MongoDB had their IPO today, closing up nearly 34% from their initial price of $24. If you missed it last month, Alex Clayton of Spark Capital broke down the S-1.
From the Operators
Mixpanel aggregates data from 1.3 Billion unique users and shares average stats across financial services, media & entertainment, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and e-commerce & retail. See how the competition compares in “The Product Benchmarks Report: 2017“
Myk Pono of Aptrinsic defines customer touchpoints, interactions, and engagements to create a rubric for “Understanding Customer Experience in SaaS”
Gleb Budman of Backblaze completes a series on entrepreneurship by sharing the importance of having an easy, focused product that is obviously run by actual humans in “How to Compete with Giants”
Jon Davis of Shape tells their story of raising money after failing to bootstrap, emphasizing that it’s ok to end up with financing in “There is No Shame in Failing to Bootstrap Your Business”
Jamie Siminoff of Ring tells his founder story, including a fascinating bit about how failing to get an investment on Shark Tank ended up saving the company, in “Jamie Siminoff, Ring”
Emily Rose Schmidt of Seer Interactive thinks employees should “quit better”, sharing a set of values that served well when deciding between traveling and keeping a job, in “Why I told my boss I was thinking about quitting.”
From the Investors
Nicole Quinn of Lightspeed says that voice as an interaction mechanism has reached a level of accuracy that makes it exceedingly valuable to e-commerce and marketplaces in “Why All Marketplace & eCommerce Companies Need To Talk About Voice”
Seth Levine of Foundry Group reminds founders that often what seems like a sales issue can really be a deeper problem with the product in “Is your sales problem really a product problem?”
Eric Tobias of High Alpha isolates five reasons why specific competition for startups is valuable for everything from product to sales in “The Importance of a Competitor”
Josh Breinlinger of Jackson Square Ventures has an interesting take on what it really takes to disrupt Craigslist, arguing against the common perception that each service should be disrupted, and instead saying that each category needs disruption, in "The Rebundling of Craigslist”
