Munger has it right
I came across a great quote from Charlie Munger that I thought was right on: “if something’s not worth doing at all, its not worth doing well” Nicely put.
March 21, 2008· 1 min read
The 6 / 50 rule of internet advertising
comScore and behavioral ad network Tacoda released a study last month that caught my eye. It at least partially answers the question that I’m sure most regular internet users have asked themselves at one time or another: “who the heck actually clicks on these banner ads anyway?!?". Turns out that about 6% of users are “heavy clickers” in the study’s parlance. These users generate about 50% of the total banner clicks. The study points out that these users are heavily skewing banner click-through data. They are also not representative of the overall internet population (heavy clickers according to the study are between the ages of 25 and 44 with household incomes less than $40k; they spend a lot of time on-line, but they don’t tend to spend a whole lot more than other users online – their clicking behavior isn’t indicative of spending behavior).Its worth taking a read of the press release which summarized the findings from their work – fascinating. …
March 13, 2008· 2 min read
To stealth or not to stealth
We’ve announced four initial Foundry investments (Lijit, Memeo, Oblong and Zynga) – in press releases by the companies, on our personal blogs or on the new Foundry web site. Truth be told, we’ve made a fifth investment which we’re not talking about much. That’s because it’s in “stealth” mode (shhhh). There are varying degrees of stealth, ranging from companies that won’t tell anyone what they are up to, to companies (like the one I’m referring to)that don’t have a web site and haven’t made any announcement of their business intentions or funding but aren’t hiding what they are doing in daily industry conversations, etc. This stands in stark contrast to companies (such as Path 101), which are all buy live blogging their board meetings and actively talking about their product and development plans. …
February 26, 2008· 3 min read
And then there was Foundry . . .
There are a couple of very key dates in the history of Foundry Group. The day when Brad, Chris, Jason, Ryan and I actually formed the legal entity that is Foundry . . . the day last fall of the first close on our first fund, Foundry Venture Capital 2007 . . . the day shortly thereafter when we held our final close of that fund . . . and today – the day we’re launching a real web site. www.foundrygroup.com is now up and running and is much improved from the brochure-ware site we had as a stand-in during fundraising. …
February 25, 2008· 2 min read
The power paradox
Dacher Keltner (Psychology prof at Cal) has written a fascinating article that describes some of the important attributes of leaders. He discusses these attributes in the context of obtaining and maintaining “power” – really leadership if you’re reading the article from the eyes of a VC or entrepreneur. The title of his article refers to the fact that the attributes necessary to obtain positions of power and leadership are the very attributes that tend to be eroded by those positions themselves (i.e., once people obtain power, they tend to lose it by acting in a way that is antithetical to the reason they rose to that position in the first place). …
February 21, 2008· 3 min read
I dropped my cholesterol 70 points in two weeks
This post is going to sound like an infomercial except this is 100% true and I’m not trying to sell you anything. About 8 months ago my doctor told me that I had high cholesterol (242 in total) and that it needed to come down or he wanted to put me on a statin (Lipitor, or something like that). Apparently cholesterol runs in my family (my dad and sister both have high cholesterol) and despite eating pretty well and being in descent shape, mine was high too. …
February 20, 2008· 3 min read
vc ware
In case you’re looking for this season’s latest VC styles. Note that Brad’s “treadputer” made the cut. Hat tip to Jason for sending this over
February 20, 2008· 1 min read
Explicit goals
Regular readers of my blog know that I’m a big fan of deliberate action. And while I’m not a huge “make a daily list and check the items off” kind of guy (since like many VCs I’m somewhat scattered in my day to day work) I’m a huge fan of regularly checking in against a set of explicit goals or outcomes. To that end, I like to make myself a quarterly list of large “to-do’s” for each of the companies with whom I work. These aren’t general things like “talk to XYZ CEO more often” – they are specific outcomes for each company that I’m trying to drive towards. They range from “Hire a banker to sell the business” to “Develop a partner program” to “Close the Series C financing”. Clearly they aren’t things that I plan to accomplish alone and they are often developed in conjunction with management. I like the discipline of having to write out for each company I work with the main thing that I’d like to work on to really make a difference. …
February 20, 2008· 2 min read
Failure
I hate failing. But in the world of venture capital it happens – and on a somewhat regular basis with between 1/5th and 1/3rd of venture backed companies failing to return capital invested (see a great Union Square Ventures post on the subject here). It’s an excruciating experience. While the actual “failing” part generally happens very quickly the “leading up to failing” part takes forever. Typically the company goes through a handful of rounds of layoffs and pay cuts. A sale process is initiated to find a buyer for the business and perhaps an investment banker is hired. If the company has secured creditors (like bank debt or an equipment line) there are endless calls and negotiations to try to keep the lights on long enough to see the company through to a transaction. Analysis is done and re-done to figure out what the company’s obligations are if the business is liquidated. Tuff questions are asked about the payment of severance to employees, how to stretch payables and minimize future liabilities. Towards the end, as things accelerate, there are many emergency phone calls and sometimes heated and emotionally charged conversations. There are last minute hopes of some kind of sale, hail mary attempts to entice a buyer and last minute negotiations with potential sources of new capital. …
February 13, 2008· 2 min read
Sorry Fraser. You’re cold, but not the "icebox of the nation"
I have no idea why Fraser, CO (our adopted 2nd home) would want the tag-line “the icebox of the nation” given its focus on outdoor activity (its next to Winter Park, has a great fishing stream running through town and has miles and miles of back-country skiing, hiking and cycling trails). But apparently that is indeed the case. Fraser has been involved in long legal battle with the city of International Falls, MN for rights to the coldest place in the US. Yesterday, International Falls won out (it really is colder there!). …
February 13, 2008· 1 min read