If you’re like me, you spend most of your days pining away for the life that would have been had you followed your true passion into product management and design.  Ok – I’m being flip, but we all have opinions on the way the sites we visit look, feel and work.  So here’s your chance to weigh in on an important design decision and help out a Foundry investment in the process.

Lijit is coming out with a new thumbnail feature in their search results (very cool) and can’t decide how to best lay out those results with the picture.  So they’ve tossed it out to their user base (and other interested – or at least opinionated – parties).  So if you have a second stop by their blog and vote on your favorite design.

I remember loving Caribou when I lived in MN (and they were a "local" coffee shop).  Haven’t been in years, but just had a very tasty latte.  Should keep me awake through the board dinner and my drive home later tonight…

I’ve got some great corporate blogging use-case stories for my panel presentation on blogging next week. Now I’m looking for some embarrassing ones.  They can be personal or corporate related.  Feel free to leave them in comments (if you’re ok with the world seeing them) or just email me directly.

I also think it’s a fantastic business tool.  I’m speaking on a panel to that effect next week in Denver along with Tim Higgins from Indigio, Jon Nordmark from eBags, Ken Klispie of Disaboom and David Gibbons of Zillow.  If you’re around and interested (or just want to come heckle) please come!

Foundry is pleased to announce that we’ve joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado.  EFFCO was created to encourage philanthropy from entrepreneurial companies in Colorado (there are chapters in many other major markets across the country).  By encouraging companies to donate a small percentage of their stock (in the form of a warrant that is only exercisable when the company is sold or goes public) EFFCO is both raising funds for local non-profits as well as encouraging companies to foster a culture of philanthropy early on in the life of their company. 

We’re strong supporters of the mission of EFFCO (in fact Brad was among the founding members of the CO chapter) and are happy to announce that we’ve donated 1% of our carried interest (the equivalent of 1% of our equity) to the Community Trust Endowed Fund of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County through EFFCO. 

I’d be happy to give you some more information if you’re interested in having your company become a member of EFFCO (email me directly).

I caught this shot as Melissa from our accounting department was preparing some kind of mailing to go out later this afternoon. This is actually only about 1/2 of the envelopes she was working on.  It’s all glamour here in venture capital!

A little off topic, but if you’re in the market for a fun summer driver, I’m selling my fake Porsche 356 (not a kit but a "custom" build).  I bought it on eBay 6 years ago and am trying to sell it the same way.  I’ve had it up a couple of times – winner’s financing fell through the first time and it didn’t clear reserve the second.  I’ve taken out the reserve so if you’re interested or know someone who is . . . bid!

http://tinyurl.com/4vp5xf

I was thinking earlier today about one of the more subtle litmus tests that I use when considering an investment opportunity – my excitement trend line.  My partner Ryan really helped me think through this a few months ago (I had been doing it but hadn’t been explicit about it). 

For every investment opportunity we dig into there are always multiple meetings, due diligence calls, research reviews, partner debates and other chances to interact about a company or idea.  It’s obvious when I write it out here – although I think more subtle when you’re actually in the middle of evaluating an opportunity – but the trend line around a potential deal should be pretty clearly rising as you spend more time on it.  I’m not saying that every meeting has to be better than the last or that you can’t dig up issues that require further work or clarification.  I am saying that overall your enthusiasm for a deal should be increasing (and clearly so) over time rather than going down or even staying the same.  It’s not a reason in and of itself to make an investment, but is a pretty good barometer of when you’re on to something or not.

A few years ago I wrote a post on how to get a job in venture capital.  It was lucky enough to get broad distribution and remains my most viewed and linked to post.  I’ve had a number of questions about it over the years and have tried to respond to people who wrote in to ask my opinion about their VC job search.  One of the most common questions I’ve received runs something like: “I get it – finding a venture job is hard.  I still really want to try and I have a 5+ year outlook on this.  What should I do during that time to work towards my goal of landing a venture job?”

Of course the real answer depends a lot on the individual asking – where they are in their career and life, where they live, what their educational and work background is, etc.  That said, let me try to provide a few ideas.

