“Such strong product technologists and engineers add great value to the development team we’re continuing to grow in our Palo Alto office,” Groupon spokeswoman Julie Mossler told the Chicago Tribune.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Downside of an Acquisition

These days, startups either go big, fail or get acquired by larger companies.  If a company is acquired, it can either be because of their technology or what they are offering, or because they have outstanding employees that would be a great addition to the buying company.  And that’s what Groupon is doing.  Instead of pirating or hiring just their desired employees, they go and buy the whole company.

There’s a plausible explanation for this: a person might be performing very well because he is comfortable with the people he works with, and taking that person out of his comfort zone could be crucial to his performance.  The downside of an acquisition is the acquired company almost always gets shutdown, and only select employees stay on board.

Last year Groupon acquired OpenCal, the online appointment scheduling and booking site, as well as Campfire Labs, the startup company that gave us Slice, the web-based service that lets users “slice” friends into groups, working with existing social-media sites like Facebook to offer features such as chat, calendar, etc.  And earlier this year, Groupon acquired Mertado, the company that creates “shopping experiences that build bridges between content, commerce, and community.  Of the three acquisitions, OpenCal is the only one continuing operations.  Mertado and Camfire Labs, along with Slice, have been inaccessible to users, and Mertado will be shutting down on February 28, 2012.

First Earnings Call

Today, Groupon will have their first earnings call after they went public last November. Analysts are expecting sales of $473 million, triple the amount from a year ago, with a 2011 revenue amount of roughly $1.6 billion.  Groupon’s market value is at  $15 billion.

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason must be sweating bullets by now, because he is faced with the daunting task of delivering an awesome first earnings call, convincing investors that their company is here to stay, and not just a fad that people will soon forget.  More importantly, he’ll have to demonstrate that the company is making money.

Groupon recently announced a new marketing strategy, Clicky, the Clickable Value-Wheel that lets users spin the wheel and score potential discounts from the available choices.  It is tied up with Facebook to broaden their reach.  That is just an example of Groupon’s marketing strategy and we’d like to believe that it’s working, taking on new subscribers and maintaining their current subscribers.

Still, a lot of people will probably unsubscribe to their service in the long run, and Groupon has to face this reality.  How many people unsubscribe from their service every month?  How many new users sign up every month?  Of their total subscribers, how many of those actually use the service?  Will merchants continue to participate in group-buying deals?  These are just some of the questions that investors would probably want to ask Groupon.

“We remain concerned that merchants are wary of the longer-term impacts of offering steep discounts through Groupon and other daily-deal sites,” Jordan Rohan of Stifel Nicolaus wrote. “But it is hard to predict when that wariness will create a real drag on fundamentals.”

Groupon Acquisition Amidst First Earnings Call After IPO is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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The company is introducing the concept of the cloud to the networking layer. It offers an alternative to buying costly IT gear in order to handle demand overflows, and instead enables clients to offload traffic during peak-times to its own data centers. Cloud host Rackspace is one of the biggest names on Nicira’s user list today, along with carrier AT&T, eBay and others.

Wikibon analyst Stu Miniman believes that in the long run, this new tech will appeal more to cloud companies rather than enterprises, and that – while Nicira has the potential of turning out as a disrupting force in the networking world – it’s not ready to take on Cisco just yet.

“Network virtualization is the biggest change to networking in 25 years,” said Stephen Mullaney, chief executive of Nicira. “NVP provides the final pivotal piece to cloud computing, the most transformational change to IT in a generation. And the largest most forward-thinking cloud providers are laser-focused on operations and economics, the two benefits Nicira delivers.”

This pitch seems to have done its magic on some of the higher-profile VCs in the tech industry. In the same announcement, Nicira revealed its product the startup announced that it has raised $50 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, NEA and a couple of independent investors – which is none too shabby for a seed funding round.

Nicira is not the only one that has been disrupting the traditional network recently. IBM unveiled an OpenFlow-based product in collaboration with NEC a couple weeks ago.

Nicira’s Fresh Take on Network-as-a-Service Not Quite Ready to Rival Cisco is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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The startup managed to trigger investors’ curiosity with its patented light-based communications (LBC), which enables handsets to interact with the laser scanners that are commonly used by retail stores. According to Mobeam, this was previously impossible, namely because smartphone screens are not bright enough on their own.

