Princeton University Computer Science Department

Computer Science 448 Innovating Across Technology, Business, & Markets Jaswinder Singh

Spring 2013

Writeup #3 - Submit

For this writeup you will assume you are the CTO of a startup out of the portfolio of Union Square Ventures. You can get a list of their investments here. You will identify a company that you believe is in a good space/market as a startup, but should be exploring some opportunities that it's not exploring right now. The opportunity could be on the product side, business side, technology side, etc. You will then write a memo to the Board of Directors, as the CTO, explaining:

• What is the current core business/value-addition of the company? (brief)
• Why the company needs to explore this new opportunity within their current space? (can talk about technology trends, new ideas, etc.)
• What are the engineering challenges involved in exploring the new opportunity? (this part has more importance)

In other words, you'll use the "pattern matching" skills talked about in class and try to match some upcoming product/business/tech opportunity with a technical solution within the current focus area of the company.

Obviously, you don't have enough information about USV's portfolio startups to really discuss engineering challenges in detail. We recommend you to get as much information about their technology as possible and then base your discussion on whatever information is available e.g., you can just try using the service/company as a user and get a feel of their technology or try reading their blogs or search the web for information. Feel free to ask questions about this.

This writeup is due after the class in which Fred Wilson (USV) is giving a guest lecture. It will hopefully help you to ask better questions during his lecture. Also, depending on the quality of your submissions we may send 0 or more writeups to Fred. We will obviously ask for your permission, if your writeup is selected.