Self Deception
I've been reading the Moral Animal and it had a really fascinating observation about self-deception.
It turns out that self-deception is likely to be a natural evolutionary advantage, developed as our perception about our outside world improved. As you would expect, humans with better sensory perception had an advantage over rivals--they could sense danger, forage better for food, size up opponents, etc.
Our increased sensory perception also allowed us to read body language, facial expression--look past a bad poker face, essentially.
The self-deception comes in when it becomes and advantage not to give away a lie with your body language. And, as we all know from George Costanza, "It's not a lie if you believe it." To an extent, deceiving yourself first is an effective way to decieve others, and, for better or worse, the ability to deceive others is an evolutionary advantage. Perfect example: standing up to a bully twice your size. Perfectly translated observation to cognition to observation should tell you that you're going to get your ass handed to you. However, if you can delude yourself enough that you actually have what it takes to win, you might get the other guy to think twice, versus smelling blood.
Of course, in this case, the combination of speed and self delusion turns out to be the best advantage.
I wonder if self delusion isn't a natural advantage of entrepreneurs? You have to admit, attempting to knock off Google or Microsoft or whoever must come with some kind of evolutionary kool aid consumption.
How to get started as a Venture Capital (VC) analyst
A lot of people ask me about my VC experience and want to know the secret to getting into the VC world. Its a pertinent question, especially if you're in NYC. If you've been paying attention, my VC successor will probably reach the halfway point in his stint this year, and if you wait until that spot actually opens up to position yourself, well, you'll probably be too late.
As an analyst, you can be useful at pretty much only three things: communication, sourcing, and analysis. The great thing for VC wannabes is that these are all things that you can do now, before a job even comes up. There's nothing stopping you from putting forth your analysis of a new startup, or tipping VCs off to potential deals today, even when you're not at a firm.
Many students have the misconception that, as an analyst, you're going to be put in front of a big stack of business plans and your filtering skill is what's going to make you the next Mike Moritz. Guess again. VCs hustle hard to track down deals and they expect everyone in the shop to be bringing deals to the table, because you should be in the flow of interesting things going on.
But, all this can be a lot of handwaving unless you have specific,
applicable action items, and since the web loves top ten lists:
1) Make a digital home for yourself.
If I haven't beat this to death already, creating a digital presence, preferably through a blog, gives people you connect with a landing page. It is the center of operations for all your online networking and a place for people to assess what you're all about, what you're thinking, etc--the equivalent of hoisting a sail on a windy day. No presence, no sail.
2) Know your community calendar... attend.
As a VC, you want to meet innovators, but the innovators are already meeting... in Meetups and Co-working groups, speaking events, and usergroups. (nextNY, for example,if you're into tech in NYC) They'll be a lot more accepting to you if the first time you meet them isn't when you're trying to vulture around for something to shove money into. Plus, you need to get out there and in the flow to keep up with what's going on.
3) Be passionate for the product...no matter what it is.
Frankly, I don't know how anyone could be a VC analyst and not be passionate about the products they're looking to invest in. If you're doing web services, and you're not a user, you're just never going to get it. Why do people use Twitter? Why is Facebook better than MySpace? These are things you're just not going to understand if you're not a real user.
4) Be an innovation leader in your own world.
You don't have to be a former entrepreneur, but being generally entrepreneurial and an innovator helps. Did you lead the investment or entrepreneurship club at your college? No? Why not? There wasn't one? BUZZ Wrong answer. You should have started it.
5) Be selfless with your time for startups.
One of the most valuable thing you can do with your time as analyst is just talk to a lot of startups...get a sense of what you like and what you don't, best practices, good teams vs. weak teams, etc. And startups are often looking for feedback, beta testers, ideas... the more you make yourself available, the more you will learn and generally be seen as a useful person to talk to. Go help a startup with their marketing plan.
6) Ignore the hype.
It's not just about e-mailing the companies you find on TechCrunch. Just because it doesn't have AJAX doesn't mean it won't be worth billions one day. Remember that the whole world doesn't necessarily blog and some startups can't even be found online yet because they're still in stealth. You need to cut through the buzz and make your own decisions.
