends and being an alumni of programs like Y Combinator & 500Startups.  And now that I’ve earned some scars I advise a few startups and mentor with 500Startups, DesignerFund & PIEPDX.

Along my own founder journey, I’ve built COLOURlovers into a top design community with +1.6 Million registered users, raised venture capital from some of the best investors in the game, I’ve had my products acquired and I’ve acquired other companies.

My two previous SW experiences I just hung out and supported teams and didn’t try and lead with my ideas.  In a SW-esque challenge to myself when I worked at Microsoft though, I partnered up with one of my COLOURlovers co-founders, Chris and designed, built & launched an idea in two weeks while working full time at Microsoft. With FriendsCall.Me, we had a similar challenge to get an MVP built and shipped as quick as possible and the resulting product had great reception and we eventually sold it to another company in the space.

StartupWeekend: First, Foremost & Everything

StartupWeekend is a build event.  If you can’t demo a working product by the end, you failed.  I’ve seen enough examples of this to know it’s true, but if you don’t have a working product with beta users poking at it… the weekend will end and everybody will drift back to their normal lives.  You need a product to keep the group together.

StartupWeekend is not a business plan event.  The huge opportunities in founding a web startup is the speed at which you can build and the low cost to do so.  It’s really really hard to start a more traditional physical goods company in a little more than 2 days with 0 startup capital.

So, if you’re a marketing/business/strategy type, then all hope isn’t lost for you.  There is still a place for you at the event, but if you can’t get any developers to actually help you build your own idea… take the opportunity to join another team where you can learn more about the development process and find ways to add value to the idea.

Without Makers. Nothing is Made.

The most important people at SW events are the developers and then the designers.  Without somebody to build the product there isn’t much reason to be there. In the absence of developers, an awesome designer in a weekend could design a polished flow for the app that could later be built out… but again, the point of SW is to launch something.

It’s not a bad idea to bring a couple developer/designers that you know to a SW event as a self-contained way to work on your idea without any of the mucky details that might prevent them from signing on for an indefinite period of time working on it.  Give it a weekend and if the product justifies it… keep working on it.

Some things to watch out for during the weekend…

WARNING: Ship or Die.
As mentioned before.  Without a working product/service by the end of the weekend your chances of survival post weekend are very slim.  Your whole process and strategy should be on organizing a team that can build something, getting it outlined to a minimum viable product that is engaging and shippable… and then busting ass to get it out.

WARNING: No Plans.
Don’t get me wrong, having a strategy and plan for how you’ll spend your time during the weekend is a great idea… but don’t waste any time planning for after the weekend.  Business plans are a huge waste of time for idea stage projects… You can build, ship, test, iterate & capture data faster than you can write a thorough bullshitted business plan. So just build.

WARNING: Avoid All Rabbit Holes.
No decision you make needs to survive 54 hours.  So does it really matter if you use a .ly domain or a proper .com?  No.  If you launch and have ridiculous traction that means going out to try and spend the $ to acquire the .com version… well, that’s not really a bad problem to have.  More likely it will be an ok name and if you have enough progress to keep working away, you can always deal with the name later. (ie, TheFacebook.com, GetDropbox.com, etc.)

WARNING: MVP OR GTFO
You can’t build an entire social network in 54 hours… what you could build is the ability to browse profiles organized from another data-set. What you need is the the simplest most engaging aspect of your overall idea that can capture user interest.  Boil down your idea and features until you get to the MVP… then build.

WARNING: No LaunchRock’ing
I love the LaunchRock product and team, but you don’t need a coming soon site.  You need a working now product.  So don’t worry about your LaunchRock page during the weekend, throw it up later when you actually have a working beta you’re iterating on and want to capture user interest as you prepare for wide-scale launch.

My 54hr Startup Weekend Strategy…

Team. The team is paramount.  I’m lucky to have two developers from my company that I’m bringing to the event to work with me. (granted they could get poached by another idea) The rest of the team I’ll do my best to enlist during the initial idea pitch time… Designer & iOS Dev.  Once the team is solidified and we’re ready to go, we’ll do a quick intro for everyone, share skills, drink preferences & expected roles and contributions.

