Business

Editor’s note:  Derek Andersen is the founder of  Startup Grind, a 15-city event series  hosted around the world to help educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. He’s also ex-Electronic Arts, the founder of Commonred and Vaporware Labs. A few weeks ago a founder called me to commiserate. He told me about how his product had taken longer than expected to build, how his co-founder was gone, and how he was almost out of money. There was desperation, but more than anything he longed for pity and a shoulder to cry on. My response? “Please shut up and get back to work.” In 2010 Forbes called FLOODGATE general partner Ann Miura-Ko “the most powerful woman in startups.” While speaking at Startup Grind in Silicon Valley last week she said, “There is this notion that being an entrepreneur is a romantic ideal. There’s nothing romantic in working 100 hour weeks, not seeing your family, and throwing out code you’ve been working on for two year because your co-founder decided you’re going to pi...

Alexia Tsotsis is the co-editor of TechCrunch. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Media industry. After four years of living in New York and attending courses at New York University, she returned to Los Angeles in... ? Learn More Labor-marketplace TaskRabbit is today announcing a $13 million C-round of funding, led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. The C-round will bring the collaborative consumption startup’s total funding to $38 million. As part of the round, Founders Fund partner Bruce Gibney and former eBay VP and current Trunk Club COO Rob Chesney will be joining the TaskRabbit board. Existing TaskRabbit investors Shasta Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Baseline Ventures, Shervin Pishevar, and 500 Startups also went in on the financing. Newly reinstated TaskRabbit CEO Leah Busque tells me that she will be using the funding for aggressive company...

 Editor’s Note: This is a guest interview by Bernard Moon, co-founder & CEO of Vidquik, a web conferencing and sales solution platform.  He blogs at Silicon Moon. I met entrepreneur Crick Waters last year after hearing just a portion of his story and his road toward Ribbit’s $105 million exit during an event in Silicon Valley. Soon afterward, I felt confident that I could learn from him and that his experiences building Ribbit would be valuable for Vidquik and our team.  I finally got a chance to interview Crick and hear his full story, so I thought I should share this with other entrepreneurs working to build world-class companies. Bernard:   How did the idea for Ribbit start? Crick:  Ribbit started out as IDP Communications in 2004, started doing business as Duality in 2005, and finally become Ribbit in 2006. It was mid-2004.  I had noticed that companies needed phone features for individual, company-specific, use cases that couldn’t easily be met with traditional telco infras...