Geeks. Founders. Startups. The Internet Revolution, Act II.
Hi, this is Dave McClure:
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Tweets
- RT @ndakkak: @davemcclure should check this out: The Arab Spring through the eyes of Zaid by @fadig http://t.co/J47bO7bZa5
- quotable @ChemiPeres: "The Arab-speaking Internet market will be 4th largest following English, Chinese & Spanish." #truth #arabinternet
- RT @ChemiPeres: A Startup Region: The Arab Internet Spring. http://t.co/xOPPS3AZ0w cc @500startups #ArabInternet
- RT @chemiperes: Post #6: A Start-up Region. The Arab Internet Spring (Observations from the Third Circle) - With an average... http://t.co/…
- RT @christinelu: "Rui Ma Discusses @500Startups Plans for China" [The Next Web] -- thanks for the @AffinityChina mention @ruima! http://t.c…
- Q: wanna have *FUN* learning Japanese? try @MindSnacks Japanese, free learning game 4 iPhone/iPad: https://t.co/9OzrbRXIde cc @500startupsMay 19, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Nicola Tesla pitches Silicon Valley VCs: http://t.co/iURnFy88Me
- "DUBSTEP SOLVES EVERYTHING." #NailedIt http://t.co/8NlUeTEedq
- RT @pinmypet: Brasileira PinMyPet entra para nova turma da 500 Startups http://t.co/x8WmvoyhUO @bazarfacil @pinmypet @500Startups #500stro…
- "Behind the Scenes of Thrifty Startup, the @500Startups #batch6 video." http://t.co/fyeaS5ow8C by @intelliot @greengar
- RT @MercNews: Family Tech: Web Services 4 Parents & Kids http://t.co/bxh2sKvLIG cc @500startups @christine_tsai @christenobrien #mamabear
- @istommydrunk thx fixed
- RT @HarvardBiz: "6 Myths about Venture Capital" http://t.co/PIxuoU7TYr by @dianemulcahy cc @500Startups
- RT @fottoni: Startup Metrics for Pirates (Nov 2012) by @davemcclure on @slideshare http://t.co/p8kcbXMSOs
- just crashed the #BitCoin afterparty -- maybe not as overhyped or crazy as I thought. #bitcoin2013
- RT @HarvardBiz: "Since 1999 VC funds on average have barely broken even." @dianemucahy debunks 6 VC myths. http://t.co/Gvwxxo6Vgo
- RT @goldbely: WV in da house! RT @davemcclure Pepperoni Rolls from Morgantown! (courtesy of joe & vanessa @Goldbely, thx guys :) http://t.c…
- @pyramedium LOL.
- @ahurst seriously.
- dear California DMV: your online registration system sucks. spent 20m trying to update info, FAILED.
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Info
- Geeks, Entrepreneurs, Startups. The Internet Revolution.Internet | San Francisco Bay Area, USSummary
I'm a geek, startup investor, former software developer & entrepreneur, occasional tech blogger and internet marketing nerd. I've lived in Silicon Valley for over 20 years and loved every minute. I'm the founding partner of 500 Startups (http://500.co), an Internet seed fund and startup incubator that has invested in hundreds of companies all over the world including Twilio, SendGrid, TaskRabbit, MakerBot, and Wildfire Interactive (acqd by Google in 2012).
Previously, I managed early-stage internet investments for Founders Fund (2008-2010), and also led the Facebook fbFund incubator program (2009). After leaving PayPal in 2004, I was an investor/advisor in ~15 startups including Bix.com (acqd by Yahoo in 2006), Mint.com (acqd by Intuit in 2009), Jambool (acqd by Google in 2010), TeachStreet (acqd by Amazon in 2011), SlideShare (acqd by LinkedIn in 2012), and Mashery (acqd by Intel in 2013).
