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Feeling Left Out of the Startup Bus? Play the Game!

San Antonio or Bust

Startup Buses around the country are making their way to San Antonio, ice and border patrol be damned.

There’s so much happening on the buses. We’ve been traveling with the Tennessee Startup Bus, which I’ve gotten pretty partial to. But, there are also buses winding their way from Washington state, New York, Guadalajara, Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, and California. Every bus has encountered some issues along the way. (Last we heard, the Mexico bus kept getting stopped at the border.)

But that’s not slowing down the teams.

Every bus has 4-5 teams coding away, building businesses regardless of obstacles. Don’t believe me? Check out the game.

The Startup Bus Game allows you to get to know all the teams and watch their milestones as they travel. You can also pick your favorite (as long as it’s a Tennessee team) and invest in their company.

“The game exists because Startup Bus has a limited number of spots, but people wanted to be involved and know how they could support the teams,” said Jonathan Gottfried, National Director of StartupBus. “So we created the game to give them a way to be more involved and help local entrepreneurs.”

Each team’s performance in the game also affects the final judging. If the judges are on the fence about a team in the qualifying round, a great showing in the Startup Bus Game will help push them into the semifinals.

Don’t miss out on the fun anymore. Head on over to the Startup Bus Game and start investing.

TrustVino Helps You Find the Best Wine Around

My favorite startups are the ones I that make me say, “I want that!”

When I heard the pitch for TrustVino, I wasn’t too impressed. Untapped for wine. Eh, cool, I guess, but not ultimately exciting.

Then the TrustVino team kept talking. Their tagline is Wine, Socially. Similar to a social network, they utilize “friends” and a stream (or, “pour” if you will). Users download the app and have access to the company’s wine database. From there they can start finding friends, recommend wines, and add their own favorite wines. Then, the next time they’re at the wine store, they can pull up the web app and get a recommendation from their friends about the next wine to try.

TrustVino can be used by wine snobs and wine newbs alike. More knowledgeable wine drinkers can expand their expertise, but they can also accumulate a “following” of people looking for great wines. People just getting into wine, who are overwhelmed by the options, vintages, and flavors, can get quality recommendations as they explore the wine world.

Most social media models rely on huge user bases to monetize through ads. TrustVino is shooting for revenue out the gate, with an affiliate model that allows people to click through to Wine.com to buy the recommended wine. They have some interesting ideas for other revenue streams that can implemented when the user base grows.

Oh, yeah. This awesome app I’m already anxiously awaiting is being built on the Tennessee Startup Bus.

“Initially we thought this would be a cool app to build on a bus about wine,” cofounder Roxanne Spielvogel told me. “But when we started telling people about it we realized that this was actually a real need in the market.”

The idea was pitched by Boaz Reynolds on the first leg of the trip. By the time we got back on the bus in Chattanooga, the team was formed and they were ready to go.

“Ultimately this is something I wanted to use, something I wanted to have. It’s selfishly mine,” Boaz Reynolds, cofounder of TrustVino. “The team gravitated to the idea in Chattanooga, and it just kind of organically happened.”

You can follow TrustVino on Twitter, and they’ll let you know when the app is ready.

There are some amazing companies being built on the Tennessee Startup Bus, and the other buses crisscrossing the country. But TrustVino is the first one I’ve heard of that I’m wishing was a thing right this minute.

Because, hey, we’re stuck in Baton Rouge, LA thanks to ice, and I need a drink.

Tennessee Startup Bus Knows How to Travel in Style

“We’re not taking a Greyhound,” Steve Repetti told me Saturday night at the orientation for the Tennessee Startup Bus. Well, that was an understatement.

Currently wrapped in the logos of sponsors LaunchTN, Jumpstart Foundry, and Crunchfire, the bus is regularly employed as a tour bus for rock stars and politicians. So, basically, it’s the perfect bus to host the building of the next hot startup.

I’ve never been on the Startup Bus before. The first day was an amazing experience.There’s something unique about a bus full of incredibly smart people, pulled out of their comfort zones and on course to a huge competition.

Like the team who came back to the mentoring session with a half-baked that the investor mentors tore apart.

