A note to Colorado technologists – Attend Glue!
I’m reposting a note from Eric Norlin, our partner in both the Glue and Defrag conferences which really struck a chord with me. While Foundry invests across the US, we’re based in Colorado and do our best to support the local startup ecosystem. As part of this we very deliberately set up camp with both Glue and Defrag here in our backyard in an effort to make Denver/Boulder the center of the technology universe for a few days of in depth discussion and networking around all things technology. Glue is coming up at the end of May. It’s an in depth look at the “connective” technologies that are changing the way we live and work. If you’re a technologist that’s working in and around this space I’d encourage you to show up. Especially if you live here in Colorado – come support our effort to bring greater focus and energy around these topics right in your backyard. …
February 15, 2010· 6 min read
Some thoughts on adoption
I don’t often write about very personal topics on this blog (although hopefully my personality shows through in my writing some) but with my wife 8,500 miles away adopting our third child (2nd adopted child) I thought that I might take a post or two to talk about our experience. I wrote about adoption after we came home with our now 5 1/2 year old daughter a few years ago and was turned off by the experience after receiving some annoying comment traffic (mostly challenging me on why we didn’t adopt domestically – none of their business, of course, but especially in the way they commented about it). I expect I’ll see some of that again, but I’m hoping to do a better job ignoring it this time. …
February 9, 2010· 5 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
VCIR Success – by the numbers
This is a cross post from the VCIR blog. We recently put together an analysis of companies that have presented at VCIR over the last 10 years. And the numbers are pretty impressive – reinforcing why the conference is such a great opportunity to see great companies from around the rocky mountain region. For more information on the conference itself, including how to register, visit the VCIR Winter website. VCIR By the Numbers: …
February 5, 2010· 1 min read
Oppose HB 1192 – The “Software Tax”
My longtime friend Marion Jenkins, CEO of IT consultant QSE Technologies wrote what I think is one of the most eloquent and well thought out rebuttals to the proposed Colorado “Software Tax” (HB 1192). With his permission I’m posting it here in its entirety. If you feel the way I do about this issue, I urge you to take a stand on this issue. I urge you to oppose HB 1192, the so-called “Software” Tax. It is bad legislation and it will add significantly to non-productive administrative and legal overhead and kill productivity within the technology sector in Colorado (including not only technology-related businesses, but virtually every business – and every consumer – who uses technology). It will also lead to a mass exodus of key jobs and technology talent from Colorado, and it runs counter to many Federal initiatives aimed at creating jobs, improving job skills and implementing automation and efficiency to help the country get out of this recession. It will also lead to a massive expansion of government, whose only function will be to try to interpret and unravel an impossibly complex set of new tax rules. Those new government jobs will not provide any benefits to citizens, and particularly not provide any benefits directly to underserved populations, they will consist of auditors, analysts, enforcers and the like. …
February 1, 2010· 14 min read
iPad Launch vs the State of the Union Address
Both were compelling for sure, but what did the Twittersphere have to say about it? Buzz monitoring company Retrevo put together some stats which suggest that wile the Apple announcement was big (topping out at 7,000 tweets per minute), the President edged the iPad out (peaking at 9,000 tweets per minute). I’d love to see the graph below with an overlay of what topics caused each of the spikes (they have this for the iPad announcement, but not the State of the Union Address – click through to the article to see the detail). …
January 29, 2010· 1 min read
Customer Loyalty
image I travel a lot. It’s mostly to relatively fun places (New York, San Francisco, Seattle, etc), but it’s pretty much all within the US. Living in Denver and traveling to the coasts makes it pretty difficult to rack up frequent flier miles (a round trip to New York is barely 3k miles). So while I feel like I’m constantly on the road (trying to change this habit for this year – more on that in a different post), I’m perennially falling just a little short of reaching 1K status (100,000 flight miles) on United. …
January 26, 2010· 2 min read
Colorado House Bill 1192 Is a BAD Idea
In times of fiscal challenge you can always count on government to come up with some pretty bad ideas to fund deficits. House Bill 1192 is a particularly egregious example of one such boneheaded idea. The bill as it is currently constructed would place a tax on all software purchased or installed in Colorado. This is a tax not just on the software industry but on every business that uses software. And it’s an incredibly stupid idea. …
January 26, 2010· 2 min read
Immigration policy for recent grad school grads
I made reference to the issue of immigration policy in a post last week (see “Want more jobs? Support Entrepreneurship”). In that post I referenced a WSJ OpEd piece that my partner Brad Feld wrote last week with Paul Kedrosky about the Start-up Visa Movement (the idea that we should make it easier for foreign born entrepreneurs who are starting their companies and who have obtained financing to stay in the United States to build their businesses). In my post I went on to say: …
December 7, 2009· 2 min read
Want more jobs? Support Entrepreneurship
There’s a great CNN opinion piece out today by Amy M. Wilkinson that argues strongly (and correctly) that the government needs to do more to support entrepreneurship and small businesses. I whole heartedly agree. Quoting from the piece: “According to the Census Bureau, nearly all net job creation in the U.S. since 1980 has been generated by firms operating less than five years.” This conclusion is backed up by the National Venture Capital Association which tracks the impact of private companies who receive institutional venture financing. You can read the recent NVCA report on the impact of venture capital on the overall economy here (the quick take-away is that this impact is extremely significant). …
December 4, 2009· 4 min read