This is a summary of VC blog posts (wk 9 2010) based on my list of active VC bloggers - see here or http://www.google.com/reader/shared/richarddjordan (any recommendations for addition welcomed).
We’re changing things a little bit this week, as I figure out the best way of doing this weekly slot, in that we’re going to run to Sunday evening, so this is an eight day week. Enjoy…
Sunday 28th February 2010
Josh Kopelman introduces the new First Round Capital website. Very similar approach to the Union Square Ventures website that was unveiled last year. Totally in synch with our worldview at AppWhirl about bundling feeds as a key future pinchpoint. But I was mostly impressed by the earlier FRC post defending Aaron Patzer after his unfair targeting in a TechCrunch post.
Fred Wilson urges us all to own our online brands. Great advice, particularly if you click through on the search results for Christine Quinn which he uses as an example.
Monday 1st March 2010
Brad Feld taks about the move to standardized seed-round investment documents.
Seth Levine shows us a great sales growth slide, created by a six year old. Let’s all keep our pitch decks this simple.
Charlie O’Donnell rounds up the week in the NY innovation community. He then takes his stab at the perrennial question of building startups in NYC. The column segways into a broader chiding of entrepreneurs who aren’t creative enough in sourcing money. Fair enough. He rounds it out by challenging the other misconceptions about NYC as a startup hub.
Larry Cheng reminds us that as of this week Windows users can thank the EU for being offered a confusing plethora of browser options. This is so stupid on so many levels (the EU regulation, not the column). The anti-trust lawsuits of the 90s are being settled now with the implementation of a stupid fix to a no-longer-relevant problem. Bizarre. Law vs Markets.
Brad Feld diaries his New Orleans marathon run.
Fred Wilson’s MBA Monday talks about the concept of piercing the corporate veil. (I have a good friend who experienced these problems, and I saw what it did to him, so this is good advice.)
Mark Suster’s blog was titled “The Entrepreneur Thesis” prompted by the TechCrunch article on the Patzer Problem, where in some pretty bad form another entrepreneur called out Aaron Patzer for choking on a bigger exit and snatching at the money. This was the kind of posting that makes entrepreneurs (like me) Suster-fans.
Tuesday 2nd March 2010
Josh Kopelman makes the point that change is long overdue in the online shopping space, and it’s coming. (I met Josh recently at an event and I think he seemed to be the most bored person I have ever given my elevator pitch to. He’s a sharp cookie, so I that probably means I need to revisit my pitch, if he’s giving the “about to pass out” eye roll half way through).
Brad Feld uses a rock-paper-scissors analogy to explore the network vs. traffic debate.
Larry Cheng shares with us the Funniest. Email. Signature. Ever! That being said, on second look it’s kinda growing on me!
Chris Fralic (who protects his tweets for some reason) is excited about portfolio company CoTweet being acquired by Exact Target.
Fred Wilson talked about “rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty” as a VC, recounting a great story of his first board seat.
Mark Suster wrote about email introductions and moving the introducer to BCC.
Wednesday 3rd March 2010
Larry Cheng posts about management fees and their effects on returns. Not quite sure of the reason for the gratuitous Bernie Madoff reference though. I still find Larry’s posts hit and miss - some gems then some pedestrian ones. This was a miss for me.
Guy Kawasaki cross posts “How to set up Google mail across a small company” by Joe Moreno, except for some reason the link isn’t working… is he still in my VC bloggers lists? (I thought he was just a Twitter spammer now - just kidding, person who will never read this!)
Brad Feld highlights the absurdity of allowing a patent on a common programming technique of the past.
Charlie O’Donnell preps for his first Backupify board meeting and asks for advice from a stellar list of VCs. Will go through them and add them to the Google Reader list for next week, if they blog.
Sawyer crops up on Brad Feld’s blog again to talk about why the Eastern District of Texas crops up again and again in patent litigation.
Fred Wilson points us to another source of “standardized” financing docs and discusses the limitations to this approach - just how many startup deals are really “standard”?
Mark Suster explains his approach to “Making the most out of sitting on panels”.
Thursday 4th March 2010
Larry Cheng announced the Volition Capital & Cue Ball Capital funding of Stylesight.
Brad Feld’s friend Sawyer pops in on his blog again and answers the question “Are Apple’s Competitors Stealing Its Patented Inventions?”. Spoiler alert: NO!
Fred Wilson channeled Mark Suster’s advice about sitting on panels.
Friday 5th March 2010
Roger Ehrenberg described the panel on social investing he took part in.
Larry Cheng jotted down some thinking out loud stream-of-consciousness thoughts on single limited partner VC firms. It’s an interesting post for entrepreneurs who might not have reason to think about such things.
Naval extended his congratulations to DocVerse and Mixer Labs for their exits.
Fred Wilson shared video of his talk to InSITE - an Columbia/NYU organization that helps starutps.
Mark Suster praised Jason Calacanis for his Open Angel Forum San Francisco. Even better than the already-well-praised Los Angeles event, apparently. Mark gave his thoughts on the presenting companies.
Saturday 6th March 2010
Mark Suster answers the question “What’s it like being a VC?” (Talking of titles - that one’s got to be great SEO fodder). Best answer to that question i have ever heard or read.
Larry Cheng learns that 80% of Harvard Students are first born children. Reminds me a lot of the book Outliers, though Larry references “The Birth Order Book” by Dr. Kevin Leman. Interesting summary of birth-order-based personality traits.
Fred Wilson expects a future where the cable industry’s de facto monopoly on TV dies a well-earned death. Agree fully, though I think the move is going to be less towards the big network brands and more towards the content itself, and that’s what we’re focused on at AppWhirl.
Sunday 7th March 2010
Chris Dixon pointed out that Rupert Murdoch’s new suit isn’t really made of fine invisible silk. Charging customers for news has never been a very profitable business outside of a brief period of history. Google is not picking the pocket of the news business and throwing the money into a big pile.
Brad Feld highlights an upcoming conference on “Entrepreneurial Immigration, Iteration and Innovation”. Who comes up with those titles? Great stuff.
Fred Wilson pauses for a moment of introspection regarding the exposure the web brings to all of us, in a world of pervasive media.
We close out the week with Rob Hayes’ summary of the Entrepreneurs Helping Entrepreneurs event last week. It’s a nice way to round off the week in VC blogs as it was an event I enjoyed a lot, where I met a lot of interesting people, and even snaffled a pitch meeting coming out of it. Doesn’t get better than that.
