Disqus - Latest Comments for joelaz

Re: A Subscription Tracker

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:49:09 -0000

Re: A Subscription Tracker

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:43:21 -0000

Re: A Subscription Tracker

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:37:12 -0000

I spoke to a startup a few years ago based here in NY that was doing this for companies. I can't remember their name. They integrated with G Suite and tracked subscriptions via email receipts, then summarized the data, highlighted if two departments were paying separately for the same service, and whatnot. I remember thinking it would be useful for the company and also an interesting dataset in aggregate (ex. what's the most popular marketing email service based on actual usage).

Re: Tumblr

Joe Lazarus — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 05:09:37 -0000

Tumblr in those early days was the best online community I've been a part of.

Re: Abridge

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 08:46:50 -0000

It will be interesting to see what parts of this become industry specific (ie. healthcare) and which parts become more generalized (ex. audio transcription apps for anything like Otter). I can picture Abridge going in a lot of other directions than transcription, so makes total sense for them to go deep in healthcare. Just wonder how things shake out across verticals.

Re: Sofar

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 22 May 2019 08:31:41 -0000

I don't know much about their business, but this is one of my favorite USV investments "so far", if for no other reason than I love live music and I know you and Andy do too. Congrats!

Re: The Mobile Phone Generation

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 01 May 2019 10:39:31 -0000

Ha! My folks are the same. Mom is all in on mobile and the internet. Dad refuses to use a cell phone.

Re: Portable TV and Music

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 20:32:42 -0000

What kind of sneakers are those?

Re: Creating Surplus

Joe Lazarus — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 08:07:33 -0000

College textbook prices are particularly surprising.

Re: Motion Photos

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 18:05:18 -0000

I disagree. Google Photos offers unlimited storage for free as long as you don’t need large raw files. Motion photos, or Live photos as Apple calls them, have a ton of practical uses like taking pictures of young kids or pets who are difficult to get to stay still for a pic. Animated GIFs are also fun and easy to make with this.

Re: Retail Space Available

Joe Lazarus — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 10:09:24 -0000

Interesting to think how different cities might look in 10-20 years... fewer and / or more experiential retail stores, less parking required with self-driving cars, and what not.

Re: Tuft and Needle

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 08:16:56 -0000

Impressive, particularly given that they make fairly pricey physical products. I worked for a bootstrapped mobile game company that we sold to Hasbro at a $160M valuation. We were profitable quickly due to the digital nature of our business, an early hit game, and everything the app store provided. I'd love to know how Tuft and Needle operated in the early days, how they afforded their first batch of inventory, and whatnot.

Re: Feature Friday: The AppleTV TV App

Joe Lazarus — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 08:10:50 -0000

There are times when I 'search' for specific shows I already watch or heard about from a friend. There are other cases where I 'browse' for something new to kill an hour. Not surprisingly, Netflix appears in search results for the Apple TV app. It's that browse experience that they want to own and aren't willing to give up to Apple.

Re: Feature Friday: The AppleTV TV App

Joe Lazarus — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 07:05:37 -0000

I'm not sure, but I assumed Netflix and others aren't there because they don't want to be... that they want to be the starting point themselves.

Re: Cutting The Cord/Trashing The Dish

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 08:29:33 -0000

I tried to not use cable TV for a few weeks. I used Hulu instead. I found their Interface frustrating in a lot of small ways (can’t skip some ads, fast forwarding is clunky, etc). I’m back to cable now, but plan to try another experiment with YouTube TV. I’d love to cut the cord entirely.

Re: Deleting Your Voice Recordings

Joe Lazarus — Tue, 05 Jun 2018 10:21:42 -0000

Out of curiosity, what is your concern with these devices? That Google / Amazon would use the data inappropriately? That some bug might inadvertently share a private conversation?

Re: Dapps

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 15:44:10 -0000

What are some of the more popular Dapps?

Re: ShopShops

Joe Lazarus — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 08:44:53 -0000

I've been thinking about QVC for the web for years: https://twitter.com/joelaz/...

Overseas buyers are an interesting angle to get retailers to participate early on. I'm curious how they manage inventory (shipping, returns, out of stocks) and make money (who processes payment, do they charge the retailer or buyer).

Re: Welcoming ShopShops to USV

Joe Lazarus — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 20:01:44 -0000

Out of curiosity, how does ShopShops handle the transaction and inventory? Do people pay ShopShops or the retailer? Does ShopShops hold inventory or know if an item is in stock? Do shoppers pay a premium over the US retail price?

Re: CryptoKitties

Joe Lazarus — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 19:21:07 -0000

Congrats. I worked on Dragonvale, the Top Grossing iOS game of 2012, which was a collectible breeding game with cute, cartoony baby dragons. Millions of people collected the virtual dragons and played the game every day for years. Adding real value and ownership should make for even more compelling entertainment and collectibility.

Re: Bird Scooters

Joe Lazarus — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:06:26 -0000

Looks fun... and somewhat dangerous. Do you drive in the street or on the sidewalk?

Re: Twitter TV Ad

Joe Lazarus — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 14:13:11 -0000

Here are a few other past Twitter TV spots if you're curious: https://www.ispot.tv/brands...

Re: Pay Attention To The Package

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 04 Mar 2018 15:39:24 -0000

What are some hypothetical examples of how blockchain / crypto might be used in gaming?

Re: The Top Of The Funnel

Joe Lazarus — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 10:23:40 -0000

Free traffic is great. It's also important to have some channel diversification for further growth and to protect against the free channel going away (ex. SEO algorithm changes). Etsy, for example, seems to do well with SEO but might be under utilizing paid performance marketing.

Re: Carta

Joe Lazarus — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 07:38:37 -0000

Such a great service. Looking forward to where they take it next. I always wondered how many people mistakenly went to eshares.com and entered their login / password.