Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 3, 2013
“In 15 Years From Now Half of US Universities May Be in Bankruptcy.” Such was the quote of Clayton Christensen followed by, “… in the end I’m excited to see that happen. So pray for Harvard Business School if you wouldn’t mind.” Who else does Clayton pray for? Apple. Yup! Watch the 30-minute interview to hear why but summary notes below.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 1, 2013
This week, I spoke to one of the longest running and most active angel groups in the country, the New York Angels. For a long time, they were basically the only game in town for seed and early stage funding in NYC. Luckily for all of us, including the New York Angels themselves, the ecosystem has bloomed. Not only has the NYC ecosystem changed, but the whole ecosystem around early and seed investing has innovated.
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Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 27, 2013
Though the industry is called venture capital, the goal of a VC isn’t to maximize every risk. Instead, we try to understand all the risks a business might face and weigh those risks with the reward - the exit. Here are the major risks that I typically review when a startup pitches. Market timing risk - Is now the right time for the business? It’s often hard to evaluate this risk, but nevertheless, it’s an important consideration.
Berkonomics
MARCH 14, 2013
Some of the world’s best companies to work for are those that encourage employees to spend time following their own paths of curiosity toward development of new products or services. Google, 3M, Facebook , and Microsoft all allow their employees to take time to explore new ideas they conceive and attempt to develop. Famously, the post-it note is an example of such a product coming from employees of 3M who were looking for quite another market for their newest light adhesive product.
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Derek Sivers
MARCH 20, 2013
The listening algorithm. A year after I started CD Baby, when it was still just me in my bedroom, the CEO and VP of a hugely-funded Silicon Valley online music company contacted me, saying they wanted to fly out to New York to meet me. I said OK, and we met a week later for dinner. Dinner was a lot of blah blah blah smalltalk, and I wondered what they really wanted.
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Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 14, 2013
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. Creating awareness for your brand and products is one of the lifebloods of technology startups yet in a world where so many companies are being created it becomes difficult to rise above the noise. Ever notice how some companies tend to be in the press all the time and your big new product launch struggled for inches?
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 12, 2013
It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce that we have added Greg Bettinelli as a partner at GRP Partners. If you don’t already follow him on Twitter please click link and follow. You won’t regret it. The guy has knowledge. It is the first time in 6 years that we’ve expanded the partnership. So why Greg and why now? I first met Greg about 4 years ago or so.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 25, 2013
Back in 2006, when I started working on putting together some community groups for entrepreneurs and tech people, I looked for a better name to reference this collection of people. "Tech community" seemed too much about people soldering things together and writing code. Not only did I want it to include people working on the future of digital media at ABC, but I also had in mind the roll that other types of creative people have in the inspiration of a city.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 21, 2013
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. I recently wrote a blog post in which I pointed out that many investors & advisors discourage enterprise startups from having a professional services (PS) business and I think this is a big mistake. I think it’s important for enterprise startups to layer in professional services into your revenue stream.
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Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 9, 2013
I believe that groups coming together to make tough decisions driven by consensus tend to make poor decisions. This is especially true in startups where speed matters and where there is a need to constantly calibrate direction and where these decisions can have existential outcomes. Should you increase your burn rate by adding 2 senior hires who will help you ship faster or sell more but then have less time for fund raising?
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 4, 2013
I'll be headed to my seventh and perhaps last SXSW Interactive this year. I've spoken twice , judged at the startup accelerator, been around for the first Garyvee SXSW flashmob wine party , tipped a certain investor off to Twitter , been the investor behind the app that "won" the conference , attended a bike rally , tattooed a 4SQ douchebag badge on my head , played actual foursquare , and funded a guy I met for the first time there (Rob May from Backupify) --three years later.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 26, 2013
With the analytics tools today, it’s easy to measure hundreds if not thousands of different metrics for your business. Cutting through all the chaff to determine the most important or insightful metrics can be quite a challenge. Below are the ten metrics I’ve found to be most useful in board meetings. They answer the questions of how should a startup founder might measure the business at the highest level.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 10, 2013
Every decision has consequences. We often don’t fully perceive the consequences because they are often hidden by the compromises that make us feel better. Every step forward requires a decision. Or the inverse – indecision. Or as I call it, “ decision, by indecision ,” which is insidious. It rots the core very slowly until you don’t realize you’ve accepted mediocrity.
