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
VC’s are conspiring to take over your business
John pointed me to a Peter Ireland blog post and asks whether VCs really do co-opt businesses on a regular basis – investing with a plan to replace founders and bring in their own management. “[S]ounds kinda scary,” he writes, “the thought that a ‘clever’ VC could take away one’s company just like that…” Scary indeed. And while founding CEO’s are certainly replaced in venture backed businesses, it’s significantly overstated to say that “in about 50% of instances where an early stage company actually succeeds in raising venture capital, the founder CEO is fired within the first year”. …
February 12, 2008· 4 min read
Go Newmerix! Go!
I’ll keep this brief since I hear from readers that they are not crazy about me using this space for plugging portfolio companies. I rarely do that, but yesterday’s announcement from Newmerix was too good to pass up. You can read the full release here. For the 95% of you who aren’t familiar with the company, Newmerix provides a suite of tools for managing, testing and maintaining packaged application environments – specifically SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft. I know – you’re probably wondering where you can get a copy for yourself (here), but actually it’s a sticky problem for a huge number of companies around the world. …
February 8, 2008· 1 min read
Only an 8th grade education
Here’s the 8th grade competence exam from 1895. Thank god I went through 8th grade about 90 years later… Hat tip to dad for sending this over. Grammar (Time, one hour) 1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters. 2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications. 3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph 4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of “lie”, “play”, and “run.” …
February 5, 2008· 4 min read