This Week in Startups - Video

LAUNCH Ticker News Flash brought to you by Bing! Microsoft will get great handsets for its $7 billion purchase of Nokia. Now what it needs are the great apps, and ecosystems to draw users to Windows Phone and Microsoft's mobile space. With $68 million in total cash, and a $264 market cap, Jason Calacanis suggests that Microsoft take a page from Marissa Mayer's book. Buy tons of apps, develop them in Android and iOS, and start rolling out features on Windows first. Use those great teams (and all that cash) to build the business.

Jerry Colonna knows the high highs and low lows that confront entrepreneurs. As a VC, he gave Jason his first job, and saw the successful exits of an array of dotcom startups, including Geocities. After the bubble burst, followed shortly after by 9/11, Jerry entered a deep depression. He left the VC world, and now coaches founders and CEOs. Some common themes? Loneliness, fights with cofounders, troubled relationships. Want to keep a level head? We asked him to share the top five mistakes founders make, and how to avoid them. He even gave us a bonus answer! Watch this great episode for his sage advice.

LAUNCH Ticker News Flash brought to you by Bing! Samsung is set to announce its smart watch, likely called Galaxy Gear, Sept 4 in Berlin. Meanwhile, Apple is said to be working on an iWatch with a late 2014 release date. Jason predicts that 1 in 10 iPhone users will buy an iWatch. Plus, how a smart watch will stack up to Google Glass.

Online learning, in the form of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, has become a massive business. At the university level, there's EdX, Udacity, and of course, Coursera. One of Coursera's cofounders, Daphne Koller, is a computer scientist at Stanford, who until recently, was best known for her research on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Coursera, however, is about human learning. The platform makes classes at the nation's top universities available online, to anyone, for free. Students can earn certificates, and the company is working toward translating those certificates into course credit, that can be transferred into degree-seeking programs. In the meantime, with keyboard biometrics and detailed logging of each click, Coursera plans to use its troves of data to better understand how people learn. Within 5 years, Koller says, Coursera will have the curriculum of a medium to large university. From LAUNCH Education & Kids, check out this fantastic interview.

Lynda Weinman bought the domain lynda.com in the mid 90s, when she was teaching herself web design. Fast forward through writing how-to books, and a classroom education program in Ojai, California. Today Lynda.com is an online resource with video-based courses, millions of registered users, and over $100m in late stage investment. The videos aren't free, but Lynda has never raised prices above $25 per month. And the company has been profitable every year. From her garage to a 12 acre campus with a 100 person sales team, Weinman shared her journey at LAUNCH Education & Kids.

Mitch Kapor fell in love with computers in 1966, even before they were using binary. He developed some of the first spreadsheet software, Lotus 1-2-3, became friends with Steve Jobs, went on to help found the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and now funds startups that work to fill critical gaps in society. In a conversation from LAUNCH Education & Kids, Kapor reflects on half a century in tech, the role tech leaders play in a era of NSA intervention, and the value proposition of college.

Shopify wants to make ecommerce simple and cheap. In the early 2000s, founder Tobi Lutke was trying to sell snowboards online, but the barriers to entry were enormous. He created his own cloud-based software, and like a lot of entrepreneurs, ended up abandoning his original snowboard shop idea. He now has 60,000 companies that use Shopify as the backbone for their online retail operations. From Shopify's base in Ottawa, Canada, Jason talks to Tobi about the future of retail, why BestBuy will die, and his ambition to become one-stop-shopping for every interesting product, the stuff that doesn't come with a barcode. Plus, the story of his stunt recruitment day at IBM, as they announced layoffs at their Ottawa facility.

Yelp closed at $51.51 Thursday, up 23%, and nearly double its IPO price after better-than-expected earnings. Jason discusses its strong mobile showing, and how Facebook's successful turnaround in ad revenue is rubbing off on other mobile-heavy products. Jason predicts that the road forward for Yelp will include: going head to head with restaurant-booker OpenTable, getting into delivery, and eventually closing transactions for on-demand services, a la Uber.

Brian Wong, in many ways, is like other entrepreneurs: ahead of the curve. Really far ahead. Wong graduated from college at 18, and moved from his hometown of Vancouver to the Bay Area, where he got a job at Digg. At the same time, he was getting his own forward-looking business together. Kiip (pronounced "keep") builds rewards into mobile apps. Brands like Disney, Amazon, and Pepsi partner with Kiip, so when users complete a puzzle, or a rate a show, they gain access to discounts and other rewards. In an age when everyone's trying to make money from mobile, Wong shares his story. Plus, what it was like trying to get with college girls as a 14 year-old freshman.

Google had two big product launches this week: an upgraded Nexus 7, with a mega high resolution screen. And the instantly popular, $35 HDMI dongle they call Chromecast, which turns your tablet, laptop, or smartphone into a remote to project videos, photos, and more onto your TV. What will the next iPhone look like, and how effective will iOS7 be? From Kite to combat mosquitos, Tile to find your keys, or BarEye to order drinks from your phone, the panel votes on the launch of the week. Ryan Block, VP of Product for AOL, and Slate tech columnist Farhad Manjoo join us in a special roundtable from WeWork Golden Gate in San Francisco. Plus, from electric supercharger stations, to scanned mail, to groceries delivered to your doorstep, Jason, Ryan, and Farhad share their favorite services of the moment.

The Internet of Things concept has been around a long time. But with a central communication hub, open-source platform for developing apps, and devices that communicate with that network, SmartThings is making it a reality. Founder Alex Hawkinson explains how, we could arrive home, have the garage open, lights come on, and get alerts about everything from plumbing problems to an opened gun case, right on our smart phones. Plus, how he raised over $1 million on Kickstarter.

It was a huge week for earnings, and a disappointing one for Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Google backed away from its nearly-$,1000 share price. Microsoft shares sank on a $900m writedown of its Surface tablet. And at Yahoo, despite page view gains, revenue was down. Meantime, Tumblr is putting porn in the search ghetto. The NSA disclosed it looks up to "3 hops" away from a suspected terrorist. And straight hookup app Tindr launched for Android. Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily and Rafat Ali of travel news startup Skift join us for TWiST's news roundtable.

A good product needs great design, as Yves Behar knows all too well. The August smart lock is just his latest in a long line of projects. He designed One Laptop per Child's XO Laptop, Jawbone's iconic bluetooth headset, and the dance party-starting Jambox. This is must-watch on the huge role that design plays in your company, your product, and innovation.

Tyler Crowley is back from Sweden! He joined Dalton Caldwell, CEO of App.net, and Jason to discuss Microsoft's reorg, Yelps' new delivery service, Dropbox's move to become your always-on hard drive, why Facebook Graph Search & other FB products suck, the SEC allowing startups to say they're raising money, the latest on NSA leaks & more.

Live-streaming events has gotten easier thanks to hardware and software solutions from companies like New York-based Livestream, which Max Haot co-founded in 2007. He and Jason discussed the old-school TriCaster vs Livestream's box, how YouTube's move into live-streaming worked out for them, why we haven't seen a 24/7 live internet broadcaster yet, how Livestream is working with local TV news stations, when we'll be able to broadcast directly from DSLRs and more.