Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2011

I sometimes feel that the Silicon Valley culture and we as technologists more broadly can breed monoculture in our approach to entrepreneurship, problem solving, market analysis and technology solutions. Experiences way beyond any hack-a-thon, startup blog or your current company engagement can enrich your thinking and challenge you to think more broadly about the solutions you offer in the market.

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 29, 2011

Tweet. Last August, Chantel Waterbury walked into First Round's New York City office and told me all about jewelry, empowering women entrepreneurs in the fashion space, and what it means to design inspiring accessories. She expounded on the completely missed opportunity to combine offline and online direct selling into a singular complementary vision.

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 27, 2011

Each decision you make to commit resources affects the future value of the business to some degree. Minor decisions, such as replacing employees who have left the company or equipment needing updating, are usually considered operational in nature, and unless the business is changing direction, not relevant to this analysis. But each commitment of resources of any substantial size for acquisition of new products, talent, even new companies, changes the value of your enterprise perhap

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2011

I’d like to start by asking each of you to consider helping under-privileged children in America get a little bit more than they have today. Sure, you can give a small amount of money. Even $10. Please. It’s better than zero. You can combine that with supporting Fred & Joanne Wilson. (if you click no other links on theis site click that one).

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strategy

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 22, 2011

FNAC. I first heard the term from Chris Fralic at First Round Capital. Feature, not a company. It has always stood out in my mind. Whether something is a feature or a company is clearly subjective. And sometimes features (say, Twitter) turn into companies. For me it is a useful shorthand for a very clever set of product features that in my mind would be hard to remain a stand-alone business or themselves to generate enough revenue to justify the company’s existence.

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media entrepreneurs investment investing 295

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 9, 2011

You may have seen the TechCrunch and BusinessInsider articles on SinglePlatform raising an additional $3.25 million from us, DFJ Gotham and new investor New World Ventures. You may have read the description of what they do--"Help Local Businesses Create Online Storefronts" or "manage their web presence"--and think that's not particularly interesting.

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VC opportunity ventures investing 301

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 21, 2011

GroupMe, a First Round portfolio company, just announced its acquisition by Skype. ( Techcrunch story here , AllThingsD here , Betabeat here ) What's cool is that they'll be staying in NYC--a win for the Big Apple! In my opinion, GroupMe built the very best team in the space, never stopped iterating, and still has a very big vision for the service. Through Skype, they’ll have a huge distribution channel, so this will be only the beginning for the company.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 16, 2011

50 coffee meetings. It should stick in your head as a metaphor for networking. For getting outside of your comfort zone. For starting relationships today that won’t pay off for a year. It’s the entrepreneur’s equivalent of “ 10,000 hours.&#. Anybody who has spent any time with me in person will be tired of this advice because I give it so frequently.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2011

I was recently approached by Fast Company to comment on “crisis management&# at startups in the wake of the Airbnb “ranksackgate&# story. I agreed to do the interview because the story was about what other companies can learn rather than about airbnb in particular. What are the teachable moments? The short article in Fast Company is here if you’d like to read it.

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startup

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 28, 2011

On June 17, 1994, the whole country was interrupted by broadcast news—us New Yorkers were watching Patrick Ewing and the Knicks in the NBA Finals. It was the beginning of the biggest media spectacle we had ever seen. All that needs to be mentioned is “White Bronco” and anyone born on the other side of the 1980’s knows what is being referred to.

media 377

media communities technology enablement 377

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 25, 2011

Tweet. When I was running Path 101, I'd laugh when people asked me if I was taking vacation. First off, I couldn't actually afford to go anywhere on a startup salary. Second, there was way too much to do. Third, I'm not sure I could have successfully unplugged anyway. The issue was that for the last two weeks in August, there were no VCs around to pitch, no distribution partners to meet with for biz dev deals, and seemingly no one else around actually working for me, the non-technical co-founder

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pitching startup culture strategy 303

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 31, 2011

At a board meeting yesterday, a management team was talking about their hiring needs and some of the challenges they're having hiring great people. This conversation seems to take place at nearly every growing company in just about every board meeting. over and over again. It's clearly one of the most important things a company can do--yet companies don't ever get as organized around it, with dedicated resources, until much later in their lives.

