The term 'venture studio' is pretty loosely defined, and could mean anything from a development shop to something that looks more like a venture fund.
I started one (micro.com) after exiting my startup, but I'm still not a fan of the term. It makes the startup process sound soul-less. I'd like to think we're building something more akin to an 'art studio' than a 'factory'. There's still some magic to the early days of a startup and getting the right founding team in place. Incidentally, YC, as the preeminent accelerator, has gotten this right to edge out other ones.
From my standpoint, I enjoy early-stage company building, have been operational in starting and scaling a startup very recently, enjoy the dynamic of co-creating, going-to-market and scaling with a co-founder or two (with a fair split), and working across a small portfolio.
Happy to trade notes on this or connect if you're a builder, email in bio.
Spin | http://spin.pm | Mobile (React Native) Engineer | San Francisco, CA | FULL-TIME, ONSITE
[Note: I'm a 2x YC alum, one of the co-founders. It's been a wild ride for us over the past few months since inception, and we're looking to build out a great engineering team. All 3 co-founders have software engineer backgrounds. We're focusing on recruiting on React Native and backend, but happy to connect with anyone interested. Ping me direct: [email protected]]
Spin is the nation's leading stationless bikeshare company. We help people move around in cities and campuses by offering an accessible, affordable, and environmentally-friendly mode of personal mobility. Our fleet of orange-colored smart-bikes, each equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, solar panels, foam tires, and a dynamo front light, can be unlocked by scanning a QR code on the Spin app. At the end of a ride, users can park Spin bikes anywhere responsible.
With Spin, cities and campuses get affordable and equitable bikeshare with no public financing. Spin covers the cost of bikes and maintenance, and employs people from the local community for operations.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016, Spin has raised an $8M Series A to launch operations in dozens of US cities and campuses this year. The core team is comprised of engineers, designers, operators, lawyers, and public policy makers with experience from Y Combinator, Uber, Lyft and other technology companies.
I've always believed this. More bikers on the road creates more awareness from drivers, and also more investment by cities into bike infrastructure, including dedicated and protected bike lanes.
More bikes available also means more bikers, something we're working on at Spin for US cities. Get in touch (email in profile) if this seems like a problem space interesting to you :)
Spin | http://spin.pm | Software Engineers | San Francisco, CA | FULL-TIME, INTERNS, ONSITE
[Note: I'm a 2x YC alum, one of the co-founders. It's been a wild ride for us over the past few months since inception, and we're looking to build out a great engineering team. All 3 co-founders have software engineer backgrounds. We're focusing on recruiting on React Native and backend, but happy to connect with anyone interested. Ping me direct: [email protected]]
Spin is the nation's largest stationless bikeshare operator. We help people move around in cities and campuses by offering an accessible, affordable, and environmentally-friendly mode of personal mobility. Our fleet of orange-colored smart-bikes, each equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, solar panels, foam tires, and a dynamo front light, can be unlocked by scanning a QR code on the Spin app. At the end of a ride, users can park Spin bikes anywhere responsible.
With Spin, cities and campuses get affordable and equitable bikeshare with no public financing. Spin covers the cost of bikes and maintenance, and employs people from the local community for operations.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016, Spin has raised an $8M Series A to launch operations in dozens of US cities and campuses this year. The core team is comprised of engineers, designers, operators, lawyers, and public policy makers with experience from Y Combinator, Uber, Lyft and other technology companies.
Hello HN, Euwyn here, president and co-founder of Spin. I'm 2x YC, our CEO Derrick was formerly at Lyft, and our CTO was at Disqus (YC 07). I helped to start this company in part because of my own personal annoyance with the design of "station-based" bike-share systems. Who thought that having to _find a station_, then think about whether your _destination_ had a station close-by was a good idea?
We just had a huge launch in Austin at SXSW, and just announced a deal with the City of Austin. See:
We're hiring for everything (city GMs, ops, engineers, GR, etc), and love hearing from people who are passionate about having this in their city. We're particularly interested in hearing from folks in SF, where we're based, where the City is considering a measure that would hamper station-less bike-share systems.