The startup says that its solution can give the majority of the handsets out there the necessary boost without the need for any modifications on either end, and that its main purpose is to digitalize coupons. The fresh capital will be used to boost industry adoption – mainly via promotional initiatives rather than R&D – and to further flesh out the technology.

Adoption is what Mobeam is lacking right now, but the startup is certainly making progress.

“As is demonstrated by the partnership between mobeam and the world’s largest consumer packaged goods producer, P&G, coupons are the missing link in the mobile commerce value chain,” said Perry Ha, founder and managing director of DFJ Athena. “With a global retail infrastructure already in place that utilizes a very widely accepted standard for coupon scanning – one dimensional barcodes, or UPC symbols – what is necessary is for the mobile technology to embrace that infrastructure.”

All the buzz around NFC, LBC and other fancy acronyms in the mobile world is generated thanks to the growing use of smartphones in real-life interactions. Retail and personal finance are two of the most active sectors in this regard.  Just last week Dwolla had some news with the roll out of updates across its mobile app portfolio.

LBC Startup Mobeam Raises an Extra $1.5M is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to prospective shareholders was incredibly vague about his company’s “social mission” and there was no announcement of a charitable foundation — as Google had done when it filed its IPO papers eight years ago.

A comparison of the two founders’ letter to shareholders reveals a surprisingly large difference in what motivates the rival organizations, what’s important to them … and what’s not.

Some industry watchers expected Mr Zuckerberg to try to best Larry Page’s eloquent and impassioned “Founder’s Letter” that launched Google’s IPO.

Both founders were close in age when they wrote letters introducing their company to prospective shareholders — a very important document that sets and explains the company’s culture.

Larry Page jumps straight to the point: Google exists as a business so that it can make a big difference in the world.

He introduces the concept of “Don’t Be Evil,” a rule to guide senior management decisions. The doctrine of “Don’t Be Evil” was remarkable, because it demonstrated Google’s keen awareness of its growing power, and with that, a great responsibility to act ethically and to be careful in its actions.

Mr. Page’s letter explained that Google’s ambitions for its social mission were greater than that of Google itself. In fact, the commercial side of the business would be used to fund the creation of Google Foundation, an organization that he expected would:

“Eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation…to the largest of the world’s problems.”

How would Mr. Zuckerberg trump Mr. Page’s inspirational epistle?

His letter to shareholders starts off well, demonstrating a keen understanding of his assignment:

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.”

But that’s about as far as he gets. He spends many paragraphs saying pretty much not much at all, wishy-washy phrases, said in different ways: how Facebook enables people to share, that sharing is good, that open government is good, and that sharing helps people’s relationships; and how it’s good to connect people, and to give people voice. At times he makes Facebook sound like a phone company. Reach out and share with someone — it makes the world a better place.

In the letter, Mr. Zuckerberg struggles to deepen a collection of shallow sentiments about Facebook’s social mission. He uses a bold typeface to emphasize key phrases:

“We hope to strengthen how people relate to each other.”

“We hope to improve how people connect to business and the economy.”

John Gapper, Chief Business Commentator for the Financial Times called the letter, “The unbearable vagueness of Zuckerberg.”

At some point, Mr. Zuckerberg realized he wouldn’t be able to beat, let alone match Mr Page’s letter, which is probably why the document is found deep within the SEC filing, on page 61.

Larry Page’s letter is right at the beginning of Google’s filing, even before page 1 — spanning seven pages numbered i to vii.

Mr Zuckerberg’s letter moves onto different subject: a description of a core set of values, which he calls “The Hacker Way,” a homage to Hewlett-Packard’s celebrated “The HP Way.”

It is mostly expressed as slogans, used internally, and repeatedly:

“Done is better than perfect.”

“Focus on impact.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that on the day of the SEC filing, Facebook printed posters with the slogan: “Stay Focused and Keep Shipping.”

The use of slogans to help manage a workforce is interesting — outside of North Korea and Foxconn — it has long fallen out of fashion.

Mr. Zuckerberg ends his letter by reminding staff: “We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value in everything they do.”

It sounds threatening, rather than inspiring, as Mr Page sought to do.

