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The Next Version Of The Big iPad Is In Production, And It Will Look Like The iPad Mini (AAPL)

Phil Schiller iPad Mini

Apple is currently producing the next version of the big iPad, the WSJ reports. 

It’s going to look a lot like the iPad Mini, with a thinner, lighter design thanks to different touch screen technology. 

A redesigned iPad that looks like an iPad Mini has been rumored all year long. Our guess is that it’s announced in October.

Over the weekend, news broke that Apple is planning a September 10 event for the next iPhone, the iPhone 5S. 

The iPad is need of a refresh. Apple hasn’t updated its iPad line since last October. As a result, sales of the iPad have slowed. Last quarter, Apple sold 14.6 million iPads, a 14% drop on a year-over-year basis. 

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2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Startup
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Booting Up: Twitter Has a PAC and Here Comes the Hyperloop

(Photo: HTC)

(Photo: HTC)

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop plans are due to drop today. [BBC]

Twitter has hired a lobbyist and formed a PAC. [Washington Post]

LAX is the most checked-in place on Facebook. Airports dominate the top 10, except for Disneyland (no. 7) and Times Square (no. 10), which is no surprise to anyone trying to cross 42nd Street. [Skift]

God bless HTC’s marketing department for thinking an ad campaign starring Robert Downey Jr. and a cat can pull the company out of its nosedive. [Engadget]

“Can the Minerva Project do to Ivy League universities what Amazon did to Borders?” Keep dreaming. [Wall Street Journal]

Here’s audio of Tim Armstrong seemingly firing a man for taking his picture mid-layoffs. [Romenesko]

Betabeat

2013
08/12
CATEGORY
start-up
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9 Startup Events and News to Watch This Week

Checking in with back-to-school sales, Maryland goes tax free for the week, peak hurricane season kicks in, take a hike with your team, meet up in Colorado Springs and start up in Baton Rouge. This week’s notable news and startup events for young treps:

1. Back to school: With the arrival of Back-to-School, retailers are hoping to hear that fateful “cha ching.” So far things have been slow, but this week when major retailers like Walmart and Macy’s reports earnings a clearer picture of how retailers are faring could emerge.

2. Tax-free week in Maryland: This week is Shop Maryland tax-free Week, which means qualifying apparel and footwear under $ 100 are exempt from state sales tax. This is a great opportunity for small-business owners and consumers alike to stock up. (Maryland, Aug. 11 – 17)

3. Entering peak hurricane season: Since Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast, many businesses have learned the hard way that disaster preparedness is critical. Check out SCORE New York City’s free workshop about disaster recovery planning.  (Brooklyn, N.Y., Aug. 12)

4. Need a little team building? If you’re in Boulder, Colo., join the TiE Rockies Summer Hiking program and explore the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area on a 5.1-mile day-hike. Afterwards, group participants are welcome to drop down into Boulder for an early dinner and socializing. “If you don’t like wild flowers, please do not participate.” (Ward, Colo., Aug. 13)

5. Get expert help with your video project: HUB Bay Area is hosting their BYO B-Roll: Final Cut Open Hours event this week. Bring in your raw video footage and leave with an awesome short video. Get “on-the-job” editing help and basic instruction at this casual workshop. (San Francisco, Aug. 13)

6. Meet up in Colorado Springs: The Peak Venture Group invites you to “come hang” at the PVG Pitch Night in Colorado Springs, Colo. Give your five-minute pitch and hear what other local treps are up to. (Colorado Springs, Colo., Aug. 13)

7. IP Ins and Outs: Want to get the skinny on starting up in the midst of legal challenges, IP issues, short-term leasing options and more? Check out this seminar “Championing Innovation: Legal and Commercial Challenges Facing Start-Ups.” (New York, Aug. 14)

