December 2009
23 posts
What’s the right amount of seed money to raise? ... →
I love this post from Chris Dixon on what to fund in a seed round - enough to get to an accretive milestone i.e. one which enables you to raise a new round at a higher valuation. Must read for start-up entrepreneurs.
Holiday Fun: How Programming Language Fanboys See... →
Bit of nerd-dom to bring the Christmas spirit
What's the future for digital content, creators...
“If your content cannot command more attention than it takes to consume that content, then your content has no economic value.”
I don’t think that’s a particularly aggressive statement, though some will think it such. I think it’s a statement of self-evident facts.
For now, I am going to use a few catch-all terms and try to be consistent. I am going to use the...
Three common startup business types (that you need...
I promised a series of postings on media trends this week yet it’s Friday and I haven’t got them posted yet… oh well… I’ll get them out next week instead.
Instead I want to write a short note on three business types I see from startups. Like most entrepreneurs I mix with my peers a lot, get asked for advice regularly and see an awful lot of startup pitches and...
VC blogs for entrepreneurs
I wish more VCs blogged often and in detail. There’s already a critical mass of VC bloggers, sufficient that smart entrepreneurs have plenty of data points giving insight into the VC process like never before, so it’s not that.
It’s that there’s a disproportionately small amount of VC blogging coming out of Silicon Valley based VCs. I have a pretty comprehensive list of...
Twitter Hacked, Defaced By “Iranian Cyber Army”... →
If you want to keep up to speed on all things Twitter this is the site to keep updating - TechCrunch has the story… is this going to be the death of Twitter - billion dollar flameout? Not the specific hack, but the collapse in confidence in Twitter as a platform? Really hope not…
Anyway click through and follow Arrington if you want the latest news on this, has to be the best...
Is this the most exciting time for technology &...
Just chatting with good friend and AdSemble CEO Matthew Olivieri, a smart scrappy entrepreneur who’s boostrapped his startup in the Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) signage advertising space. They’ve got a great business model and have carefully taken the time to nail down the product/market fit before they look to ramp.
We were talking about some of the interesting developments in the...
In a nutshell how does your startup win?
Just reposting a comment I made on the Lean Startup Circle. In a nutshell the writer was asking how you you build a solid startup that can come out on top when barriers to starting companies are so low, leading to increased competition. The context being assuming one is following a Lean Startup / Customer Development / Agile Development methodology, or similar. My thoughts:
I think what...
“President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom...”
– i have seen this scene so many times when CEOs are staring at the polycom wondering why their VCs don’t show up for board meetings. it’s bad form.
DealBook Column - Wall Street Bankers Put Obama on Hold - NYTimes.com
(via fred-wilson)
RJ Thoughts: I have to agree - I think this is total BS....
Price Discovery ...in acting
A simple principle that is surprisingly poorly understood by the public at large is the basic concept of Price Discovery.
It’s a favourite lens of mine when it comes to viewing trends and understanding what’s going on in markets undergoing disruption. It’s not always clear that Price Discovery is the dynamic in play, but not considering it is a mistake as it leads to what I call...
“So let’s talk traffic. We’ve got people who love this goddamn phone so much that...”
– The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T
Fake Steve Jobs on fire with this post.
(via bijan)
(via fred-wilson)
Do reputation dynamics really lead to good...
Just writing what started out as a long post on the direction of media and has become a series that I’ll start posting in the next few days. In the mean time, one thought that doesn’t fit there but that kept popping up when I was writing is about another trend I wonder about with regards to where it’ll go…
I noticed this article in New Scientist about how the Internet...
Failure is an option
I am popping out in a little while to go talk to a bunch of international students about Silicon Valley, about start-ups. It’s the second opportunity in a few days for me to think a bit about students and Silicon Valley.
In the early years of the decade I ran a program with a former college professor of mine called the White Rose Entrepreneurship Program. We brought undergraduates...
On the entrepreneur / VC relationship
Fred Destin concludes his investigation into the friction between the VC community and entrepreneurs here http://www.freddestin.com/blog/2009/12/the-arrogant-vc-a-view-from-the-trenches-full-length-version.html#comments and I think he summarizes the issue about right.
Anyone who is in the orbit of VCs / entrepreneurs / startups hears and sees the effect of these differences of opinion regularly....
It's hard to build a $50MM+ ad-supported business
Another in my recent string of posts pointing to articles I enjoyed in my daily perusal of VC and entrepreneur blog postings. This time it’s Jeremy Liew’s note on add supported businesses. It helps to read his previous writing on the subject, which he links to in the post.
The main thing I like about these is the fact that he puts the numbers into some perspective - you can look at...
2 tags
What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?
I liked this quote from Mark Suster’s post on Venture Hacks: “being an entrepreneur is really sexy… for those who have never done it.”
It’s so very true. I think for most entrepreneurs you don’t do it because it’s sexy, you do it because you’re driven and cannot imagine doing anything else with your life. It’s intangible, it’s hard to put your finger...
Great blog post with real detail on oversight in...
This is a great post from one of the VC blogs I follow, Seeing Both Sides, about oversight in start-ups. I agree that it’s best for CEOs and founders to get ahead of this stuff, but there really is a lack of detailed information on VC expectations in this regard. We’re very lucky to be in the current generation of entrepreneurs where so many VCs and successful entrepreneurs blog in...
“Entrepreneurship exists in the tiny space between madness and genius; and, its...”
– comment by JLM on the The Herd Instinct (via fred-wilson)
Interesting effect with autism and illness
I have read that there are many reports of an interesting side effect to being ill, with autistic children, and I see it in Ethan. I came home late last night after an event and Ethan was sick - a fever, generally unwell. His talking was clear and coherent and well constructed.
All day today he has been talking so well, in full well constructed sentences. This happens most times he’s...
How to talk to a VC at an event ...?
I do sometimes wonder how one should talk with a VC when one bumps into them at an event. I was out last night at a bash for the start-up community. I bumped into a smart young VC who only recently joined one of the bigger firms. I think I ended up talking the poor guy’s ear off.
Here’s how it ran: I’d both arrived early, not many people there yet. I noticed a guy I...
“While fast-growing companies have long been the main source of new jobs and...”
– Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld: Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy - WSJ.com (via fred-wilson)
RJ Comment: I just don’t know why this is not fully understood - start-ups create jobs. Pretty much all job creation comes from start-ups. Well I do understand actually. It’s the...
How I use social media in 6 points
Just posted on Facebook to explain to my family & friends why they see so many tweets on Facebook right now. I’ve been using social media tools since long before the term was coined. I suppose that’s obvious - I was using the web from it’s first days in the early nineties, as a Physics undergrad, and evolved with it from there.
How I use social media today: 1. I use...