It’s clear that Mr. Zuckerberg doesn’t believe he needs to make a big song and dance about “social mission” to motivate workers, or impress shareholders. Facebook is clearly a different company to that of Google — maybe it also signals a new era.

[Cross-posted at Silicon Valley Watcher]

A Tale of Two Letters: Facebook’s Vague Social Mission is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Here are a couple of lessons worth reinforcing: 1) People’s view of what is normal and acceptable in emergent online activities is constantly evolving. What Facebook deserves a lot of credit for is not allowing itself to be held back by what a small and vocal group of critics said they should not do. As a result, by constantly pushing forward, and making mistakes, Facebook created a new normal that in retrospect would never have been accepted even 5 years ago.

2) Zuckerberg, like Larry Ellison and Bill Gates most notably, retained tremendous control of their respective companies through outsized stock ownership and voting structures that assured them total control of their destiny.  Shareholder rights advocates will say that this is precisely what needs to change about corporate America but stock ownership is not a democracy where every vote is equal… but it is also a structure that shareholders opt into when they buy stock in a company.

3) Don’t discard old business models because they are old… Silicon Valley is home to the shiny new object syndrome and we often forget that old business models are referred to as old because they WORK. Facebook was criticized for not having a business model, well they did and it was a tried-and-true one… advertising. Turns out that a company can still make a boatload of money doing this and it doesn’t require a 60 slide powerpoint deck to explain it.

4) Raise boatloads of money when it is available to you, and do it on your own terms. Facebook benefited from a wide range of factors that drove interest in the company, not the least of which was that for private equity investors who had large funds to put to work, there were few options that scaled to the degree that Facebook did. These investors are not looking for the returns that early stage VCs are, so they were happy to put large amounts of capital to work at high valuations, and it appears that these bets will pay off.

Mutual funds and other traditional investors that bought stock in the private secondary market that emerged were also reacting to a scarcity of investment options. The real lesson here is not to be constrained by the traditional venture capital cycle when macro conditions create an environment that allows you to be non-linear.

Lastly, I’ll refrain from repeating the oft-repeated mantra about hiring the best people… would you hire anyone but the best? I hate it when people say things which fall into the stating of the obvious category.

[Cross-posted at Venture Chronicles]

Facebook IPO Lessons is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Clio offers up a cloud-based set of tools specifically designed for the overwhelming majority of the legal industry: small firms and individual lawyers who could use the advantages of cloud-based services, but don’t have the budget to set up a deployment. These account for 80 percent of the law firm market, according to American Bar Association Clio cited in a release, and the startup is not sharing this vision with any other cloud company – at least for the time being.

“The legal space is ripe for disruption,” said Boris Wertz, Acton’s Vancouver-based Venture Partner and a new member of Clio’s Board of Directors. “Although this industry has traditionally been regarded as slow to adopt technological changes, recent investments show it’s now ready to benefit from technological innovations like cloud computing. We believe that Clio can take advantage of this tremendous opportunity by implementing their vision of moving the legal industry to the cloud.”

There have been a couple of other startup funding rounds this month, one of which also ties in pretty well with the cloud agenda. AppDynamics raised $20 million in a third round of funding from several high-profile investors. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins, and existing investors  Greylock Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners both participated.

Before AppDynamics it was GetGlue that received a sizable capital injection. What Clio and GetGlue have in common involves the fact they both add an interesting twist to their respective offerings. In the latter’s case, it’s mixing social directly with TV streaming. That idea got it $12 million from Time Warner and other investors.

Clio Raises $6M for Legal Cloud is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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The company’s first product, “Matchmaker,” will help startups find their brand soul mate through a proprietary database that categorizes the early stage startups for introductions to the client base of brands. A series of participation breaks will be presented as well, including but not limited to, mentoring, pilot programs, and even investment.

“The startup lives in the epicenter of technology-inspired innovation,” said Jaffe. “But brands are often not brought into the picture until the startup is so far downstream in the process that it’s too late to influence direction, partner or truly innovate.”

“Startups are dominated by technology and finance, but instead of ending on Madison Avenue’s doorstep, what if we began with the business problem, brand truth, and consumer insight, and worked backward into development and funding?” added Jaffe. “We believe that by collaborating upstream, significant learnings, growth and accelerated pathways to success will be inevitably realized.”

