Matt Levine’s latest Money Stuff column does a good job explaining why a lot of smart people are trying to figure out a market-making model for homes (see companies such as Opendoor): People want to apply the market-making model to homes. This makes sense. Buying… Read More
Back in 2006, Paul Graham penned an essay about how to be Silicon Valley. Since then, it seems like every city on the planet has tried to replicate the successes of the Valley. At the time, his argument was pretty simple. Geography used to be… Read More
Matt Levine’s most recent Money Stuff article is classic Matt Levine. It is both entertaining and informative. This one is on WeWork – the coworking startup that has committed to 14 million square feet of office space around the world and will have $18 billion… Read More
Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times published an article this morning about Opendoor – a startup that I have written about multiple times on this blog – called, The Rise of the Fat Start-Up. (His definition of “fat” is that the startup owns lots… Read More
My friend Bruce of getrefm.com (real estate financial modeling) just introduced me to a new real estate startup called Envelope. Basically it’s 3D mapping software that allows you to quickly visualize the zoning envelope for a particular site. It’s similar to what Flux.io was initially trying to… Read More
Yesterday it was announced (here, here, and here) that Toronto-based Top Hat has raised $22.5 million (USD) in Series-C funding. The round was led by New York-based Union Square Ventures. I am always excited to see Toronto-based startups doing well and I am particularly excited… Read More
Snap Inc. (Snapchat) nailed the launch of Spectacles. I want a pair. If you haven’t been following, it all started with a pop-up vending machine in Venice Beach. But like Snapchat itself, it was an ephemeral installation that eventually disappeared, moving on to Big Sur,… Read More
A new “transparent offer platform” called Haus has just launched in California to serve the residential real estate market. The way it works is that all offers are submitted online. And once an offer has been confirmed, it – along with all of its terms –… Read More
If any of you are in the business of creating – whether that’s a mobile app or a building – I’m sure you understand that the product or thing you’re working on will naturally evolve and change over time – probably in unexpected ways. In… Read More
About 9 months ago I wrote about a new startup called Urban Engines that was trying to improve urban mobility by using big data to optimize transit usage. Last Tuesday the app launched in 10 cities across North America. So if you’re in Boston, Chicago,… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 