Like all startup pitch/hackathon events, we started the trip with people pitching their ideas and the crowd picking the ones they wanted to work on. Those of us on the outside were a little surprised by this one idea–an anti-social network social network–being picked. But, hey, the crowd picked it, and the team assembled, so maybe it would work.

It wouldn’t.

All the other mentoring sessions took about 30 minutes. We helped the teams refine their ideas, think through monetization, and identify next steps. An hour into the meeting with this one team, we were still going round-and-round about what the idea even was exactly. Everyone was cramped, tired, and stressed, and we were getting nowhere with this awesome team. At this point, it’s about 8:15, and thanks to the weather, we’re running an hour behind getting into Memphis. Things looked very, very bleak.

This about the time Startup Bus magic happened.

After ascertaining that everyone was at an impasse, with no way to make this project work and no new ideas to pursue, Repetti pulled them to the front of the bus and announced to all the buspreneurs that the team needed help back at square one.

“This isn’t failure,” he said. “You only fail when you decide to quit. This is how the process is supposed to work.”

All of the teams willingly put their own tasks aside to help the 4th team brainstorm new ideas. There was lots of hilarity and very few real ideas, but as the time passed, you could see the team go from defeated to hopeful again. Just the act of being back out with their fellow entrepreneurs, being encouraged, and laughing brought their spirits back up.

Finally someone said, “What about the emergency alert app that was pitched earlier?”

Lightbulbs went off.

The team reconvened with the mentors and talked through the logistics of the idea. The guy with the original idea, who was already on a different team, willingly agreed to let the team build out his idea and consult for them as they went.

Honestly, it was an agonizing 2 1/2 hours. You think stress is bad in a normal room, where you can walk away for a minute to think? Try it on a bus, where there’s nowhere to go.

There’s a lot of time left on this crazy trip. Sundays’s stresses ended well, and the team is re-energized and focused on building the best product they can.

But will Monday end as well?

Bourbon & Boots Brings Southern Culture to Your Doorstep

bourbonandboots

I’m from the South.

I know. Y’all are so surprised, right?

In college a guy told me, “You guys [he wasn’t from the South] are the only people in the country who make a big deal about the South and North.”

Well, whether that’s true or not, these days Southern culture seems to be having a day in the sun. And those of us who grew up sippin’ sweet tea and swimmin’ in the creek understand why.

Bourbon & Boots is a company in Little Rock, AR that definitely understands it. They’re building a whole business off of Southern culture: Southern crafts, Southern clothes, Southern food–you name it and Bourbon & Boots has an artisan producing it.

Founder Matt Price says it best:

“Southern is a state of mind.”

Bourbon & Boots recruits artisans from all over the country that create products that fit the unique brand they’ve built. They range from kitschy bullet earrings to vintage cowboy boots and everywhere in between.

My personal favorite category is “Food and Booze,” where you can find a whole range of Southern-inspired food and utensils.

Bourbon & Boots isn’t merely an e-commerce company, though. Alongside the products they sell, they’re also developing a content company that showcases the best of Southern living. Of course, it has a little more edge than the magazine of that name. With articles like “Smooth Talk About Kentucky’s Speakeasy Bourbon” and “Tonic Syrup Nearly Ruined My Social Life,” this ain’t your grandmama’s Southern Living.

Of course, marrying content and commerce isn’t always the easiest feat. Refinery29 closed down its commerce branch last year and raised money to double down on content.

When I asked Bourbon & Boots’ Price about this, he chuckled.

“E-commerce is hard. Content is really hard. Trying to nail them both is impossible,” he admitted.

But, nailing them they are. More than 2 years after launch, Bourbon & Boots continues to grow, adding new vendors and freelance writers to the ranks. They’re also looking to create their own products in 2014, a move that could stretch their resources but also provide huge benefit in growing their brand.

Personality-driven commerce sites are a thing right now. Just look at Fab, Warby-Parker, JustFab, and NastyGal for proof. Bourbon & Boots plays into that trend with a delightful business that could only be built in the South.

And, yes. They do drink bourbon and wear boots.

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Draft Makes the Writing Life Easier–One Feature At A Time

draft

I’ve been a writer for most of my life, since second grade, actually. Back then my tools of choice were a #2 and a yellow steno pad.

