N Train to Brooklyn, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Softball with Brian's team at Dyker Park today.

Starbucks Floor, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Ever notice the mosaic tile floor in the Union Square Starbucks? It clearly predates the store... I wonder how old it is and what was here before it.

Dock Learning, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Grahme giving Cory a lesson on the history of sign language... Seriously. The guy is like an encyclopedia.

More fun with Vimeo...   I made this little video on the ferry and added a little "You belong to the city" sax intro. 

Link: Vimeo / Downtown NYC Skyline from the Staten Island Ferry.

Its always nice when other people support your investment thesis...

Link: Wikis, Weblogs and RSS: What Does the New Internet Mean for Business? - Knowledge@Wharton.

When you look at the trends in web development, you will see a shift from what I call host-provided value -- such as CitySearch (where publishers provide local events listings in different cities) -- to user-provided value in websites such as Upcoming.org (a global events calendar managed by users). There is a giving up of control. The new web applications are lightweight, single function and focused on a specific problem or interaction. When you combine that trend with creative developers who are beginning to have the energy and insight to recombine technologies in new ways, you get not the explosive growth of the 1990s, but you get something more relevant. I can't anticipate exactly what that will be, but I see the potential for businesses to change the way they think about developing and deploying technologies.  - Janice Fraser, CEO _ Adaptive Path

"We spent a lot of time developing physical infrastructure, and now we have to develop the social infrastructure on top of it."  Ross Mayfield, CEO - Social Text

Brad and I had a really interesting conversation about our investment thesis, which we're constantly kicking the tires of and refining.  We were talking about businesses whose value is driven by peer production, like eBay, Craigslist, and del.icio.us and we discussed the defensibility of businesses whose barriers to adoption are just as low as their barriers to exit.  This also came up when we recently presented to our LPs a little progress chart on our investments for a number of criteria.  For each of our investments, we had trouble filling in the little defensibility bubble and it made me think about the nature of defensibility in the first place.

What is a defensible business anyway?  Last time I checked, we lived in a free country with a government that promotes competition and curbs monopolistic behavior.  Any customer of a company can choose to stop being a customer at anytime, right?  Now, perhaps switching costs are high, but I would argue that they are capped to the degree that customers would be unwilling to sign up for a product whose switching costs were so high that, in the event of poor performance, they could not afford to leave. 

Plus, I always thought of defensibility, at least the way its been thought of, as a very selfish mindset.  If your model is to be the only company who can do something, that's not nearly as effective as being the best company offering the product.  Shouldn't your focus, when it comes to customers, be on providing the best service--one they want to choose--versus limiting their access to alternatives.  I don't like the idea to build a business around keeping your customers locked up in a pen.  Better to leave the barn door open and know they come back every night regardless because they like being fed. 

Plus, some companies become obsessed with defending, that they lose sight of their offense--their innovation and product quality.  If your customers aren't being serviced, they'll leave, no matter what the business.  We're thinking a lot about that with del.icio.us.  Of course, you always have to keep an eye on competitors, but in the end, what can you really do besides try your hardest to be the number one destination for anyone who wants to remember anything on the web.  I mean, if Google launched a tagging service, do you think Joshua would be like, "Well, screw this then, I'll just go back to trading"?  No, he'd be up nights and weekends making sure that he and his team offered the best product possible--and that's what it would have to be, because it certainly wouldn't be worth the effort to attempt to "defend" and prevent Google from doing anything.  Calcanis posted one before on this... about how businesses are built on 1) hustle, 2) passion and 3) resiliency, and I think in Web 2.0, where services are easy to sign on to and easier to stop using, that's even more the case.

When I was at GM Asset Management, we saw a lot of late stage VC deals whose "barrier to entry" was that they were the only ones who had a certain technology.  However, we started to realize, and this is why the Union Square Ventures pitch rang true to me, that pure technology advantage was a fleeting notion.  Maybe you were, in fact, the only ones with a technology, but that doesn't mean you were the only ones with the solution.  In other words, there are always many ways to skin a cat. 

