sutton020

I've just read on TechCrunch that Peter Thiel, famous among other things for making one of the best investments in the history of mankind by investing in Facebook in its early days, said that he looks for platforms that are big among small businesses, not consumers. I couldn't agree more. Although there are of course plenty of exciting and profitable opportunites for consumer Internet startups, my main focus over the last three years has been on companies that provide a product, service or platform to small and medium-sized businesses. Some of the reasons: Consumer startups often (not always) need enormous scale in order to become profitable. This is particularly true for advertising-supported businesses where the ARPU (average revenue per user) is very low. That means that you need to raise a large amount of capital, and because it's usually a winner-takes-it-all model, you have to expect a "digital" outcome – either it becomes a big hit or you lose. There's...

On November 17, The Europas will be held , an annual awards for the Internet scene in Europa. My partners at Team Europe and Point Nine Capital and I are nominated in a few categories, so if you still need some inspiration on who you could vote for, here you go! BTW, I feel bad about leaving a two months blogging hiatus with a self-serving post...but anyway. ;-) . A lot of the nominees are rallying people to vote for them, and the award is of course self-serving even for the organizer, TechCrunch Europe, which is encouraging all nominees to add banners and backlinks to their websites. So I'm in good company. But all joking aside, The Europas is a great event which features some of the best startups in Europe and celebrates entrepreneurship, something we can't do too much in Europe. Now without further ado, here are the categories that we're nominated in: Best European Startup Accelerator (Team Europe) Best VC of the Year 2011 (Point Nine Capital) Best exit 2011 (Brands...