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Going to California: ERE Expo in San Diego until Wednesday, Bay Area Thursday to Monday
I'm headed out to the ERE Expo in San Diego--I got a very exciting invitation to be a part of their startup panel along with Benjamin Yoskovitz (Standout Jobs), Clint Heiden (VisualCV), and Dan Arkind (JobScore). What's so cool about our panel is that we all represent different aspects of the job process...
You will be able to discover a career on Path 101, present yourself well with a Visual CV, engage with a company and apply through Standout Jobs and then hopefully make your way through the company's recruiting process, which might be managed by JobScore. Nice!
Since I was out there anyway, it was startup cashflow-friendly to swing by the Bay Area and stay with friends. Given the success of our first "Entrepreneurship Listening Tour" we decided to get in touch with a bunch of experienced people to get some feedback and to get on the Bay Area VC radar for later this year.
We're pretty booked during our days, but we'd love to catch up with and meet a lot of people. On Thursday afternoon, we'll be co-working out of Citizen Space, and then heading out later to 21st Amendment. Come work with us (or eat/drink with us)! Tell us you're coming out that night here!
If there's anyone you really think we should meet--smart VC's, entrepreneurs, developers, please let us know. E-mail us at us@path101.com or follow us on Twitter (@ceonyc and @alexlines).
March 30, 2008 in It's My Life, Path 101, Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Fun with Simulscribe Transcription Errors
"It's Kylie at (Restaurant?) Capital. I'm just calling to let you know that Josh is on his way there and he's about 5 minutes away."
...or Carly from First Round Capital.
"Hi, Charles. It's Mom. Nana just called. She booked a ride with (Ces and Roy?) tomorrow, so she booked, and she's coming into Brooklyn, okay"
...Who the f are Ces and Roy and why are they driving my grandmother around? Ohhh... Access-a-Ride!
Charlie, I'm picking up the (aero bed?) for you in (Lennington Panes?). It's $99.00 and I have a 20% coupon.
...Lennington Panes... a window shop that sells air beds? Ah... Linen's and Things!
March 26, 2008 in Random Stuff | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
I'm not sure I understand why I need FriendFeed
I'm looking at Fred's FriendFeed. So, I guess it's like RSS for people. PSS? PeopleSimpleSyndication.
So now I'm seeing the Fred Channel... All of Fred, all the time.
But, to be honest, I don't want All of Fred.
Fred and I don't share the same music tastes, which is mostly why I don't follow his Tumblelog.
Not only that, but this feed gives me flat Fred. It takes Fred out of the context of the medium.
So now I'm seeing his Twitter messages on a webpage. I hate reading twitter on the web. I like Twitter because it's live--real time. It makes me feel connected to people who aren't physically occupying the same space. Twitter breathes and has a heartbeat. I don't want to see Fred's twits hours later on a web page. I want to see when he's listening to some song I prob won't like right at the moment that he's listening to it, b/c it's kinda cool to know what he's up to at that moment--so I get twitter messages on my phone.
A while ago, people asked Fred to separate his blog feeds into VC, Music, and other stuff. I would have been offended, but Fred complied.
For me personally, if you don't want to read (or at least aren't willing to skip past) my kayaking photos, than don't read my blog... or don't complain.
How long before people want a VC Fred FriendFeed and a Music Fred FriendFeed. Than what have we accomplished? Wouldn't it have just been easier to pipe all the stuff to Fred's blog and locate it all there? Than, at least each individual node on the network controls itself, its own data, etc. Now it's all being aggregated up by another social network layer.
I'd rather hand all my data to myself... on my blog. I'd still love to post weekly song charts, daily twitter updates (for those who aren't on twitter) on my blog via a timed XML-RPC post. In the meantime, I like the control of following certain people's blogs, but not their twitters, and their flickr account, but not their blog, etc.
March 25, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Every company should be its own Startup Camp
There's always a lot of talk about ways to promote innovation. Let's see... you've got incubators, incubator-like investors like Ycombinator or TechStars, StartupWeekends, BarCamps, Coworking, Jelly,
And yet people complain about how hard it is to start a company. Can't find funding. Can't find developers. Need design help.