In today's world where community creates value, I think that you will develop businesses that are actually more "defensible" than their command and control corporate hierarchical predecessors.  Sure, a computer science major could duplicate the eBay website over a weekend, but he certainly couldn't stock it with a million items.  The value of eBay, del.icio.us etc. is in all of these thousands, millions, etc. individual little agents all acting independently.  Its very hard to get them all to act en masse, and there's definitely a power law going on here.  As more people use these services, the stickier each incremental user will get.  Why would that first guy ever use the eBay knockoff without a community of people buying and selling products?  That's not to say people won't leave or new services won't get created, but it will take time...  hopefully enough time for the company to improve themselves enough to make someone not want to leave.

Anyone got a rake?, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Fixable, but not great.... No ump and no opponent, though.

Rainout, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Doesn't look good...gametime in 20 minutes.

A couple of months ago, my mom told me of a student asking for my help.  She had made Fordham, but her boyfriend, who she said was a very good student, was waitlisted.  Knowing that I, if nothing else, knew a lot of people to talk to at Fordham, mom passed this girl on to me. I know that this years admissions numbers were through the roof in both quantity and quality, so it had to be tough to get off that list.  It didn't seem like the numbers would be in this student's favor, which is a shame, because its just a very difficult process altogether.  The admissions group does a great job with selection, but its also a tough job, because you're dealing with the emotions and expectations of literally thousands of candidates.  Its so hard to select one versus another and its, of course, not a perfect process.

The one thing that I told him was that, like in any other situation, like hiring, for example, its probably better when someone has a personal experience with you, and that he should make himself known to the right person.  The Admissions Office can't possibily interview 15,000 people, but it would be great if someone at the University was able to talk to him.  Showing up at Admissions and begging isn't quite what I had in mind, but I'm sure that's probably what a lot of people do.  I don't envy the people that have to answer all of these really sincere and heartwrenching phonecalls from students and parents alike.

I asked what this student's major was and it turns out that he wanted to do journalism.  Fordham has a great communications program and so I went straight to the top.  I contacted Dr. Paul Levinson, the Chair of the department, and basically asked if he would be willing to take a meeting with the student.  I said that if it turns out this student is really good, he could pass on a positive message to Admissions if he sees fit, and if not, no harm done and perhaps if nothing else this student would get some words of wisdom from an experienced professor. 

Well, not only did Dr. Levinson meet with this student, but he asked the student for writing samples.   I still didn't think there was much of a shot for this kid, though, just because of the numbers,  until I got this e-mail today.  It was actually the first time I had direct contact with the student...

Dear Mr. O'Donnell,

Although we have been in correspondance for quite some time now in one form or another we have never actually directly spoken. As I'm sure you know by now, my name is ..., and I'm writing to tell you how sincerely grateful I am for everything you did for me during the college acceptance process. Please don't think me rude for taking so long to respond, but I've been very overwhelmed as of late. One of the positive things that I got out of this whole application experience, is a genuine sense of gratefulness for my acceptance to Fordham. Unlike some others to whom admission came easy, I will not take one day of my career at Fordham for granted. I am thoroughly looking forward to the fall, and beam with pride whenever I get to tell someone about my college plans. Once again thank you so much for arranging my meeting with Dr. Levinson, who was invaluable to my quest for Fordham admission. At some point I hope I am able to thank you in person, but until that day you have my deepest gratitude.

Sincerely,

...

Fordham University Class of 2009

I forwarded this to Dr. Levinson, who responded:

Truly my pleasure.  Fordham is a winner in the humanity it allows
into such tough processes like college acceptances.

All best wishes,
Paul

I've been talking to a counterpart up in Boston and we're throwing around the idea of collaborating on a "Venture Blog, Jr." blog...   Lots of people ask me how to break into the VC world, so we thought it would be interesting to publish our thoughts about life in the bottom rung of a really interesting ladder is like.  We were thinking that we could have representatives from NYC, Boston, the Valley, and perhaps an out of the way spot less known for venture.  If anyone is interested, please let me know.  We're looking for analysts in their 20's who haven't founded multimillion dollar companies quite yet.  Pre-MBA's preferred.

