Those who follow my cynical posts about over-inflated social site valuations know that it’s hard for me to agree with numbers. I giggled when Facebook hit $70 billion before going public at much higher. I stared in disbelief when Google offered $6 billion for Groupon then realized that I had to be in a persistent dream state when Groupon turned them down. I cringed when I heard that Digg wasn’t taking a rumored $200 million offer four years ago or the subsequent $80 million offer two years ago before selling off at $500,000 last year. I coughed a little when Instagram sold for a billion dollars, then…

The days of “focus on what you’re good at” are behind us. It’s no longer adequate for businesses to stay isolated and let technology get built around them. They want to get involved. Starbucks, for example, is in the business of coffee, but that didn’t stop them from investing $25 million in Square, a mobile payment company. Will it help them make better coffee? No. Will it potentially improve their bottom line by streamlining the way that many customers will be able to buy their coffee at 7,000 US stores? Maybe. Partnerships and agreements are not always enough, though. In the past, there would have…

Getting a local investor is as hard and rare as it gets.  Miscalculating the amount of money and time taken to make a video game can tick off any investor that you might have, and it’s not anything new for me, I have seen that kind of situations many times before. For a foreign investor, you need to: Do your homework, create a good demo, prepare and document the various information an investor needs. Create a decent portfolio that shows you have experience. If wanting to pitch for a game, you should have at the very least multiple tech demos and preferably smaller games in your portfolio. Also, find…

Update: According to Business Insider, Arrington is no longer employed by AOL. This changes the stance of this article a little, but there still remains a conflict of interest with or without a job for the publication. AOL, which owns Techcrunch, has invested $10 million into Arrington’s CrunchFund. That along with Arrington’s statement about “friends” (see below) means that he believes he will have more influence with his friends at Techcrunch than if he were even writing for them. * * * Tech Journalists and venture capital investors are two different people. Just as food critics should not…

Each year, college students drop out of universities, men and women leave their jobs, and people of all ages begin setting up shop in their basement or garage with one purpose in mind: to pioneer the company of their dreams. Getting a new business started sometimes means investing large sums of money, and when entrepreneurs don’t have the cash to make their visions a reality, many turn to venture capitalists. …