Fred Wilson's specialty is with larger consumer/enterprise investments (http://www.usv.com/investments/) vs Dave McClure's speciality is in smaller investments and also international.
According to Dave, it seems like there's so slowing of momentum for growth with the smaller (base hits) he sees both domestically and internationally. And I appreciate his blog post that champions the consumer web.
But I wonder with Fred's observations if people might need to be a bit more wise with consumer internet plays if raising funds might be more difficult than previously. I also wonder when you combine both Fred and Dave's observations that maybe you see an opportunity for bootstrapped ventures to start out a lot smaller, maybe even w/o outside funds.
I think what both Dave and Fred echoed is something that that everyone here came to a realization few years ago (the time for startups without any revenue model is over).
But that said, there is nothing stopping the next Instagram or the next Pinterest from becoming really successful. Both these sites (I am sure I can think of more) broke out during the very same period VC's kept claiming they are not going to fund startups without any revenue model or whose model is based on ads (or ads related).
So personally, I don't think what Fred said (or Dave) is anything to be sweating about. Just keep pushing products out, that is what I think.
The viewpoint of an investor is by nature skewed by their portfolio and those that they interact with. Those are all parties that have already somehow 'made it'.
The dark horses don't drop in frequency but as the size of the market increases your chances of interacting with one as an investor during the time when they are still small enough that you could get a relatively large slice of the pie for a good price are decreasing.
That's one of the genius elements in YC, they have made a focal point for such companies at the time when investment is at its cheapest. All it takes is one or two successes for this strategy to pay off wildly.
According to Dave, it seems like there's so slowing of momentum for growth with the smaller (base hits) he sees both domestically and internationally. And I appreciate his blog post that champions the consumer web.
But I wonder with Fred's observations if people might need to be a bit more wise with consumer internet plays if raising funds might be more difficult than previously. I also wonder when you combine both Fred and Dave's observations that maybe you see an opportunity for bootstrapped ventures to start out a lot smaller, maybe even w/o outside funds.