Different vs. More
I’ve had this conversation with a number of founders recently and thought I’d post something here about it in the hopes that others see it/resonate with it as well. In the world of startups we often talk about “more”. More funding. More sales. More efficiency. More. More. More. And, of course, there are plenty of times when “more” is appropriate. When something is working, and working efficiently, doing more of it is often the right call. …
July 31, 2018· 2 min read
The Feature -> Product -> Company Continuum
I’ve been thinking about the continuum between a feature, product and company a lot recently. Specifically the challenge that companies have as they move across this continuum, how rare that last category really is, and the combination of product idea and market potential that is required for companies to actually make it to Company status. Most companies begin life somewhere between a feature and a product. They’re started by an entrepreneur trying to solve some problem that s/he finds compelling and generally that problem is a feature of some larger set of problems. At this stage most entrepreneurs are given the advice to “focus”. It’s good advice (and advice I give all the time) but does sometimes perpetuate the feature-ness of the business – you spend your time and effort narrowly on a small number of related features and while you may have some inclination for how these stitch together into a larger idea it’s not fully thought through yet. …
October 5, 2017· 3 min read
Why Companies Fail
I’ve touched on aspects of this topic before, but thought it was worthy of a full post. Companies in the venture business fail all the time. As I wrote last year, the majority of venture rounds fail to return capital. With all the hype one reads in the startup press these days, that fact can be easily lost. So we know that startups fail all the time, but why do they fail? Here are some common pitfalls based on our experiences (and here I’m referring not just to Foundry portfolio companies, although all of these lessons apply there as well, but also our observations of the broader markets). …
April 2, 2015· 6 min read
Taking the long road
I first met Carrie and Tony Requist of U Grok It in February of 2012. We were hosting a DEMO event with VentureBeat and UGrokIt was one of a handful of companies that was chosen to come in and pitch. I remember the U Grok It presentation well for a number of reasons. For starters, Carrie and Tony are married. And living in Steamboat. Both pretty unusual for the startup world. And they were building a simple smart-phone based RFID reader with the idea of creating a consumer product that would allow individuals to easily and cheaply track their stuff – a problem I’m quite familiar with as I have an uncanny propensity to misplace things (there was much joking in the meeting about this, in fact). …
May 2, 2014· 2 min read
Getting our Angel List On
In the news/hype cycle of venture and start-ups it’s rare when a single news item captures the attention of the entire community, even for a few days, let alone 3 or 4. But AngelList‘s announcement of “Syndicates” has done just that. And it was pretty fun to watch the reactions which ranged from: “this is stupid” to “this will kill venture investing as we know it” to “this will change angel investing forever” to everything in between (see for example, AngelList Syndicates Will Also Pit Angel Against Angel, The Great Venture Capital Rotation, Leading vs. Following, Some Thoughts on the Big AngelList Deal, and Is @AngelList Syndicates Really Such a Big Deal?) …
October 1, 2013· 3 min read
The ten year entrepreneur
It’s easy to get lost in the celebration of high flying companies that quickly take an idea to market, scale and sell. It’s exciting, financially lucrative and makes for great reading. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a few companies like that in the Foundry portfolio (Zynga, AdMeld and Gist all went from idea to sale/IPO in a relatively short period of time). But the reality is that most companies take years (and years and years) to develop – the average time from company founding to exit event is now approaching 10 years. And in many respects, being a great entrepreneur isn’t about coming up with company ideas and executing against an initial product spec. Its really about the perseverance, dedication and stubbornness that is required to see a company from that point just after the initial exuberance of getting a product into market and having a few people use it, through the realization that building a scalable business is going to be really freaking hard (I called this period the “trough of disillusionment in a post years back), to the point where you (hopefully) have proved the skeptics wrong and despite the obstacles, mistakes and miscalculations find yourself with a real scale business. …
May 8, 2013· 2 min read
How much should a start-up CEO make?
I was asked this question at a talk I gave to the recently graduated TechStars Boulder class and thought it deserved wider dissemination than to just the group in the room at the time. This is a loaded question and while there are many variations I do actually think there are some general norms that are followed in most cases. So here goes with some guiding principals and then below that some numbers. Keep in mind that I’m talking about Seed and Series A stage businesses. …
August 22, 2012· 3 min read
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 free to speak their minds. Of course after listening to this robust debate you’ll ultimately have to make a decision and move forward (end of debate – don’t let it stretch on after the decision has been made), but I’d encourage you to create an environment at your company where differing opinions are both valued and encouraged. You’re hiring great people after all. Make sure you give them the space to speak their minds.
February 28, 2012· 1 min read
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? masterLast 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 in fact theirs. We believe (but aren’t positive) that the registrar did send an email to the contact listed in our account stating that the domain was to be transferred unless action was taken by us (that the process is that simple is a matter for another post altogether). But this email either didn’t get to us or was not acted upon promptly enough to prevent the transfer. The company then jumped through hoops for several hours to get the domain first locked down (so the party who stole it from us couldn’t redirect it) and ultimately transferred back. …
November 7, 2011· 2 min read
Introducing Codespace – shared (free!) office space in Boulder for geeking out
One of the many things that makes Boulder a great city for start-ups is its incredibly collaborative environment (see posts on my love of Boulder here and here). From the willingness of mentors to help out TechStars companies, to collaborative efforts around recruiting great talent to our city, I’m constantly amazed at how many people are working to make Boulder an amazing place for businesses to thrive. Today there’s another new initiative launching to help young tech companies in our community – Trada is opening CodeSpace, a free co-working space dedicated to startup developers and software engineers. CodeSpace will be located in Trada’s downtown Boulder offices and will have over 2000 sq ft of space dedicated to the effort. …
July 5, 2011· 2 min read