this is cool (and a nice endorsement), but our belief is that true killer applications will be multi-platform (which may include Glass's future competitors). We see Glass as a natural extension of the mobile web, not a closed garden by itself. Glass applications need to be able to tie into the lives we (and our friends) are already living. Given the adoption curve of most (non-Apple) tech gadgets, it's difficult to see Glass-only applications achieving sustainable revenue for their creators, which in turn makes it difficult to see this Glass fund as anything other than outsourced R&D - as in "let's have devs throw spaghetti at the wall and buy the ones that stick". Not much wrong with that, I just didn't think it was a16z's style. don't get me wrong: we love Glass, are spec'ing out multiple Glass-ready projects, and can't wait to get our hands on our dev units, but we believe sustainable businesses must be built on more than one pillar. If you decide to take the myopic approach, just be aware that your startup becomes but one roll in someone else's roulette game.
Funding Innovation Through Google Glass
11–13 of 13 posts
Re: Funding Innovation Through Google Glass
#12[deleted]
Re: Funding Innovation Through Google Glass
#13"We don’t publish independent contact information for the Glass Collective because we’ve learned that it’s difficult to sort through the noise that comes through an open email alias. Good opportunities get buried and we miss them." Sounds like an opportunity for someone to solve this problem.
No, because the commonly held belief of many investors is that entrepreneurs need to be savvy to succeed and an example of that would be figuring out how to reach them either, "directly, or through our friends and associates," with the latter usually being the preferred.
I could see how that might be much more difficult for startups based outside of the United States but since they are currently looking to invest domestically this is a pretty good method of filtering.