8. Nail down your digital PR: The Digital PR Best Practices Conference offers pre-conference workshops, including a marketing “boot camp.” The next day, attendees get the opportunity to learn from digital leaders at Jet Blue, Adobe, Ragan Communications, and more. If you can’t make it in person, the summit will be streamed via webcast. (San Francisco, Aug. 15 – 16)

9. Startup Weekend, Cajun style: Startup Weekend is a “global grassroots movement” that allows anyone to pitch their idea in front of the Startup Weekend audience. Teams have 54-hours to validate concepts, create a business plan and present in front of a panel of local treps and leaders. (Baton Rouge, La., August 16 – 18)


2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Entrepreneurs
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REPORT: NY Regulator Issued Subpoenas To All Of The Popular Bitcoin Companies

bitcoin accepted here sign

The Wall Street Journal’s Robin Sidel says New York Department of Financial Services has subpoenaed about two dozen Bitcoin merchants as part of an inquiry into their compliance with the state’s finance statutes.

Sidel says firms run by Marc Andreessen and the Winklevoss Twins received the notices.

Agency chief Benjamin Lawsky says he’s considering setting new guidelines for money transmission laws specifically aimed at Bitcoin commerce.

We recently discussed the effect increased scrutiny from regulators could have on Bitcoin, and why it could end up becoming a victim of its own legitimacy.

So this seems likely to compound the issue.

Click here to read the full story on WSJ.com »

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2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Startup
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For Programmers, South Street Seaport is Code for Summer Escape

Downtown Alliance and Control Group inaugurated their collaborative “Tech Tuesdays” in style. As tourists filtered out of South Street Seaport Tuesday evening, the cabana chairs they abandoned were…


2013
08/12
CATEGORY
.406 Ventures
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MBA Mondays: Turning Your Team

A serial entrepreneur I know tells me “you will turn your team three times on the way from startup to a business of scale.” What he means is that the initial team will depart, replaced by another team, which in turn will be replaced by yet another team.

I have been closely involved with over 150 startups in my career and since roughly 1/3 of the startups we back get to real scale, that means I’ve seen the “startup to scale movie” over fifty times in my career and I can tell you this – my friend is right.

The people you need at your side when you are just getting started are generally not the people you will need at your side when you have five hundred or a thousand employees. Your technical co-founder who built much of your first product is not likely to be your VP Engineering when you have a couple hundred engineers. Your first salesperson who brings in your first customer is not likely to be your VP Sales. And your first community person is not likely to be your VP Marketing. 

Likewise, the first VP Engineering who figured out how to manage the unwieldy team left by your technical co-founder is not likely your VP Engineering when you have five hundred engineers. Your first VP Sales who built your first sales team is not likely the person who can manage a couple hundred million dollar quota. Companies scale and the team needs to scale with it. That often means turning the team.

The “turning your team” thing probably makes sense to most people. But executing it is where things get tricky and hard. How are you going to push out the person who built the first product almost all by themselves? How are you going to push out the person who brought in the first customer? How are you going to tell the person who managed your first user community so deftly that their services are no longer needed by your company?

And when do you need to do this and in what order? It’s not like you tell your entire senior team to leave on the same day. So the execution of all of this is hard and getting the timing right is harder.

This is where serial entrepreneurs have a real leg up on first time entrepreneurs. They have seen the movie too and they played the starring role. So they know what the next scene is before it even starts. They know the tell tale signs of the company scaling faster than their team. And so they move more quickly to move the early leaders out and new leaders in. One of the signature faults of a first time founder is they are too loyal to their founding team and stick too long with them. 

If it is any consolation, the founding team makes most of the money when a company becomes successful. That technical co-founder who built the first product will likely end up with tens of millions of dollars, if not a lot more, if a business they helped start gets to five hundred or a thousand people. The VP Engineering of a five hundred person company will not likely have an equity package that is worth anywhere near that much.

