The term 'venture studio' is pretty loosely defined, and could mean anything from a development shop to something that looks more like a venture fund.
I started one (micro.com) after exiting my startup, but I'm still not a fan of the term. It makes the startup process sound soul-less. I'd like to think we're building something more akin to an 'art studio' than a 'factory'. There's still some magic to the early days of a startup and getting the right founding team in place. Incidentally, YC, as the preeminent accelerator, has gotten this right to edge out other ones.
From my standpoint, I enjoy early-stage company building, have been operational in starting and scaling a startup very recently, enjoy the dynamic of co-creating, going-to-market and scaling with a co-founder or two (with a fair split), and working across a small portfolio.
Happy to trade notes on this or connect if you're a builder, email in bio.
Spin | http://spin.pm | Mobile (React Native) Engineer | San Francisco, CA | FULL-TIME, ONSITE
[Note: I'm a 2x YC alum, one of the co-founders. It's been a wild ride for us over the past few months since inception, and we're looking to build out a great engineering team. All 3 co-founders have software engineer backgrounds. We're focusing on recruiting on React Native and backend, but happy to connect with anyone interested. Ping me direct: [email protected]]
Spin is the nation's leading stationless bikeshare company. We help people move around in cities and campuses by offering an accessible, affordable, and environmentally-friendly mode of personal mobility. Our fleet of orange-colored smart-bikes, each equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, solar panels, foam tires, and a dynamo front light, can be unlocked by scanning a QR code on the Spin app. At the end of a ride, users can park Spin bikes anywhere responsible.
With Spin, cities and campuses get affordable and equitable bikeshare with no public financing. Spin covers the cost of bikes and maintenance, and employs people from the local community for operations.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016, Spin has raised an $8M Series A to launch operations in dozens of US cities and campuses this year. The core team is comprised of engineers, designers, operators, lawyers, and public policy makers with experience from Y Combinator, Uber, Lyft and other technology companies.
I've always believed this. More bikers on the road creates more awareness from drivers, and also more investment by cities into bike infrastructure, including dedicated and protected bike lanes.
More bikes available also means more bikers, something we're working on at Spin for US cities. Get in touch (email in profile) if this seems like a problem space interesting to you :)
Spin | http://spin.pm | Software Engineers | San Francisco, CA | FULL-TIME, INTERNS, ONSITE
[Note: I'm a 2x YC alum, one of the co-founders. It's been a wild ride for us over the past few months since inception, and we're looking to build out a great engineering team. All 3 co-founders have software engineer backgrounds. We're focusing on recruiting on React Native and backend, but happy to connect with anyone interested. Ping me direct: [email protected]]
Spin is the nation's largest stationless bikeshare operator. We help people move around in cities and campuses by offering an accessible, affordable, and environmentally-friendly mode of personal mobility. Our fleet of orange-colored smart-bikes, each equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, solar panels, foam tires, and a dynamo front light, can be unlocked by scanning a QR code on the Spin app. At the end of a ride, users can park Spin bikes anywhere responsible.
With Spin, cities and campuses get affordable and equitable bikeshare with no public financing. Spin covers the cost of bikes and maintenance, and employs people from the local community for operations.
Founded in San Francisco in 2016, Spin has raised an $8M Series A to launch operations in dozens of US cities and campuses this year. The core team is comprised of engineers, designers, operators, lawyers, and public policy makers with experience from Y Combinator, Uber, Lyft and other technology companies.
Hello HN, Euwyn here, president and co-founder of Spin. I'm 2x YC, our CEO Derrick was formerly at Lyft, and our CTO was at Disqus (YC 07). I helped to start this company in part because of my own personal annoyance with the design of "station-based" bike-share systems. Who thought that having to _find a station_, then think about whether your _destination_ had a station close-by was a good idea?
We just had a huge launch in Austin at SXSW, and just announced a deal with the City of Austin. See:
We're hiring for everything (city GMs, ops, engineers, GR, etc), and love hearing from people who are passionate about having this in their city. We're particularly interested in hearing from folks in SF, where we're based, where the City is considering a measure that would hamper station-less bike-share systems.
Hello HN! I'm Euwyn, one of the co-founders of Spin (also, 2x YC alum). We're excited about bringing the dock-less bikeshare model to our home city of SF.
I've lived in SOMA for years, and have always wanted to bike around, except: (a) it was always a hassle to deal with a bike after going around town, because I would inevitably end up Uber-ing somewhere after my first stop and (b) my bikes would get stolen :(
Would love to hear any questions you guys had about the business, and look forward to you guys riding our bikes soon.
ps. If you want to follow along or have any questions about Spin or startups in general, I'm 'euwyn' on Whale and Snapchat.
Hi HN, I'm one of the co-founders (also 2x YC alum). I'm building this with my good friends Derrick and Zhuang, who have also previously worked at YC startups. As the TC article mentions, we're rolling out a "dock-less" on-demand bikeshare in SF, to provide a convenient and cheap last-mile transportation option. I live in SOMA and have owned a couple of bicycles, both of which proved very useful but were (a) a bit of a hassle to retrieve after moving around the city via Uber etc (b) stolen.
p.s "euwyn" on Snapchat or Whale, if anyone has questions. Or here too, I'll be checking the comments today.
There's an element of "not missing out", but for many investors (especially angels, who do not invest professionally), there's also elements of: (a) wanting to co-invest with friends and (b) trusting the judgment of people they know well.
Discussing files "in-line" is a pretty natural way to collaborate. This should have existed a long time ago, and is a natural evolution of workplace collaboration tools. Bravo, Amium team.
I started one (micro.com) after exiting my startup, but I'm still not a fan of the term. It makes the startup process sound soul-less. I'd like to think we're building something more akin to an 'art studio' than a 'factory'. There's still some magic to the early days of a startup and getting the right founding team in place. Incidentally, YC, as the preeminent accelerator, has gotten this right to edge out other ones.
From my standpoint, I enjoy early-stage company building, have been operational in starting and scaling a startup very recently, enjoy the dynamic of co-creating, going-to-market and scaling with a co-founder or two (with a fair split), and working across a small portfolio.
Happy to trade notes on this or connect if you're a builder, email in bio.