So when people like Calacanis talk about starting a "startup camp", I actually think it has the pottential to perpetuate a problem.
There are people who would all too eagerly sign up for Jason's startup camp that, if they don't get in, will just sit on their asses and just work on their TechStars or Ycombinator application. Don't get me wrong--every entrepreneur should have the attitude that Jason does:
"Perhaps my favorite thing to do outside of building companies is help other folks build companies."
But unfortunately, a lot of startups only look to A-list bloggers and these well publicized programs, but fail to recognize that much of what they get from that kind of connection can and, actually, MUST be replicated to achieve success. So, it's great if you get into one of these things, but don't wait!! There may be some people to help you, but no one is going to help if you don't help yourself first.
Build your own "camp"!!
Your industry isn't "Web 2.0." If you are Snooth, then your industry is wine. If you are Sportsvite, then your industry is recreational sports. If you're BricaBox, you need to know the publisher/CMS world. You need to spend time with the experts, and even the incumbants in the industry--the people who you want to strike business development deals with.
And frankly, you can and should do this on your own. Established companies want to know who the innovators are. If they're smart, they want to talk to you earlier rather than later, so you can innovate in a way that helps them out as well, rather than crush them later.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when startups that are stuck in the idea or even early development phase haven't had any conversations with potential customers, partners, etc. And I don't mean, "Oh, yeah, we talked to one guy who works for Big Media, Inc. and he said they'd use it." I mean 30 conversations that go in-depth. Even 50! Kick the tires of your business plan by talking to the people you're actually trying to get into business with.
Talk to other entrepreneurs, too. Not everyone can have a sit down with Mark Zuckerberg, but not everyone is trying to build Facebook either--and there are lots of entrepreneurs that are much more local to you and much more accessible that you should be talking to. Surround yourself with these people. Join or form small groups of startups that meet weekly to get and give feedback. Understand the successful companies in your space and what lessons they learned on the way up.
Again, don't get me wrong, it's cool to spend a summer on someone else's dime. But, if you don't get into Ycombinator, that shouldn't stop you from getting the advice and feedback you need to move forward!
March 24, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
links for 2008-03-22
March 22, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
My friends on MyBlogLog
I love when MyBlogLog is filled with friends.
March 22, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
The Silicon Alley Reporter: A good example of how to disrespect the work of the people who came before you and not play nice in the sandbox
Let me start off by saying this: Gary Sharma's Alley Reporter site is great, in terms of the service that it offers, the layout, the content, etc.
But, as we all know, the name "Silicon Alley Reporter" originally referred to a trade pub that Jason Calacanis started in 1996. Jason was a major pillar of the NYC web community in the 90's and did almost as much as anyone to actually make it a community and put it on the map. He grew a 16 page photocopy magazine into a 256 page glossy through pure hustle, and somehow, even in the worst of times, turn it into something saleable.
I've been fortunate to get to know a lot of people who were around the NYC tech scene back then, and so when I started nextNY and heard people talk about "building the community", it bothered me. There's been a tech community in NYC dating back years and years--or did everyone think that Mayor Mike had the only startup on the block with Bloomberg, LLC so many years ago?
In the late 90's, DoubleClick was an alley mainstea, but even before there was DoubleClick, there was Bell Labs. New York metro area tech has been around for some time. Fred Wilson's been in New York VC for more than 20 years, for example.
While I'd say the entrepreneurs of my generation have done a great job in connecting the disparate parts of the tech community, it's important for me to recognize that we are building on the work of lots of hardworking people who came before us.
So when this tech events site called Alley Reporter popped up, it really bothered me. The only reason anyone would use that name would be to benefit from it's existing cache--built up by someone else's work.
According to Alley Insider, I'm not the only one it's bothering. Dow Jones, who acquired the original entity that held that name is looking into asking him to stop using it.
Apparently, though, the trademark has gone stale. There may not be a technical reason why it can't be reused, but I don't think this is just a technical issue. It's an issue of respect. Jason built up the value of the name, and I think it's just the right thing to do to acknowledge that and get his ok on it.
