500 Startups Blog
The blog of venture firm 500 Startups, with advice for founders on pricing, growth and marketplaces, plus firm announcements.
What HN says
HN links it for firm news such as the leadership changes and for founder advice on pitching, while commenters question the firm's accessibility and returns.
Stats for nerds
80HN people shared it
68linked in comments
646story points
Nov 2022last shared
Top posts on HN
- 1Harsh Realities From 500 Startups Founders1 person · 131 points · first shared 2011 · 45 comments on HN
- 2The Data Behind Purchasing Behavior at UserVoice – Pricing for Conversion2 people · 94 points · first shared 2013 · 11 comments on HN
- 3500 Startups Open for Applications1 person · 69 points · first shared 2013 · 29 comments on HN
- 4Making Changes at 5003 people · 37 points · first shared 2017 · Discussion on HN
- 5Mobile SEO for Beginners: How to Improve App Store Search Ranking1 person · 34 points · first shared 2012 · 9 comments on HN
- 6Free legal docs for startup founders and investors3 people · 32 points · first shared 2014 · 1 comments on HN
- 7The Data Behind Purchasing Behavior at UserVoice – Part 21 person · 28 points · first shared 2013 · 3 comments on HN
- 8IOS6 and iPhone 5 App Store Discoverability: What changed?1 person · 28 points · first shared 2012 · 11 comments on HN
- 9500 Combinators – Announcing the Merger of 500 Startups and Y Combinator1 person · 21 points · first shared 2014 · 7 comments on HN
- 10Why does 500 Startups' www point here?4 people · 17 points · first shared 2012 · 8 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
- NetOpWibbySep 2022
Went through my Pinboard to extract all these:
- https://797capital.com/
- https://www.indexventures.com/
- https://www.sparkcapital.com/
- https://www.hcp.com/
- https://hvflabs.com/
- https://www.republiccapital.co/
- https://plus.vc/
- https://www.rarebreed.vc/
- https://www.dragonfly.xyz/
- https://macventurecapital.com/
- https://parafi.com/
- https://www.chingona.ventures/
- https://www.plexocap.com/
- https://lowercarboncapital.com/
- https://www.blckvc.org/
- https://www.gsr.io/
- https://rbf.capital/
- https://www.allraise.org/
- https://betaworksventures.com/
- https://www.gfrfund.com/
- https://www.hustlefund.vc/
- https://www.atelierventures.co/
- https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/
- https://www.nfx.com/
- https://645ventures.com/
- https://backstagecapital.com/
- https://panteracapital.com/firm/
- https://femalefoundersfund.com/
- https://susaventures.com/
- https://atomic.vc/
- https://homebrew.co/
- https://www.cowboy.vc/
- https://foundersfund.com/
- https://www.kaporcapital.com/
- https://www.felicis.com/
- https://www.cleocap.com/
- https://www.ggvc.com/
- https://www.haystack.vc/
- https://www.menlovc.com/
- https://www.battery.com/
- https://www.nea.com/
- https://www.greycroft.com/
- https://group.softbank/
- https://twosigmaventures.com/
- https://www.redpoint.com/
- https://www.angellist.com/
- https://luxcapital.com/
- https://lsvp.com/
- https://www.bvp.com/
- https://upfront.com/
-…
- steveridoutSep 2015
Thanks for sharing this!
I checked out your pricing plans and the way you differentiate plans based on visitors / day jumped out at me since it goes against advice I read recently from the UserVoice team. They used to price based on number of users who can vote but (in their own words)...
"This was a huge failure. It created what I call a success penalty: the more successful you were in activating your users to give you feedback the more expensive the product became. On some level this made sense but since no one knew how to estimate this future usage it just created uncertainty about committing to a product without knowing the future cost of it. It was especially problematic because we were often working with young companies who didn’t know or were very optimistic about their future active user levels (and equally optimistic about what % of them would engage on UserVoice and give them feedback). It put us in the awkward position of tempering a customer’s enthusiasm about their use of our product (aka “There’s no way you’ll have 300K people on your site in 60 days time”).
When we removed the usage limits, which were designed to drive upgrades, we actually saw that upgrades increased 33%!"Link: http://500.co/the-data-behind-purchasing-behavior-at-uservoice-pricing-for-conversion-part-i/
- ig1Jul 2017
I feel deeply uncomfortable on 500 Startups positions on this (https://500.co/making-changes-at-500/) for four reasons:
1) 500Startups considered these issues to be serious enough to remove McClure from his role but didn't publicly disclose this. This meant that he presumably could continue to meet female founders and other WIT while still appearing to be in a position of power.
2) A number of LPs in 500 have stated that they were not told this change had happened and the reasons why. This suggests that 500 were trying to keep this as quiet as possible.
3) McClure continued to represent 500Startups in his official role after his apparent removal. A few weeks ago he was deeply involved in the launch of 500Melbourne in Australia.
4) Eight days ago Tsai tweeted "Binary Capital's Justin Caldbeck accused of unwanted sexual advances towards female founders. Where's the outrage?" while at the same time being fully aware that 500Startups was not disclosing McClure's behaviour.
500 Startups has done good work in the past on diversity but this appears to extend beyond McClure and they need to adopt full disclosure and address what from the outside could look like an attempt to cover-up inappropriate behaviour.
- troydavisOct 2017
Whether you have an advantage or disadvantage depends on your goal.
If you want a series of potentially-fun lottery tickets in industries and teams you choose, you have an advantage.
If you want any return (and I mean any, as in, recovering any capital), you have 3 huge disadvantages: insufficient diversification[1], a lack of dealflow, particularly great deals, and inexperience evaluating and participating in other people’s startups. These are all surmountable, but doing so is an occupation.
If you don’t already read Matt Levine, the “Retail Traders” section of https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-09/retail-voters-and-insider-traders applies to picking a small quantity of individual startups too. The reason to do it is because it’s fun (and you’re comfortable losing all of the principal), not to earn average risk-adjusted returns.
[1]: Check out 500 Startups’ presentations and posts on how much diversification is required to expect average returns for the asset class. Here’s one: https://500.co/not-so-simple-math-on-venture-portfolio-size/
- j_sJun 2014
Rob Walling of Startups for the Rest of Us discussed the first of a two-part article on SaaS pricing¹ by Richard White of UserVoice in episode 153².
The podcast also covered collecting billing info in episode 179³ and briefly discussed handling credit card expirations in episode 184⁴.
¹ http://500.co/2013/07/18/the-data-behind-purchasing-behavior-at-uservoice-pricing-for-conversion-part-i/
² http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-153-saas-pricing-tactics
³ http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-179-when-to-ask-your-customers-for-credit-cards
⁴ http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-184
- dazbradburyJan 2012
Because the video page doesn't give any info, here is the blurb...
Wed, Jan 25 from 12-4pm and Thurs, Jan 26 from 5-9pm.
500 Startups Demo Day is an invite-only showing for our 3rd batch (Fall/Winter 2011) of accelerator companies. This event is primarily for accredited investors, 500 Startups Mentors & Advisors.
To find out more about the companies visit: http://500.co/accelerator/accelerator-startups/
source:http://plancast.com/p/92pv/500-startups-demo-day-jan-2012