The 4 Keys to a Successful Angel Investment Strategy
With the increasing popularity of angel investment sites such as AngelList and CircleUp more and more people are making investments. I love this trend and have a longer form blog coming on the subject – which I think is massive positive force in the startup ecosystem. But this post is much shorter and to the point. I often get asked what my thoughts are on angel investing. Here are what I think are the 4 keys to a successful angel investment strategy: …
April 22, 2014· 1 min read
Just say NO to that large fundraise
I wrote a post a few years ago about using your lack of funding to your competitive advantage. The basic gist was that all businesses act within constraints and that the discipline that can result from having less money that a competitor – if you embrace it – has the ability to sharpen your focus, avoid the temptations of distraction and be more thoughtful about how and when you spend the precious cash that you have. …
March 25, 2014· 3 min read
Entrepreneurship behind the wall: A trip to Palestine
If you’ve been a reader of my blog for any time you’ll know that I’m intrigued by (and a big fan of) the notion of The Democratization of Entrepreneurship. It’s not that I think entrepreneurship solves all the world’s challenges, but I deeply believe in the notion of entrepreneurship as a catalyst for positive social change across the globe. It’s a powerful force and we’re seeing more and more examples of entrepreneurs creating real change around the world, community by community. …
March 12, 2014· 9 min read
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