Jaffe is a though leader, author and entrepreneur who founded crayon, one of the industry’s first social media agencies. Later, crayon was acquired by Powered, then by Dachis Group. Jaffe is a three-time author of best-selling books, hosts a blog and audio podcast, “Jaffe Juice,” and a video show called Jaffe Juice TV.  He’s also a Director of Interactive Media at TBWA/Chiat/Day and OMD USA.

It’s becoming all the more evident that a fresh perspective is needed on not just marketing, but social media marketing.  And the industry is ripe for innovation. A thought leadership portal and community hub also launches under Evol8tion’s umbrella by the name of Madison and Mountain View. The website contains interviews, profiles, guest posts and research, concentrating on the merge point of advertising and technology.

Joseph Jaffe Launches Evol8tion, Matching Startups with Blue Chips is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Papaioannou, speaking live from the Node Summit in San Francisco, was short on details other than to say that Continuity is “in the Hadoop ecosystem” and that the start-up will announce more funding details later this week.

However, during the interview with SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier, Papaioannou shared his views on what’s needed from the Big Data industry going forward that may shed light on his plans for Continuity.

Real-Time Big Data Applications Needed

Echoing Wikibon’s 2012 Big Data predictions, Papaioannou said the next evolution for the Big Data industry must be the development of interactive Big Data applications that incorporate real-time data. Said Papaioannou:

Once you’ve got the [Big Data] infrastructure and plumbing deployed, then what? You need to build applications. Well, building applications on distributed systems and real-time distributed systems is super-hard. So there’s a whole focus on developers that’s going to come, that’s the natural next wave for Big Data.

Node.js, the red-hot programming language, will play an important role, he said.

I think the most interesting things that are going on in the next decade are Big Data applications. Big Data applications and fabrics are the next generation middleware. And then when you actually get out to where the consumer is, that’s where node comes in.

Where node has really taken off is it really allows you to focus on the application, focus on way more [data] connections so you can actually be pumping real-time data backwards and forwards. So I think that node and Big Data and the real-time web and continuous business s intelligence is going to be one of the key trends we see in this environment going forward.

I think Papaioannou is right on the mark here. As I’ve said before, packaged applications built on modern languages like Node.js that allow traditional enterprises to operationalize insights gleaned from Big Data and related analytics are the key to realizing impactful business value from Big Data. This is particularly true for “traditional” enterprises that don’t have the staff or expertise to build Big Data applications themselves but are instead looking for ready-to-go applications from the vendor community that turn the theoretical benefits of Big Data into concrete business results.

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

Big Data Analytics Without Coding

Another area Papaioannou highlighted was the need for analytic platforms that allow not just Data Scientists but less technical business analysts to manipulate and derive insights from Big Data without needing to be versed in complex coding.

“Our job as an industry is to be able to allow the people that are used to sitting in Excel or sitting in Microstrategy to be able to do data science with really useful tools,” Papaioannou said. ”You shouldn’t have to write code to get value out of the data.”

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

Again I think Papaioannou is on to something. It’s well known that the ranks of qualified, experienced Data Scientists are thin. Really thin. According to McKinsey, “by 2018 the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills.”

There are two ways to deal with the data science skills gap. One is to train existing business analysts in the ways of data science, as well as to develop more data science educational opportunities for college students. The other is to develop intuitive tools that reduce the level of analytic sophistication needed to perform data science.

Realistically its very unlikely that training and education alone will produce the needed number of Data Scientists in the near term, say the next five to ten years. Of course training and education are critical in the long term, but the analytic platforms and tools Data Scientists use to do their work must become easier to use, as Papaioannou described, if Big Data analytics is to become attainable to the average enterprise in the here-and-now.

So while Papaioannou wouldn’t divulge just what his new start-up Continuity is focused on, my bet is that is something in the application and analytics layer of the Big Data stack rather than the infrastructure/plumbing layer. That’s where the real action is.

Papaioannou had a lot of other great insights, including his take on the Big Data vendor landscape, so definitely check out the full interview (below) if you didn’t catch it live. Also, check out our new pub DevOpsANGLE.