Since then, I’ve tried every writing trick and tool in the world. (Because that’s what writers do. We test out writing software in order to soothe our not-writing consciences.)

Even though I liked all the software I’ve used, nothing stuck.

Then I tried Draft.

Founded by YC alum Nathan Kontny, Draft is a simple web app that allows you to, in their words, “write better.”

Well, I say it’s simple. But, honestly, the feature list is a thing to be admired:

Version control
Hemingway mode (to kill the inner editor)
Commenting
Collaboration
Rest API
Image hosting
“Publishing” that sends the draft to various platforms

Actually, I’ll stop there, but the list goes on. There’s even a “Ask a Pro” feature, which allows you to get feedback on your writing when there’s no one else you can con–er, ask to help.

Launched a little over a year ago, Draft is one of those rare lovely things that is a true labor of love as well as a business. On the heels of Cityposh, his YC company that was winding down, Kontny did a lot of writing. Like any hacker, he soon found things he didn’t like about his current options and started thinking about how to fix them.

“Everything you see in Draft was a personal itch in my own writing,” he told me over the phone.

In the year since launch, Draft has accumulated “tens of thousands” of users and brings in revenue from subscriptions and the “Ask a Pro” feature. I asked Kontny about raising money, but he shrugged it off.

“I want to use Draft forever,” he explained to me. Although he has a little YC funding left over, he knows that raising a large round of VC would make him beholden to investors, which could kill the organic growth he’s seeing.

“There’s no time bomb,” he said. “If it doesn’t explode in a year, I’ll still have time to work on it.”

In so many ways, Kontny is the opposite of what we hear startups should be. He’s a single founder, mainly bootstrapping by choice, and focused on revenue over growth. Yet, the slow organic strategy could be just the thing that keeps Draft going for years to come.

Marc Andreesen: High Functioning Businesses Aren’t Disneyland

We’re all familiar with the stories of founder relationships gone sour. It’s a common tale:

Founders arrive on the scene with a hot new product. Raise crazy amounts of money. See enormous traction and get tons of hype from the press and their peers.

Then, out of the blue (it seems), there’s division and strife. One founder leaves, or is ousted. Lawsuits, hard feelings, drama.

It would be easy to chalk this up to the youth culture of startup land, and Silicon Valley in general. It would be easy to say that if founders were more mature when they were handed millions of dollars of venture capital this wouldn’t be such a common story.

Maybe there’s truth there, but according to Marc Andreesen’s latest tweetstorm, dysfunction in the highest levels of any business is normal. We like to think of building businesses as dispassionate, analytical endeavors: figure out what makes money and do that.

But what if there are fundamental differences in how the founders see themselves making money? Suddenly, even the smartest, most analytical people are at a stalemate. Throw in the passion for their companies that most founders have, and it’s no wonder there are hard feelings.

According to Andreesen, that’s okay.

Moral? Business is stressful.There’s constant conflict, emotion, even anger. Building a company is an intense experience, period. Harnessed properly, this is the crucible out of which high performance and great results emerge. Satisfaction of overcoming challenges.

To quote Jim Barksdale, “This isn’t a family, and I ain’t your daddy.” But together we can build great things & make our grandkids proud.

Are you building great things? Then it’s time to take a deep breath and expect some drama.

The 20 Greatest Startups of All Time [Infographic]

What makes a startup truly great?

Is it how quickly (or for how much) you sell? Is it profits? Number of users? Social or cultural impact?

Well, yes.

Our friends at Verge Startups put together an infogrpahic that outlines the top 20 startups of all time. They took into consideration economic factors like market cap and bottom line revenue, but they also considered the cultural impact the company has made.

You’ll see the obvious on the list: Apple, Google, Facebook. But they aren’t the only companies that have affected the digital landscape.

China’s Startup Giants

Chinese companies like Tencent and Baidu are also on the list. We may only hear about them occasionally in the United States, but they have huge followings in Asia. Tencent–established 6 years before Facebook–brings social media, games, and other products to China. While they offer several digital products, including chat app WeChat, their real money is made in virtual goods, a market Facebook hasn’t seemed to be able to break into.

