Tom Foremski: IMHO. Real Dan Lyons Web Site » Blog Archive » PanderDaily is funded by the very VCs whose startups it aims to cover. What could possibly go wrong? » Real Dan Lyons Web Site. Here’s my new business plan: I will get Google, Samsung, HTC and Motorola to fund my Android blog. I know it seems like a glaring conflict of interest, but is it really? I mean, really? Okay, it really is a conflict of interest. It really, really is. Seriously, if anyone reading this knows Andy Rubin, call me up. BTW, if you think this is not what every investor in PanderDaily (and CrunchFund, for that matter) was thinking when they wrote their checks, I have some very nice real estate in Florida that I’d like to talk to you about.
Richard Branson on Managing Your Business, Employees and More. Why I Go To CES. Every year my partners at Foundry Group and I go to CES. We aren’t boondoggle guys – our expeditions together are limited to a quarterly offsite, often at Jason’s house (10 minutes from our office), and one trip a year with spouses and significant others somewhere. So CES has been a nice tradition for us where we get to travel together for a few days, hang out in nerd and gadget heaven, and spend time with a bunch of entrepreneurs we work with who are here. There were two memes going around that I heard about CES earlier this week. The first came out of a set of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley who said something like “CES is irrelevant – no one important is there and nothing interesting gets launched.” I found both of these comments bizarre since we don’t view CES through either of those lenses. Next, we don’t actually search for new investments at CES although we tend to have some interesting meetings with folks who happen to be here.
Top Five Regrets of The Dying « smart=sexy. For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. 1. This was the most common regret of all. It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. 2.
This came from every male patient that I nursed. By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. 3. Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. We cannot control the reactions of others. 4. Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. 5.
Life is a choice. Counterpillar. Why Aren’t There More Female Entrepreneurs? I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. On my blog I’ve been hesitant to take the topic head on. Somehow it seems kind of strange for a man to answer this question that obviously comes from a man’s point of view. But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts?” [it's short, you should read it] . In it she observes that only 3% of the comments on this blog are from women. I would love to see Tara follow up with blog posts on: why she believes this is the case & what we can do about it. The truth is I have been thinking a lot about the topic, I just haven’t been writing about it. She also does a WONDERFUL 9-minute collage of the best-and-brightest in our industry talking about the topic.
My inspiration to become an entrepreneur came from my mom, not my dad. I love my dad equally, of course. But then the truth sets in. Back to women. Cluttered desk = famous desk | enough is enough! Meet San Francisco Chronicle reporter Benny Evangelista, who writes about his messy desk appearing in the upcoming thriller “Contagion.” It might have made an appearance because it’s in a central location in the newsroom, Evangelista writes, but it’s also “Hollywood’s stereotypical idea of a reporter’s desk.”
It is, he notes, “in a perpetual state of clutter. I like it that way.” I’m not so sure about that. In the photo accompanying the article, I can the desk’s surface. I’ve worked in newsrooms for 14 years, and there’s always been at least one reporter like Evangelista in every newsroom. I’ve never been a believer in the idea that a messy desk is a sign of genius. But I’d never hold reporters to my organizing standards. They’re expected to produce material daily, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for filing and tidying.
And the newsroom culture values constant productivity. Like this: Like Loading... Journalism and the social media revolution. Jolie O’Dell of Mashable at “Journalism and Social Media.” Last night I attended a nice gathering at the San Jose Mercury News, organized by Social Media Club Silicon Valley, called “Journalism and Social Media.” The organizers put together a powerhouse panel made up of: • Kym McNicholas, anchor/reporter, Forbes Video Network. • Jolie O’Dell, reporter and editor, Mashable • Chris O’Brien, business columnist, San Jose Mercury News • Julie Watts, award-winning consumer reporter/anchor, CBS5 • Brian Shields, online news manager, KRON 4 I got a few nice photos in this Flickr set, though in general did a poor job with the settings on my new Canon 5D.
(And a disclaimer: I’m friends with several of the panelists.) And much of the discussion was intriguing and noteworthy, if thematically scattered. For instance, it was fascinating to hear Jolie O’Dell, the social media rock star who’s a journalist with Mashable, take down the recent trend toward opinion-driven news reporting. A few highlights. Misadventures in VC Funding: The $24 Million Moz Almost Raised. Lauren Barnard. When do VCs make mistakes? - Passionate Intensity. Lately, entrepreneurs reading the VC press have been seeing investment announcements that leave their mouths agape. Press releases featuring giddy investors justifying nosebleed valuations have sent them scrambling to the lucky company’s website to figure out what product, team, and idea could possibly be worth that much.