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

A Perfect Match: When Big Data Met Node.js is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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Launching today, Tailored offers custom recommendations for brides-to-be based on their taste, budget and wedding planning needs.  Part of the 500 Startups collective, Tailored represents a well-represented initiative that’s at the bleeding edge of entrepreneurship.  In today’s Snapshot Series interview, Morgan discusses her latest launch, the best thing about being a girl in tech, and her secret indulgences.

How does Tailor.co (Tailored) differ from Weddzilla?

Tailored is the only place where brides can find and collect inspiration, browse wedding products selected just for them, create lists of their favorite finds, and share their picks with friends and family, all in one place. Tailored gives brides personalized shopping recommendations based on their taste, budget, and wedding planning needs. Tailored is where content and commerce meet.  All items that are shared on Tailored can be purchased. No more gathering ideas for items you like and then having to track down where to go to purchase those items.

The best thing about being a female tech entrepreneur?

Oh… that’s a toughie!  Not to sound cheesy, but I love being a female entrepreneur so it’s difficult to narrow it down to what the “best” of being a woman founder is.  I love being able to bring a different perspective to the table.  As the founder of Tailored.co, I think it is a real asset to be able to understand the mentality of the female user, what her pain points are, what problems we can help solve, and use this insight to learn how we can become invaluable to her during her shopping and wedding planning experience.  I also love the idea of being different… I don’t think I fit the stereotype of a what a “tech founder” is supposed to look or be like… and I love that.  In my opinion, women entrepreneurs are setting out to change the tech landscape for the better, and I love being a part of it.

Editor’s note: see more on Morgan’s views of females in tech here.

What recent trends have paved the way for Tailor.co’s personalized approach?

Discovery and personalization is what the web is all about. Static directories and traditional storefronts are old school. People want a customized shopping experience that is tailored (pun intended) to them, and to not waste time or energy sifting through hundreds of products or services to the find the one thing they are looking for.

Personalizing a user’s shopping experience online is something that is extremely valuable in the wedding space as wedding shopping is an extremely thoughtful, personal process for brides.

With Tailored and some of your past projects, you have to anticipate users’ needs. What’s “balancing the future” mean to you?

Anticipating users needs is key to building a successful company. If you aren’t anticipating your users needs, someone else will be, and you never want to be caught behind the eight ball.  If you want to be able to best anticipate your users needs, just go straight to the source. Watching how your users behave on your site, analyzing which features they use most (or least), and keeping customer service core to your company mission, will ensure that you will always know your audience better than the competition. Industry trends and predictions are helpful, but always make sure that no one knows your users better than you do and anticipating their needs will become second nature.

Let’s get personal!

What’s the view from your office/desk?

We are currently working out of the 500 Startups office in Mountain View and we are on the 12th floor. It’s the tallest building in Mtn. View and we’ve got the whole floor with a 360 view of Silicon Valley. On a clear day, you can see all the way to San Francisco… so I’m not complaining. It’s going to be hard to find an office space that can compete with this once we move our after Demo Day  :(

What’s your secret indulgence?

Well, it isn’t that secret but I am obsessed with sushi… and gum. Honestly, I could east sushi every day of my life and go through a pack of gum for desert I also love a good mani/pedi with the latest copy of Us Weekly Mag in my lap.

What’s your go-to host gift?

I would have to go with wine! I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t like a good glass of red… so I feel like it is a safe bet.

The Best View from Mountain View: Why Tailored CEO Loves Tech Girls is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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What is this indicator?

I noticed a pattern in the least successful startups we’d funded: they all seemed hard to talk to. It felt as if there was some kind of wall between us. I could never quite tell if they understood what I was saying.

The successful startups didn’t need to be told more than once.

The startups that do best are fire-and-forget in the sense that all you have to do is give them a lead, and they’ll close it, whatever type of lead it is.

… the most immediate evidence I had that something was amiss was that I couldn’t talk to them.

Has Mr Graham truly found a way to identify failing startups? — or has he merely discovered a problem with his communications abilities? And isn’t this then a flaw in Y Combinator’s raison d’être? That it can’t teach startups to do what they need to do?

After all, the founders that get it would probably do well anyway — it’s the others that need the help that Y Combinator says it provides.

[Cross posted at Silicon Valley Watcher]

Capiche? Y Combinator Finds a Key Metric for Success is a post from: SiliconANGLE We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

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