Hello HN! I'm Euwyn, one of the co-founders of Spin (also, 2x YC alum). We're excited about bringing the dock-less bikeshare model to our home city of SF.
I've lived in SOMA for years, and have always wanted to bike around, except: (a) it was always a hassle to deal with a bike after going around town, because I would inevitably end up Uber-ing somewhere after my first stop and (b) my bikes would get stolen :(
Would love to hear any questions you guys had about the business, and look forward to you guys riding our bikes soon.
ps. If you want to follow along or have any questions about Spin or startups in general, I'm 'euwyn' on Whale and Snapchat.
Hi HN, I'm one of the co-founders (also 2x YC alum). I'm building this with my good friends Derrick and Zhuang, who have also previously worked at YC startups. As the TC article mentions, we're rolling out a "dock-less" on-demand bikeshare in SF, to provide a convenient and cheap last-mile transportation option. I live in SOMA and have owned a couple of bicycles, both of which proved very useful but were (a) a bit of a hassle to retrieve after moving around the city via Uber etc (b) stolen.
p.s "euwyn" on Snapchat or Whale, if anyone has questions. Or here too, I'll be checking the comments today.
There's an element of "not missing out", but for many investors (especially angels, who do not invest professionally), there's also elements of: (a) wanting to co-invest with friends and (b) trusting the judgment of people they know well.
Discussing files "in-line" is a pretty natural way to collaborate. This should have existed a long time ago, and is a natural evolution of workplace collaboration tools. Bravo, Amium team.
I find the $20-35 well worth it. I look forward to the day when wifi becomes standard on all flights. In the meantime, as a quick protip, you receive complimentary Gogo (at least on AA) with a business Amex Platinum. See http://ir.gogoair.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=251827&p=irol-newsArti...
Neat, I happen to be in London (Shoreditch) reading this. Just in town for the day (Sunday). Any HN peeps up for meeting up? @euwyn on Twitter or email in profile.
Opzi uses Node.js to run our real-time endpoint and live notifications system, been working well so far. Running server + client side JS seems to be one of the niftier aspects of working with Node.js.
Opzi. YC enterprise software startup, hiring software engineers (full time and intern) in SF. If you're from Vancouver, BC, drop us a line as well.
What We Do:
At Opzi, we're building real-time business collaboration software. Our first product aims to change the way people share knowledge within a team or company.
Founders & Funding:
Euwyn (from Vancouver) was Cornell CS '04, JD from Cornell Law '07. Ambert was Stanford EE '06. Funded by Y Combinator, Ron Conway, First Round Capital, Paul Buchheit (creator of Gmail) and many others.
Tech Stack:
Rails, Node, Backbone (lots of JS).
Who We're Looking For:
We're mostly impressed by what you've made rather than the grades you earned in school. You should have a strong demonstrated interest in modern web development (i.e. have some projects and/or a Github account to show) as well as an ability to learn quickly and work independently. Ruby and Javascript experience would be great, but no sweat if you're more comfortable in C++ or Python.
How to Apply:
Complete 1 or 2 of the programming challenges at the URL below, and send to [email protected], along with a quick email with a little bit about why you're interested.
Good point. I was focused on how I use Dropbox today, which is to sync media between my various devices (this seems to be where the company seems to be heading). But Dropbox did win largely because of flawless product execution, and IIRC was initially focused on the backup problem.
I started one (micro.com) after exiting my startup, but I'm still not a fan of the term. It makes the startup process sound soul-less. I'd like to think we're building something more akin to an 'art studio' than a 'factory'. There's still some magic to the early days of a startup and getting the right founding team in place. Incidentally, YC, as the preeminent accelerator, has gotten this right to edge out other ones.
From my standpoint, I enjoy early-stage company building, have been operational in starting and scaling a startup very recently, enjoy the dynamic of co-creating, going-to-market and scaling with a co-founder or two (with a fair split), and working across a small portfolio.
Happy to trade notes on this or connect if you're a builder, email in bio.