TechCrunch
Why I Hate Conferences But Love TechCrunch Disrupt
Conferences can be dull, soul-sucking enterprises. Too often, the stage is filled with the same speakers saying the same things and providing too little value to the people who’ve paid to attend. Those sessions are sometimes complemented with sponsored messages from universally bad companies touting their latest new thing that probably sucks.
They’re a necessary evil, I know. Conferences are how businesses like TechCrunch actually make money, because display ads ain’t gonna pay the bills just on their own.
At best though, most conferences are just an opportunity to see people you haven’t seen since the last conference you went to, and to discuss all the things that haven’t changed while you’re chatting over lunch. Which is a horrible way to network, because most conference food sucks.
There’s something different about TechCrunch Disrupt, however. Last year, I joined TechCrunch about a week before Disrupt NY and they flew me out to attend, and it was one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to. We had Fred and Karp and Borthwick on stage. The U.S. Government announced its open government thing. Josh asked Tim Armstrong how he felt about looking like a dark overlord. I drank Adrian Grenier’s beer.* Anyway, it all kind of blew me away.
Then a funny thing happened. Last year’s Disrupt SF was even better. I mean, Zuck. I could probably just drop the mic right there, but what about Ben Horowitz, Jack Dorsey, Kevin Rose, Matt Cohler, Reid Hoffman, Ev and Biz? Jim Dalrymple’s beard, on our stage to talk about the iPhone 5?
This year’s Disrupt SF promises to top both of those, and I’m not just saying that because I work here and Alexia assigned this story to me. I mean, look at the agenda and see for yourself. I’ve been told this might be a good place to put in a link where you can buy tickets. Anyway, here are the things I love about Disrupt:
There’s no bullshit
Unlike so many other conferences I’ve been to, Disrupt doesn’t invite big name speakers to get on stage and say nothing interesting for 20 minutes. Or, worse, to trot out all the same talking points that we’ve heard from all the same people over and over again.
“The reason I find [Disrupt] worth attending is that I want the people on stage to be on stage more than they do,” my colleague Alex said the other day. And this is coming from a guy who was our competitor until about a month ago.
The other thing about the speaker lineup is that we have people coming out for Disrupt who don’t normally do these things. I mean, we’ve somehow gotten folks like Sir Michael Moritz and John Doerr to come out of hiding for this one. (Maybe this time I’ll have the guts to corner him?)
The speakers are also attendees
Last year at Disrupt SF, I saw something pretty amazing. At some point during Arrington’s interview with Reid Hoffman, I look over and there’s Marc Benioff sitting in the front row, taking the whole thing in. I mean, how often do you see the CEO of a company with a $20 billion market cap just hanging out in the audience at a conference?
It’s not just Benioff, though. Folks like Mike McCue and Vinod Khosla don’t just come and sit on stage, they also can be seen walking through Startup Alley, meeting with entrepreneurs and seeing what’s new. Which is pretty damn cool.
Startup Battlefield
There’s nothing quite like watching today’s technology leaders for half a day and then seeing a group of fresh new startups coming up to the stage and presenting for the first time the thing they’ve been working on. As Ingrid said the other day, the juxtaposition of the two “creates a spark.”
And then there’s the quality of the startups competing, which is just so, so good. I mean, where else are you going to find a motorcycle that can’t be tipped over** competing against a peer-to-peer marketplace for mechanics?
Arrington
Love him or hate him, the man is a pro. He’ll do five or six interviews at one of these events and he’ll always be the best-prepared person taking the stage. Oh, and that no bullshit thing I was talking about? A lot of it comes from Arrington, because he’s not going to let you sit there and say nothing interesting for 20 minutes.
Everyone loved the Zuck interview last year, and it was pretty great. But for my money, the highlight of Disrupt SF 2012 was watching Arrington grill David Sacks about how there’s supposedly no more innovation happening in Silicon Valley.
To do so, Arrington reads off a long list of famous quotes that ended up being disproven, much like Sacks’s much-maligned prediction that “Silicon Valley as we know it may be coming to an end.” Spoiler alert: It’s not.
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* It was not delicious
** Lit Motors was robbed
Ask A VC: Menlo Ventures' Mark Siegel On The Opportunity For Building Startups In ‘The Right Now Economy'
In this week’s episode of Ask A VC, we hosted Menlo Ventures’ managing director Mark Siegel in the TCTV studio.
