Guest Post: The role of company advisors (Part I)
One of the things I enjoy the most about writing this blog is the discussion I engage in with readers – both through blog comments and in direct emails. Over the past month I’ve had a particularly enjoyable exchange with Gerald Joseph. One of the topics we’ve discussed is the role of advisors in the life of a start-up. I generally think of advisors as non-paid “friends of the company” and as you’d probably guess, advocate a pretty deliberate organization and use of advisors. Gerald’s view is a little more expansive as he thinks of “advisors” as the larger ecosystem that surrounds (or should surround) a start up company – one that includes people you pay (attorneys, CPAs, etc) and the people who pay you (your angel investors) in addition to the business and industry experts that are the typical “advisors” to young companies. I like this line of thinking and offered Gerald the chance to put his thoughts into a post. He took me up on that idea and came up with a four part series on the topic that I’ll put up over the next few weeks. After the final post I’ll summarize some of my thoughts as well as comments from readers (and please – comment away!). …
May 22, 2008· 5 min read
Your company should have a blog
I participated in a panel presentation last week on corporate blogging. While each of the panelists brought a slightly different perspective, the overall message to the group of a few hundred local small business execs that were in attendance was that blogging can help their company. Specifically blogging can allow them to participate (or lead) conversations in their industry; increase significantly the meaningful content on their site; provide a way for them and their key customers to evangelize their products; help their search rankings across their site; allow a platform for talking about corporate culture (to both an internal and external audience) and in many cases save hard dollars spent on press releases and certain marketing activities. Here are a few ideas from the panel on how to get started: …
May 22, 2008· 2 min read
Saying "no" can be hard to do
At the risk of opening myself up to a landslide of snide comments expressing sympathy for the “difficult” job a VC has saying no to so many potential investments, but in the interest of being open about the experience of venture capital from the inside I offer up the following thoughts: Sometimes it’s very easy to decide to decline a company’s request for financing (and we see literally thousands of plans a year, so we’re pretty well practiced at it). Many times the company simply isn’t a fit for our investment focus (we get a few “invest in our [pick one] manufacturing/car wash/custom painting/etc business” requests ever year). Or the business plan is clearly off base (my personal favorite from this genre was the company that planned to colonize the moon for the purpose of reducing the cost of launching satellites – which they were going to build from materials they were to mine from the moon). Lots of others are potentially interesting but for one reason or another just don’t make the cut. The ones that pique our interest we start a dialogue with, which typically involves several meetings, background due diligence, etc. Some of these businesses we will relatively quickly decide are not a good fit and they fall off the list. Then there are the ones that we really dig into. While we pride ourselves on moving quickly through our investment process, being quick doesn’t mean not being thorough – we do a lot of work looking into investment opportunities before we make our final decision to invest. …
May 20, 2008· 3 min read
Your chance to play designer
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. …
May 10, 2008· 1 min read
Working at the Caribou in downtown Denver before a board dinner tonight
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…
May 8, 2008· 1 min read
Looking for embarrassing blogging stories
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.
May 7, 2008· 1 min read
I think blogging is cool…
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!
May 7, 2008· 1 min read
Foundry Group Joins the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado
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. …
May 7, 2008· 1 min read
The glamorous life of our accounting group
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!
May 6, 2008· 1 min read
From the shameless commerce division…
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! …
May 6, 2008· 1 min read