And frankly, it's also a better business decision. If Gary went to Jason out of respect and Jason loved the idea of reviving the name, there's no better person in the world who could promote it.
Similarly, when I started nextNY, I went to Scott Heiferman to get his feedback, because he had been running the NY Tech Meetup. I didn't need to go to him--I just felt like it was the right thing to do. By asking Scott if it would be ok to talk about nextNY at a NY Tech Meetup, we were able to get a big boost from his thumbs up and that's where we got a lot of our initial members from.
The other thing about this project is that there were other people working on putting together event lists that could have been worked with as well. As a little side project, Lee Semel and I put some resources into NYCTechEvents.com a while ago so that the tech community could have a place to post and share events without signing up for anything. That site now powers the Silicon Alley Insider's events calendar. We don't make any money from it--we just wanted the community to have it.
Somebody once accused me of being down on Alley Reporter because I was jealous his site was "better". That's just ridiculous. Seriously, I've got better things to do than compete on free events sites that I'm not even running as a business. If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to run a company.
Is NYCTechEvents better than Alley Insider? No, it's not. It's fine, but like I said, the look and feel of Alley Reporter is really great--top notch even! Had Gary approached us and said that he had some ideas for an events site, I'm pretty sure we would have just let him update the template or figure out SOME way to work together, because all we want is for people to know what's going on in the community.
Instead, we have two calendars now... this is just silly. I've suggested to Gary that we share events back and forth, but it's been a month since he said he was "giving some thought" to that. Of course, he can do anything he wants, but since when is playing nice in the sandbox not also a generally good business strategy for startups?
Similarly, about two weeks after Allen from Center Networks launched a tech directory of local companies, Alley Reporter came out with the same thing. Again, it was definitely an improvement, but I was actually sort of annoyed for Allen's sake. He had been promoting Alley Reporter since it came out, and to just copy a feature without even so much as trying to collaborate with Allen? Seems like it would be better to be friendly with others trying to do similar things and offer to power everyone else's sites rather than just ignore (or copy) the work of others and move forward alone.
My suggestion to Gary is that he take the great site he's built, come up with an original name and domain for it, and open up some conversations about how to work with people already doing things to organize community info. Play nice in the sandbox and everyone wins.
March 21, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
links for 2008-03-21
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Viral Walmart Outbreak
March 21, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Purple Nike Sneakers: DO NOT WANT!
March 19, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Cool... I'm on the nextNYer's show talking about nextNY
Paul asked me to come on and talk about Path 101, but I thought it was too early for that. I didn't want to cross that hype line since we don't have our product out yet.
So instead, I suggested that I might come on to talk about the community behind the name of the show, so last week I recorded a spot about nextNY.
And to answer Jen's question, yes, about half my waredrobe is black t-shirts.
March 19, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Why students make terrible social media marketers
Have you ever tried to learn a language from a native speaker? How about being taught a sport by someone with incredible natural talent? I had a college roommate who was nearly a savant when it came to math, but he couldn't explain to anyone how he did it.
In the same vein, most of the great baseball managers were rather mediocre players. The reason was because they had to learn the sport, make mistakes, and work really hard to even be half as good as the next person. That meant spending twice as much effort to figure out how to gain any advantages they could...all through learned and practiced behaviors--behaviors they can actually teach.
It's hard to teach someone when it comes naturally to you.
For college students, much of their online behavior just seems natural--having grown up around computers and the internet. They don't think about how they participate in social media... they just do. Ask them to participate in social meda on behalf or because of a brand, and you'll get a blank stare--despite the fact that they've got glittery corporate logos plastered all over their MySpace profile.
"You want me to ask people to use this?" That's what you'll get when you put a service or product in their hands. They don't understand that the subtleties of what they d on walls, in chat, over sms is what marketers wish they could capture in a bottle and activate with a single click.
So if you think you're going to go hire a bunch of college or high school kids to push your brand around social media, think again. You'll probably find them to be a lot less adept at it than you'd expect, even though its something they do everyday.
