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Startups

Dropbox Announces 2 Million Users In Just One Year

by Jason Wilk on September 24, 2009

  • Dropbox, the file sharing service which makes it easy to sync your files across multiple computers and the web, has announced that it has reached two million registered users, just four months after reaching one million users (TC). What’s to blame? Dropbox unleashed a brand new redesign of its web interface, and new search as well as many other features recently. Keep an eye out for their iPhone app, which is coming soon.
  • Dropbox was one of the finalists for TechCrunch50 one year ago. It was originally a Y Combinator all star that won a seed round based on CEO Drew Houston’s application (Read here: Dropbox’s summer 2007 application). The company, currently based in San Francisco has raised $1.5 million from Sequoia Capital.

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Solar Sector To Bail Out Declining Chip Industry?

by David Heyerman on January 26, 2009

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  • Heading into 2009, the global semiconductor industry will take a serious downturn in sales revenues.  2008 saw a decline of 4.4% from 2007, and analysts are predicting a 16% decline in 2009.  Although layoffs and budget cuts will most likely occur, chip companies might just see the light again…..enter the aggressively growing solar industry.
  • iSuppli came out with a study in June which claimed investment in solar cell production would match that of the semiconductor industry by 2010.  So, are we looking at a huge boom in the solar industry, or more hype being casually neutralized by the economy?  Many recent developments point towards the former.
  • Hemlock Semiconductor announced back in December that they’d raised $3 Billion to expand their current polysilicon manufacturing capabilities.  They’ll be adding a new production building to their Hemlock, Michigan location and building a brand new facility in Clarksville, Tennessee.
  • Chip giant, Intel, has been moving towards solar for a while now investing near $100 million into solar startups.  This summer alone, they invested $50 into photovoltaic solar cell startup SpectraWatt, and an additional $37.5 million into German thin-film solar module producer, Sulfercell.  Just a few days ago, Intel revealed a 10KW solar installation at their New Mexico manufacturing plant.
  • We’ve also seen some gigantic companies team up to get a piece of the solar pie as well.  Panasonic plans to buy Sanyo, Sharp joined forces with Tokyo Electron, and IBM teamed up with Tokyo Ohka Kogyo all in attempt to boost solar capabilities.  We even saw a chip company release their own solar technology when National Semiconductor launched SolarMagic.
  • There are, however, many who argue the other side of the equation.  With the economy in a serious slump and spending on the backburner mixed with a potential oversupply of polysilicon, many analysts are predicting a bad year for the solar industry.  CEO of Novellus Systems, Rick Hill, openly remains skeptical about the apparent solar expansion necessity.   Back in September, we saw Cypress Semiconductors completely divest themselves of their stake in SunPower (previously owned 52%).
  • So what will happen?  Will the solar sector blast its way through the recession and carry the semiconductor industry along with it, or will they both ruin eachother with oversupply and unnessesary investments?

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Join TinyComb @ Startonomics

by Jason Wilk on January 26, 2009

  • What’s Startonomics? It’s a one-day workshop designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs on how to create simple, actionable metrics; and how to use them to make better product and marketing decisions for long-term growth and startup success. You cannot miss the all-star lineup at the event set to begin February 6th @ 9am. I will be there covering the event all day, be sure to come and say hello if you are attending. Grab the last few tickets available here. Here is a taste of who is set to come:

Richard Rosenblatt – Demand Media

Richard Rosenblatt

A serial entrepreneur and Internet visionary, Richard co-founded Demand
Media in May 2006 to become the leading distributed social media company.
Richard built, operated and sold numerous Internet media companies with a
combined value of over $1.3 billion. He served as CEO of Intermix Media,
Inc., and Chairman of Myspace.com, during which time the public market
capitalization grew from $70 million to over $650 million, until acquired by
News Corporation. Richard previously founded then sold iMALL, one of the
first Internet companies to recognize the power of user-generated content,
to Excite@Home for $565 million. Richard is a Southern California native,
with a BA from UCLA and JD from USC Law School.

  • 1:30 – 2:00 - Afternoon Keynote Address (Keynote)

David O. Sacks – Yammer

David O. Sacks

David O. Sacks is the Founder and CEO of Yammer, Inc., a communications tool
for enterprises. Yammer.com launched at the TechCrunch 50 conference in
September 2008 and won Best In Show. Yammer was originally developed at
Geni, Inc., a startup founded by David in June 2006. Geni.com is creating a
family tree of the whole world, enabling millions of family members to
connect, share, and preserve their lives. Previously, David was the COO of
PayPal, helping to lead the company to a successful IPO and $1.5 billion
sale to eBay. He also produced the movie “Thank You For Smoking” for which
he was nominated for a Golden Globe.

