Betting for a cause this SuperBowl
I’m a big football fan and, despite not having grown up in Denver, have been a fan of the Broncos since I was little (my grandparents lived in Denver and my sister and I spent a month every summer here with them – my Grandmother’s passion for the Broncos rubbed off on me at a very early age). So, of course I’m excited that they’re in the SuperBowl (again!). This has lead to the inevitable side bets with friends in Seattle. If the Broncos prevail I’ll be eating some fine Seattle smoked salmon while watching pictures of my friend Cory sporting the latest in Broncos paraphernalia (among a handful of personal spoils for their victory). …
February 1, 2014· 2 min read
Act Like A Leader
Act like the leader. Simple advice but I see companies not do this all the time. You’re the leader in this space – act like it. Don’t be ashamed, bashful or defensive about it. This doesn’t mean beat the “we’re the biggest player in town” drumbeat all the time. It means leverage that fact and all that goes along with it to do things that the industry leader does – highlight customers, talk use cases, get more press, hold a user conference. …
January 23, 2014· 2 min read
Trada Update
Companies rarely grow in a straight line (or the fabled exponential one). Building a business isn’t about getting from point A to point D by passing through points B and C. There are fits and starts. Amazing discoveries and heart wrenching realizations. Huge highs and low lows. Trada – which has built a large crowdsourced marketplace for search optimization – has been through its version of this crazy growth curve over the past 5 years. We’ve learned a ton and along the way have delighted a large number of customers. But we’re having one of those non-linear moments at the business and came to the realization that we needed to shrink to grow. So we took the harsh medicine and significantly cut back the Trada staff. The result was a business that has real revenue and customers, is growing and bringing on new business, is continuing to build and innovate product and is profitable. …
November 20, 2013· 2 min read
SaaS Nomenclature
This has come up a few times so it seemed worth putting out there. It’s important to get a consistent set of terms when talking about your business. For example when you say sales do you mean booking or revenue? When you talk about revenue do you mean recurring or total? Is churn net of upsells or is an upsell a new sale? If bookings are the total contract value of everything you sold in a period, how do you normalize for different contract lengths? Are renewals counted in bookings or broken out separately? However you do it, just be sure to be both consistent and clear about what each term means. …
November 15, 2013· 2 min read
Is the cost of starting a business less than zero?
There has been a well documented and discussed deep decline in the cost to start a technology business over the past ~ 15 years. From the days where every website was custom and each site element was a de novo build to today where virtual servers are easily and cheaply spun up and down and where frameworks exist for just about every feature and functionality that you could imagine building, the cost of starting a tech business has gone from $5-$10M to maybe $50k or less. It’s a remarkable trend and one of several key factors driving the Democratization of Entrepreneurship. …
October 4, 2013· 3 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 New Foundry Video Is Almost Here
You may have seen the video that Foundry Group produced a few years ago – a hard hitting glimpse into the life of a VC told in SNL style. The video (and more importantly the song) was written and directed by my very talented partner Jason Mendelson. That’s his voice. That’s also his playing every instrument you hear on the track. Awesome Well…we’ve been hard at work on another video (again written, produced and directed by Jason). This new one takes a look at some of the ways technology has changed our lives and asks the deep questions about whether we’re better off today or if things were simply better before all this gadgetry. It will be out in a few weeks. In the meantime check out the teaser to the new video below. You won’t be disappointed.
September 27, 2013· 1 min read
Helping our Community with $100,000 from Foundry Group. Please join us.
I don’t need to tell you about the devastation that has rocked Colorado over the past week. The rain started and it just wouldn’t stop. I’ve lived in Colorado for 17 years and I’ve never seen anything like it. People have lived here for their entire lives and haven’t. Our house and property only sustained minor damage (and we spent a few days without power and water; neither particularly difficult compared to what others are facing). It was heart wrenching to be glued to the news and local reports seeing pictures of our community – all around where we live; our neighbors; the places we go every day – become ravaged by floods. …
September 17, 2013· 3 min read
Branding Colorado
Last week at the conclusion of the COIN Summit Colorado released an new brand for the state. The new branding effort was lead by Aaron Kennedy (of Noodles fame) with the help of a brand ‘committee’ (I was a member) and, importantly, a large network of ‘brand ambassadors’ around the state. The process was an interesting one and was designed by Aaron to be inclusive of opinions and ideas from around the state. The idea was to identify a unifying brand that could represent Colorado across a wide variety of uses (both inside the state and outside). The result is the image in the upper left of this post and the tag line “IT’S IN OUR NATURE”. The logo draws from the green on the Colorado license plate, using updated but similar mountain/peak imagery but also including CO and Colorado (I guess for the avoidance of doubt about what we’re talking about). …
September 9, 2013· 3 min read
Hacking Hardware With A Dragon On Your Side
For years, many of our most high profile hardware investments have had a quiet partner. Dragon Innovation – experts at helping hardware ideas actually happen – have helped companies like Makerbot, Sifteo and Orbotix (all from the Foundry family) move from product idea to product reality. As the startup world shifts from an intense focus on bits to celebrating atoms and the “maker movement” of hackers who give those atoms life, there is bright light being shined on the ability of those makers not just to come up with cool ideas, but to take those projects from ideas, to prototypes to delivered product. This is where Dragon shines, and where they aim to completely change the way great ideas are planned, funded, made and sold. …
September 5, 2013· 2 min read