March 18, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Gizmoz raises money, but Voki is clobbering them in traffic. Still, much work to be done.
Gizmoz is a favorite of Mike Arrington's, because he likes tech for tech's sake. Being 3D is all you need to be his favorite avatar service.
So when the news came out that Gizmoz raised $6.5 million, he failed to note that they're getting clobbered in web traffic by Voki--the avatar site that I helped launch as its first product manager. It was also Voki, not Gizmoz, that got nominated for a SXSW web award.
Still, Voki hasn't fulfilled its potential and that's been really disappointing. Gizmoz just integrated with AIM and that's a heartbreaker for me because I met with AOL about this exact same integration last June.
AIM has the ability to trigger sounds from flash through the text you type in your chats. So, you could record custom messages for your character, and, for example, have it laugh your laugh when you type "lol". How cool would that be?
In fact, I made a mockup of the user interface for this back in June...
AOL loved the idea.... so why didn't it happen?
AOL's biz dev team was undergoing some reorganization, but, to be honest, it was our side that dropped the ball. We should have just built the integration and showed them a completed product. That would have easily gotten a deal signed with them.
Unfortunately, we were always short on development resources, because, instead of being dedicated to a product, they were shared across the whole organization. Oddcast has two other revenue generating product lines--Sitepal for small businesses and its custom business for agencies (Think Monk-e-mail).
I was a product manager without a dedicated development team competing against companies like Meez and Gizmoz who only did one thing.
When I left, I left basic plans for AIM integration, and also integration into blog comments as well. Imagine being able to leave a talking avatar with your own voice as a comment in a blog post. Why type "first!" when you can scream it at the top of your lungs!? It wouldn't be that hard to do either... Our partner API was designed for that kind of remote creation and comments could be threaded with a piece of javascript at the end of your post, just like Disqus works.
That didn't happen either though... so while I applaud the marketing work Oddcast has done since I left, I sure wish we'd see some more feature development and interesting integrations. They're a great bunch of people and I wish them the best in the road ahead.
March 18, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Capital Structure 101 for Techies: Why the Bear Sterns Equity Value is Meaningless to Compare to
JP Morgan is buying Bear Sterns for just about the same price as Meebo got valued at, right?
Buzz!! Wrong.
JP Morgan is buying the EQUITY of Bear Sterns for just about the same price as Meebo's equity.
There's a big difference... one that at least a few tech writers don't get. While it makes a good headline to compare the two, it doesn't make the least bit of sense.
In the startup world, we mostly deal with companies that have no debt, so equity value and company (asset) value are usually pretty much the same. But when you're talking Bear Sterns, there are hundreds of millions of dollars sitting on top of your equity, and that debt comes first in line when it comes to liquidation of the company.
So if you're sitting there going, "Jeez... Bear has a billion dollar building... that's a steal!" than think again. If it actually came down to liquidating buildings, all those debt holders would get paid back before the equity holders saw dime one.
So, if you really wanted to buy the company outright for the assets, you'd have to buy out not just the equity, but the debt as well, and those two combined equal the company's market cap. As of yesterday, Bear's cap was sitting at around $580 million. Add to that the value of all it's debt (which gives you the "Enterprise Value", which was at $300+ million as of some recent filings, you've got a company whose assets are worth a lot more than $250 million--but still a far cry from where it was.
But wait, so what does that mean if you own all the equity, but not the debt? That means you get voting control of the company, but if there aren't enough assets on the books to cover the debt holders, you'll lose it and your equity can be worth squat.
So, you could have a company whose assets are worth billions of dollars, but whose equity is worth zero because there's also billions of debt on the books. That's what some distressed debt investors do... they buy debt with the hopes that the company will go bankrupt, and they'll essentially be left with the rights to the assets.
March 18, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
It's important for parents to read with their kids.
So nice to see this father/daughter pair reading together on the subway... :)
March 17, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Wannabes vs. Thinktheyares
I'm a wannabe.
I wannabe a successful entrepreneur. My definition of success is making a big positive impact on a lot of people's lives. If I accomplish that, I'm sure the money will come, but in the words of Zuck, "I'm not really focused on that right now."
