I was at a meeting at Voyager capital yesterday and was talking to Geoff Entress and Bill McAleer. Photos enclosed. Bill and Geoff -- and myself are middle aged white guys. Both Bill and Geoff can come across as straight and narrow. Somehow the conversation turned to best concert [...]
I got this email from one of my readers and just had to share it with all of you:
When I was about 13 or 14, I decided I wanted to run a web hosting company out of my bedroom (I had a successful BBS back in those days and wanted [...]
There's a lot of talk about "be persistent" in traditional business literature self help books. And the advice is sound -- but the meaning is often missed. It's easy to say "be persistent" but being persistent at the point when it matters is really freakin hard. I was reminded of [...]
Charlene Li is one of the great analysts in the technology sector. Read about her and her company here. I just read her tweet:
"Wanted: Your vote on the best title for my next book, takes 2 minutes. Thanks! http://bit.ly/18l7oE"
I clicked the link and it brought me to a [...]
A 25 year old MBA student called me from MIT. I'm always happy to help an alum. She had already demoonstrated the ability to do a little bit of research and reach out to people and introduce herself. I told her that's a good skill to have. My career advice' [...]
Damn. I haven't written a post all week. Just been swamped with work -- I'm glad it's Friday but another entrepreneur told me they hate Fridays because it means the week is gone. That's how I'm feeling today.
I co-teach a class on entrepreneurship at University of Washington. Yesterday's class was on social marketing. I'll make the following anecdotal observations:
Craigslist still rules in my opinion -- hands down it's the most impressive company next to google online. 30 employees and over 100MM in revenue from approx 5 cities.' [...]This is a simple program aimed at start up addicts who find themselves in their company that is not meeting up to their expectations.
Admit you have a problem Figure out if the problem is you or the market (or both) -- Note: you can't change the market just your approach and' [...]It's been almost 2 years since we sold Judy's Book for a loss. Recently, I've been reflecting upon the experience with the benefit of hindsight and of time.
In the past, I've already blogged here about mistakes I made at Judy's Book : the failure of aggressive customer [...]
I got his update from one of the CEOs we're invested in. I thought I'd share it with all of you. e
It is always funny to me that in the startup world we have a tendency to measure our success and our failure by the minute. It's a bit like being a parent [...]Below is a story I told to 2 aspiring entrepreneurs in the Founder's Co-op portfolio today:
I used to swim in high school. I had a coach, named Mark O'Reilly, who had been my swim coach since I was 7 years old. I swam competitively -- I was a back stroker' [...]
This question was presented to me by Typepad -- the blog platform that I'm still using even though I know I should switch to wordpress.
I'm playing with the Typepad new user interface and one of the things they offer is a question of the day to inspire a post. These [...]
I'm wondering if other people are considering tweeting as a viable and attractive alternative to blogging. In the last 30 days I've found the experience of tweeting to be easier and more engaging than blogging. I'm still blogging but the thought of just tweeting is attractive to me. In the' [...]
I met wtih a young entrepreneur this morning who is trying to answer this very question. And he's trying to do it quickly. The business has about 100K in cash, is burning about 20K per month, and is broadly in the marketing services for twitter space. He's closed a couple [...]
Entrepreneurs here the word "no" more often than not. The entire experience of entrepreneur is figuring out why people say no, and getting them to say yes. That includes customers, investors, and employees. When people say no to you, it's an opportunity to gain understanding as to what exactly they're' [...]
I fell in love with Craigslist while I was operating Judy's Book. This site (and Google) are the reasons that the newspaper industry is failing today. I remember talking to someone at the NYT and they were asking themselves how do you compete with "free". If you're' [...]
It's funny to have just written a post about Cooler Planet being 2 years old and to think about my wife and I being 15 years old. Alexa and I got married in 1994. I had just graduated from MIT business school and was starting my first internet company. The [...]
I went out last night with Tom Staples and Danny Vo of Cooler Planet to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the company. We had a lot of fun ....and a few tequila shots at Joey's In Seattle. It was fun to look back at the history of the company [...]
I was recently reminded of the time when I was in my twenties and worked on financing abuzz (purchased by NYT in 1999). I used to freak out about every step of that companies financing. I was calling all the vcs every day as if they had nothing better to [...]
My mom spams me on a regular basis. She doesn't know it -- but that's what she does. She's on all sorts of mailing lists -- inspirational, comedy, photos, and videos -- and she feels compelled to share it all. I love my mom but she hasn't quite figured out [...]
This is a comment I wrote on Tech Flash in response to the recent Ignition bashing (be sure to read the comments section to get the full discussion)
I've actually worked with Ignition Partners and lost some of their money when I wasn't able to get Judy's Book to a [...]
