If you’re like me, you spend most of your days pining away for the life that would have been had you followed your true passion into product management and design. Ok – I’m being flip, but we all have opinions on the way the sites we visit look, feel and work. So here’s your chance to weigh in on an important design decision and help out a Foundry investment in the process. Lijit is coming out with a new thumbnail feature in their search results (very cool) and can’t decide how to best lay out those results with the picture. So they’ve tossed it out to their user base (and other interested – or at least opinionated – parties). So…
Posts By / seth levine
Working at the Caribou in downtown Denver before a board dinner tonight
I remember loving Caribou when I lived in MN (and they were a "local" coffee shop). Haven’t been in years, but just had a very tasty latte. Should keep me awake through the board dinner and my drive home later tonight…
Looking for embarrassing blogging stories
I’ve got some great corporate blogging use-case stories for my panel presentation on blogging next week. Now I’m looking for some embarrassing ones. They can be personal or corporate related. Feel free to leave them in comments (if you’re ok with the world seeing them) or just email me directly.
I think blogging is cool…
I also think it’s a fantastic business tool. I’m speaking on a panel to that effect next week in Denver along with Tim Higgins from Indigio, Jon Nordmark from eBags, Ken Klispie of Disaboom and David Gibbons of Zillow. If you’re around and interested (or just want to come heckle) please come!
Foundry Group Joins the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado
Foundry is pleased to announce that we’ve joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. EFFCO was created to encourage philanthropy from entrepreneurial companies in Colorado (there are chapters in many other major markets across the country). By encouraging companies to donate a small percentage of their stock (in the form of a warrant that is only exercisable when the company is sold or goes public) EFFCO is both raising funds for local non-profits as well as encouraging companies to foster a culture of philanthropy early on in the life of their company. We’re strong supporters of the mission of EFFCO (in fact Brad was among the founding members of the CO chapter) and are happy to announce that we’ve donated 1%…
The glamorous life of our accounting group
I caught this shot as Melissa from our accounting department was preparing some kind of mailing to go out later this afternoon. This is actually only about 1/2 of the envelopes she was working on. It’s all glamour here in venture capital!
From the shameless commerce division…
A little off topic, but if you’re in the market for a fun summer driver, I’m selling my fake Porsche 356 (not a kit but a "custom" build). I bought it on eBay 6 years ago and am trying to sell it the same way. I’ve had it up a couple of times – winner’s financing fell through the first time and it didn’t clear reserve the second. I’ve taken out the reserve so if you’re interested or know someone who is . . . bid! http://tinyurl.com/4vp5xf
Positive trending
I was thinking earlier today about one of the more subtle litmus tests that I use when considering an investment opportunity – my excitement trend line. My partner Ryan really helped me think through this a few months ago (I had been doing it but hadn’t been explicit about it). For every investment opportunity we dig into there are always multiple meetings, due diligence calls, research reviews, partner debates and other chances to interact about a company or idea. It’s obvious when I write it out here – although I think more subtle when you’re actually in the middle of evaluating an opportunity – but the trend line around a potential deal should be pretty clearly rising as you spend…
How to get a job in venture capital (revisited)
A few years ago I wrote a post on how to get a job in venture capital. It was lucky enough to get broad distribution and remains my most viewed and linked to post. I’ve had a number of questions about it over the years and have tried to respond to people who wrote in to ask my opinion about their VC job search. One of the most common questions I’ve received runs something like: “I get it – finding a venture job is hard. I still really want to try and I have a 5+ year outlook on this. What should I do during that time to work towards my goal of landing a venture job?” Of course the…
Is Facebook replacing email?
If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that I love platforms in general and Facebook in particular. And since I’ve been thinking about messaging recently (see my post yesterday on Twitter as my new instant messenger) I’ve been noticing the increasingly varied methods I use to communicate. I’m curious if others have also experienced a trend away from old school email. In particular I’m seeing an increase in the volume of messaging on Facebook – from Jeff suggesting on my wall that I try out Twhirl (in response to a tweet about a Snitter problem I was having) to old high school buddies re-connecting through direct message. And I’m not even a heavy Facebook user. A…