I wannabe a better person tomorrow than I was yesterday.
I wannabe someone that inspires others to go after what they really want.
Being called a wannabe isn't that bad.
However, I heard the term used to describe a local outspoken entrepreneur in a less than endearing way and I didn't quite see it as accurate. The reason why this person rubbed others the wrong way wasn't because they were a wannabe--because that's not so bad.
It was because they were a "thinktheyare".
There are definitely too many of those around for my taste. The last thing in the world I think anyone could accuse me of is being a thinktheyare, because it's so incredibly important to give credit to the people around me and I feel like I'm incredibly fortunate to have such great people around me. Anytime anyone tries to throw credit my way for something, I try hard to figure out who else helped get me somewhere, because I don't think I'm much more than someone who has a great circle around them.
When word of mouth is faster and cheaper than it ever has been before, the self-marketers really come out in full force. Sometimes, it's tough to really figure out who's legit and who's just blowing smoke.
But it's pretty clear to me who is a "thinktheyare" and I'll tell you that there's usually a strong correlation between being a thinktheyare and a smoke blower.
Here are some easy ways to spoke a thinktheyare:
- They like to tout the fact that they are the "only" or "first" person to do something.
- It's never clear exactly what they did and where they did it. You've often never heard of the companies they've worked with, or they namedrop with companies, but the exact role and what they accomplished is often unclear.
- Thinktheyares are often attracted to or try to create artificial scarcity. If they see something as being exclusive, even if it seems pointless as to the advantages of exclusivity in that situation, they're on it.
- They need to get their name attached to everything and they try to make everything "bigger".
- They speak at a lot of events, but when you ask startup pros who they'd want to do a particular job, the thinktheyare is never at the top of anyone's list for whatever their supposed expertise is.
- They have a lot of "associations" with people... but as for strong two-way connections, the jury is out.
- Thinktheyare's often feign help. They tell you they'll hook you up with something, but it either never quite comes through or seems to come with some kind of unforseen string attached.
March 17, 2008 in It's My Life, Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
SNL Spitzer Skit...hilarious... even with the annoying preroll
March 16, 2008 in Random Stuff | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
I feel less spammy already
March 16, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Bukkit Serch Party
see more crazy cat pics
bucket « Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures - I Can Has Cheezburger?
March 16, 2008 in Random Stuff | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
links for 2008-03-14
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The Page by Mark Halperin. Politics updated by the minute.
March 14, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
She might be blogging...
"I had been living this life for 27 years, and bits and pieces of me were all over the place, in many different people. I was, and still am, a chameleon, a changer, a morpher. Always a work in progress, and drawn toward newness like a crow toward shiny objects.
In the words of someone else who said it best.. “I am a mover of in betweens. I slip among classifications like water in cupped palms, leaving bits of myself behind. I am quick and deft… I am a chameleon. And the best chameleon has no center, no truer sense of self than what he is in the instant.” (Andrew Pham, Catfish and Mandala)"
Blogged with Flock
March 14, 2008 in It's My Life | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Clothing System Leakage
Anyone who has ever worked with me will attest to the fact that I will inevitably bring clothing into the office. I guess because days get warmer and I'm always leaving with less than I came in with.
March 14, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Red Sox Nation of Rabid Twitterers
March 14, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Cutting up subway tracks at 2AM
March 14, 2008 in Random Stuff | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Cutting up subway tracks at 2AM
March 14, 2008 in Random Stuff | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
We all have stuff
For the last few days, I've been thinking about a professional acquaintence turned new friend... They have a family member with a serious health issue, which happens to everyone at some point or another.
I was struck because, when I spoke to this person, she was more concerned with letting me get back to my business than what was going on in her life. I couldn't do it. I couldn't say, "Hey, um, yeah... sorry about your sick uncle...I gotta go return some important e-mail."
E-mail! "F" e-mail.
If it's important, they'll call. People don't call anymore. You know why? It's never important...not as important as a friend with a really serious problem.
