It turned out that the solution to my iMessage problem was relatively straightforward. That said, it only worked because I still had my old phone (it hadn’t been stolen; I hadn’t traded it in; etc.). It also worked when doing things like going to Apple’s site and deauthorizing my devices didn’t (which I still don’t understand). So the problem I pointed out really is a serious bug. But for me, I had the phone and the solution (as a few people suggested in the comments to my post) was as simple as disabling iMessage on my device. Apparently this triggered a reset on the Apple server such that messages sent to me were no longer being routed through iMessage, thus…
Posts By / seth levine
I’m getting sick of the bullshit
I love the start-up world. I love working with founders and young companies. I love the excitement of working on business ideas that are new and different. I love seeing the success that often comes from this hard work. I’ve never before in my professional life seen a time of such innovation and creativity. At Foundry we see more business plans now than we ever have. And what’s more, more of those business plans are really interesting (and fundable). It goes without saying that I love the business of venture capital. I love helping entrepreneurs work on their ideas. And I love helping companies figure out how to become as successful as possible. I love the challenge of trying to…
Apple’s secret iPhone lock-in feature
If you’ve been following my twitter feed you’ll know that about a month ago I finally made the switch from AT&T to Verizon (brief conclusion: what took me so long? from my experience this month, the VZ network is vastly superior). At the same time I decided that I’d give Android a real try (I’d played around with it in the past, but never adopted it as my primary device). Enter the Galaxy Nexus. The slightly over-sized, slightly too much of a battery hog, but generally pretty well executed device from Samsung which at the moment is the only Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich (for those of you wondering why I didn’t just get another iPhone, the quick answer…
Let’s agree to disagree
Is there much disagreement in your company? I’m not talking about where to head for lunch – I mean real, passionate, fundamental disagreement on product, marketing, operations, etc. I hope so. Even more so the earlier you are in your business. Running it is a messy business. There are tons of decisions to be made and each decision is amplified by factors such as your short runway of cash, new competitors entering the market and new team members joining your company. So a healthy amount of disagreement and discourse is not just a good thing, it’s inevitable. In fact I’d venture to say that if there’s not disagreement at your business, you’re not encouraging enough debate and people don’t feel…
2012 Planning / Working Together
It’s been way too long since my last post. I was going to jump in with a post on not blogging, but thought better of it. Better to actually do than write about whether to do or not do. So much for my resolution to write/blog more this year… Hopefully this was just a January hiccup with too much travel and work to fit in regular blogging. If you’ve read this blog you know I’m a pretty deliberate guy. I like to know where I’m headed and I like to be explicit about where that is, what’s working and what’s not. To that end, towards the end of last year I went through an exercise with each of the companies…
Fight for your rights! American Censorship Day (that’s today!)
Today Congress is holding hearings on what, if passed, would effectively become a censorship system for the internet. The threat comes in the form of two bills, currently making their way through the legislative process – Protect IP Act (PIPA – S.968) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – H.R.3261). Below is a video that describes the bills and their potential impact (and you can read more at http://americancensorship.org/): PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo. The effective censorship of websites (by blocking or slowing access to them) is what I find particularly disturbing. We already have a fundamental access problem on the internet. As internet access becomes increasingly important to society – truly…
Trada… bringing crowdsourced marketing to Facebook
I’ve written a few times about Trada – a business that vastly simplifies search marketing for advertisers through a platform upon which Trada’s crowd of SEM experts build and manage campaigns on behalf of advertisers. The results to far have been impressive. The company has been helping advertisers increase the effectiveness of their search marketing and lower the amount of time required to manage search campaigns. And they’ve done this for companies spending as little as a few thousand dollars a month on search to as much as $500,000 per month. The result has been a rapidly growing company that is increasingly looking to expand the reach of its platform. Today Trada announced that it has expanded its marketplace to…
Are you the master of your domain?
The title of this post is meant to be taken literally, not metaphorically. Do you control your domain? Last Friday one of our portfolio companies briefly lost control of its domain. It wasn’t the fist time we’ve seen this happen and, as you can imagine, the result could have been disastrous (in this case we were able to lock down the domain before anything nefarious happened, but people don’t steal control of your domain for anything other than doing bad things, so it was lucky that we were able to avoid a serious issue). Different registrars have different rules for transferring domains around. In this case all it apparently took was someone writing the registrar and claiming the domain was…
Trends in M&A Deal Terms
For the past several years Shareholder Representative Services (SRS) has been publishing aggregate data on trends in M&A. These aren’t just high level observations, but rather are nitty gritty, details around the some of the most important terms contained in purchase agreements. As a self proclaimed M&A geek, I live for this stuff. And if information is power, this study dishes out plenty. And as a result helps level the playing field for companies (who transact very infrequently), their investors (who transact a bit more often) and buyers (who often have dedicated M&A practices who do nothing but execute transactions). I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a number of Foundry related transactions in the past year. Knowing market trends…
Brad Feld Sings! (sort of)
Remember when I said that Brad can’t sing? Here’s the proof – a recording session in Jason’s studio for our I’m a VC video (Brad is wearing headphones with the music track piped in – all the better for us to clearly hear Brad himself in this outtake). Enjoy!