Go to business school.  As much as it pains me to say it the fact is that it’s a lot easier to get a job in venture capital if you have a degree from a top business school (pains me not because I don’t have many VC friends who attended such schools, but because I have many that have not, and I don’t personally feel not having a degree from Harvard should be such a barrier to obtaining a venture job).  While there are a lot of reasons to go to all sorts of different business schools and while many very successful venture capitalists have either never been to b-school or didn’t attend a top 10 school – if you’re intent in attending school is to land a job in VC you are MUCH better off going to a top school.  MUCH.  I know of several firms that simply won’t even consider associate candidates that haven’t attended a very short list of top chools (Harvard, Stanford and a few others).  In fact, going to a non-top 10 business school could actually hurt your chances vs. not going at all. Not fair, I know (and I didn’t attend b-school at all, so who am I to even suggest this) but true.

Work for a start-up. This may seem obvious, but almost no matter what your background if you’re trying to build a resume to land in VC, having start-up experience is extremely helpful (preferably from a start-up that ends up well).  As a practical matter, it’s helpful to have this experience as a VC – it will give you insight on what works and what doesn’t in the start-up world; will test whether you really like start-up environment and potentially expose you to venture finance and other areas of company formation and growth that will serve as a helpful backdrop to your venture career.  In addition, if your company has institutional investors, you will hopefully get the opportunity to spend some time with your would-be peers which may help jump-start your eventual search (make that happen – its one of the key reasons you took the job working for a start-up in the first place!).

Start a company of your own. If you can’t find a start-up you’re excited enough about to join, why not start one of your own?  Many successful venture capitalists have started their own companies.  Its a great way to gain operating experience, test out your technology ideas and, of course, meet venture capitalists.

If you’re early in your career (and/or have the inclination), work for a bank or consulting firm.  Like going to a top business school, having banking or consulting on your resume is an indicator to potential venture employers that you’re smart, aggressive, willing to work hard and well trained.  Having been a banker myself at the start of my career I’m not entirely sure these adjectives always apply, but there is clearly a bias in the world of finance towards these types of jobs as training grounds.  It will also bring you into contact with people who are likely to have networks that include venture capitalists as well as potentially up your chances of getting into a top school (see the first point above).  This is especially true if you’re thinking of later stage venture or private equity who – much more so than early stage venture – tend to look kindly on the training one gets in these jobs.

Put yourself out there. Union Square Ventures famously asks potential applicants not to send in a traditional resume, but instead to point to the applicant’s various activities around the web (their blog, articles they’ve authored, companies they are helping out with, etc).  While this may be an extreme example of a firm valuing the online presence of potential colleagues (and one that has worked very well for the firm), having a visible profile online that you can reference and point to will be helpful in many a VC job search (especially so if the firms you are seeking employment from invest in these areas, as USV does).  Your online activity can and should extend to reading and sometimes (thoughtfully) commenting on the blogs of the now vast list of VCs that write a blog.  These sorts of interactions are just one way to start to engage in a conversation with people in the industry you might one day work with.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know that I love platforms in general and Facebook in particular.  And since I’ve been thinking about messaging recently (see my post yesterday on Twitter as my new instant messenger) I’ve been noticing the increasingly varied methods I use to communicate.  I’m curious if others have also experienced a trend away from old school email. In particular I’m seeing an increase in the volume of messaging on Facebook – from Jeff suggesting on my wall that I try out Twhirl (in response to a tweet about a Snitter problem I was having) to old high school buddies re-connecting through direct message. And I’m not even a heavy Facebook user.

A few months ago my partner Jason conducted a poll of online behavior of a few hundred undergraduates at his alma matter (unscientific for sure, but still extremely interesting).  Among the things discovered was that among this group about 20% were almost exclusively using Facebook as their main messaging platform.  A friend told me recently that his kids (14 and 17) laugh at him about sending email (all of their messaging is done over Facebook).  Definitely a trend to pay attention to.

I’m curious what others experiences have been.  Let me know.