I have another friend who recently busted a wheel on her car swirving out of the way of a pothole. It was raining and late at night. Rather than call anyone for help, she slept in the car in a parking lot until morning and then called a tow truck.
Have we gotten so low in our expectations of people? Have we gotten so self absorbed that we give off the impression that we can't be bothered with any kind of personal inconvenience?
At the end of the day, I want to deal with people who not only think I can make money for or with them but who care about me as a person. Our monthly board meetings include a few minutes for "How are you guys doing?" To me, that's almost the most important part of the meeting, because we're building applications for people, leveraging people, empowering people...if our own people aren't doing so well, it is highly unlikely our people centric application will amount to much.
March 14, 2008 in It's My Life, Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Taken from Austin Bergstrom Terminal
March 13, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
AOL Buys Bebo
That's $850 million they never would have had to spend had they figured out how to build AIM into a social network.
Good luck monetizing it without Curt Viebranz and Dave Morgan at Platform A.
*Slaps head*
Blogged with Flock
March 13, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Dear Future Wife (Whoever she may be)
If you should discover that, after decades of marriage and a meteoric career, I have spent $80k on high priced hookers, please dump my ass...
...right on the street...
...in public...
...right in the middle of my press conference.
Do not be supportive. I do not deserve it.
Do not keep my kids around me. They'd be better off if I wasn't around.
March 13, 2008 in Random Stuff | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
links for 2008-03-12
March 12, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
links for 2008-03-11
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NextNYers is a weekly web series profiling up-and-coming web 2.0, technology and new media companies in the New York City area that should be on your radar.
March 11, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
What do Tom Glavine and Sarah Lacy have in common?
When Tom Glavine joined the Mets, he was a career Atlanta Brave. The team had been a playoff mainstay for a decade and he had won a championship with them.
Instead of continuing to help his team, he opted to take a few million a year more on what would have been a $10 million a year offer with the Braves. Another factor was the Met's option for a 4th year, which gave him a better shot at 300 wins. Basically, it was a completely selfish decision.
Mets fans knew he didn't really want to be in New York from the start. So, not surprisingly, when you prove yourself to be selfish and looking out for #1, then your audience is going to have very little tolerance for anything but perfection. If you're shooting for millions and a personal milestone, you have to deal with the downside as well as the upside.
He had a pretty mediocre Met career, but Glavine's fail came at the end of the 2007 season. The Mets were on the brink of one of the worst collapses in sports history, but all they had to do was to win a single game down the stretch to force a playoff... and two to get in. Glavine's last two performances were abysmal. Against the hapless Washington Nationals on September 25th, with the Mets still up 2 games, he gave up 6 runs in 5 innings, getting outduled by Justin Bergmann. Fail.
Nuclear fail came on the last day of the season, when the 300 game winner could only record a single out. He faced nine batters. Five got hits. Two were walked, including a plunking of Dontrelle Willis, the opposing pitcher. Seven scored. Thirty six of the worst pitchers he had ever thrown in his life--only 17 of them for strikes.
But the worst part about the whole thing was his response after the game. He said he wasn't "devasted" and that was a word he reserved for life and death situations. What Glavine didn't get was that many fans feel like it is life and death when they watch a team... it's certainly bigger than just a game to them. Regardless of what he felt like on the inside, as a $13 million a year entertainer, it shouldn't be too much trouble to feign a little devastation for the fans sake.
In fact, he never showed much emotion at all, and that was the worst part of it. It wasn't just that he failed... he never really seemed to acknowledge it.
Similarly, when Sarah Lacy got to interview Mark Zuckerberg at the SXSW keynote--conveniently close to the timing of her book about the company--she put herself in the spotlight. It was a huge opportunity to step up. A fantastic interview could have meant some great wind at her back for book sales and certainly a nice notch in her journalist belt. It reminded me of when Kara Swisher had an opportunity to get inside AOL during the late 90's on the way up her great journalistic career. Sarah Lacy could have been the next Kara Swisher. Instead, we sat there wishing it was Kara Swisher doing the interview with Mark.
