Why Andreessen Horowitz Invested in Foursquare | Hacker News Reader

Why Andreessen Horowitz Invested in Foursquare

bhorowitz.com

42 pointsjayliew13 comments

Foursquare is one of the few startups that I actively dislike (because they are responsible for much more noise than signal). At least in my mind, their brand represents some of the worst "Web 2.0"-era narcissism.

Their growth is certainly impressive, but I really wonder how useful Foursquare will be, outside tech enthusiasts living in big cities.

"Dislike" is a strong word. You may not find much use for it. But in ways, I agree. I especially hate all the "I'm here" status updates in my twitter feed. Maybe I'll change my mind when I finally get a smartphone, but until then it seems useless.

I have a smartphone now, and foursquare still has a terrible signal/noise ratio. What I wish is a service _like_ foursquare to come along that does the auto-checkin and broadcasting of location to your selected list of private contacts. I don't want to check in and see what people are up to, I want to be notified when people I like happen to be near me.

It still seems like a small feature to be added to a phone, rather than a complete startup company to me though.

Any android phone with location information has it -- it's called "google lattitude", but as far as I can tell it just broadcasts your location to EVERYONE.

I don't dislike it (I don't participate in it either), but I agree that these types of services have a long ways to go before they are adopted by the masses rather than just the tech community.

But hey, it is a huge market. Once it appeals to the non-tech crowd it could be big.

I think there's a lot of interesting/useful stuff you can build on top of location-based service like Foursquare once enough people actively use it.

I've always thought that Foursquare's initial check-in game is more about this bootstrapping phase: how to make Foursquare even remotely interesting, when none of your friends are yet using it.

I've seen tons of startups that have cool ideas, but that require dense graph of active users to work. They rarely have good ideas how to get to that phase. I think Foursquare has been a super-clever using game mechanics in the initial phase.

I was explaining Foursquare to my non-techie but multiple-restaurant-owning brother last week. The location based check in and social aspects made him think it was neat, maybe something he'd try.

When I explained mayorships and how 4SQ is really a universal customer loyalty rewards system, he got excited.

Why do I feel that #2 is the most important thing on this list? I'd imagine that any VC firm would invest in a company that is "growing faster than Twitter did", no matter who the CEO was or what the specific market was.

From all of my experience with VCs, they are primarily driven by usage graphs that go up and to the right. Traction seems to cure all ills.

I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.

There's nothing wrong with expecting results.

I don't get Foursquare from a users' perspective, but the possibilities of location-based marketing make it a no-brainer investment from a business standpoint. Their situation is the inverse of Twitter searching for a business model, if that makes sense. Foursquare just needs to figure out how to appeal to "normals" and they will be golden.

I'm wondering why Foursquare as opposed to any of their other competitors? Other than numbers, how does a VC choose between Gowalla & Four Square (assuming they're give both as options)

I think FourSquare has a unique concept. A lot of people find it attractive enough to use it regularly. Add to that a good team, and I think Andreessen Horowitz's investment is going to pay off quite well for them.

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