Micah has recruited a number of Colorado bloggers to promote the 2008 DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge. There are some great (and well deserving) projects up – you can take a look at them by checking out the widget on my blog (scroll down a bit to find it) or head directly to the DonorsChoose website. Be generous!
Posts By / seth levine
what’s a company to do?
Now that I’ve received a link to the Sequoia "Holy Shit" presentation about 30 times along with about a dozen emails asking "what do you think?" it’s probably time for a post. My partner Jason has a great post up on the subject (with a more general discussion of how the current markets effect our business – definitely worth reading) and Brad has some practical advice up this morning on his blog as well. There’s no question the markets have changed dramatically in the last few weeks and that there are serious short and long term considerations for investors and companies. Here’s my 2c. 1. Don’t panic. Markets are cyclical. While everyone knows this, it’s hard to keep perspective in…
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MSFT still has it…
I spent last Thursday at Microsoft for their annual VC Summit. While there are plenty of ways that the company can improve, I walked away with the very distinct feeling that the "market" underestimates the innovation coming out of Redmond and the ways in which the company is clearly changing and adapting to the new technology world. Specifically, the products and people I encountered were forward thinking – clearly moving well beyond the OS and embedded software mentality that is the history of the business – and significantly more platform agnostic than they are given credit for (both product demos I saw included at least one Mac and other non-Microsoft based products). And then there’s Google, which in many ways…
Move to Boulder!
A handful of Boulder companies are pooling resources to bring 100 software developers to Boulder (see Boulder.me). If you’re interested in a chance to come out and see what we have to offer, take a look at what they’ve pulled together (my partner Chris Wand is heavily involved and has a post up about the event on the Foundry blog). Not only is Boulder a beautiful place to live, it’s a fantastic place to work and build successful companies (see Ryan and Jason’s view of moving from the Bay Area to Boulder here and here). To quote from the "Boulder Wants You" post: In the last several years, Boulder has been named #1 in Forbes’ “Smartest Cities in America”, #1…
Deals
I’m trying to purge the word "deal" from my lexicon – at least as it relates to investments (i.e., companies are not a "deal", it’s an "investment opportunity"; the actual transaction itself is still fair game). I’m amazed how often the term comes up in the venture industry. To me it seems somehow demeaning and way too generic. Entrepreneurs who put their heart and sole into a company don’t need to hear us talk about their companies like they’re a commodity. If you’re a VC reading this, try it for a day and see how often the word comes up . . . and how difficult it is to stop using it…
Linking around
A few things that might be of interest. Foundry announced our latest investment – Pie Digital. Pie has created an "IT department in a box". Brad jokes that he’ll no longer have to provide tech support for his parents. My dad is literally a rocket scientist, so I can’t exactly make that claim, but like Jason (see his post here), I’m looking forward to their product rolling out. You can read the Foundry post here. I sat down with BusinessWeek’s Spencer Ante to talk about the Denver/Boulder tech scene. I liked Spencer a lot – very amiable and obviously knowledgeable about technology. Here’s the article. Want to know what you’re start-up’s worth? Here’s a site that says it can predict…
Wednesday night at the DNC
While I’m a fan of politics (and my wife and I are active supporters of causes and candidates we believe in), I’ve never been particularly "political" and generally don’t find myself at political speeches, rallies, etc. But last night when I had the chance to head over to the Democratic National Convention being held here in Denver, I figured that it was something worth seeing in person. I wasn’t disappointed – it really was an amazing scene. I managed a tour of the press area courtesy of VC Adventure reader Elliot S., who was there working for NBC (broadcasting live over their temporary DS3 set up specifically for the convention). It was pretty unbelievable to imagine what needed to happen…
Denver to the top of Mt. Evans (and back)
Long overdue, but here’s an account of my recent bike ride from Denver to the top of Mt. Evans (elevation 14,264 ft) and back. First some quick technical and summary data in case you’ve found this post looking to do a similar ride. I ride a lightspeed titanium bike with a standard front crankset (39/53) and a slightly climbing friendly rear cassette (13/27). The ride up took us 7 1/2 hour (ride time) and covered some 10,000 feet of climbing over 72 miles. While that’s a lot of climbing, the gradient actually didn’t kick up much past about 8% (and for most of the climb from Idaho Springs was more like 6%). My training had been pretty modest – I…
"The Board"
I’ve written before on effective board communication, how to run effective board meetings and other "governance" topics related to companies and their boards of directors. Today’s post is a little more ethereal. I’ve noticed a real difference in how various CEO’s I work with refer to their boards – particularly when talking internally to the rest of their management teams and employees. On the one hand are the CEO’s that consistently refer to their board of directors as "The Board" (capital "T", capital "B") and often use them as some kind of foil (as in "The Board has said that we really need to do XYZ") – almost separating themselves from whatever decision or direction it is that they wish…