"A Fred divided against himself cannot stand!!"

So people are complaining about having to trudge through all of Fred's posts about his family, his travel, and his music to get to his posts about venture capital.  Its affecting how he posts and really has him troubled.  Frankly, I think some of his readers are being obnoxious, and I'd be offended if I were him.  Fred's a nicer guy than I am.

Didn't we all agree that blogs are a conversation?  Blogs are about people...  whole people.  Even if you only post about one particular subject, if its a post from the heart its about more than just politics, technology, marketing or law.  The smallest atomic element of blog isn't a post or a category.  Its me.  I am the smallest atomic element on my blog.  To really know me through this blog is to pay attention to all of it.  Sure, you can highlight a post or sort categories to find something in particular, but to break off part of it and disregard other parts to suit your liking or, even worse, suit an argument, is taking something out of what is a lot of surrounding context. 

This whole professional vs. personal conversation matter reminds me of our mixers for the SEMI mentoring program at NYSSA.  I remember this one hot-shot quant Stern student coming up to me and asking me if I knew/dealt with synthetic derivatives while I was at GM.  I told him that I knew what they were, but since this was an after work function, surely there could be more interesting things to talk about.  I mean, we were supposed to be assessing whether you wanted to get matched up for a whole summer with someone.  I didn't choose to mentor that student.

My blog has even less posts about VC and tech than Fred's does, mostly because I'm still learning and don't feel I have a lot to add to the already great conversations that are going on.  If someone asked me to cut down on my kayaking and softball posts, I'd tell them to take a hike. You wouldn't put up with that in person.  Why should you put up with that on a blog?  Imagine if an entrepreneur came to meet with Fred, and Fred opened the meeting by saying, "You caught me at a good time, because my daughter just won her basketball game."  What do you think his reaction would be if the entrepreneur responded by saying, "Yeah, I'm really not too interested in your family.  I'd like to talk about the video blogging space and hear your thoughts on that." 

I think that's just plain rude and it doesn't seem like that's the kind of person we'd like to do business with.  I say that because that's not the kind of person Brad and Fred seem to enjoy working with.  I'm pretty sure "investing in rude, self-centered people who aren't interested in others and can't empathize with the people they work with" isn't in our investment thesis.  It takes minimal effort to listen to someone's 2 minute family shpeel and almost no effort to skip through posts with titles like "Fordham loses another softball game" if you're reading on an RSS reader.  (At least its really easy on Feed Demon, anyway.)  Someone who can't listen isn't going to make a very good entrepreneur (and I'm not saying that b/c I know about venture capital... people who don't listen don't make very good anythings...) because they think they have all the answers and, well, no one does.  I don't.  My co-workers don't.  That's why listening and paying attention to the bigger picture is so important.

Not only that, if you have any networking skills whatsoever, you won't glaze over Brad's piloting story, but you'll listen intently and note it on the back of the business card you collect from him.  "Pilots plane."  Charlie:  "Kayaks on the Hudson."  Joshua:  "Doesn't like rollercoasters."  Inevitably, you're going to need something else to talk about sometime... a way to make a sincere connection.  Otherwise, you just have your business, and then what if we pass on it?  How will you keep up the connection?  Plus, what if some major life event gets blogged about and you're just subscribed to just the VC tag?  If I knew someone was reading my posts about technology and they totally skipped over the fact that I lost my family pet, I'd think they were pretty insensitive.  When I was at GM, every single placement agent and investor relations person worth their salaries knew about Larry Rusoff's three girls.  Did they really care about how the little ones were doing?  Maybe... maybe not, but it was worth mentioning, because it would bring the best out in him.

No, this is who we are.  Get to know the people of Union Square Ventures.  Fred's a family guy who loves music.  I'm into team sports and outdoor activities.  Brad's a pilot (the things you don't know about non-bloggers...) and a sailor... and he has twins.  We don't talk about business 100% of the time, and if you want to get to know us, you need to get to know us sincerely--meaning accepting the whole us. 