She failed to bring an already uncomfortable young founder out of his shell. She failed to pick up on what the audience wanted out of the interview. She patronized and then even seemed to flirt with Zuckerberg during the interview. I sat there in person... it was like watching a car accident. Arrington thinks people are being sexist, but girl or guy, flirting is flirting. If Robert Scoble did the interview and started twirling his hair at the mention that Mark is the youngest billionaire, everyone would have said, "WTF... Is Scoble flirting?" It didn't have a place no matter who was interviewing.
Even my friend Ariel, who is most definitely a woman, said it live on Twitter:
Eventually, I was so uncomfortable that I had to leave... I'm sorry I missed the end when she attacked the audience, but her video comments afterwards were as equally obnoxious as the interview. She said that she made the mistake of coming to a "developer's conference".
I'm not a developer. I didn't want to hear about the specifics of API's either... but "You don't believe Facebook is really worth 15 billion, do you?"
What kind of question is that? What's the expected answer?
And, "Beacon, WTF?"
I'd like to just to interviews like that... Maybe I'll get to interview GW and I'll just say, "Iraq, WTF?"
Eliot Spitzer interview, "Hookers, WTF?"
Certainly more efficient. Why waste words?
And let's keep in kind that this is someone who, just a week ago, "asked for the ball" in the big game. She made a big deal about not getting into TED. So, she got to step up to the keynote interview at SXSW and she blew it... hey, you know, it happens, but she's got to own up to it, just the same way she would have owned up to the upside of great book sales, big stories, etc.
Instead, she blamed everyone else but herself. She blamed the people in the room for possibly preventing any big name people from ever attending again. Her now famous "screw you all" twitter... it's Glavine's "this is not devastating" all over again.
She needs to admit that she was poorly prepared for the interview and apologize... save some face and take some of the hit she's tried unsuccessfully to dodge so far.
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March 11, 2008 in Baseball and Other Sports, Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Hughes Hall from the McGinley Center
I'm waiting to meet Danielle...then on to pick up Alex to head to Newark Airport... SXSW bound!!
March 7, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
links for 2008-03-06
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The Social Media Training wiki provides a community-developed set of best practices for social media training - Using Social Media To Create Social Media Training
March 6, 2008 | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
Still don't get Twitter? Twitter in Plain English (Video)
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March 6, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
The Secret Life of Angels: Raising an Angel Round for Your Startup
A lot of people come my way when they start thinking about raising money--either because I used to work for a venture capital fund or because my company, Path 101 just completed our 350,000 angel round.
Without fail, the first question is usually, "Who should I go to?" Many people feel that, especially in NYC, angels willing to invest in early stage deals are hard to find. The entrepreneurs attend "exclusive" networking events to meet angels only to discover that few investors actually attend these events and those that do are often not looking at things in your stage or area.
These are the last places you should look, as far as I'm concerned.
It's the same thing as trying to meet someone great in a bar... Sure, it happens, but the odds are against you. They don't know you, you don't know them. You don't have any idea what the other person is looking for, what they value, or whether they're even really in the market at that moment. Maybe they're just getting out of a bad relationship, or in an angel's case, just lost some money in a bad deal--in your niche, too. Plus, in general, there are way more potential angels NOT going to angel events than actually going. Similarly, the number of single people far outpaces the number of people who hangout in the hottest singles bars and clubs.
There are a few keys to improving your odds with angels, and this advice, not surprisingly, works with dating, too--the big difference is that one of these activities makes you money and the other is likely to burn a hole in your pocket. :)
First, you want to start a lot "closer to home". Who knows you the best? Who trusts you? Remember that the requirement for an angel investor is that they be accredited investors. These are basically either insitutions, or if they're individuals, they need to make over 200k a year (300k for couples) or have a million bucks of net worth. What they don't need is a shingle on their door or business card that says "angel investor". An angel investor might be the person in the neighborhood you grew up in who owned the biggest house--someone who knew you and your family from a religious organization perhaps. They could be your previous or current employer, or their boss--just generally someone who knows you well enough to think that you can be trusted, that you'll give it your all, and that you have the skills to succeed. These should be the easiest people to convince that you're worth backing--and other angels are going to want to see this.
