Gaming Changing the Game It started with an argument. A few actually. Not too long ago in Canada (The Great White North): There I was, knee deep in production schedules, forecasts, casting descriptions, and drafting scripts for a few video games in my role as VP of a gaming studio. We’d just launched
Theatre Discovering stories that Matter. Jamie stood in the centre of the room, examining the dusty walls as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Where she stood had power. Power for challenge, expression, questions and connection. These were no ordinary four walls. > This was a theatre. This theatre could be anywhere. One of
blog Matter has launched in NYC! The New York Times joins Matter, Google News Lab supports our space, and we welcome 12 new media startups into our community.
Media From Steve Grove of Google News Lab From the moment I started talking with the team at Matter [http://matter.vc], I was impressed by their vision to build an independent accelerator focused only on early-stage media startups. There didn’t seem to be anything else quite like it out there. As I joined the group of
Startup No Plan, Best Plan Four years ago I found myself about to jump out of an airplane (with a parachute) in the middle of the Namibian desert, after I thought I was just going to spend my day at the beach. During a year at sea with an experiential education school called Class Afloat
Entrepreneurship The “Drunken Walk” of the Summer Intern “So what are your summer plans?” …The dreaded question for any college student, second only to inquiries about post-college career aspirations. Most students must either fabricate an impressive-sounding façade for bumming around at the beach or be prepared to explain precisely how their internship will translate to real-life skills and
Startup The Ripple Effect We are proud to announce that Matter Ventures has made a fifth non-accelerator investment, in Ripple [http://ripple.co].co! The city-focused news platform powered by local journalists and storytellers has raised $4M in funding to tackle hyperlocal news discovery through a combination of location technology and a contributor community.
Media What IS media, anyway? What is media? At Matter [http://matter.vc] we ask ourselves this question a lot. Entrepreneurs ask us this question a lot. It’s led to fascinating discussions with our partners and mentors. It’s the question that comes up time and time again at the talks we give about
Startup 300 Pitches Top highlight You have been working tirelessly for weeks, months, maybe over a year, and after submitting your application to Matter’s accelerator program, you’ve been asked to come in and pitch. You walk into a conference room and there are 2 people sitting at a table. There’s
Startup How to know you’re ready to leave ‘traditional’ journalism for the media startup world Top highlight Motherly’s Liz Tenety and Jill Koziol listen to feedback from panelists at a Matter Design ReviewThe upcoming deadline for the sixth class of Matter, a design thinking accelerator for early stage media companies in SF and NYC [http://matter.vc], has me thinking about all the reasons
Apple What Matters Next: Creativity is Just Connecting Things It’s cliche to look to Steve Jobs for inspiration in the tech and investing worlds. This inspiration typically shows up in turtleneck-rich wardrobes, unconfirmed fealty to design, and, way too often, being cruel to subordinates. This has made my own predilection to draw lessons from Jobs increasingly difficult to
Accelerator Don’t set goals — prototype them During the Matter accelerator program [http://matter.vc/program], the goal all our entrepreneurs work toward is the same: Demo Day. The path to get there varies team to team, but the core is common: at the end of the 20 week sprint, they will present the culmination of their
Startup The next chapter in The History Project’s story The History Project [https://www.thehistoryproject.com/], the Matter Four startup that creates rich digital narratives through interactive timelines, has just added another prestigious investor to its list: The Associated Press. AP joins The New York Times and Matter Ventures [http://matter.vc] in backing the Oakland-based company’s $2M
Entrepreneurship Defining Change Media for Good Across three years and 49 startups, Matter, its teams, mentors, and partners have worked to “change media for good”. Like the rest of the team, it’s why I joined. It’s what we’re passionate about. It’s what gets us out of bed. It makes us feel like
Leadership Feedback is a gift. Top highlight I come from a world where there’s almost no time for reflection. In the hurly-burly of the TV news cycle [http://rebeccabowring.org/portfolio], barreling from one breaking news event to the next, there’s rarely the opportunity to really dissect “how it went.” Sometimes we’d
blog Build Matter NYC with us. We pulled it off in record time. In just 13 weeks, Matter [http://matter.vc/] expanded to New York City, built out a new space on Union Square, and launched our first bi-coastal accelerator class on June 13. We selected 6 NYC-based startups and 6 SF-based startups for our intense
Startup The Real Value of Acceleration Top highlight The signals are everywhere — press, macroeconomic indicators, and investment activity itself — that a new crunch is coming: raising a Series A round is already difficult [http://firstround.com/review/what-the-seed-funding-boom-means-for-raising-a-series-a/] and is about to be even more difficult for the vast majority of early-stage startups. Even those with
blog Get ready for Matter’s 100 Days of Summer. With a bigger Matter team and simpler application process, the dates are now set for the next Matter class. Are you in?
Entrepreneurship Meet Nikita! Top highlight Matter is the kind of special community and place that compels someone to quit their first job out of college in 6 months. Of course, by someone I mean me. Three years ago, I was a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill with strong opinions about what I wanted to
Media When 2 become 6. Top highlight It’s a well-kept secret that, until very recently, Matter has been the work of just two full-time individuals, punching well above their weight. For most of last year, Corey and Lara were running so fast and relentlessly that they didn’t even have time to interview candidates
Web Development How we built Known We’ve got some exciting new things in store for 2016 that solve real problems for both higher and corporate education. We’ll discuss this in a future post on the Known blog [http://stream.withknown.com]. First, though, I wanted to take a step back and explain the technical
Startup Looking Back At Matter Lots of memories and post-its in this place.When we began our journey with Matter, either 19 weeks or a lifetime ago depending on how you measure time, we knew nothing — especially not how little we knew. That only became apparent over time, as each passing day brought crucial lessons
Startup 7 minutes on 2 coasts. Matter’s Managing Partner, Corey Ford, kicks off Demo Day SF.Even if we do say so ourselves, Matter Five’s Demo Day in San Francisco was a roaring success. After a week of intense rehearsals, our teams delivered confident and compelling pitches. Live demo after live demo went off