Manu Kumar, founder of K9 Ventures, writes about seed investing, convertible notes, fund announcements and startup advice.
HN commenters link it as a clear source on convertible notes and seed-stage investing, and cite his posts on valuations and a startup that got hurt.
Hmm, underwhelmed to be sure.
The blog article would be better if it wasn't 100% whine. Linking the original [1] would have been better HN material.
Nobody told the founders at Modista to file a patent on their work? There's $2500 bucks that would have been well spent. They could have simultaneously achieved patent protection and a re-examination of Like.com's patent. Since Like's would come up as an office action, they would turn around and send all the prior art that shows why their idea isn't like that patent but that even that Like's patent didn't have any original ideas, which internally could have started other wheels rolling.
Like it or not, you have to file patents for things that you are doing that are cool. This does two things for you, one it brings out people who might have applied for or done something similar, and two it gives you a way to prevent other people from jumping into your space. The Like.com guys did that, the Modista folks did not.
[1] http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/
I, like you, actively repel the effects of advertising (though I have no doubt that some of it still influences me to an extent). However, if advertising really didn't work, then all products in supermarkets would come in colorless boxes, you'd walk to a touchscreen kiosk and specify your caloric and nutritive needs, preferred foods, organic/vegetarian/vegan/etc. requirements, and the kiosk would produce a list of items that met those requirements, along with prices and an objective evaluation of product quality.
How I wish that were the case! Meal planning and product discovery would be easy. Instead, I eat basically the same things over and over, since as a bootstrapping entrepreneur, I can't afford to throw away much food in the name of exploration. If we could get rid of the patent system that killed Modista (http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/), and replace advertising with information, I think my life would be a lot more awesome.
I wonder how much of the growth in valuations in the early rounds (given birken/df07's comments) is explained by the "Seed is the new Series A" phenomenon[1].
It's very challenging to make sense of all this. You can say "Series A valuations are higher" but does that mean higher valuations per revenue (or whatever metric), or just that the terminology has changed, or one of several other possibilities?
[1] http://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2015/06/05/the-seeds-have-changed-an-epilogue-to-the-new-venture-landscape/
Maybe this will help: http://k9ventures.com/blog/2009/09/24/my-story-and-support-for-the-founders-visa/
And, always good to contact an immigration lawyer to know exactly what you are legally allowed to do (I guess you can afford one now).
There was another thing I was reading about a while ago (but no sure what the case is with that), which states that you can get a special visa if you open up your own company (as an immigrant) which hires more than 5 people.
Legally, you can be a co-founder of a company while you are on H1-B. But, you can not participate in business activities and you can not take salary.
You can get H1-B visa sponsored by your own company. Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures was able to do this, read http://k9ventures.com/blog/2009/09/24/my-story-and-support-for-the-founders-visa/
It should be easier for you with a US citizen co-founder.
IIRC none have actually been sued, but one has been sent a letter saying they're violating a competitor's patent.
What made me start thinking about this idea was a combination of that letter, this story:
http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/
and the fear that YC applicants working on education software have of the notoriously litigious Blackboard.