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board opportunity finance financing 300

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 23, 2011

Yesterday, I ran the Battle of Brooklyn 10 miler in Prospect Park. When I got there in the morning, I noticed that Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda and Simulmedia, had also checked into the park for the run. We met up and, as it turns out, he signed up the day before after noticing my packet pickup checkin at Jackrabbit on Friday. He's training for a marathon and had signed up for a few halves to prepare.

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financing

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2011

On this blog I’m often trying to combine lessons for entrepreneurs and market commentary. Yesterday it was my turn for the lesson. In my zeal to prove a point I often take a strong stance on an issue. I then debate the topic in the comments section and hope that we all learn from the conversation. It’s my personality to do this. Yesterday I pushed this passion in the wrong direction.

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opportunity entrepreneurs founder advice 270

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 17, 2011

I had a great breakfast this morning with Andrew Parker , and we talked about a range of things, including how to describe big groups of people who consume content and services. People use the term "communities" a lot, and in many ways, overuse it--describing groups that don't feature any of the key attributes of a real community. Various descriptions of community include: "shares some common values".

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 7, 2011

"S&P’s intrusion into American politics is also ironic because, as I pointed out recently, much of our current debt is directly or indirectly due to S&P’s failures (along with the failures of the two other major credit-rating agencies — Fitch and Moody’s) to do their jobs before the financial meltdown. Until the eve of the collapse S&P gave triple-A ratings to some of the Street’s riskiest packages of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt ob

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 16, 2011

Today would have been my grandfather's 94th birthday. He got ALS (Lou Gerhig's Disease) and passed away 15 years ago. I've been wearing his ring ever since. Everytime he visited us in Brooklyn, he complained about the parking. It didn't help that he was driving this huge boat. a '91 Mercury Grand Marquis. We used to play demolition derby with Lego vehicles on his kitchen table, rolling the cars from one side of the table to the other.

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technology

Berkonomics

AUGUST 13, 2011

One of the most valuable tools in an executive’s arsenal is the use of the question chain in planning meetings or to analyze scenarios that might result from an action. The powerful words are “What if…” followed by an ever-deeper question that follows the possible results of an action, or a decision based upon the last “What if” question. The beauty of this method is that it causes the person proposing the solution to think much more deeply than during the development process, unveiling many po

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development strategy 76

Berkonomics

AUGUST 5, 2011

Markets and competitors change. Are you being left behind? Over the years, I have often heard the complaint from CEO friends that they have become so swamped by the demands of their growing businesses that they feel themselves further and further from the center of their industry, no longer at the forefront of information and competitive development.

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media entrepreneurs development 76

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 21, 2011

“People still want calls …&#. When I first got into VC I decided I better have some investment themes. My macro theme was “great entrepreneurs&# who mapped to my belief system about the kind of entrepreneurs I wanted to work with. My background was 8 years of telecoms & mobile and 8 years of cloud computing & SaaS – so these two themes were a given.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

This article was originally published on TechCrunch. Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. Why is that? Who knows. But probably because as a group we travel a lot. So the industry formed around a day of the week when all partners could avoid having company board meetings or traveling. Yesterday was a Monday. And not a pleasant one.

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VC disruption entrepreneurs venture capital 305

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opportunity

Berkonomics

AUGUST 18, 2011

I am a gadget freak, often purchasing new technologies in their first release. And my closet is full of such gadgets, from early pen-based computers to early brick-sized cell phones to an electronic handwriting recognition pad received as a gift to test. These early dives into new technologies serve a purpose for me. They keep me at the leading edge of new development as it is productized, even before mass production.

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