  • 9:00 – 9:30 - Morning Keynote Address (Keynote)

Peter Pham – BillShrink

Peter Pham

Peter is CEO of BillShrink. He was previously VP Business Development & employee #5 at Photobucket.com, and was responsible for customer acquisition, strategic partnerships, and corporate development. Photobucket was acquired in 2007 by Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation. When Peter left in 2008, Photobucket had grown to over 61M users making it the #1 photo sharing site and the 38th most visited site in the US. Prior to Photobucket, he was involved in multiple enterprise startups in areas such as mid-range server computing, software as a service, solid state storage, and mobilization of enterprise software. Peter has held multiple roles including sales, marketing, reseller channel development, product, and strategy. He holds a BS in Biological Sciences with a minor in Business Management from UC Irvine.

  • 3:30 – 4:00 - Pitching & Packaging for Partnerships: How to Land Amazing Deals & Tell If They’re Working (Speaker)

Frank Addante – Rubicon Project

Frank Addante

Frank Addante, a serial entrepreneur, has a successful entrepreneurial track record. The Rubicon Project is Frank’s 6th company. Before the age of 30, Frank started 5 companies, resulting in 1 IPO, 2 acquisitions, 1 failure (we call that one “a learning experience”) and his last venture, StrongMail Systems. Addante lead StrongMail from inception, to an initial cash-flow positive business, to becoming the market leader in less than 4 years, raising over $30 million in venture capital.

  • 4:30 – 5:00 - The A-Team: The Dynamics of Olympic Startups (Speaker)

Neil Patel – ACS

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 3 Internet companies: ACS, Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 3 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

  • 12:00 – 12:30 - Finding Users: The Metrics of SEO for Customer Acquisition (Speaker)

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PG&E Wants In On Solar And They’re Willing To Pay

by David Heyerman on January 21, 2009

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  • $36 Billion in assets is not necessarily a bad thing to have going for you during a recessionary economy.  So what exactly is PG&E going to do with their cash?  CEO of the California utility, Peter Darbee announced at this week’s Fortune Green conference that the giant is looking into investing in/buying solar power plants.
  • This is quite different than usual as we’ve seen utilities invest in wind in the past, but not solar.  PG&E does have some hangups to deal with along the way, however.
  • The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) grants a 30% tax credit to solar investments and has helped startups immensely in reducing costs to build their facilities.  Only problem is the ITC doesn’t extend to utilities.   Darbee let the audience know that he’s going out of his way to try and get the ITC modified to include utilities.   He also noted than if the regulation does not get changed, they’ll simply establish a subsidiary to PG&E that will qualify for the credit…..very monopolistic of you PG&E…..considering it’s for solar, I’ll let it slide.
  • We’ve already heard the CEO of Ausra talking about utilities stepping in and buying plants.  Even though the solar sector is somewhat ironic right now, which companies do you think PG&E will be looking at?

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HeyZap, The Longtail Competitor To Oberon Media

by Jason Wilk on January 15, 2009

  • If you haven’t heard of Oberon Media, I’m sure you’ve played a casual game or two on one of the many sites that they power. Since their inception, Oberon has become the king of casual games, providing partners like MSN, MySpace, MTV, Walmart.com, NBC and more with their game player.
  • Enter Heyzap, the latest product launch out of the Y Combinator college of startups. Founded by serial entrepreneurs, and my friends, Immad Akhund (recently sold Clickpass) and Jude Gomila, HeyZap is to become the longtail competitor to Oberon by creating an easily embeddable casual games player for use by any website or blog. Webmasters now have the ability to offer their users 4000+ casual games with a simple strip of code.
  • Immad says “Currently, publishers don’t have easy access to highly addictive, online casual games content, but HeyZap intends to change this. Heyzap will shift where users play casual games and bring casual games to a larger audience”. The player aggregates and filters casual games from major game portals, game developers and Mochi Media, recommending users with the most popular games titles in their favorite categories.
  • Some of the benefits to adding HeyZap to a site or blog include increasing user engagement, such as higher on-site time and potentially more page-views.
  • The platform also hopes to help promote new game developers who aren’t getting exposure on the major networks, offering them ad-revenue shares and a home for their games.
  • Casual gaming is now a $2.2bn market, predicted to grow at 25% this year. With the success of Oberon Media, HeyZap stands a real chance in the market for providing game tools for the rest of us. Somebody like DemandMedia, who offers tools for publishers could be setting their eye on this company very soon (Acquisition maybe?) Stay tuned….

Try it out here:

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