Are you “under-promising and over-delivering”?
Someone at a meeting I was in a few weeks ago made a statement to the effect that he valued management (sales management in particular) following this mantra. I couldn’t disagree more. While it makes for a great VC cliché it seems to me that it’s not a good plan to set an expectation with companies that you work with that you want them to essentially lie to you about the results they expect. Following this down the management line – from board to CEO to VP of Sales to Sales Manager to Salespeople – and you’ll completely cloud your view of what’s really happening in a business (where at every step of the way each person tries to set up an expectation that is lower than what they actually believe they deliver). …
April 7, 2010· 1 min read
If you read nothing else…
I’ve received a few lengthy emails recently that contained the following: IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE READ THIS SECTION While I suppose one could argue that this encourages the reader to skip over the rest of the email, I disagree. I think it’s brilliant. Each email was full of information – the kind that takes a good chunk of time to parse through and think about. They were the kind of email that ends up in your “read later when you have time” folder which would have been fine assuming that you 1) got back to it at all and 2) got back to it in a somewhat timely manner – they each required a response. The “READ THIS NOW” section was a single paragraph that summed up the information that I could now go through at my leisure as well as the action required in response to the email. Well done!
February 9, 2010· 1 min read
The “real” America
I’ve generally avoided political issues on this blog, but this isn’t something I can keep my mouth shut on. imageYesterday Meb Keflezighi became the first American to win the New York City Marathon in 27 years. Born in Eritrea on the east coast of Africa, Keflezighi moved to the US when he as 12 (more than 20 years ago), is an American citizen and has raced for the US Olympic team. …
November 3, 2009· 2 min read
How long should your “trial” period run?
I’ve had this running debate with a handful of friends – I’d love to throw it out there for comment. The questions at hand are 1) whether companies should offer a “free trial” period for their software/web service; 2) if they do, how long should it last; and 3) what information should you ask for before starting a trial (specifically should you ask for credit card information up front). Here are a few thoughts. I’d love to hear your opinion. …
October 30, 2009· 3 min read
AT&T wants to sell you better coverage
As you know, I’m no fan of AT&T. With that in mind I couldn’t help sharing this piece of news: AT&T is now offering customers the ability to pay up and purchase a 3G Microcell to use in their homes (since no-one it seems actually gets descent service at home). The device supports both voice and data usage (presumably the latter is only marginally useful since most consumers with data devices connect to their home wifi networks in house). …
September 22, 2009· 1 min read
Don’t Panic!
I was recently talking to someone about an issue in one of their portfolio companies (this was not a Foundry or Mobius company). The issue was pretty serious (it related to safety standards at the company that were being ignored and a resulting accident at the business) and the person relating this story was (understandably) pretty worked up and asking me what I thought they should do. My advice? image …
September 15, 2009· 2 min read
Community Hours
Brad, Jason and I are going to try something new in Boulder starting this fall – Community Hours at the TechStars bunker. We’re all fans of “random meetings” – taking meetings from people that have been referred to us or have taken the time to write to ask to get together – but sometimes struggle to fit them into our schedules (I’m particularly poor at this – scheduling them generally at random and breaking up many days with too many meetings and not enough time at my desk). …
August 28, 2009· 1 min read
Finding your peeps
One of the companies I work with recently sent the following email to the CEO’s of a number of similar companies (I’ve redacted the email a bit to preserve the privacy of the company): I’m the CEO of [really cool portfolio company]. We’re a [insert company attribute/industry here] company as well I have been talking to a number of other [attribute/industry] players and I think we all are facing some similar issues as we try and both mature our businesses and the [attribute/industry] industry at the same time. I’m pulling together a private discussion group for a select set of these businesses where we can have open conversations with each other about issues we face and how we are dealing with them. I feel like we’re all treading a lot of the same ground right now. For example, how do you [list of things that we’re dealing with].. I feel like CS industry is a bit where the Open Source industry was 5 years ago. Lots of standards to learn still. …
August 27, 2009· 2 min read
Power to the people
Over the last 6 months I’ve noticed a large number of business plans that are incorporating some form of “crowdsourcing” into their business models. Crowdsourcing, popularized by James Surowiecki excellent book The Wisdom of Crowds, seeks to harness the power of the masses with the idea that the “crowd” can often produce a better result than any given individual (in the classic crowdsouring example a large group tries to guess the number of gumballs in a jar; typically the average guess is closer to the right number than any individual guess – the crowd as a whole is better than even it’s smartest individual member). …
July 23, 2009· 1 min read
Sounds of silence
Years ago I wrote a post about M&A negotiations in which I stressed the importance of using listening in the negotiation process. Last week I was talking about the importance of listening with Micah (not in the context of M&A – just in the context of life in general) when he said to me that he felt that listening, like many things in business, was an acquired skill (i.e., the harder you practice it the better you get). …
June 29, 2009· 2 min read