I will never separate my RSS feeds into categories.  Read all of me or read none of me.  Skim what you're not as interested in, that's fine, but don't expect me to cut my thoughts/persona into little chunks to be divided out by my audience segments. 

In our regular Monday meeting, we were talking about what being a firm doing thesis driven investing meant for getting deal flow.  "Deal flow investing" may be dead, but you still actually need a flow of deals.  We're well on pace for getting enough deals in the fund, but our main concern was making sure we see all of the deals related to our investment thesis...

SWSX, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

After a long day at the boathouse, nothing like an iced tea and a wrap at sunset.  SWSX is at the North Cove.

Link: Thwarting Identity Thieves.

Since 1995, over $954 trillion has been invested in the creation of over 543,000 venture backed security companies.  Yet, no one has solved the two fundamental problems with computer security:

1) People are morons.

2) People are in charge of information security.

I cannot believe that, in 2005, Citigroup is sending computer tapes with the personal information of 3.9 million customers, including Social Security numbers, via UPS.  Fuckin' UPS!!  I mean, I know those brown trucks look pretty official and all, but...   Isn't there a way to send this over... hmm... what's that thing called...    oh yeah, the INTERNET. 

The thing you gotta wonder is whether or not they figured out that the package was gone because an admin was tracking it via their tracking number.  I'd love to see that screenshot:

4:43PM: Package picked up at Citigroup.

6:53PM: Package arrives at JFK.

7:02PM: Package x-rayed and subsequently opened with a box cutter by underpaid airport loading guy.

7:28PM: Empty cardboard box loaded onto plane.

Status:  Fucked.

Link: CNN.com - Actress Anne Bancroft dies - Jun 8, 2005.

This makes me sad, because The Graduate is one of my favorite movies, and on top of that, Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks just seem like such a great couple...  call me a hopeless romantic.

Whenever an older celebrity dies, it makes me wonder what its going to be like when the celebrities of our generation die.  One day, we'll see the headlines:

Material Girl Madonna dies at 81.
Former Pop Idol Britney Spears dies at 72.

And, just because I know he'll stick around as long as irratatingly possible...

Pauly Shore dies at 98.

If anyone would have told manager Charlie O'Donnell that the anemic Fordham offense would only muster three runs against Megahurtz--a team that had not lost yet and had a record of 4-0-1, he probably would have thought yesterday's game was going to be a rerun of the team's previous efforts. 

And boy, would he have been wrong, because everyone knows that pitching and defense win games.

Patti Dickerson tossed 7 innings of one run ball, striking out four along the way, to get Fordham its first real win, 3-1.  She was backed up by errorless, yes errorless, as in, perfect, as in, every time the ball was hit to someone, they caught it, defense.  The play in the field was led by Jason  Giannitti, who also drove in the go ahead runs for Fordham in the bottom of the sixth with a two-run single that scored Ron Zapata and Samara Finn.  Giannitti vacuumed up flyout after flyout in leftfield.  The left side of the defense was also bolstered by the cleatless Kevin Rodricks, who, despite the lack of traction, managed a few circus catches for ESPN's Slowpitch Softball Tonight.

The win, combined with ABA's forfeit last week, gives Fordham a 2-4 record.   There is also a suspended game that Fordham leads 7-5 with two innings to go that needs to be completed later in the season.  If Fordham can pull that game out, they're actually not out of contention should this win spark any kind of streak.  One thing's for sure, they'll have to find a way to get the offense sparked, because three runs a game is going to be very little gas for a long road up the standings.

After the game, the team signed the game ball and gave it to Patti Dickerson for her efforts in the franchise's first actual win on the field.

Ugh....rain, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Can'r wait until I'm a two block walk to the subway...

Long walk home, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Home

Long walk home, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

77th and York... What does this statue have anything to do with selling and repairing vacuum cleaners?

Long walk home, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Hmm... 1744... They oughtta check the expiration date on some of those Fabrege eggs then.