StartupHoodlum

They say that choosing your venture capital firm is like getting married.  Well, after a bit of flirting, Likealittle (LAL.com) officially proposed to Andreessen Horowitz… and they said yes.  (Our videographer was out sick, but the scene looked similar to this).

Our team just closed a round of funding of a little over $5 Million from a16z.  We are excited to welcome Jeff Jordan (whom numerous top entrepreneurs have described to me as “the top operator in the valley”) to our team and are honored to be his first investment/board role at Andreessen Horowitz.

We moved around some things in the Hacker House and have offered for him, his wife, and his kids to move in if they’d like.  We are eagerly awaiting his (expected positive) response.

Ultimately, our decision of what firm to work with was easy.  Andreessen Horowitz is disrupting Venture Capital.  In only two years, they have established themselves as the top firm in the valley.  I like to surround myself by people who have already done what we are trying to do: create and grow a revolutionary technology company.

Marc, Ben, John, Scott, and now Jeff (they need to add some names that are a bit more unique!) have all been immensely helpful to us even in the short few months that we have begun working together.

Marc, in particular, has become a close friend, advisor and personal mentor.  Our first meeting resulted in a 6 hour, Scotch-induced jam session, to discuss our theories on life and we have since shared countless creamery milkshakes and email conversations at 4am (he is also on the Hacker House daily schedule).  The rest of the a16z team has been similarly accessible and helpful.  These guys know how to add value to companies that want to go big.  They are the future of VC and we are excited to work with them.

Jeff knows how to scale an organization as good as anyone in the world.  After leading a multi-billion dollar public company (Opentable) and being head of Paypal and eBay’s business units, he has learned a thing or two.  Most exciting, he knows how we can grow, but still keep our hacker culture that keeps us so productive.

We are still in just the first quarter of the game and know we have a long road ahead, but we have the right team and resources to go out and win.

Our company vision is the same today as it was when we launched the original likealittle.com: To connect people who are near each other.  These resources simply help us accomplish that goal faster. In the past 6 months, we have brought together the top hackers and designers in the world to the LAL team and are looking to continue to bring together the world’s elite.

We have exciting developments coming very soon.  To add yourself to the LAL VIP list and be the first to test out our new products please click here.

You can also follow us on twitter or become a facebook fan.

Thanks for all your support,
evan
(email me anytime: e@lal.com)