business plan

Exclusive: Ning Is Being Shopped Around at $150M Price Tag

Kara Swisher in Social on August 2, 2011 at 11:08 am PT

Ning — the high-profile social networking platform co-founded by Silicon Valley investor and icon Marc Andreessen — is for sale, said sources.

Appolicious Signs Partnership to Integrate With Yahoo

Kara Swisher in News on April 21, 2010 at 3:23 am PT

Although serial entrepreneur Al Warms sold his start-up to Yahoo and ultimately left the Internet giant to launch a new one, he is coming back a bit via an interesting partnership. Warms’s Appolicious is aimed at encouraging discovery and social networking in the mobile apps market. Now it will carry Yahoo’s brand at the top of its site and be surfaced throughout Yahoo’s news, sports and other powerful media properties.

Wham! "Firewire" on WSJ.com's "Digits" Show: Here Comes the iPad, and When Will Twitter Make Money?

Kara Swisher in News on March 27, 2010 at 11:49 pm PT

BoomTown’s plot to take over the world via honking big Skype headphones is working. Barron’s blogger Eric Savitz and I will be appearing weekly on Fridays on the WSJ.com’s “Digits” daily online tech show, in a segment called “Rapid Firewire.” This week’s topics: Apple, Google, Twitter and Radio Shack.

Chatroulette Dude: I Don’t Want to Sell. But I’d Like Google to Pay.

Peter Kafka in Media on March 12, 2010 at 7:21 pm PT

Meet Andrey Ternovskiy, who built the voyeur/chat site everyone loves to talk about. He’s too young for AdWords, but old enough to play hard to get with investors.

Twitter Turns Fire Hose on Little Guys

John Paczkowski in Social on March 2, 2010 at 5:19 am PT

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are no longer the only ones drinking from Twitter’s fire hose of real-time data. On Monday, the company granted seven real-time search and discovery ventures access to it as well.

Voices

Should Start-Up Founders Forget About Business Plans?

Scott Austin, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on December 14, 2009 at 5:00 am PT

This past summer, HubSpot Inc. received several offers from venture firms to invest in the marketing software start-up. The company wasn’t looking to raise funding yet–it still had about $5 million left from a $12 million Series B round in May 2008–but rather than wait, HubSpot decided in October to accept $16 million while it was still on the table.

Jeff Bezos, Spark Capital, Bet on Aviary, a Web-Based Would-Be Adobe

Peter Kafka in Media on October 25, 2009 at 9:00 pm PT

Last week, Jeff Bezos made $2 billion in one day, courtesy of a massive spike in Amazon shares. That gives him more money to plow into the likes of Aviary, a Long Island-based company that makes design software. The Amazon CEO has made a second investment in the company as part of a $7 million round led by Spark Capital.

Intuit Acquires Mint for a Mint [CONFIRMED]

John Paczkowski in News on September 14, 2009 at 7:09 am PT

The TechCrunch 50 hasn’t even begun yet and already it’s making news. Online personal finance site Mint, which took top prize at the event in 2007, has evidently been acquired by Intuit. Price: A reported $170 million.

Twitter Business Plan Count-Up: Snuggie-Tweet!

Kara Swisher in News on March 6, 2009 at 6:46 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown decided to start a new “Twitter Business Plan Count-Up” because the fine folks over at the hot-as-Alabama-in-July start-up were taking too long to do so. Oh, they’ve been promising for a while to deliver the financial goods, but Twitter still has a devil-may-care attitude toward its lack of revenues. (Who do they think they are? General Motors?) Thus, my next idea: A Twitter-branded device and fleece blanket outfit that you wear and that vibrates every time you get tweeted.