500 Startups invests in technology companies building consumer and business internet services, and currently manages ~$60M in capital. In addition to investment, we help startups with product and marketing, customer development, design and usability, online distribution, business metrics, and fundraising.
more info:
- my bio: http://bit.ly/AboutDaveMcClure
- my blog: http://500hats.com
- my company: http://500.co
- my presentations: http://slideshare.net/dmc500hats
- my investor profile: http://angel.co/davemcclureprofessional expertise: tech startups, venture capital, product management, internet marketing, business metrics, community evangelism.
personal interests: geeks, startups, microfinance, economics, music, travel, ultimate frisbee, cartoons & animation.
Experience- Apr 2010 - PresentFounding Partner / 500 Startups
I am the founding general partner of 500 Startups, an early-stage seed fund & incubator program focused on consumer/SMB internet & related infrastructure services. Selected areas of interest include financial services & e-commerce, search/social/mobile platforms, personal & business productivity, education & language, family & healthcare, web infrastructure, and tribbles. As of Oct 2012, 500 Startups has made investments in over 400 companies, including Twilio, TaskRabbit, SendGrid, MakerBot, and Wildfire Interactive (acq'd Google, 2012).
- Oct 2008 - Mar 2010Investor (FF Angel Fund, Facebook fbFund) / Founders Fund
I managed two early-stage investment programs: 1) FF Angel: a seed-stage fund focused on tech & internet startups, and 2) Facebook fbFund: an accelerator/incubator for Facebook platform apps & startups (note: fbFund was run jointly with Accel Partners, Founders Fund, & Facebook). I made over 40 seed & incubation investments, including Twilio, Wildfire, SendGrid, TaskRabbit, CrowdFlower, Bitly, Credit Karma, and UserVoice, among others.
- list of FF Angel investments -- see http://bit.ly/FFangel
- list of Facebook fbFund investments -- see http://fbFund.com - Jan 2009 - Dec 2009Investment Director (2009 Program) / Facebook fbFund
The Facebook fbFund was a joint venture by Facebook, Founders Fund, and Accel Partners that provided early-stage capital to startups using Facebook Platform & Facebook Connect. I ran the 2009 incubator program and led fbFund investments in Wildfire Interactive (acqd by Google in 2012), TaskRabbit, and ZimRide, among others.
- Nov 2006 - Oct 2008Advisor, Consultant, Angel Investor / Mint Software
I was an investor, advisor, & marketing consultant to financial services startup Mint.com. I helped the marketing team with content syndication & blogging strategy, customer research & market positioning, channel strategies for customer acquisition, and search engine marketing. I researched web analytics and metrics tools for measuring user acquisition & engagement.
I participated in the Series A financing led by Shasta Ventures in Q2/2007. The company was acquired by Intuit in November 2009 for $170M.
- Aug 1999 - Oct 2008Startup Advisor, Investor / 500 Hats
I was an investor, advisor, & consultant for internet startups focused on consumer and business services such as: financial services & e-commerce, personal & business productivity, search & social networking, web analytics & infrastructure. Notable investments/clients included: GigaOm, Mint.com (INTU), oDesk, Mashery, TeachStreet (AMZN), KissMetrics, Jambool (GOOG), Twilio, and SlideShare (LNKD).
- Jul 2006 - Jun 2008Conference Organizer / O'Reilly Media
Web 2.0 Expo (2006-2008): as a consultant to O'Reilly, I helped create & co-chair the Web 2.0 Expo tech conference. I defined conference objectives, designed conference tracks & programs, recruited program committees & advisory board members, and reviewed over 500 submissions for conference talks. I organized 60+ talks & panel sessions and recruited over 100 notable industry speakers. I helped promote & market the conference to the technology community, including press & bloggers, developers, designers, entrepreneurs, marketers, VCs, and tech execs, resulting in over 10,000 attendees.
Graphing Social Patterns (2007-2008): As a partner with O'Reilly Media, I was the co-founder and conference chairperson for a business & technology conference about facebook, social networking platforms, and social applications. I produced 3 conferences in 2007 and 2008 attended by over 1,000 web developers, media & advertising execs, investors and press.