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This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 7, 2013
What makes for company culture? Foosball tables and free lunch Fridays? Is it long hours before launch day? Flexible vacation times? Too often, when people talk about company culture, they fail to differentiate between values and style. All of the above things are style. Working late, not counting hours, blurring social and work life--that's all how people work.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 14, 2013
When I was 13, they split up my Little League into the "A" Team and the "B" Team. I got put on the "B" Team, mostly because I sucked. I didn't suck as bad as some of the other kids--I tried to swing, wouldn't swing over my head, but I certainly never really hit the ball. The team was terrible--we went 0-14--but I took it upon myself to really work at my hitting, learn how to play other positions, and try my hardest.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 29, 2013
This post is either brilliant or idiotic. You've been warned. You're on a boat. There's a terrible storm at sea. The boat capsizes, washing everyone overboard except for you and one other person. You're both stuck inside, unable to get out because only the hull is peeking above the water--but the sea is rising fast in the cabin. Your only hope is to break through the bottom of the hull to escape.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 17, 2013
Should VCs publicly denouce companies? To be honest, I'd love to live in a world where everyone was just upfront and honest with each other--where if you didn't like something or someone, you could just say it, and it wouldn't be a huge tweetstorm. The reality is, we know that there are people out there that don't like us or don't believe in what we do--some of them are justified and some will have to eat crow when we eventually succeed.
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This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 27, 2013
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse is a non-profit runs a variety of human powered boating programs for both kids and adults on the Brooklyn waterfront. We have a free kayaking program that puts nearly 4,000 people on the water. We have over 100 volunteers and in any given week, we might have 25 or 30 people staffing our program. That presents quite a coordination problem that is only going to get worse as we scale--manually gathering responses, filling holes in our schedule, etc.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 26, 2013
When deciding if to raise a venture round, it’s critical to ensure your venture investor shares the vision for the company: both the product roadmap and the financial goals of the company. Most founders never consider the impact on fund size on VC motivations. As long as there are enough reserves to invest as the company grows, a founder might think, that’s fine with me.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 19, 2013
An entrepreneur shared this quote with me a few weeks ago. The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed. William Gibson, quoted in The Economist, December 4, 2003. I remembered it this morning when I drove past a Google self-driving car and then again a few minutes later when a Tesla whipped past me and a third time during the same commute when I dictated an email to my mobile phone.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 28, 2013
Some of our companies started financing processes in earlier this quarter. At a strategy session with one of our companies, the team and I crafted the outline of the pitch deck. They asked me what questions a venture investor might ask in the initial meeting. Distilling the investment analysis into a small number of general questions is challenging because of the diversity of businesses we see but, I gave it a try and came up with the following questions I might ask a startup to answer in an ini
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Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 12, 2013
How much is the most valuable brand in the world, Coca-Cola worth? $77.8B. That’s 45% of the company’s market cap. Often times, winners create advantages in a market through brands. These brands evoke emotions within consumers: feelings of trust (Visa), of aspiration (Nike), of adventure (RedBull). And if the brand is strong enough, it replaces the generic term: tissues/Kleenex, internet search/Google, glass cleaner/Windex.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 11, 2013
I believe machine learning will drive the next big wave of innovation in consumer web services. The very same technologies that power Google’s search and Netflix video recommendation engine will become far more common and useful, perhaps even predominant in the consumer web. Every great consumer product has a little bit of magic. Apple employs static software and hardware design to anticipate user needs - to create that magic.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 7, 2013
I often wonder about how to measure the success of this blog. While there are many tools to measure page views and visitors, the absolute number of readers is probably the worst measure because it’s a false idol. Feedburner subscribers, retweets, time on site aren’t much better because they don’t measure the true performance of a blog - what fraction of an audience the blog reaches.
Tomasz Tunguz
MARCH 3, 2013
For over two years, Larry and Sergey met CEO candidates before deciding to hire Eric Schmidt. Hiring a CEO was a condition investors imposed as part of the Series A terms. After the investment closed, the founders wanted to renege on that part of the agreement , but the board asked the duo to meet some of the valley’s top CEOs. At which point, Larry and Sergey only wanted to hire Steve Jobs.
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