All this leads them to an overwhelming question: “WHY would anyone want to BUY that, much less finance it?” Let me tell you, VCs often have the same reaction. We too ask similar questions adding “WHO would fund this?” VCs’ thinking, in many ways, is more like that of a startup than like that of our larger cousin — private equity, who focus on the hard facts and the math behind the investment. Venture Capital, despite the colloquial taxonomy, is not just a “cool” branch of finance.
Since VC is as much about feelings as it is about logic, sometimes, we make bad bets. In B2C, …when we don’t understand the consumer. So, how can we try to avoid these mistakes? If History is any Guide, You’ve Got Two Years. If you look to the past as a guide to the future, or if you believe in the cycles of history, then I think you have two years. Two years to get enough funding to last for some time beyond then.
Or, two years to get either bought or go public if you’re far enough along with your company. What gives us the confidence to make this prediction? It’s what we’re seeing in the market and what we’ve seen by going back and looking at the tech cycle as a potential guide to where we are today. It started for me with the taco truck… What’s so special about the taco truck above? Our sense is that we’re back to what in effect feels like 1998, and have at least two years of good times for entrepreneurs ahead. To begin with, the number of U.S. startups receiving financing on a quarterly basis is on par with what we saw in 1998 as well as when the startup ecosystem was expanding in the 2006/7 timeframe.
U.S. Source: Thomson Reuters (2Q11 figures incomplete) How I’m Using Google+ It’s hard to believe that Google+ is barely over one week old. Already, it is the most vetted new social media platform to be yet introduced and it also self-evident that G+, as insiders call it, has pushed its way into the very top tier of social networking. Way back, on July 1 or so, there were only two major social networks–Twitter and Facebook. Now there is a Big Three of social networks. In my view, this is disruption at its best. With extremely little fanfare and zero marketing hype, Google introduced G+ to a small circle of respected social media enthusiasts, who cautiously told others they liked it. Others, adapted, and well you know how these things go, when they go right and G+ so far has gone very, very right.
For me, my greatest challenge was to decide just how I would use G+. I’ve decided to keep my circles relatively small–at least for now. I also have a 90-member Acquaintances circle, made up of people I generally know, but not quite so well. Use it. An ode to independence from Facebook. Happy Independence Day! Continuing an age-old tradition, we patriotic Americans spent the weekend stuffing our faces with hot dogs, staring at firework explosions in the sky and spending a little quality time with family and friends, all to celebrate the day this country declared its independence. But, over the past week, I’ve been celebrating my own unique brand of independence: independence from Facebook. To understand what I’m talking about, you have to know a little back story, most importantly that I’m finally back on Facebook after having deactivated my account for a couple months.
“Wow,” I remember thinking after reactivating. “Has it really only been two months?” Total disconnection, a dark cloud of nonexistence, separation from the closest family and loved ones, the fog of not knowing when or where or why you’ll meet your friends, an unfortunate lack of happy drunk chats with long lost elementary school buddies at two in the morning and all for what? So, why did I do it? Oh well. Community Manager Says What? | Evan Hamilton on Community-building. Note to entrepreneurs: Your idea is not special | Entrepreneurial. – Brad Feld is a managing director at the Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm Foundry Group. He also co-founded TechStars and writes the popular blog, Feld Thoughts. The views expressed are his own. – Every day I get numerous emails from software and Internet entrepreneurs describing their newest ideas.
Often these entrepreneurs think their idea is brand new – that no one has ever thought of it before. These entrepreneurs think their idea is special and magic. The great entrepreneurs are already focused on the implementation of their idea. Google? The products and their subsequent companies became great because of execution. Rinse and repeat, over and over again. It’s awesome when an entrepreneur is obsessed with his idea. Sure, they tried, but they didn’t obsess about it, pour all their energy into it, and most importantly get as many great people as they could on the journey with them.
@StacyZapar's Blog. Kate Scott. Harvey Gotliffe, Ph.D.: American Idle. I have no desire to be a teenager again complete with a face full of zits, a changing voice, sweaty palms around members of the opposite sex, and always wondering why. Perhaps I have been resurrected because I still wonder why. For instance, why is there such an emotional clamor to find out who the next "American Idol" will be? I wasn't the least bit concerned with the results, much less cared who was competing, but wondered what the fascination was that caused bloggers, mainstream print and broadcast media, and breathless pubescent children to get so concerned with the matter.
