I'm curious whether the issue is that there isn't an appetite among LPs for lower-risk, lower-yield investment, or that the indie.vc terms didn't enable enough upside or liquidity?
If it's not VC and it's not loans, what is the answer for funding growth at post-revenue companies that don't fit the hyperscaling model?
Debt and "factoring" (e.g. Pipe[1]) are becoming good options for SaaS companies that might not "qualify" for VC. I started compiling the lenders / fintechs that focus on SaaS here [0].
It depends on the lender. Some of the larger ones take "warrants" to help protect against this. Most lenders (believe it or not) will want to negotiate terms that help you get back on track.
A gay, foreign media magnate known for publishing lurid expose (in addition to a lot of excellent and funny reporting [1]) was never likely to receive sympathetic treatment from a jury of people from Hulk Hogan's hometown.
They were trying to seek some money to cover the $50M in collateral that would be required for appeal (to be held in trust).
Even at this stage, Gawker/Denton offered Bollea shares in Gawker from their expected sale, _and_ Bollea _accepted_.
And then withdrew. I can't help but suspect if it was because Thiel's lawyers advised him not to, the same way they dropped the tort that was covered by Gawker's insurance.
I find this interesting too - it was one thing when it was just that insurance claim. Then Hogan is willing to accept collateral from Gawker's prospective sale (indicating it's not him that's looking for Gawker's abject destruction), but lawyers, funded by Thiel, have him drop this, too.
I think one of the fundamental tenets of justice (and to be quite clear, I feel Denton and Gawker both deserve to be reamed - for varying severities of the word - for their actions in this case) is the right to face your "accuser"/opponent. Not what looks more and more to me like their puppet.
While the US is in fact known as the manufacturers of several delicious varieties of cookie, you might be surprised to learn that consumer packaged goods as a whole are not among the top 10 categories of goods exported from the US to the UK. So I'm not sure supermarket shelves are a great data point.
(Total US->UK ~$55bn, about 4% of total US exports, top categories: aircraft, oil, cars, machinery, electronics.)
Your question is probably rhetorical, but it happened because the Republican party decided they needed to bring social conservatives (especially Southern whites disaffected by the Civil Rights Act) into their coalition. See "Southern strategy" [1].
I believe anti-choice specifically was brought into the party platform during the Ford years. Outright homophobia was pretty mainstream until well into the 90s, and wasn't much of a differentiator between the parties. Democrats just soft-pedaled their position while the Republicans, specifically the fundamentalists who had grown in power since the 80s, made AIDS and gay marriage boogeyman issues in the "culture wars" [2].
For the record, both parties are coalitions and involve this kind of compromise between different constituencies (see Dems and organized labor, et al.)
Dodgeball, the predecessor of Foursquare, predated Loopt in the mobile social space by at least three years. There were likely others.
Loopt received the at that time unheard of privilege of running an always-on location service on some phones, and failed as a business.
Separately, being inclined to believe someone in a matter of fact/law based on their track record in another realm is an example of the appeal to authority fallacy. The subject also has personal and institutional conflicts of interest in this instance.
Please see my reply to bobbylox for the operational differentiators I see between Placewire and other hyperlocal models.
I'd argue that despite feeling apathetic about the individuals in your community, one could be motivated use Placewire. Because person-to-person connections/follower counts are not a core part of the product (today), there's a lesser ambient sense of social haves and have nots. I also think an ambivalent person could use Placewire for both practical reasons (I learned that there's a new Cambodian restaurant opening on Smith Street), or because you enjoy being a person who has information. Think about Matt Drudge, a news hound and apparently somewhat of a hermit.
Instagram with a hashtag is fine if you 1. aren't bothered by sending the majority of your followers content that is irrelevant to them, and 2. believe that non-followers will discover your content by surfing your chosen hashtag. Algorithmic feed could change some of this - we'll see!
1) Better unit economics via user-generated content creation. I'm not paying per-market salaries like Patch (though I'm not reaping the benefits of labor of a dedicated professional, either).
2) A native ad product (sponsored photo/link) which local businesses understand, because they're already creating the content for existing social media.
3) A content model based on a form of media which people enjoy both consuming and creating, rather than zoning board recaps and the crime blotter. I'm not denigrating either of those - I enjoy both - but like a lot journalism they are costly to produce relative to their travel.
Nextdoor is a private message board, which is an ideal environment for people who enjoy message boards and the type of conversations they engender, while the unit of content on Placewire is a photo. I believe this enables a different type of conversation and will engage a different set of users.
I think Facebook groups are typically used at micro-local (eg. a city block) scale and it's perfect for sharing information in that context. I'm not sure how that maps to a neighborhood. Do you have any firsthand experience?
I also plan to circulate content in a less geographically siloed way than these quite private platforms.
In what sense is Nextdoor a private message board? I don't see Nextdoor as being more private than other social media networks. (Genuinely asking, not trying to shoot you down!)
In that it requires address validation. So "private" per se is wrong, sorry, but nothing within a community is intended to travel. Placewire is happily promiscuous. Thanks for the question.
It's a delicate question. There's an irresistible temptation to spend lavishly once you pass the $40 psychological milestone. I don't want to make the same mistake YCombinator made.
If it's not VC and it's not loans, what is the answer for funding growth at post-revenue companies that don't fit the hyperscaling model?