Startups

Would you like a patent search with your recruiting tool?

If you thought patents were intruding into the tech industry just a wee bit too much, brace yourself. Now they can be part of the recruiting process.

TalentBin, a San Francisco startup that scrapes social media sites ranging from Quora to Twitter in order to index hiring prospects for recruiters, has added the U.S. Office's patent database to the sources it scours for information on prospective employees.

Call it novel or horrifying, but I can see how it would be useful for recruiters, particularly in areas like biotech and manufacturing. And, yes, software, though you could argue that … Read more

With Pinpointing, Zappos hooks up Pinterest with e-commerce

Amazon's online shoe seller Zappos is combining the popularity of Pinterest with its own products in a new service.

Dubbed Pinpointing, the service delivers Zappos products based on what a user has pinned. In addition, the service will list products that had been pinned recently. Pinpointing lists a host of product categories, including shoes, skirts, dresses, and jeans.

In order to take advantage of the features, users can enter their own Pinterest username to see what sort of Zappos recommendations might relate to their previously pinned items. They can also input another person's username to see recommendations based … Read more

Entrepreneur sees tech startup potential in Arab world

In a region plagued by religious tensions and violent political strife, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Nima Adelkhani sees economic opportunity.

Through Progress in Technology Middle East, a company that launches today, Adelkhani plans to connect startups in the Arab world with the American technology industry's movers and shakers, part of a larger plan to help a fledgling ecosystem grow and foster stability in the area.

But let's be clear -- Adelkhani doesn't see any of the 27 businesses he is working with as charity cases. These are ideas that bring him goosebumps because he believes they are original … Read more

Y Combinator founder: Startup funding could get scarce

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The future for startup funding is "getting more unpredictable."

That's what Y Combinator founder Paul Graham said today, theorizing that because there are so many more young companies getting off the ground these days, venture capitalists may well have a much harder time predicting winners than in the past.

It makes sense. Startups can get going today for as little as a few hundred thousand dollars, so there are many more of them. "But the funnel at the top is the same," Graham said during the Y Combinator Demo Day. "… Read more

Bing Fund unveils first two startups enrolled in incubator

Less than a month after unveiling the Bing Fund, Microsoft's startup/accelerator incubation effort announced today the enrollment of its first two startups.

App development services provider Buddy and online games advertising service Pinion will get access to the software giant's technology assets and expertise, as well as its funding, the Bing Fund said today.

Buddy was founded by former Microsoft employees Dave McLauchlan and Jeff MacDuff. The Kirkland, Wash.-based company aims to reduce the amount of time mobile and Web app developers spend writing, testing, and managing server-side code. Bellevue, Wash.-based Pinion helps gaming communities … Read more

Did Starbucks just add $2.2B to Square's valuation?

Jack Dorsey, the 35-year-old tech star who runs mobile payment company Square, today announced what he called an "epic" deal with Starbucks that could bring the "Pay with Square" app into the mainstream.

How big? It's too soon to say for sure, of course. But a firm that researches private companies, PrivCo, calculates that Square's deal with Starbucks will add $120 million in annual revenue for Square next year and, even more impressive, boost its valuation by $2.2 billion by the end of 2013. That would give Square -- already one of the most highly valued private tech companies … Read more

In the social media era, even VCs need personal brands

Nobody wants to admit it, but building a personal brand is essential if you want to thrive in a business world dominated by social media. This is especially true for entrepreneurs and even venture capitalists who have only recently stepped out from the shadows and into the spotlight.

I became intrigued by the rising role of personal branding in the VC world by a New York Times article last week that discussed how more VC firms are hiring PR specialists to help brand their firms.

Here's a quick excerpt from that article:

"Now, Sand Hill Road in Silicon … Read more

Five ways to screw up your startup's pitch

Pitching your startup idea to investors, journalists, and random people on the street is a rite of passage for all entrepreneurs. You have to convince hundreds (if not millions) of people that you're building something worthwhile and that they should get on board.

Most pitches fall flat though (the best VCs invest in perhaps 1 percent of the startups that pitch them), and it's often because of simple problems that could've been avoided. Nervous entrepreneurs stray from their story, and arrogant entrepreneurs demand unreasonable valuations and then get laughed out of the room by top-tier angels.

Here … Read more

Leap Motion: Gesture tech's come-hither allure

Developers eager to be among the first to create applications for Leap Motion's new gesture control system think it could be used to auto-translate sign language.

That was among the details the company released this morning about the initial round of requests from developers to design tools that work with the Leap -- technology that lets users control what's on their computers with hundredth of a millimeter accuracy with nothing more than their fingers or their hands.

The San Francisco company said that in the two months since pulling back the wraps on the Leap, more than 26,… Read more