Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson
Fred Wilsonis an American businessman, venture capitalist and blogger. Wilson is the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm with investments in Web 2.0 companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga, Kickstarter, and 10gen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth20 August 1961
CountryUnited States of America
marketing company products
Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.
educational want-something quality
Customers are a great way to finance a business for many reasons. First, customer financing is typically non dilutive. They want something from you other than equity in your business. Customers also help you fit your product to the market. And customers will help debug and improve the quality of the product.
way scales performing
If you have a native monetization system where the atomic unit of content is the ad unit, that scales down all the way to a small screen experience. That's why Twitter is performing so well on mobile.
years careers long
My venture investing career has three phases, all roughly 6-8 years long. The first, at Euclid, was software to Internet. The second, at Flatiron, was Internet to bubble. And the third, at USV, has been web 2 to mobile. I have always used a new firm to denote a new investment phase for me. Throw away the old. Start with the new.
thinking entrepreneurship good-things
There are so many startups out there raising money. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's a good thing. Entrepreneurship is in vogue. Innovators are innovating. Makers are making.
strong years long
Venture capitalists are professional money managers. We are provided capital to invest as long as we can return it to our investors with a strong return in a reasonable amount of time. A strong return is three times cash on cash. A reasonable amount of time is ten years max.
space needs disease
We need new medical approaches to preventing and/or curing disease. We need new scientific approaches to generating, storing, and being more efficient with energy. Maybe we need more space exploration. Maybe we need more undersea exploration.
business trying problem
Don't try to solve the entire problem on day one.
upset millionaire
It's upsetting to me that you have to be a millionaire to invest in your friend's start-up.
identity reputation intersections
I'm really interested in the intersection between reputation, identity, and knowledge.
thinking speech censorship
I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing.
thinking venture cycles
All markets have boom and bust cycles, and I think venture capital market has even more exaggerated boom and bust cycles.
caring entrepreneur supportive
Being an entrepreneur is hard. Having supportive and caring investors helps.
drawing cost share
Blog-based businesses have lower cost structures and are more 'authentic,' and as a result are drawing larger shares of ad budgets.