Archives / February, 2008

We’ve announced four initial Foundry investments (Lijit, Memeo, Oblong and Zynga) – in press releases by the companies, on our personal blogs or on the new Foundry web site.  Truth be told, we’ve made a fifth investment which we’re not talking about much.  That’s because it’s in "stealth" mode (shhhh).  There are varying degrees of stealth, ranging from companies that won’t tell anyone what they are up to, to companies (like the one I’m referring to)that don’t have a web site and haven’t made any announcement of their business intentions or funding but aren’t hiding what they are doing in daily industry conversations, etc.  This stands in stark contrast to companies (such as Path 101), which are all buy live…

There are a couple of very key dates in the history of Foundry Group.  The day when Brad, Chris, Jason, Ryan and I actually formed the legal entity that is Foundry . . . the day last fall of the first close on our first fund, Foundry Venture Capital 2007 . . . the day shortly thereafter when we held our final close of that fund . . . and today – the day we’re launching a real web site.  www.foundrygroup.com is now up and running and is much improved from the brochure-ware site we had as a stand-in during fundraising.  We think it represents our collective personality well with a front page blog, links to ask questions at askthevc.com…

Dacher Keltner (Psychology prof at Cal) has written a fascinating article that describes some of the important attributes of leaders.  He discusses these attributes in the context of obtaining and maintaining "power" – really leadership if you’re reading the article from the eyes of a VC or entrepreneur.  The title of his article refers to the fact that the attributes necessary to obtain positions of power and leadership are the very attributes that tend to be eroded by those positions themselves (i.e., once people obtain power, they tend to lose it by acting in a way that is antithetical to the reason they rose to that position in the first place).  Reading the piece through the eyes of a VC,…

This post is going to sound like an infomercial except this is 100% true and I’m not trying to sell you anything.  About 8 months ago my doctor told me that I had high cholesterol (242 in total) and that it needed to come down or he wanted to put me on a statin (Lipitor, or something like that).  Apparently cholesterol runs in my family (my dad and sister both have high cholesterol) and despite eating pretty well and being in descent shape, mine was high too.  I’m completely against the use of statins for someone like me (see this Business Week article for a good summary of why – I’ve done quite a bit of additional research online that…

In case you’re looking for this season’s latest VC styles.  Note that Brad’s "treadputer" made the cut.   Hat tip to Jason for sending this over

Regular readers of my blog know that I’m a big fan of deliberate action.  And while I’m not a huge "make a daily list and check the items off" kind of guy (since like many VCs I’m somewhat scattered in my day to day work) I’m a huge fan of regularly checking in against a set of explicit goals or outcomes.  To that end, I like to make myself a quarterly list of large "to-do’s" for each of the companies with whom I work.  These aren’t general things like "talk to XYZ CEO more often" – they are specific outcomes for each company that I’m trying to drive towards.  They range from "Hire a banker to sell the business" to…

I hate failing.  But in the world of venture capital it happens – and on a somewhat regular basis with between 1/5th and 1/3rd of venture backed companies failing to return capital invested (see a great Union Square Ventures post on the subject here). It’s an excruciating experience. While the actual “failing” part generally happens very quickly the “leading up to failing” part takes forever.  Typically the company goes through a handful of rounds of layoffs and pay cuts.  A sale process is initiated to find a buyer for the business and perhaps an investment banker is hired.  If the company has secured creditors (like bank debt or an equipment line) there are endless calls and negotiations to try to…

I have no idea why Fraser, CO (our adopted 2nd home) would want the tag-line "the icebox of the nation" given its focus on outdoor activity (its next to Winter Park, has a great fishing stream running through town and has miles and miles of back-country skiing, hiking and cycling trails).  But apparently that is indeed the case.  Fraser has been involved in  long legal battle with the city of International Falls, MN for rights to the coldest place in the US.  Yesterday, International Falls won out (it really is colder there!).   INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. – International Falls is officially the "Icebox of the Nation." The city on the Canadian border had been fighting the ski town of Fraser,…

John pointed me to a Peter Ireland blog post and asks whether VCs really do co-opt businesses on a regular basis – investing with a plan to replace founders and bring in their own management. "[S]ounds kinda scary," he writes, "the thought that a ‘clever’ VC could take away one’s company just like that…" Scary indeed.  And while founding CEO’s are certainly replaced in venture backed businesses, it’s significantly overstated to say that "in about 50% of instances where an early stage company actually succeeds in raising venture capital, the founder CEO is fired within the first year". Before I get into this, however, I feel compelled to remind you that you really should not be taking venture capital in…