Concepting. Once teams are solidified, there are only a few more hours of the night… and that’s the perfect time to do your concepting…
What’s the big idea?
Who is the customer?
What is their problem?
How can you solve it?
What’s the simplest version of the idea?
What’s the most engaging feature of that simple idea?
What’s the company called?
What technology do you need to leverage?

And now you have enough information for the different team members to head home with a good understanding of what to do next.  Devs know what services to get signed up for / quickly research.  Designers know what branding concepts to start kicking around. Ops folks know what needs to be researched, gathered and organized for the makers.

MVP. And with the first full day starting you can start designing & building your MVP.  Whiteboard the UX flow, ie. Sign-up/in > Create Profile > Upload Content > Rate/Comment Content > Share Content.  Once that simple outline is complete the designers can start putting pen to pixels and the devs can start writing the code to make it work.

MAKE. All that matters now is to get something built and ready to demo / share with friends & family users.  If you’re a super fast team and get a solid MVP built, launched and capturing data… figure out with that next layer of additional functionality is and get it built.

CHECKPOINTS. Don’t wait until the last hour to realize you’re 50% of the way done.  Create short internal checkpoints to evaluate progress so if you’re way over on time with a specific feature you can early on decide to cut it or chose a 70% solution of that feature that gets you most of the way there.  This is what mountain climbers do so if they slip, they only fall 10 feet to where they last tied in, instead of falling to their deaths.

LAUNCH. You shouldn’t need to worry about building a pitch deck for your presentation to the judges, hopefully a killer working product can be quickly demo’d.  But the real winner isn’t the one who takes home the judge’s vote, but who takes home a working product that has the chance to become a great company.

++++

And with all that being said, I hope for your StartupWeekend idea you’ll consider making something that matters.

SuperMentor Steph Hay (AKA Poison Ivy) is known at 500 Startups for her content expertise, UX skills, and giant hair. By day, as co-founder of FastCustomer, Steph works to rid the world from ever having to wait on hold again. By night, she co-organizes the DC Lean Startup Circle and learns Ruby so she can one day finish CakeRock.

A thread in my inbox: “We have a lot of ideas on topics to write about that are relevant to our industry. But how should we go about producing content? Hire a copywriter?”

Two primary follow-up questions I’d ask:

1. Do you want to find the messages that convert users to buyers?
2. Do you want to establish yourself as an authority on certain topics?

To which you’d likely answer “Both.” But how to achieve each relies on different goals, people, tools, and timelines.

COPYWRITING FOR CONVERSIONS

To directly convert users to buyers using words alone, I mentioned trying an adwords-based test as a starting point. That 3-step process yields only one thing: a short-list of words or phrases that make people click.

With that data, you now have a jumping-off point for producing more content like it on a landing page that we can tweak to get conversions up.

But at least you’ll know that content-wise, you’re using the terminology users need to see to arrive on the page in the first place.

This route is all about the sprint: finding the individual words that directly drive users to you, then using analytics-based UX design to close the deal. Whee!

People involved:
-AdWords Expert (for placing/managing ads)
-Copywriter (for coming up with the language to test in ads, status messages, email; then for optimizing the landing page once the most-clicked messages are nailed down)
-Social Media or Email Marketing Expert (for testing messages in the best way possible across social media platforms or email)
-Visual Designer (for designing the landing page once you’re got the most-clicked messages nailed down)
-UX Designer (for optimizing the landing page to test/iterate for maximum conversions)

Tools involved:

-Facebook, Google, LinkedIn ads (for testing clicks; limited by daily ad budgets)
-Twitter or Facebook updates (for testing clicks/shares; limited by network)
-Email (for testing subject lines to opens, and opens to clicks; limited by list size)
-WordPress (for landing pages if w/o a front-end developer)
-MixPanel and/or Google Analytics (to track click-to-conversions)
-Other tools you’d recommend? Tell me!

Summary:

It’s all about running fast — content can be up and iterated upon in a matter of days, discovering the messaging that makes people click immediately thereafter, then building and refining landing pages until the magic content-then-UX formula is discovered.

Then blow’d up.

COPYWRITING FOR THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Startups-as-thought-leaders is a great way to:
-Get invited to conferences and speak on panels
-Create a repository of SEO-friendly landing pages
-Be the go-to expert for press
-Close deals with customers who need to see papers to say “yes”
-Create newsletter fodder (which make for nice investor updates, too)
-Direct inquiries to posts that answer common questions
-Keep super fans engaged over the long-haul

But if none of these are pressing goals, then your time and energy (and runway) might be better spent on the first approach of finding conversions fast.

