“We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing!” ― Benjamin Franklin The phrase “software eating the world” is a common refrain in the tech industry, and Battery has had a long history of committing to that investment thesis. Recently, we have noticed an interestin … Read More »
Honesty is the Best Policy: Radical Transparency as a Management Strategy for Founders
During times of difficulty, company founders may be inclined to downplay drama and gloss over problems when communicating with their boards. This temptation is a misstep, says Gainsight* CEO Nick Mehta. In the final installment of a four-part video mini-series, Mehta and Roger Lee, a general partner … Read More »
Network Effects – The Keys to Ascending the Consumer-Internet Throne
“Category kings”, defined as market-share leaders in particular business sectors, often wind up creating the majority of the market value relative to their competition. This advantage is particularly pronounced in technology: According to some research, over 70% of the value created in technology mar … Read More »
Chatting Current Tech Events and News with CNBC Squawk Alley
On Friday, May 22, I joined the hosts of CNBC's Squawk Alley--Kayla Tausche, Jon Fortt, and Simon Hobbs--to chat about the morning's breaking news. It was a lot of fun--even though I had to spend quite a bit of time scrubbing makeup off my face afterward. Following the announcement of H-P's q … Read More »
Software Entrepreneur’s Playbook: Go Mobile-First or Die
Seven years ago, when the iPhone was first introduced, smartphones were a novelty. Now they’re the default method of computing for most people. As of late last year, Americans spent 34 hours a month on their mobile devices, compared with just 27 hours accessing the Web via a computer, a … Read More »
Atlassian and Zendesk–Making All the Right Plays
This week brought interesting news about two well-known business-software companies, Atlassian and Zendesk, that are great examples of next-generation SaaS companies making all the right plays. In my first “Software Entrepreneur’s Playbook” post here, I wrote about Atlassian, which sells popular s … Read More »