We've become huge fans of weekly updates by our entrepreneurs. Not all of the entrepreneurs are doing this yet....but in time I expect (*hope) all of them do. The weekly updates have the following benefits:
Require the entrepreneur to process their thoughts and their progress toward goals regularly. Assist investors who' [...]I attended the Tech Flash ping pong tourney and BBQ on Thursday. It was a great event. I was a bit unlucky in my ping pong draw -- my bracket had the odds on pre-tourney phenom "nam le" (sp?) in it and in my first and only game I [...]
I think there's going to be a group of companies that emerge that are considered twitter white, gray, and black hat. There's a whole ecosystem developing around twitter that's going to be fascinating to watch. I've been watching with great interest the evolvement of microblogging, real time search, and' [...]
This is my new favorite daily order at the high end convenience store across the street from Founder's Co-op. I just ordered it for lunch again and the order gave me a smile. It made me think "am I a big tuna?!" and it also made me think about [...]
I thought this graph was interesting
[...]I was recently asked this question by a reader of my blog -- and thought it was such a good question that I'd ask all of you.
My initial answer -- "I don't know" was accurate but insufficient. I think that this past year is going to be perceived as [...]
I was talking with Tom Staples of Cooler Planet about a recent realization he's had about our SEO and SEM strategy. Tom made the declaration at a recent meeting that he wants to focus on "Solar Energy" as one of the main key words for the company. It is [...]
I thought this was interesting.
[...]I have no intention of writing a book. This blog is as close as I get to being a writer. However, I do feel qualified to write a book. If I were to write a book, it might have one of the following titles or themes:
The guerrilla entrepreneur's guide to [...]All entrepreneurs face the moment(s) when they must assess the feedback from customers, the market, investors, employees and people in general as to whether their idea is worthy of becoming a profitable self-sustaining business or weather it's just a futile fools errand. This question comes up more frequently in the' [...]
There's a lot of business books and traditional business mythology around creating win-win situations. Frankly, I believe in that approach myself and generally take the long view on my work relationships. However, the world is filled with assholes -- and business in particular, seems to give people the license to' [...]
Chris and I have been talking about some of our portfolio companies. We came up with this insight (i.e. the title of the post) today in one of our meetings -- and I thought I'd share it with you. A number of the companies are innovating on standard business models.' [...]
I asked one of our developers if he was going to attend the Amazon web services conference. I thought the agenda looked interesting. He told me that if he worked at a big company --he'd be pitching his manager on "updating his skill set" and being "current on market developments"' [...]
I have a friend, Jay Haynes, who has been talking to me about the value of customer research in the process of new venture creation. He talks about how valuable detailed research is into minimizing the risks of building something new that's tragically flawed. His blog is here. I think he's more right [...]
I had a conversation with a new start up yesterday that is innovating in the recruiting industry. I asked them how many of the customers that will pay them money they had spoken to in developing their product. I can't remember whether the answer was one or none but I' [...]
I heard this comment today at breakfast and thought it was an appropriate metaphor. Facebook is a place where your friends feel welcome, where neighbors and strangers can take a peak but don't trespass, and your more adult toys and bad hapits are out of view. Just like your front' [...]
Just got back to the office after a long memorial day weekend in Providence. I started Brown University in 1989 as a computer science major. I finished Brown in January 1990 with a BA in religious studies -- affectionately known as an 89.5er. It's trite to say, but those four' [...]
I'm going to let you in on one of my secrets. Food works. As my mother used to say -- "if you can't beat them, feed them". And she did that well -- she was a master of sweets. Growing up, we had a cupboard of Hostess twinkees and suzi [...]
I had the pleasure of taking Friday off and spending Thursday night and Friday with my daughter. We had a great time. We went to the Great Wolf Lodge outside of Olympia, WA. It's a destination resort -- part of a chain of indoor water parks. We had a [...]
Pretty funny...read it all here
Lundeby, known online as "Tyrone," allegedly had progressed into selling his services as a threatmaker, charging schoolchildren from across the country $5 apiece to place threatening, Internet-based phone calls that would cause administrators to shut down their schools, Wired News reports.
I commented earlier this week on how well Marcelo Calbucci publicized the Seattle 2.0 awards event. Well, no wI want to comment on the event itself.
Simply put, the event was excellent. Why? Because.....
Below is a portion of an email I got from Marcelo Calbucci today. It's basically a primer on buzz building using social media and SEO. I've been totally impressed with Marcelo's efforts as he has created Seattle 2.0.
No -- this post isn't me paying Marcelo accolades because I'm' [...]
Comedies are my favorite genre of movie and this movie is my winner of the year. It's almost as good as Meet the Parents and better than Knocked up and 40 Year Old Virgin. I won't tell you anything about it yet....just go see it.
The following was written by a good friend -- it is good advice (author to remain nameless).
