Quick Bytes – 15 Sep: A Look at Uber’s Earlier Pitch Decks and More

A look at the most interesting startup and business-related news stories of the week.

The Beginning of Uber

Quick Byte

It’s great to be able to go back and look at the early pitch decks of the companies who went on to become Unicorns. Shown here in this Medium post by Garrett Camp, is one of the early pitch decks by Uber.

It’s important for founders to realize that what your company starts out doing, often looks very different to what it ends up becoming, with many iterations throughout, as you can see here with Uber. 

The Full Story

Since we just passed the ninth anniversary of the idea of Uber (originally UberCab, in Aug 2008), I thought it would be interesting to share the very first pitch deck we created in late 2008. Thank you to the entire Uber team for turning a simple idea into a platform that has improved so many people’s lives 🙂 Read the Full Article Here

SEC Shows Support for ICOs that are Not Obviously Securities

Quick Byte

In this article by Gil Penchina, the MD at Flight.vc, a well known seed and pre-seed venture capital firm, he talks about how SEC appears to have taken very thoughtful action on two crypto projects to date.

The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) market and crypto currencies are still in their infancy stage. Given there is still a lot of gray area within the SEC’s guidelines, we can expect to see startups pushing the envelope and exploring this opportunity more.

The Full Story

The SEC appears to have taken very thoughtful action on two crypto projects to date. Nay-sayers are predicting the end, while proponents of crypto dismiss the actions.

Here’s a quick analysis of what is actually happening. Read the Full Article Here

Blank-Check IPO Raises $600 Million, Search Begins for Tech Unicorn

Quick Byte

Blank-Check IPO Raises $600 Million in an offering designed to help tech entrepreneurs circumvent the initial public offering process.

Chamath Palihapitiya believes that employees’ stock liquidity is one of the biggest problems for private tech companies so this could be a better alternative for larger billion dollar tech companies to gain liquidity, without having to face the public scrutiny and the short-term focus that the public stock market seems force companies into.

The Full Story

A new investment vehicle run by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya raised a higher-than-expected $600 million from investors Wednesday night in an offering designed to help tech entrepreneurs circumvent the initial public offering process. Read the Full Article Here

Cord-Cutting is Speeding Up So Fast that Analysts Have to Keep Revising Estimates

Quick Byte

Cord cutting is speeding up and a lot of TV networks and cable providers are going to get caught flat footed because of it. Like many large corporations, business owners get used to running their companies in a similar way for decades, only to have fast-growth competition with new technology knock them off their pedestals.

Just like Netflix did by moving from mail DVDs to streaming, sometimes you have to make the hard decision to endure short-term pain by moving out of a mature business into a smaller, high-growth business to ensure the long-term survival of a company.

The Full Story

The folks at eMarketer have been busy with their pencils and erasers lately thanks to the increasing speed at which people are ditching cable television. The firm recently had to revise its estimates for how many cord-cutters there will be in the United States this year. Read the Full Article