Should that mean family? Eh... I don't know about that. I think you're going to need your family for support, emotional strength... You're going to need someone to turn to do say, "Wow, things are going really bad, I'm really worried." and I don't think you want to eliminate the possibility of being able to say that to your family, because they've got their retirement funds in your startup.
Depending on your industry (this of course might be tough if you're a social worker), I've often said that if you don't have enough industry experience and enough of a network to have at least $150k of relationships on your own, I'm not entirely sure how successful you're going to be in starting a company. Even in the early going, it's really obvious how much success hinges on the company you keep. There's just too much to do, too much to know... I don't know how any entrepreneur who doesn't know at least a handful of more successful people than them can do this job, frankly. You need to know people in the space who are willing to go to bat for you--those are the people likely to fund you.
On top of that, I can't overstate the value of industry expertise. If a startup has literally zero connections to money, that probably means that they don't necessarily have a lot of experience in their particular industry. Otherwise, they would have known SOMEONE who made money in it. In my mind, that's a problem. Even the most disruptive business models require at least a little bit of industry know-how... of nothing else than to know exactly how to be disruptive and deliver the deathblow to the old school companies in your space. You need to know the landscape, how money flows, how value is created...
And you get this experience not just by having any job in your space, but by actively being a leader in it--taking on responsibility, leading people like you with similar interests... Again, also like dating. Instead of always looking for dates, if you're just getting out there, being active in your social life and hobbies, you're more likely going to come off as the kind of person people want to spend time with--and in the angel situation, who people want to spend money with. If you weren't a "entrepreneurial" before you started your company, whether in your hobbies, volunteer activities, student groups, professional orgs, what are the chances that you'll be successful in this startup--your first real leadership challenge?
So, ideally, you've got some connections to successful people in your own industry. Your target angel list should include the top 30 most successful people you can find in your space--not that you want to include all of them in your deal, but you need to talk to a lot of people because you're going to get a lot of no's. The biggest reason why you want these people in your deal is because they can vet your idea. If you've got an idea for a retail concept, and the founder of Jamba Juice invests in your company, clearly that means a lot and that you're probably onto something. You still could fail, but at least and "insider" has deemed your idea not to be completely stupid. If you can't convince any of the 30 most successful people in your industry to back you or you can't even network your way to them, I'd say that's a big issue.
When you actually get in front of these folks, don't discount what they can offer besides just a check. We got a ton of value from meeting with successful entrepreneurs before our round. It was great when people inquired about the potential for investment, but even when they didn't, we learned lessons that were just as valuable.
Someone asked me the other day how to ask? Do you just come out and say it? What do you ask for? A certain amount?
We tried to avoid asking as much as we could. If people are interested, they're going to bring it up. We just basically said, "Here's what we're doing... here's how much money we're raising... We'd love to get any feedback you have."
We meant that, too... can't overstate that. It was great when people volunteered to write checks but you can't expect it.. Even though these were folks that obviously had the money, it's still a lot to ask for and angel investing is pretty risky. We did, of course, nudge a few people when we really wanted them in and they didn't bring it up on their own.
As for size of the round, terms, etc... we did find a couple of more sophisticated folks to guide us on things like the security, the price, and then we sollicated lots of feedback from others. You don't want to have a 8 way (or in our case, a 20 way) negotiation on the docs, so if you can find a couple of folks to commit early, and anchor a fair round, that will make your life a lot easier.
Number is a big question people have, too. We had more than anyone else I know...20 people. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but outside of all the paper shuffling, I'm so excited that we've got all these great people involved and helping us out. Actually, the bigger question was how small an investment were we willing to take. For what it's worth, we took a few 5's and 10's under the following conditions: Did they add some kind of unique experience for value? Or, were they just nice people wouldn't cause us a lot of headaches to manage? No reason not to take 5's otherwise, because they day may come when you're down to your last few grand and you'll be glad you took it.
Anyway... that's what we learned... I'd love to hear lessons from others....
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March 5, 2008 in Venture Capital & Technology | Remember this post with del.icio.us| E-mail this post to a friend