This route is all about the marathon: STRATEGICALLY finding the topics people care about, then using consistent production of content on these topics to establish credibility over time.

People involved:

-Content Strategist (who likely is also an excellent writer)
-Social Media Strategist (to be consistently researching topics)
-Product Manager or Business Analyst (to keep posts relevant to business efforts)

Tools involved:

-A CMS or blog platform on your domain that isn’t a complete bitch to use and also includes some way for users to share posts easily via social media and email
-Email list (for distribution of said posts, either as published or on a specific timetable)
-Whatever text editor is preferred (I’d suggest a Google doc if doing collaborative writing) but IA Writer is badass.

Summary:

Building thought leadership over time takes planning, regular research, a confidence in voice and direction, consistent publishing, and — above all else — an audience of users who give a shit about what you’re saying.

But if you (like 37signals or Woot.com) can achieve this goal, it’s gold.

Technology has come a long way since I was kid and I can only begin to imagine what is yet to come. Children are growing up with iPads and laptops as educational aids. Technology is just as much a part of their education as it is their entertainment – so, why not tap into the family tech market?! Think of the endless opportunities that exist for businesses to break into the multi-trillion dollar “mommy market.” Technology impacts the everyday lives of each member of the family – now, it’s your opportunity to create something spectacular that will impact the lives of families around the world.

As a business owner, entrepreneur or parent, you can skip ahead of the game with the help of some thought-leaders in the family tech industry. Get some inside info on industry trends and projections, get child-specific UX design tips from industry pros – and much more! The best part is that it’s all happening at the MamaBear family tech conference. If that sparked your interest, head over to the event website mamabeartech.co for the full agenda. You’re guaranteed to be inspired by influencers who are innovating the way families everywhere use technology. Think back to your childhood, what really cool technology did you wish existed? If it doesn’t exist today – create it! Do you have an idea that could make parenting your children less stressful? Get those ideas flowing and we’ll see you in Mountain View, CA at MamaBear!

Check it out: http://puppyrapmobile.co/

Entrepreneurial improv at it’s best!  The folks at .CO are giving away a free ticket to MamaBear to the person who comes up with the best (re: funniest) tag line for this domain: puppyrapmobile.co 

HOW IT WORKS:
1. Post your tagline in the comment section below.
2. When the contest has ended, .CO will select a winner.
3. We’ll post the winner to our blog and notify via email
4.  The free ticket can be used for future events so play along if you can’t attend MamaBear!

*Side note: the domain above is available if you’re feeling lucky!

Enough with the prose. On with the pretty pictures!

First, a new video featuring most of our partners. You’ll notice a few new ones, because Paul Singh and Christen O’Brien have been promoted to partners. Bedy Yang and George Kellerman (not featured in the video) have also joined as venture partners!

And finally, behold… the last 18 months of 500.

I’m kind of embarrassed to call myself a Venture Capitalist.

In fact, most of us who call ourselves VCs should be too.

Why? Because MOST of us are hypocrites, and have NO idea what we’re doing.

Because we SUCK at EXACTLY the thing we’re supposed to help entrepreneurs do — build BIG, SCALABLE companies.

Because MOST of us aren’t engineers. Because MOST of us aren’t designers. Because MOST of us aren’t internet marketers. Because MOST of us haven’t built a customer support team or run 24x7x365 network operations centers.

And yet… MOST venture capitalists seem to think we know EXACTLY what we’re doing when we tell our founders who ARE engineers, designers, & marketers what to do.

We tell them what they should be doing in order to build BIG, SCALABLE companies that can (hopefully) make us lots of money.  And yet, MOST venture capitalists SUCK at building BIG, SCALABLE venture capital firms… well, at least MOST of us, anyway.

Let me explain.