Baidu is China’s answer to Google, bringing search to the largest populace in the world. Obviously smaller than the American giant, Baidu still holds an impressive amount of power in China.

The Original Founders

When we think of startups, we usually think “new” and “innovative.” But there had to be someone who started it all, right?

Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939, and its founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard are symbolically credited with “founding” Silicon Valley. HP is #10 on the list, with a $52.87 billion. Not the largest, but not the smallest either. Without a doubt, HP had a cultural impact that continues to affect us all.

The Not-So-Certain Successes

The thing about startups is that even when you’re successful you could still fail.

Yahoo, eBay, Groupon, and Zynga all made the top 20 greatest startups of all time, yet many question the stability of any of these companies. Oh, they’re all hanging in there, and no one should count them out yet. But each of these companies has big obstacles to ensure ultimate success.

Yet, like HP, few would argue the impact each has had on culture, and that coupled with still-high market caps–puts them on the list.

Who’s Missing?

So, what do you think? Is this list of the 20 greatest startups of all time accurate? Who did we miss, or who shouldn’t be on there?

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WhatsApp Acquisition: A New Definition of Success?

Days later, we’re all still talking about it.

Of course we are! It was the largest freaking startup acquisition in history. Twitter’s been full of “you could be X for the cost of WhatsApp” tweets. We got in that game with some surprising facts about the WhatsApp acquisition.

Judging from all the tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts, no one’s quite sure how they feel about it yet. There’s a little awe, a lot disbelief, and more than a lot of jealousy.

For many people, news of the deal came out of nowhere. The founders aren’t exactly tech startups’ poster boys. More than a few people on Twitter didn’t even know what the app did, and suddenly Facebook is paying $19 BILLION for it?!

Remember the good ol’ days when we were shocked by the $1 billion Instagram acquisition? Doesn’t that seem quaint now.

If $19 billion is the new high water mark, where does that leave the other unicorns? Is this the creation of a new class of success–the super unicorn? The pegasus?

The Comparison Trap

With $19 billion as the new high number, what should the rest of us should be shooting for? Will startups be happy with the mere $1 billion they’ve been dreaming about for the last few years?

In the Wall Street Journal today, Box CEO Aaron Levie said that he expects the deal to spur an increase in acquisitions, with every tech giant willing to pay higher and higher prices for startups challenging them.

“It makes you depressed if you’re not selling at $20 billion,” the WSJ quotes him as saying. “I have a lot more work to do.”

Aaron Levie. Whose enterprise-focused cloud storage company will IPO this year in what’s expected to be a multi-billion dollar fashion. Who was named Inc’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

Aaron Levie is now looking at his measly $2 billion company and feeling like things aren’t quite right.

How We Measure Success

The thing about $19 billion deals is that they are very, very rare. (This the first actually.) Maybe M&A deals are only going to continue to grow, and maybe the average acquisition will increase. But in the long run, it’s probably safe to say that 99.99999% of companies will never sell for $19 billion.

WhatsApp built the right product, in the right way, grew in the right areas, at just the right time to make them the perfect acquisition for Facebook. The chances of tons of other companies doing that are slim.

And that’s okay.

Startups are about money. We’re all kidding ourselves if we think the majority of founders are starting companies but don’t care about the money they’ll make doing it.

But how much is enough? And are there other measurements of startup success to consider along with money?

For example, if your software startup sells for enough money to make you, your cofounders, and your first employees multimillionaires, is that enough?

If you build a legacy business that employs hundreds of people and provides outstanding salaries for all of them, will that bring happiness?

Or is it enough to remain a lifestyle business that supports you and maybe one other person for as long as you want it to?

These are questions we all have to ask ourselves. No one can answer them for every founder in the world. The WhatsApp deal should make us all stop and think, “Will I be happy, even if that’s never me?”

Because chances are good it won’t be.

10 Top Accelerators Now Accepting Applications for the Summer

Ah, summer. Time for laying by the pool, sipping a margarita, and letting the day slip by…

Okay, maybe in someone else’s world. But we’re entrepreneurs! Summer isn’t about relaxation. It’s about coming down from the SXSW/spring break high and moving that business forward.