7) Teach.
You will never have a clearer understanding of how something works until you attempt to teach it to someone else, which requires you to make some semblance of sense of your subject. Offer to teach at your high school or the Learning Annex or anything... Convince grandma to join Facebook. It will be a sobering experience and will remind you that not everyone gets RSS and some people don't see the value of being social and out there. It's those people that startup success is built on. Win the middle.
8) Be social and have a personality.
If you're going to be an involved community member, people need to actually like hanging out with you. This is where those countless hours in college bars should have taught you something. I know plenty of people who succeed because of their great personalities more so than any other reason. It's not hard to be nice and have a little fun... try it.
9) Build relationships with VCs..not just for stock information interviews.
Right now, you can go do a report on a hot new space or a review of a product and send it to a VC (or tag it for them). If you really want in to this space, why wouldn't you? How about hanging around their blog or showing up at the same events? VC's don't live in a bubble. Their job dictates that they need to be "out there" and that's where you should be, too. It always blew my mind when I was at USV how many people sent biz plans to info@unionsquareventuers (dot) com, when we were so out there with our digital presence.
10) Know your place.
You are not a partner. You're an analyst.. or you want to be. There are a lot of people with a lot more experience than you who have seem this all before. Respect experience. Don't trash a startup, because, for all you know, the entrepreneur is the VC's best friend from Stanford or they're currently in talks for funding now. The best thing you can do sometimes is listen. Listen to what VCs and entrepreneurs are saying on blogs and at conferences and take it all in before you go position yourself as the greatest thing since sliced bread....especially since a large part of your job will be listening and asking smart questions.
So, the next time I hear from someone via LinkedIn or e-mail who wants to hear about my VC experience, I fully expect that they already go to Tech Meetups, have joined nextNY if they are in NYC, use all this stuff passionately, etc.... That's a good first step.
Meet Ambition
Meet Ethan.
Ethan has a blog. He does some graphic design work.
I found him because he's attending the Future of Online Advertising Conference and registered for their little social networking app.
Did I mention that he's a 17 year old high school student?
If you teach or work in the career services world, this is exactly what you need to be teaching... how students can create a professional digital presence for themselves and be ambitious enough to go to conferences, connect with people, network, etc.
Or are you too busy running job fairs?
Soon, the best jobs will be gotten through digital backchannel conversations by people who maintain their professional thoughts in a searchable and consumable manner.
If you're working in career services are you spending more time with students on their resumes or teaching them ways to get jobs without them?
nextMiami: Sun and Innovation in Florida
A few people have made attempts at mirroring the nextNY concept in other geographies and I think it's a fantastic idea.
Nathaniel McNamara and Jason Baptiste are down in Miami attempting to bring together people
interested in technology, new media, and entrepreneurship together in a social setting. If you're down in Florida, you should make a point of connecting with these two guys in their attempt to help strengthen the community of innovators down there. The "next" concept takes a lot of community interest, passion, and involvement and nextNY has been a fantastic way to connect with others in the space. Frankly, its brought a lot of people out of the woodwork that I didn't know were there.
Check out the event next Thursday night, June 14th via Facebook or Meetup.
Please forward to Florida startups and innovators...
Hey Austin for Edwards, please do not spam my del.icio.us for: account
I just got some politically oriented links supporting John Edwards in my "links for you" section in del.icio.us from "austinforedwards".
The "links for you" section of my del.icio.us account is like an e-mail box, which pretty much makes this spam. I don't support Edwards for President (he's a good guy, but I'm just waiting for Bloomberg to run... ) So, for one, I'm going to tag this post for:austinforedwards so they can see that I don't want to be spammed. Two, del.icio.us needs some sort of blocking or report as spam mechanism in that section, because, as of this moment, I have no way to prevent someone I don't know from just tagging a whole bunch of links for me.
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... An underground blob of oil in NYC
Ok, nix Greenpoint of my list of places in NYC I'd like to move to....