Siegel, who focuses on investments in enterprise and advertising, has recently penned a presentation on the opportunities in mobile, social, cloud computing and data, titled the “The Right Now Economy.” While many companies like Uber, Netflix and others are taking advantage of some of the current opportunities, explains Siegel in the interview, the next wave of startups taking advantage of this trend will likely be in health care, education and financial services.
Siegel also talked about what metrics he looks at when evaluating a company for investment at the seed or Series A level and more.
Uber Confirms That It Raised $258M From Google Ventures And TPG
Well, it’s official — Uber has confirmed that it raised $258 million in new funding and added a couple of new members to its board of directors to help move it forward. In a blog post that appeared briefly but was quickly taken down, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick confirmed that the new money came from Google Ventures and TPG.
The company plans to use the funding to move into new markets and begin marketing efforts, as well as to fight off protectionist, anti-competitive efforts, Kalanick wrote. And while the money will surely help, the backing from the new investors and board members should be equally as important.
Along with the funding, Google SVP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will be joining the board. On Google backing, Kalanick said the company will be looking to connect strategically around product initiatives. Also, the startup will likely lean on Google for help with local governments and regulatory bodies as it expands.
TPG founding partner David Bonderman will also be joining the board. On the TPG side, Kalanick wrote that it will look to the private equity firm for some of its operations and their regulatory know-how.
Since the blog post has been taken down, here’s the text of the announcement as it first appeared:
As many of you have seen in the press today, Uber recently closed a financing round. We wanted to put out the official word to make sure the facts were clear and confirmed. This round is $258 million with proceeds to be used to expand into new markets, begin marketing efforts, and fight off protectionist, anti-competitive efforts.
The financing was led by Google Ventures with TPG Growth participating. David Drummond, Google’s SVP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer will be joining the Uber board. David Bonderman, founding partner of TPG, will also be joining the board.
The numbers on this financing are fairly substantial. It is a reflection of our growth to date and continuing success. But with this new investment, expectations naturally increase and there is a new standard of excellence and accomplishment that we seek to live up to. Our vision is to build a technology company that changes transportation and logistics in urban centers around the world and this financing gives us the fuel to make that a reality.
We couldn’t be more excited to embark on the next phase of our journey with our new partners, both truly great in their respective industries. I like to talk about this combination of investors as “Bits and Atoms.”
Bits
On one end we have Google, a technology powerhouse, with billions of users on an incredibly complementary product suite ranging from Google Maps to Android to self-driving vehicles. We look to Google for the strategic connectivity to their product initiatives alongside the expertise that comes with evangelizing new technology with governments and regulatory bodies around the world.
David Drummond is our partner at Google who will help us navigate the company and provide strategic advice as our regulatory efforts follow our launches across Europe and Asia.
Atoms
With TPG, we have partnered up with one of the most prolific private equity firms in the world. Why does that matter? How are they different than any of the traditional venture capital firms? It’s really simple: TPG owns and operates companies. The Uber deal is obviously very different, but their deep rolodex of operations executives and their regulatory know-how in highly regulated, “atoms”-based industries in the farthest corners of the globe is where TPG shines. David Bonderman’s vision and relationships will be invaluable to Uber as we become a global brand.
So that’s the news. I hope this clarifies what Uber is looking to do with this new funding, and sheds some light on the groundbreaking investment partnership we’ve put together for Uber’s next phase of growth.
Uber On,
Travis
Facebook Ditches Physical Gifts To Double-Down On Digital Codes And Its Own Brick-&-Mortar Gift Card
Facebook Gifts is getting a major redesign that will end sales of physical gifts. It will now focus on suggesting you buy friends digital gift codes or Facebook’s omni-Gift Card credit to spend at brands and local businesses they Like, which now get their own Gifts landing page. These two types of Gifts made up 80% of sales, cost less to ship and support, so it makes sense to invest in them in the rollout coming the next few weeks.
Facebook launched Gifts in September 2012 to fanfare that it might challenge ecommerce kingpin Amazon. Gifts fell short of those lofty expectations, though.