And, if you’re an early stage startup, one of the best places to do that is an accelerator. Pages of digital ink have been spilled on the pros and cons of accelerators, but like anything else in life, you’re the one who can maximize the experience. If your team walks into an accelerator thinking you’ve made the big leagues and it’s easy sailing from here, you’re probably screwed. Go in ready to learn and maximize every opportunity that comes your way, and an accelerator could be just the thing you need.

The question is, which one? There are a lot of things to think about when picking an accelerator:

Where is the accelerator located? If it’s not in your home city, are you able to relocate for a few months?
Is there seed money involved, and if so how much?
How much equity does the accelerator take?
How successful have previous cohorts been?
Will the accelerator’s network be beneficial in reaching your company’s goals?

Once you have a general idea of what you’re looking for, it’s time to pick an accelerator. Here are the top 10 accelerators now accepting applications:

The Brandery–Based in Cincinnati, the Brandery has a great track record. Here’s an inside look at what happens at the Brandery.
Kaplan EdTech Accelerator--Powered by Techstars, this will be the second summer for the Kaplan EdTech Accelerator.
Start Co–Memphis-based Start Co is hosting 3 accelerators this year. The Seed Hatchery will be in its 4th year, and this will be the 2nd year for the women-only Upstart. SparkGap is the newest addition, focusing on logistics technology in one of the largest shipping hubs in the world.
Boom Startup–Based in Utah, Boom Startup boasts mentors from companies as diverse as Cisco and Skull Candy.
NMotion–The Lincoln, Nebraska, accelerator focuses on tech companies disrupting industries like agriculture, healthcare, education, finance/insurance, and sports technology.
Techstars Austin–Going into its second year, Techstars Austin already boasts some great companies like Atlas Wearables.
Seed Sumo–Based in College Station, Seed Sumo does acceleration Aggie-style.
Techstars Chicago–This will be Techstars first year in Chicago, but they’ve teamed up with Excelerate Labs which has graduated 30 companies since 2010.
Disney Accelerator–The newly announced Disney Accelerator brings together Techstars and the Magical Kingdom to accelerate companies focused on new media and entertainment.
Barclays London–Again, powered by Techstars (anyone seeing a pattern), the Barclays accelerator brings fintech companies to London for 15 weeks of acceleration.

See an accelerator you like? Click on the name and check them out.

In the meantime, did we miss anyone?

10 Surprising Facts About the WhatsApp Acquisition

Watching Twitter during a big acquisition is fun. You get absolutely no work done, but the level of intelligence, snark, excitement, and sour grapes that comes across your feed makes it totally worth it.

On the off chance you missed it, today Facebook announced the acquisition of WhatsApp in a $19 billion (BILLION) deal. The messaging app–which has enormous international usage–sold for $4 billion cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares, and $3 billion in restricted stock.

In case your math is as bad as mine, that’s 19 Instagrams. (We always thought Instagram sold too early.)

Here are some other little known facts and stats about the WhatsApp acquisition:

1. WhatsApp’s founders made about $5 billion EACH. (click to tweet)

2. Sequoia Capital, WhatsApp’s only investor, made $2.4 billion or enough to buy 17 of Tom Perkins’ yachts. (click to tweet)

3. At acquisition WhatsApp is worth 2 Staples + 2 Instagrams. (click to tweet)

4. Each employee at WhatsApp created as much value as the entire Washington Post did in 137 years. (click to tweet)

5. In one day, WhatsApp processes 4x as many messages as there are humans on the planet. (click to tweet)

6. In the last 9 months, WhatsApp added 1 million users a day. (click to tweet)

7. WhatsApp has 2.5x more active users than Twitter. (click to tweet)

8. By market cap, WhatsApp is the 200th largest company in America. (click to tweet)

9. WhatsApp is worth the same as Kroger, with 6,000x fewer employees. (click to tweet)

10. NASA’s 2014 budget: $17b. WhatsApp: $19b. (click to tweet)

Bonus fact: WhatsApp is worth more than Southwest, Coach, Chipotle, News Corp, Under Armor, Dr. Pepper & Tiffany. (click to tweet)

The Mount Rushmore of Tech Entrepreneurs

If you follow the NBA or watch ESPN at all (not me, my co-founder) then you know the airwaves and Twitterverse have been flooded with talk of the NBA’s “Mount Rushmore.” Lebron James started the debate when he proclaimed that he will be “on that Mountain” in his exclusive interview with NBA TV. Any list of the greatest will cause debate and ruffle some feathers, like James did with NBA legend Bill Russell.