Big Media, Web 2.0, Meet your young users: A NYC conference/non-profit idea
Some unfiltered thoughts that bubbled up at the gym this morning:
- Anyone who has any interest in the future of NYC as an innovation center recognizes the importance of education--not just at the University level, but in high schools and elementary schools as well. We can't just be a town that attracts smart people from elsewhere to educate them in technology... we need to foster the seeds of technology innovation from a very young age.
- Couple that with the idea that internet, mobile, and digital media related companies want better inroads into younger generations, for not just marketing, but for feedback and ideas.
- High school kids need jobs... and ideally more interesting jobs than working at McDonald's.
So, what about some kind of a program whereby startups and large companies alike targeting the high school/college audience engages the schools in an educational manner, in terms of talking about the technology, the business, product management, etc. of their products, and then "hires" these students for both feedback and marketing purposes during the summers. So, maybe during the year, they do a six week program about all the aspects of their service, and then the students spend the summer providing feedback, helping to market, etc.
Is there anything out there like this?
Bloggers can't write... Sphere flattening?
I was talking to Shri the other day about blogs and we both agreed that some of the most widely read blogs out there aren't actually particularly good writing and are getting less and less informative. Nate echoed similar sentiment and said that few of the blogs that he reads have a lot of traffic. He figured that, if something was important enough, it would filter through to the small niche blogs that he reads.
More and more, I'm hearing anecdotally of people unsubscribing from "A-list" blogs and meanwhile, I've noticed the RSS subscriber numbers of the rest of us trending up. Is the blog world becoming more flat?
I agree with the whole bad writing thing, though... and if anyone has any really well written blogs they read that they'd like to share in the comments, feel free.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
Gizmoz new offering makes me feel good about some of our Voki features. Yup, I now have another avatar on my sidebar... a photorealistic 3D avatar created from a photo. You can even comment on a Gizmoz. Commenting on an avatar? Really... wow, I wonder where they got that? Still, kudos for adding that feature after the Voki launch. I also like the way they did it without a popup. We'll have to add that ourselves.
Still, I have to ask... what do people think about photorealistic avatars? Frankly, I think they're a little creepy. We've added them as part of the Sitepal service, but I've gone from using my custom drawn one, to a cartoon one, to one that's even more cartoony? I love my little bigheaded cartoon Voki guy and I think that one of the best parts of an avatar is that it's a representation of you... not actually you. We have this debate internally a lot and I've never been a big fan of 3-D photo conversion and am just fine sticking to my flat little 2D avatars.
PS... New commentary on StumbleUpon and Mahalo at Walken's site.
links for 2007-05-31
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Christopher Walken's Web 2.0 blog on the Last.fm acquistion
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Best. Bio. Ever.
I have nothing to say about the last.fm aquisition, but I know someone who does...
Blogging is all about personality, right? Getting yourself out there with your own unique voice in the world...
...but in the Web 2.0 ecosphere, there's a lot of crowd following. Everyone posts about the same thing and says the same stuff.
Until now...
I just discovered a gem of a blog that you absolutely have to take a look at. Who knew that the Continental had a moment to put down the cowbell and talk social media?
That's right, it's Christopher Walken covering Web 2.0. (Please feel free to tag and digg liberally as a favor to the creator... ;) )
I am a feed.
I am negotiated lunches.
I am softball invites. I am blog reading clickthroughs. I am del.icio.us saves.
I am multiple daily e-mails to Mere. I am last.fm plays.
I am IM.
I am blog posts. I am book purchases. I am Fresh Direct orders. I am tech spec changes tracked. I am live fantasy baseball updates.
I am boathouse photos. I am biking times. I am trailers watched. I am phonecalls to Nana.
I am nextNY join requests. I am EZ Pass withdrawls. I am sunny forecasts.
I am concert tickets by e-mail. I am Regis Business Network listserv responses. I am NYSC ID scans. I am paycheck deposits and mileage card purchases.
I am electric bills. I am bits transferred.
I am a feed.