British Airways parent company finally got back into the black in 2013, presumably benefitting from an increasingly favorable global economy. They certainly were not benefitting by their own policies as I unfortunately found out recently. I’m writing this post in the hopes of gaining an explanation for why BA would behave so stupidly. Here’s the quick summary: A few months ago I purchased tickets from BA that were basically two round trips (one inside the other). The BA website priced them for me at the lowest available fare that included the normal fare restrictions around changing the tickets or getting a refund (changes would incur a fee and there were no refunds – got it). The disclosure on their site…
Posts By / seth levine
Camp DevOps! (at Gluecon 2014)
One of the big uptrends in technology is the rise of DevOps. Whether your organization is a large enterprise or a fledgling startup, DevOps can help. We have seen this first hand in many of our portfolio companies and the market in general. This is why we are excited to be working with Eric Norlin and the Gluecon team and DevOps.com in bringing Camp DevOps to Boulder on May 20th. Camp DevOps is a follow up to the successful DevOps conference we help host last fall here. That conference was very well received and we think Camp DevOps will be even better. Held at CU Boulder Atlas building, it is a full day chocked full of DevOps. There will be…
The 4 Keys to a Successful Angel Investment Strategy
With the increasing popularity of angel investment sites such as AngelList and CircleUp more and more people are making investments. I love this trend and have a longer form blog coming on the subject – which I think is massive positive force in the startup ecosystem. But this post is much shorter and to the point. I often get asked what my thoughts are on angel investing. Here are what I think are the 4 keys to a successful angel investment strategy: 1) Take a portfolio view of angel investing- put aside a pool of money and plan to make 10 or more investments. One-offs simply don’t make sense in this market (too much alpha)2) Be willing to lose all…
Just say NO to that large fundraise
I wrote a post a few years ago about using your lack of funding to your competitive advantage. The basic gist was that all businesses act within constraints and that the discipline that can result from having less money that a competitor – if you embrace it – has the ability to sharpen your focus, avoid the temptations of distraction and be more thoughtful about how and when you spend the precious cash that you have. I was reminded of that post recently when engaged in a debate about how much money a company should raise. The knee-jerk reaction is often “as much as they can!” And while that might sound satisfying, it’s often not the case. At Foundry we’ve…
Entrepreneurship behind the wall: A trip to Palestine
If you’ve been a reader of my blog for any time you’ll know that I’m intrigued by (and a big fan of) the notion of The Democratization of Entrepreneurship. It’s not that I think entrepreneurship solves all the world’s challenges, but I deeply believe in the notion of entrepreneurship as a catalyst for positive social change across the globe. It’s a powerful force and we’re seeing more and more examples of entrepreneurs creating real change around the world, community by community. Late last year I had the opportunity to spend a week in Palestine working with entrepreneurs and traveling in the region. It was part of my work as an advisor to Sadara Ventures – the only Palestinian focused venture…
Betting for a cause this SuperBowl
I’m a big football fan and, despite not having grown up in Denver, have been a fan of the Broncos since I was little (my grandparents lived in Denver and my sister and I spent a month every summer here with them – my Grandmother’s passion for the Broncos rubbed off on me at a very early age). So, of course I’m excited that they’re in the SuperBowl (again!). This has lead to the inevitable side bets with friends in Seattle. If the Broncos prevail I’ll be eating some fine Seattle smoked salmon while watching pictures of my friend Cory sporting the latest in Broncos paraphernalia (among a handful of personal spoils for their victory). But my most important bet…
Act Like A Leader
Act like the leader. Simple advice but I see companies not do this all the time. You’re the leader in this space – act like it. Don’t be ashamed, bashful or defensive about it. This doesn’t mean beat the “we’re the biggest player in town” drumbeat all the time. It means leverage that fact and all that goes along with it to do things that the industry leader does – highlight customers, talk use cases, get more press, hold a user conference. Act big. You define the game. You are the leader, you set the rules, you define how the game is played. Don’t react. Smaller (ankle biters) can sometimes bate you into being reactive. Avoid this temptation. Stay above the…
Trada Update
Companies rarely grow in a straight line (or the fabled exponential one). Building a business isn’t about getting from point A to point D by passing through points B and C. There are fits and starts. Amazing discoveries and heart wrenching realizations. Huge highs and low lows. Trada – which has built a large crowdsourced marketplace for search optimization – has been through its version of this crazy growth curve over the past 5 years. We’ve learned a ton and along the way have delighted a large number of customers. But we’re having one of those non-linear moments at the business and came to the realization that we needed to shrink to grow. So we took the harsh medicine and…
SaaS Nomenclature
This has come up a few times so it seemed worth putting out there. It’s important to get a consistent set of terms when talking about your business. For example when you say sales do you mean booking or revenue? When you talk about revenue do you mean recurring or total? Is churn net of upsells or is an upsell a new sale? If bookings are the total contract value of everything you sold in a period, how do you normalize for different contract lengths? Are renewals counted in bookings or broken out separately? However you do it, just be sure to be both consistent and clear about what each term means. Below is something I’ve used for several of…
Is the cost of starting a business less than zero?
There has been a well documented and discussed deep decline in the cost to start a technology business over the past ~ 15 years. From the days where every website was custom and each site element was a de novo build to today where virtual servers are easily and cheaply spun up and down and where frameworks exist for just about every feature and functionality that you could imagine building, the cost of starting a tech business has gone from $5-$10M to maybe $50k or less. It’s a remarkable trend and one of several key factors driving the Democratization of Entrepreneurship. But is it possible that the cost of starting a tech business has fallen to less than zero? In…