Blah blah blah. Y’all know I only knew that stuff because of Nick, right? You learn a lot from your cofounders.

Anyway, it got us thinking. Who would be on tech’s Mt. Rushmore–Mt. Techmore, if you will. There will undoubtedly be some debate, but we like a little healthy arguing.

Here’s what we think:

On Mt. Techmore, Steve Jobs takes a prominent spot. Doesn’t he look like he was actually chiseled into that mountain?

Jobs is already the idol of tech. We all quote him like Scripture, and like a politician with Reagan, everyone wants to believe they’re aligned with the Jobs mentality. His company is also the largest tech company in the world, with a $489.76 billion market cap and $159.97 billion in top line revenue in 2013.

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Bill Gates sits next to Jobs, and he’s another tech luminary you can hardly argue with. Say what you will about Microsoft (and poor Bill not being able to install Windows 8), but he is still the second richest man in the world.

That company he built, the one we all love to hate? Top line revenue of $73.75 billion in 2013 and a market cap of $302.32 billion. If only the rest of us were unsexy like that.

And, finally, the Google founders. Larry Page and Sergey Brin have arguably built the most influential company of our century. Google has changed the way we do the Internet, and the products they roll out, from Gmail to Android, are becoming a daily habit for most of us. The company had revenue of $49.96 billion in 2013 and the hockey stick growth chart we’re all chasing.

And Page and Brin themselves? Worth $23 billion and $22.8 billion respectively. Not bad for two guys whose motto was, “Don’t be evil.”

Every culture has their own idols and heroes, and tech is no different. Without the contributions of the men on Mt. Techmore, the world would be a different place. There are others, of course. For instance, a certain Harvard dropout whose name rhymes with “duckerberg.”

What do you think? Who would be on your Mt. Techmore?

All financial info sourced here.

Hampton Creek Foods: We Are Scalable and Low Cost

Yesterday I wrote about the growing amount of venture capital that is flooding the food industry. $146 million in 2013, to be exact.

One company that is seeing a lot of that money is Hampton Creek Foods, the makers of Just Mayo. This week they announced a $23 million series B led by Khosla Ventures.

I usually question the true healthfulness of manufactured food, and even the term “plant-based” is often a cover for products that technically come from plants but hit the shelves with lots of other chemicals in them. I also questioned the scalability of the experiment and whether or not production costs were low enough.

Well, with Hampton Creek Foods, at least, I stand corrected.

Morgan Oliveira, Director of Communications at Hampton Creek, reached out and explained more about the company.

“We are scalable and low-cost,” she said over the phone. “That’s why VCs are willing to put their money behind us. We don’t consider ourselves niche or super vegan. We really think this could be big and make a real change.”

For those of you skeptics like me, Oliveira explained the process behind making the Just Mayo line. The company sources yellow peas, which when ground into a powder, makes a great substitute for eggs. Then they combine it with typical mayo ingredients like oil, water, apple cider vinegar, etc.

And, voila, plant-based mayonnaise.

Costs are kept low because animal products are typically expensive to raise, and the GMO corn and soy they eat is both unhealthy and expensive. Hampton Creek Foods is certified by the Non-GMO Project, which guarantees that none of their products contain genetically modified organisms.

“We’re not against chickens or eggs,” Oliveira told me. “We’re just against factory farming. It’s 2014. Why are we still sourcing our food the way we did during World War II?”

Why indeed.

I was definitely a skeptic when I wrote the post yesterday. After my discussion with Oliveira, I have to admit I was wrong in some of my assumptions about Hampton Creek. They’ll still have the same scaling and growth challenges as any startup, but at least they have sound, relatively inexpensive products to offer.

To find out more about Hampton Creek Foods, visit their website and check out Just Mayo at Whole Foods.