When i was leaving PayPal in 2004, i started doing some angel investing. i really had no idea what the hell i was doing (that may still be true), but due to the good fortune of working at PayPal for a few years, i had a little bit of money in my pockets. and since i knew even less about real estate than i did about startups, rather than blow it all on a big mortgage ahead of the housing crisis, i ended up investing ~$300K over the next four years in a baker’s dozen of young companies. about 5 years later, i got my first meaningful exit when Mint.com was acquired by Intuit, and i made ~10x on a $25K investment. i made a few other investments that seem to be doing well (SlideShare, Mashery, KissMetrics, etc), and i was an advisor for a few companies that also got acquired (Bix, Jambool) where i made some money on advisor stock options.  overall, i was probably more lucky than good, but regardless it seems i didn’t lose my shirt playing amateur investor while i figured out what it is that investors do.

maybe i’m better off lucky than good — i’m still not sure i’ve learned much in the past 3-4 years of “professional” investing at 500 Startups & Founders Fund, or in my previous 4-5 years of UNprofessional investing (arguably, all of my investing could be described that way, and in fact has been by some folks in the past). but good or bad, we’ve made investments in over 250 companies in the last 24 months, and maybe 10-20% of them will survive to adulthood.

but one thing i’ve learned in the past 20+ years i’ve spent in Silicon Valley as an engineer, entrepreneur, marketer, and investor — building BIG, SCALABLE companies is hard. and, it doesn’t happen very often.

i’ve failed miserably several times trying to do it myself as a founder; been fortunate enough to be along for the ride as Max & Peter & others at PayPal successfully beat the odds to build a pretty darn big company that went public and later got acquired by even bigger eBay. and i consider myself lucky to have witnessed several other big success stories founded by some friends and other folks i’ve gotten to know over the years — LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, LivingSocial, Yammer, DropBox, etc.  i certainly haven’t walked in their shoes, but i’ve been humbled to watch them grow from small startups into HUGE companies, and continue to be amazed at what can be accomplished by innovative, driven founders and their employees.

so here’s the thing…

Q: how many VCs have done the same with their own VC firms?

how many VCs are there that have successfully grown from a few partners into BIG, HUGE companies with HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of people operating all over the world?  where is the Google of VC firms? the Facebook of VC firms? the Apple of VC firms? why hasn’t this happened yet? why aren’t there VCs that invest in HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of companies every year?

aside from DFJ & Ron Conway in the 90′s, and Y Combinator & Tech Stars more recently, i’m not sure anyone has even tried. there a few global firms that operate in multiple geographies like Accel & Sequoia. and i’ve been impressed with what First Round Capital has done ramping up seed-stage investing. and it certainly seems like Andreessen-Horowitz is trying to rethink how VC operates at scale.  the Samwer brothers in Germany may not be well-liked, but they have been able to duplicate big successes rapidly. and Jeremy Berrebi in Europe is similar to our own 500 model of lots of little bets. still, at the moment the closest to what “big, scalable” VC looks like is probably either Y Combinator or Angel List… kudos to PG & Naval, they are taking risk, innovating, & putting it all out there.

and yet: the modern venture capital model has been around for perhaps 30-50 years, but we still haven’t quite seen the Henry Ford of venture capital.

we can do better.

Our buddies over at Rackspace are giving away a free ticket to MamaBear  to the joker who provides the best caption to the pic below (btw – this is original artwork by Cartoonist, Hugh MacLeod):

HOW IT WORKS:
1. Post your caption in the comment section below > You have to scroll WAY down.
2. When the contest has ended, the folks at Rackspace will select a winner.
3. We’ll post the winner to our blog and notify via email
4.  The free ticket can be used for future events so play along if you can’t attend MamaBear!

Like monkeys? So do we. Our friends over at MailChimp are giving away a MamaBear ticket to the joker who provides the funniest caption to the pic below:

HOW IT WORKS:
1. Post your caption in the comment section below > You have to scroll WAY down.
2. When the contest has ended, the folks at MailChimp will select a winner.
3. We’ll post the winner to our blog and notify via email
4.  The free ticket can be used for future events so play along if you can’t attend MamaBear!

Did you know The Mama market is $2.1 trillion strong…and growing?! Moms today are economic powerhouses – and like mama bears, are loving, nurturing, and fiercely protective. One of our main focuses at 500 Startups is startups in the family tech arena. As such, we are launching MamaBear is a 1-day conference for startups, platforms, and thought leaders to explore new technology for moms, kids, and families —from education to safety, and health & wellness to community.