- Sept 2007 - Dec 2007Visiting Lecturer / Stanford University
I was a visiting lecturer at Stanford University and co-instructor with Prof. BJ Fogg for CS377W, Creating Engaging Facebook Applications, the nation's first-ever course on building web applications for Facebook Platform. The class emphasized teaching entrepreneurs how to use business metrics to improve product development & marketing. We invited industry speakers from Facebook, Google, Yahoo, & several VC-backed startups to provide real-world examples of technology & entrepreneurship in action. Collectively the class created over 50 Facebook apps resulting in over 20M installs and ~1M active users in December 2007. Five teams in the class created apps which generated more than 1M installs and were among the top 100 Facebook apps as measured by installs and active users. Several apps were later acquired by commercial entities, and one team successfully raised venture financing.
- Jan 2005 - May 2006Director Marketing, VP Marketing / Simply Hired
I led the marketing team responsible for launch, PR, website content, search engine marketing, site metrics, community, and customer support. Along with the product team, I helped create the Simply Hired brand, voice, and overall site look and feel. I was responsible for strategic partnerships with LinkedIn and O'Reilly Media, and our SimplyFired satirical website & campaign attracted national news coverage. I created the first-ever conference on vertical search with speakers from over two-dozen search startups along with Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. I was also an investor in the Series B financing in August 2005.
In December of 2005 I was promoted from Director to VP, and continued to handle outbound marketing & evangelism functions for the company. Prior to leaving my full-time position with the company in 2006 and moving to an advisory role, I also ran the Product group for a short period and helped manage the company partnership with MySpace.
Simply Hired received awards from Time and BusinessWeek, and was featured in national publications including: NY Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, USA Today, Washington Post, San Jose Mercury, PC Magazine, TechCrunch, GigaOm, Business 2.0, and The Economist.
- Sept 2001 - Oct 2004Director Marketing, PayPal Developer Network / PayPal
I started and managed the PayPal Developer Network, a community of ~300,000 web designers and developers who use PayPal to build E-Commerce websites, solutions, and services. I managed a team of technical evangelists to help deliver technical education & marketing, create site content, build PayPal add-on solutions for various web development and productivity tools, community message boards & forums, documentation, and conferences. I also interacted closely with the Product and Marketing teams to help drive product strategy, marketing communication strategy, and provide regular customer feedback on current and requested functionality.
- Apr 1994 - Jul 1999Founder/CEO / Aslan Computing
I founded and bootstrapped an internet & ecommerce professional services startup to $2M revenue in 3 years. Aslan was acquired by Servinet/Panurgy in January 1998.
• Grew team from 1 to 20 employees.
• Won “Microsoft Partner of the Year” award Northern California 1997.
• Key Clients: Intel, Microsoft, Netscape, Stanford, Intuit, VentureOne.
• Averaged 200% growth in annual revenues from ’95 to ’98.
• Grew business unit by 50% in year after acquisition (profitable). - Feb 1988 - Apr 1994Developer / Proj Mgr / consultant for Intel, MSFT, others
Designed, developed, deployed client/server information systems and SQL DB systems for corporate clients in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Worked with Microsoft & Intel for two years developing and managing mission-critical capacity planning and scheduling system for Intel worldwide production and manufacturing. Managed technical projects and teams, deployed systems, provided maintenance & support, systems training. Technical skills included application development, SQL database development, database admin & tuning.
Education-
1982 - 1988The Johns Hopkins UniversityBS Engineering in Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Foosball
Activities: Captain of Ultimate Frisbee team, Member of Peabody-Hopkins Chorus, Member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.
Additional Information-
Honors:Loudmouth & Idiot (US National Champion, 2008-present)
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Interests:Finance and economics, ultimate frisbee, entrepreneurship and venture capital, jazz and classical music, politics and business, sports and games of all kinds, cartoons and animation
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Videos