Forget Software. VC’s Turn Their Eyes Toward the Food Industry

Yesterday Hampton Creek Foods announced a Series B round of $23 million, led by Horizons Ventures and including previous investors Khosla Ventures and Collaborative Fund as well as several individual investors.

Hampton Creek is looking for alternative, plant-based solutions to meat and meat products. Eggs, for example, are one target for a new, plant-based alternative from Hampton Creek.

Let’s forget for a moment that we’re still talking about processed food, which have been proven to be harmful to the American diet. I get that with the growing global population, we already have unsustainable methods of growing and raising our food. Something has to be done about this problem.

What’s interesting about this story is not the growth of processed food. (Okay, well not interesting for our purposes.)

Rather, it’s interesting to see to such traditionally tech-focused VC firms throwing money at a decidedly expensive, potentially unscalable venture. The whole thing about tech startups is that the cost to entry and scaling is so much lower, which allows for great returns for these investors.

According to CB Insights, that’s a growing trend. In 2013 funding deals to food companies (note: not web/mobile-based food apps or platforms) hit $146 million. This was a 123% increase from their earliest data from 2009.

Investments in food and beverage companies include everything from food tech, like Hampton Creek, to retail outlets, like the recently IPO’d Potbelly Sandwich Shops.

Khosla Ventures is a large backer of early stage food startups. Founder Vinod Khosla had this to say a couple of years ago about investing in food startups:

“As part of our sustainability effort, we’re doing a lot of investing in food.”

“Saving the world” and “sustainability” are awesome goals to shoot for. Without a doubt the pace at which we live life is fast, and it’s hard for the planet to keep up.

We’ve seen this song and dance before in the shape of cleantech. It’s not that cleantech was ever a bad idea. Few thoughtful people will say we need to continue to strip the planet of its natural resources without replenishing them.

But, no amount of knowing it’s a good idea makes development inexpensive. Or makes the outcome profitable at a level to please LPs.

Hack Your Way Through Dyslexia With DCODIA

Dyslexia is a common disability that is getting more attention in recent years. 1 in 5 people have dyslexia, which makes it hard to succeed in classrooms that demand every child be able to read at a certain level and at the same pace as their peers.

Yet, in our technology-centered world, there are no unobtrusive aids to help students with dyslexia. Most of the available products are clunky, drawing attention to the fact that the child using it has “a disability.”

When Kris Parmelee’s middle son was diagnosed with dyslexia, she soon learned the struggles they would face in the classroom. He was often pulled out of class for “special help,” or had to lug around equipment meant for adults with visual impairments.

Not cool, Mom!

Kris’s search for an unobtrusive solution that would allow her son to stay in the classroom with his friends came up empty. Such a solution just didn’t exist.

So, she made one.

Along with partner Mark LaFay, Kris conceived of an app that would read aloud that ONE word a child was struggling with so he could move on. Originally conceived for Google Glass, the app has now also been developed for iOS and Android smartphones. After all, every kid has a phone these days.

The app works like this: a child is reading something, say the instructions on a big test, and comes across a word they aren’t able to figure out. With DCODIA the child can take a picture of the word, sentence, or paragraph and crop it down to the words that are giving him or her trouble. They click “send,” and a few seconds later the word is read through their earbuds.

The paid version of the software also includes word storage, which could be a valuable data point for both individual families and dyslexia researchers.

DCODIA is an elegant solution to a widespread problem. Like I said above, 1 in 5 people have dyslexia. That means many of you have probably struggled with the condition and the stigma that comes with “not being able to read.”

There could be some challenge in adoption because many schools still do not allow kids to use their phones in school, even if the kids are technically allowed to have them. While many high schoolers are happy to flaunt these rules, younger kids have less freedom. Being the one kid allowed to use his phone could be as obtrusive in some situations as current dyslexia aids.

The solution to that problem is–hopefully–only a matter of time, though. It won’t be long before schools begin to utilize the super computers in their students’ pockets.

With adoption obstacles aside, DCODIA is one of those wonderful, change-the-world and help people kind of projects that I’m particularly partial to.

DCODIA is currently in development, and they are crowdfunding on Kickstarter to raise the last bit of money they need.