So I generally advise entrepreneurs to be open and honest about all of this. Tell your early team that they may not make it all the way to the finish line but they will be handsomely compensated with equity and if you are successful, they will be too. And when it is time for them to go, think about how much they brought to the company and consider vesting some or all of their unvested stock on the way out. Also think about compensating them to stick around during the transition. And always make sure they leave the company with their head high feeling like the hero that they are. 

Here’s the thing. Turning a team is not the same as firing someone for weak performance. You are firing someone for doing their job too well. They killed it and in the process got your company off to a great start and growing to a scale that they themselves aren’t a great fit for. They may not be right for the job at hand, but they are a big part of the reason that the company is successful. That’s the narrative that you need to have in your mind when you turn your team.

All of this is very hard, particularly if you are doing it for the first time. So get some mentors, advisors, and board members who have lived through this before. And listen to them about this. You may not want to listen to them too much about product and market stuff. Maybe you understand that better than they do. But when it comes to scaling a management team, those who have had to do it before will generally be right about the issues you are facing with your team. So their advice and counsel is worth a lot and you should pay close attention to it.


2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Accion
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10 Things You Need To Know This Morning In Tech

Hyperloop Concept

Good morning! Here’s the news.

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2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Startup
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HTC Hopes Robert Downey Jr. – And Some Internet-Friendly Humour – Can Drink Samsung’s Milkshake

HTC RDJ ENVELOPE

Right now mobile maker HTC has a brand name that stands for ‘Has To Change’. So it’s hoping a circa $ 1 billion marketing campaign — starring actor Robert Downey Jr., of ‘‘ fame — plus an injection of Internet-friendly humour is the special sauce needed to lure consumers away from Android kingpin, Samsung.

HTC has just released a teaser (above) of its new ‘Here’s To Change’ campaign which will kick off on August 15, initially on YouTube, followed by cinema and TV spots. The initial focus will be on making noise about HTC’s brand itself, rather than trying to flog specific handsets, by playing around with what its brand name stands for — the teaser’s ”Humongous Tinfoil Catamaran”, will be followed up by the likes of  ”Hipster Troll Carwash” and “Hold This Cat”, according to Engadget. It’s almost as if HTC wants 4Chan to get involved.

It’s been a torrid year for the 17-year mobile industry veteran. Despite garnering plaudits for its flagship HTC One smartphone, HTC has been battling an ongoing decline in revenue and sliding profits. Late last month it issued guidance that it’s expecting a loss in the coming quarter so it’s clearly going to get worse before it can get better. If indeed a turnaround is possible when you’ve fallen into these sort of revenue doldrums. Still, HTC isn’t throwing in the towel — publicly at least it’s stepping up its game with this much-needed marketing rethink.

HTC’s CMO Ben Ho, newly in post at the start of this year and just one of many senior-level exec changes at the company in 2013, said the idea is to get consumers talking about the brand. Which is a sea-change from its previous marketing modus operandi, in which HTC cast itself as the smartphone industry’s wallflower — with its “Quietly brilliant” slogan. By contrast Samsung went around willy-waving gigantic phablets and taking bites out of Apple fans – a much noisier (and far-better funded) marketing strategy that clearly delivered the goods.

After sending up its own acronym, the second phase of HTC’s new model marketing campaign — assuming, of course, it manages to go the distance, being as the campaign is slated to run for two to three years (which is a heck of a long time in mobile) — will apparently move on to showcasing specific HTC software features such as its Flipboard-esque BlinkFeed homescreen. The final phase will yell about how HTC products give owners an edge. RDJ has apparently been signed by HTC for two years, says Engadget, and the contract includes him having creative input, as well as appearing in the ads.

Can Robert Downey Jr. drink Samsung’s milkshake? Not a chance. Samsung’s multi-billion-dollar marketing budget dwarfs HTC’s spending, meaning it can buy up more shelf space in carriers’ phone stores to push more of its product into consumers’ hands (it has a lot more product to sell too, with a huge portfolio of devices servicing every price-point vs the few devices HTC has had to fall back on focusing on). But RDJ might at least be able to siphon off enough (cult) interest for HTC to sustain its business. Let’s hope so. The Android ecosystem is far richer for having HTC in it.