When James Durbin, a barely twenty-two-year-old Santa Cruzan, didn't make it to the finals, our local and regional media still went ballistic in its coverage. Even in defeat, a May 15 story in the San Jose Mercury News noted that 30,000 fans (short for fanatics) cheered his homecoming, and the reporter noted "the event is likely to linger in Santa Cruz's cultural memory for a long time. " Rebirth of the Wristwatch: Forget Tablets and Smartphones, I Want A Micro Computing Device Strapped to My Wrist.
Four years ago I noted that even before the recession hit wrist watches were dying. Who needs a wrist watch when every device you carry with you tells the time? I personally have not worn a wrist watch in 5 or 6 years. Most people I know who wear a watch wear one because its a habit and the watch has sentimental value or they wear it as a fashion statement. They don’t wear it because they need a watch to tell time. Smartphones nearly delivered a death blow to the wristwatch but I’m starting to think that after it’s near death experience, the humble wristwatch could come back to topple the tablet and smartphone itself. But with the adoption of (NFC) Near Field Communication, smaller and smaller computing devices, Bluetooth, and advances in speech to text and text to speech, I’m starting to see a not so distant future of computing devices that I would love to strap to my wrist.
There is a lot of functionality on your smartphone that you don’t need a screen for. Mozilla Firefox. Super LP (www.superLP.com) Uberdata: The Hidden Cost of Cabs. What up humans?! Bradley Voytek here bringing the #uberdata back! The last post was a nice warm-up. This time I’m not pulling any punches. It’s about to get real. This is the post I’ve wanted to do since I first started here. You see, most of the time we here in the uberoffices are pretty happy. We’re happy because we’re building something that makes all of you happy. Which got me to thinking. But how does Uber really compare to cabs? Seriously, when was the last time someone from a cab company helped you out after you tweeted about a bad cab ride?
So a few weeks ago I started digging a bit. What I found was pretty amazing. tl;dr version: Cabs are slow, unreliable, and frustrating. In this post I explore the hidden cost of cabs and weigh those costs against our performance data. To start, let’s look at some numbers for cab dispatch times. 27% of cabs show within 15 minutes63% of cabs show within 30 minutes How do those cab pick up times compare against Uber’s? What’s that?! Good job guys! NYC's Top VC Fred Wilson Fails To Avoid Media Spotlight. Posted by Tom Foremski - April 18, 2011 AdWeek reporter Dylan Byers published an interesting profile of Fred Wilson, the New York City based venture capitalist. NYC Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson Is Rich and Grumpy | Adweek It's not a bad profile, I learned some things I didn't know. But Mr Wilson declined to participate in the article, instead, he wanted AdWeek to write a profile on one of his startups.
AdWeek declined. It's a strange situation because Mr Wilson is not a shy person. He regularly publishes on his blog AVC: Musings of a VC in NYC and also includes personal details about his family and his musical tastes. Yet when AdWeek came calling, he didn't want anything to do with the article and prohibited his colleagues from talking with the magazine. It's understandable that AdWeek would be interested in profiling Mr Wilson because he is a very successful VC who is also outside Silicon Valley -- something that's exceedingly rare.
Enterprise Infrastructure – What we are working on at Lightspeed in 2011. Who Has Time For This? Disconnected in a Hyper-Connected World. Thyroid Cancer- “You Are Cured” | A Mama's Blog. Startup Boy. The Internet is forever | 13 hours to think. Do You Really Communicate, or Do You Just Tweet? | The Way of theMurr. Twitter PR chief unfollows journalist after unflattering article. Anjelika. Mei Mei Fox » Home. David Rose on Enchanted Objects & Storification. Thoughts on breaking into VC. Startup Culture: Values vs. Vibe | ChrisMoody.com. Anatomy Of A Pirate. Will there ever be a shake-out in the Venture Capital industry? A Wealth of Woman-Founded Startups, from a Twitter Shout-out. The Maverick Palate. Tami Smith - Tami Smith | Gallery. Almost Savvy. How much seed capital should you raise - bijansabet.com. 5 Predictions for the Public Relations Industry in 2011.