The product let you buy physical gifts like chocolate and stuff animals or digital gift cards to Starbucks or Uber for friends on special occasions like their birthday. Facebook later added alcohol sales and iTunes Gift Cards, plus began surfacing opportunities to buy Gifts in mobile. Still, sales were suspected to be slow and Facebook reported $5 million in earnings between Gifts and User Promoted Posts in Q4 2012, giving the product a low maximum impact on the company’s bottom line compared to ads and game payments.
So Facebook tried something new. It launched its own Facebook Gift Card. It’s a credit-card style plastic slice you could buy for friends that Facebook would mail to them. It would come loaded with the Gift credit you bought them, and could be remotely topped-up with money to spend at different specific brick-&-mortar stores if other friends bought them Gift credits.
With time, Facebook saw that only 20% of total Gift sales were for physical products, while gift credits to Starbucks and iTunes were the biggest sellers. It turned out it was difficult to recommend specific products to buy for friends. However, Facebook’s data on people’s interests, location, and social graph made it easy to recommend whole brands or businesses to buy friends digital gift codes and Facebook Gift Card credit.
So starting today, 10% of the U.S. user base will receive the redesigned version of Gifts that eliminates physical gifts. The rest of the U.S. will get it over the next few weeks.
Facebook Gifts manager (and former CEO of gifting app Karma that Facebook acquired to power Gifts) Lee Linden tells me it was worth it for Facebook to invest in the product and not kill it off entirely because revenue from Gifts is “definitely going up. It’s been steadily going up since the beginning of the year and I think it will keep going up with this.”
What’s New With Gifts?
Beyond the disappearance of physical gifts, there’s a bunch of changes to the product and buying experience that you’ll see in the Facebook website birthday’s section, on friends’ walls, and in the mobile feed.
Landing Pages
Previously, the Gifts buying interface opened in a little overlaid window on Facebook’s website. Now it will have its own Gifts marketplace landing page, and each brand will get their own URL for their gift shop.
That means businesses can finally share a direct link to where you can buy Facebook Gifts from them. That makes it much easier for brands like Williams-Sonoma, Whole Foods, and Express to promote their store front. Before, they had to tell people to sniff them out inside the cluttered Gifts window. Businesses could even buy Facebook Promoted Post ads to boost traffic to their store, or Facebook might consider a special ad unit for Gift shops. This means Facebook could double-dip, earning money to drive traffic to Gifts as well as a revenue share when people buy them.
Depending on the business, you’ll be able to buy gifts codes that can be instantly redeemed on ecommerce websites or in apps like Uber, or load up a friend’s Facebook Gift card with credit they can take to the mall and spend in person.
Recommendations
Because it doesn’t have to recommend you specific products but just whole businesses, Facebook is going to be leaning more heavily on your friends’ personal information to suggest where to buy them Gifts from.
To go with the greater emphasis on brick-&-mortar shopping through the Facebook Gift Cards, Facebook will now be heavily factoring people’s check-ins and photo locations into recommendations. So if you check-in at Olive Garden (unlimited breadsticks!), Facebook might suggest your friend buy you Facebook Gift Card credit to the italian restaurant chain. You’ll also be able to buy gift credit in any denomination, so you could gift me $29 to Target for my 29th birthday.
Linden tells me “The whole point of Gifts is to learn about commerce on Facebook and build a product that users wants. We’re going to improve commerce overall on Facebook in a number of ways. Gifts is a natural extension but not the end.” He explains the other components include commerce discovery from seeing apps your friends use as well as mobile app install ads, and Facebook’s new mobile payments test to help you automatically input your billing details when you buy other ecommerce apps.
Together, Gifts, ads, and payment info input could combine to help Facebook prove it delivers return on investment to advertisers. If Facebook is selling the gift or involved in an off-app payment that began with a click from one of Facebook’s ads, it can tell businesses the exact ROI of their ad spend. That’s key to getting them to spend more.
Facebook is finally realizing its synergies in commerce. Hawking a random scattershot of kitschy physical gifts didn’t play to its strengths over other ecommerce providers. But what Facebook does has is personal data. It knows what your friends are interested in and where they go. By harnessing that information to recommend what you should buy them, Facebook is taking the guess-work out of gifting. If you’re going to get someone a gift card, it may as well be to someplace they Like.
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