Rounded Corners
roundedcornersI was sitting in a conference room yesterday where there were several different makes of laptops out on the table. Seeing a bunch of computers this way really hit home how beautiful Apple’s laptops really are. And its not just the clean silver case – several of the PCs had a similarly styled exterior. For me, its the rounded corners. Simple. Elegant. Clearly Apple cares about every aspect of their laptop design. …
March 23, 2012· 2 min read
One platform to rule them all
I write often about my love of start-ups. And in truth, I really enjoy all stages of a company’s development – each for a different reason, of course (the early days, working closely with the founding team on product; mid-stage when maybe you’re helping with key management hires as the business scales; and later when hopefully the business has grown quiet large, working on strategic partnerships, overall strategy or maybe the sale of the business). And each stage has its own cadence (which, of course varies from business to business). …
March 21, 2012· 3 min read
Hiring between portfolio companies – playing nice in the sandbox?
I put up a post this morning over on the Foundry Group site which I thought I’d repost here with some additional comments. It concerns whether companies in a shared venture portfolio should have any special rules of engagement about hiring from other companies in the portfolio. The question of whether Foundry has a “policy” around this has come up a few times and we wanted to clarify very clearly that we absolutely don’t (nor could we – not only would such a blanket rule be to the detriment of our portfolio, it would also likely be illegal). That said, I do know that a few of the CEOs in the portfolio have a “no poaching” policy when it comes to friendly companies. That may include companies backed by the same investors (Foundry or others), or it may just apply to a few companies where the businesses have a tight relationship and the CEO feels that actively recruiting from that company would be detrimental to that relationship and therefore detrimental to their company. To me, this is the real key. Arbitrary rules around hiring and, in particular, recruiting practices seem spurious. Altruistic in their ideal, but flawed in execution. And in any event I think the lens here should be a business one. Companies with which you have an important connection are in a different class relative to recruiting efforts than other companies. There’s no real moral line to be decided – the business relationship itself is what drives the decision. Curious what other companies do in regards to their recruiting practices. Comment away! …
March 20, 2012· 3 min read
The solution to my iMessage problem
iMessageIt turned out that the solution to my iMessage problem was relatively straightforward. That said, it only worked because I still had my old phone (it hadn’t been stolen; I hadn’t traded it in; etc.). It also worked when doing things like going to Apple’s site and deauthorizing my devices didn’t (which I still don’t understand). So the problem I pointed out really is a serious bug. But for me, I had the phone and the solution (as a few people suggested in the comments to my post) was as simple as disabling iMessage on my device. Apparently this triggered a reset on the Apple server such that messages sent to me were no longer being routed through iMessage, thus fixing my problem. Problem solved. …
March 7, 2012· 1 min read
I’m getting sick of the bullshit
I love the start-up world. I love working with founders and young companies. I love the excitement of working on business ideas that are new and different. I love seeing the success that often comes from this hard work. I’ve never before in my professional life seen a time of such innovation and creativity. At Foundry we see more business plans now than we ever have. And what’s more, more of those business plans are really interesting (and fundable). …
March 5, 2012· 4 min read
Apple’s secret iPhone lock-in feature
If you’ve been following my twitter feed you’ll know that about a month ago I finally made the switch from AT&T to Verizon (brief conclusion: what took me so long? from my experience this month, the VZ network is vastly superior). At the same time I decided that I’d give Android a real try (I’d played around with it in the past, but never adopted it as my primary device). Enter the Galaxy Nexus. The slightly over-sized, slightly too much of a battery hog, but generally pretty well executed device from Samsung which at the moment is the only Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich (for those of you wondering why I didn’t just get another iPhone, the quick answer is that having paid $450 to “upgrade” to the 4S, I just couldn’t bring myself to take my total wasted spending on that device to almost a grand). I’ll drop a full post on my iPhone to Android experience in the near future. …
March 4, 2012· 3 min read
Let’s agree to disagree
Is there much disagreement in your company? I’m not talking about where to head for lunch – I mean real, passionate, fundamental disagreement on product, marketing, operations, etc. I hope so. Even more so the earlier you are in your business. Running it is a messy business. There are tons of decisions to be made and each decision is amplified by factors such as your short runway of cash, new competitors entering the market and new team members joining your company. So a healthy amount of disagreement and discourse is not just a good thing, it’s inevitable. In fact I’d venture to say that if there’s not disagreement at your business, you’re not encouraging enough debate and people don’t feel free to speak their minds. Of course after listening to this robust debate you’ll ultimately have to make a decision and move forward (end of debate – don’t let it stretch on after the decision has been made), but I’d encourage you to create an environment at your company where differing opinions are both valued and encouraged. You’re hiring great people after all. Make sure you give them the space to speak their minds.
February 28, 2012· 1 min read
2012 Planning / Working Together
It’s been way too long since my last post. I was going to jump in with a post on not blogging, but thought better of it. Better to actually do than write about whether to do or not do. So much for my resolution to write/blog more this year… Hopefully this was just a January hiccup with too much travel and work to fit in regular blogging. If you’ve read this blog you know I’m a pretty deliberate guy. I like to know where I’m headed and I like to be explicit about where that is, what’s working and what’s not. To that end, towards the end of last year I went through an exercise with each of the companies I work with to lay out both top level goals for this year as well as get some feedback on the interaction pattern between the company and me. I’ve always done some version of this, but this was the first year I was this explicit about it (and the first time I included a request for specific feedback on my working relationship with the CEOs that I work with). The email looked like this: …
February 9, 2012· 3 min read
Fight for your rights! American Censorship Day (that’s today!)
Today Congress is holding hearings on what, if passed, would effectively become a censorship system for the internet. The threat comes in the form of two bills, currently making their way through the legislative process – Protect IP Act (PIPA – S.968) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – H.R.3261). Below is a video that describes the bills and their potential impact (and you can read more at http://americancensorship.org/): PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo. …
November 16, 2011· 3 min read
Trada… bringing crowdsourced marketing to Facebook
I’ve written a few times about Trada – a business that vastly simplifies search marketing for advertisers through a platform upon which Trada’s crowd of SEM experts build and manage campaigns on behalf of advertisers. The results to far have been impressive. The company has been helping advertisers increase the effectiveness of their search marketing and lower the amount of time required to manage search campaigns. And they’ve done this for companies spending as little as a few thousand dollars a month on search to as much as $500,000 per month. The result has been a rapidly growing company that is increasingly looking to expand the reach of its platform. …
November 9, 2011· 3 min read