2013
08/12
CATEGORY
.406 Ventures
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Today Elon Musk Will Unveil Plans For High-Speed Transportation That’s Twice As Fast As An Airplane And Cheaper Than A Bullet Train

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Twice as fast as an airplane, cheaper than a bullet train and completely self-powered: that’s the mysterious transportation system that inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk is promising to reveal design plans for Monday.

Musk has been dropping hints about his “Hyperloop” system for more than a year during public events, mentioning that it could never crash, would be immune to weather and would move people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in half an hour.

Coming from almost anyone else, the hyperbole would be hard to take seriously. But billionaire Musk — who sold his first computer program, a $ 500 space game called Blastar, at age 12 — has earned his reputation as an inventor and entrepreneur, co-founding online payment firm PayPal, electric luxury carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. and rocket-building company SpaceX.

During a Tesla earnings call Thursday, Musk said he would reveal plans for the Hyperloop on Monday. But he said he is too focused on other projects to consider actually building it.

“I think I kind of shot myself by ever mentioning the Hyperloop,” he said. “I don’t have any plans to execute, because I must remain focused on SpaceX and Tesla.”

He said he would fulfill his commitment to publishing a design, and he said he invites critical feedback after its release Monday to “see if the people can find ways to improve it.” It will be an open-source design, meaning anyone can use it and modify it.

Also Thursday, Musk said during a Google Hangout with Sir Richard Branson about entrepreneurship, “It does involve a tube, but not a vacuum tube.”

His hints and promises have prompted a flurry of online speculation.

Canadian John Gardi, a self-described “tinkerer,” posted online and tweeted his conjecture a few weeks ago to Musk.

“I believe that Hyperloop is merely a modern day version of the pneumatic tubes used in banks, stores, and industry to move money and small items over long distances or to other floors of a building,” he said.

Musk responded, “Your guess is the closest I’ve seen anyone guess so far.”

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Startup
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Freelancers and the Child Free Life

Time Magazine's cover story The Child Free Life has garnered a lot of attention. It covers the trend of declining birth rates and the growing numbers of childless adults. 

It's hardly the only recent popular media story on this topic.  Newsweek's Where Have All the Baby's Gone covered the same ground earlier this year.  So did CBS News, which provided the clip below on being childless by choice.

 

The Childless by Choice Project has long chronicled this trend, and they have a book and documentary about it.  Based on their survey, the top 6 motivations for not having children are:

1) I love our life, our relationship, as it is, and having a child won't enhance it. 
2) I value freedom and independence. 
3) I do not want to take on the responsibility of raising a child. 
4) I have no desire to have a child, no maternal/paternal instinct. 
5) I want to accomplish/experience things in life that would be difficult to do if I was a parent. 
6) I want to focus my time and energy on my own interests, needs, or goals. 

One of the interesting data points we've noticed in our research on independent workers (freelancers, self-employed, etc.) is they appear to be less likely to have children than the average American. This somewhat counter intuitive finding seems to hold across ages and gender.

Because we weren't looking to study this issue, our data on this topic is not detailed nor deep enough to draw firm conclusions.  Also, our data on this topic is for independent workers who work at least half-time (15+ hours per week). We don't have any child related data on independents working less than 15 hours per week.

But there are definitely parallels between the motivations of the childless and the motivations of independent workers. Both groups value freedom, independence and flexibility.  They also both share an interest in broad and varied experiences and are concerned about potential life/work style constraints.  

These shared motivations and attitudes could explain why independents appear less likely to have kids.  

More research needs to be done on this topic.  We're going to do some additional digging on this in the coming months.  


2013
08/12
CATEGORY
Small Business
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