What makes entrepreneurs special and successful is how they navigate tough situations. It’s the hidden “barrier to entry” for many start-ups and entrepreneurs: not everyone has what it takes to take the real risks necessary to be [...]
2 steps forward, 1 step back.
Today was one of those days. One of those days that you realize why business is synonymous with work. It felt like each of my projects had a little misstep or crack. Just ordinary course of growth but nonetheless made for a kind of [...]
I recently was talking to a friend of mine about Cooler Planet and he asked me some very simple questions about the business like:
Who is your customer? What's their buying process like? What's the market size and your market penetration? What's your renewal rate?The questions were simple and the answers --' [...]
Given the downturn in the economy, experience and leadership win more. Given that every company I know is tightening their belt and trying to do the same with less -- experience in prioritization and in belt tightening is more important than in growing markets. The danger of entrepreneurial missteps is [...]
I've had three entrepreneurs ask me to sign NDA's recently. As an entrepreneur, everyone knows that NDAs really aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I occasionally used them with big companies, as a means of communicating to the big company that I cared about the value of our intellectual [...]
In the last year, the introduction of three distinct worthy sources have filled my regular reading on seattle's tech news. I think that TechFlash, Seattle2.0, and xconomy have worked in their own way to fill a void that existed a year ago that doesn't exist today. Nice [...]
Knowing when to sell and at what price is one of those questions that doesn't get talked about very much. In the game of business, success is measured by dollars. It makes sense that people are motivated by selfishness and "greed" and the general desire to improve one's financial standing. [...]
As an entrepreneur -- and now as an investor, I've been reminded lately about filtering one's deals with a heavy emphasis on likelihood to close. Why? We all have big deals that might move our company and fund(s) into the neon lights of prime time -- but I've learned that' [...]
You can buy flights from SEA to SFO for $39 if you're booking two weeks in advance and can fly on Tuesdays. And there's wifi on the plane. That's awesome and deserves some blog love!
' [...]A friend of mine -- Steve Hirsch -- started a new company called All Advertising Agencies . It's an interesting start-up with a good deal of potential. If you're looking for an agency of any kind -- check it out.
[...]To simplify things, there's two parts to making a business -- or more accurately two sides to the same "business" coin. One part is vision and the other part is execution. You need both. At times in my career, I've been struck by the value and beauty of one side [...]
Last night, we had a founder's co-op LP meeting. The meeting itself was good. There's been good progress in the portfolio. After the meeting, about half of the LPs went out to dinner and that's where the real meeting occurred. It's amazing what a little food and wine does [...]
It used to be that release of beta, hire of a VP, or first 100K eyeballs were milestones in the life of a high tech company and in the eye of investors. They showed progress. Today -- these events are just that events. They are not events on the way [...]
This interview made me so impressed with John Stewart. I was mildly impressed that Jim Cramer didn't get totally defensive and seemed to handle the interveiw better than most.
If you haven't seen the John Stewart v. Jim Cramer video -- it's a must see. Here's a little vintage Stewart [...]
I got a number of comments from entrepreneurs about the last post. Here are 2 of them:
In my previous job (management consulting) I thought I knew aggressive. I was wrong! Now I’m starting to get it. And I’m starting to get how critical it is. That advice has really stuck with me [...]I saw an entrepreneur that i had met a year ago for coffee this morning. My advice last year was to get "fucking aggressive" about customer acquisition. He was a nice young guy fresh out of business school. When I gave him the advice -- I recall he looked at [...]
I was speaking with a friend of mine this weekend. His situation is as follows:
He runs a business that a year ago was doing 3MM in revenue with almost 500K in ebida. The business was growing 15+% per year. He bought a big commercial building for 4MM and has 2.5MM [...]If a year ago, an entrepreneur was hoping to raise 3 million at a 6MM pre-money valuation. Today, that very same entrepreneur should divide by 3 on both the money raised and the valuation. That same deal would be a 1MM raise at a 2MM pre-money valuation -- as a [...]
This is from a French newspaper, of all places: Goldman Sachs paid $600,000 in cancellation fees to move the event from Las Vegas to San Francisco.
[...]I bought my 2007 Prius for approx $28,500 in July of 2007. About 3 weeks ago, I skid on some black ice and ended up taking the Prius 4 wheel driving -- unintentionally -- of course. In case you were wondering, Prius don't do well when driving off road. I' [...]
My mom called me this morning to let me know that her heart was doing better. In the scheme of all the bad news in the world (primarily financial) -- this was a welcome bit of good news. Theres' no question that being healthy is a great gift. Knock on' [...]
I spent last week on vacation with the family at Tamarack Resort, Idaho. We had a fabulous week. Because the resort is new, a bit hard to get to, and in financial trouble, the mountain was empty. In fact, about half of the runs over the week, I didn't' [...]
