Apply early, apply often
TechStars applications for this summer are officially open and I’d encourage any budding entrepreneur with a half-baked (or quarter baked – or fully baked) idea they are passionate about to apply. For those of you who are not familiar with TechStars, it’s a program started by successful Boulder entrepreneur David Cohen that brings about a dozen promising start-up teams to Boulder for an intensive summer of work on their start-up business idea. You can read more about what the teams last year worked on (and some of the machinations they went through to get there) on both David’s blog and the TechStars web site. …
January 23, 2008· 2 min read
Clearing your bug log
From my partner, Chris Wand, describing a program one of his companies put in place over the holiday to encourage employees to clear a bunch of outstanding bugs in their backlog: Anyone that wanted to fix a bug during their holiday break could earn $50/$75/$100 (depending on the severity of the bug) for each known bug they fixed (the catch was that QA had to approve the fix). The person that fixed the most bugs also earned an additional bonus (I think it was $500). They managed to clear about 100 bugs off their list… It was so successful, they’re thinking of implementing it at other times (i.e. over a long weekend, etc.—of course making sure that they don’t set it up so people are working on the bug fixes during normal working hours).
January 21, 2008· 1 min read
New look, same Seth
With thanks to Ross for actually pulling everything together, I’m launching a new look and a new site today. Seth Levine’s VC Adventure is now hosted on my own domain – http://www.sethlevine.com – and is sporting an updated look. My old TypePad site is still active (although I’m no longer posting there) and in theory (at least until it breaks) is redirecting traffic to my new site (and should be directly specific posts to their respective post here at sethlevine.com). Let me know if you find anything broken or in need of editing/updating/improvement/better design.
January 21, 2008· 1 min read
Digital Analog
A few years ago, my partner Brad Feld suggested that entrepreneurs “take a giant step back” and look for a non-technology based analog for describing their business/idea (the “analog analog“). Today at a board meeting we spent some time working out our analog as a way of describing our young company. It occurred to us that the best analogs were all technology ones, which made me think: Have we come far enough in technology that digital analogs are now acceptable (or even preferred in some cases)?!? Perhaps we’re enough generations along the technology curve (Web 3.0?) that it’s now ok to switch our analogs to digital ones . . . …
January 17, 2008· 1 min read
Seat 14A to LaGuardia…
January 15, 2008· 0 min read
CEO Reviews
Probably the most consistently overlooked “best practice” in venture backed companies is the CEO review. In my experience most companies provide little, if any, structured feedback at the CEO level. Perhaps the board or the members of the compensation committee might provide the CEO with limited (and mostly ad hoc) feedback at the beginning of each year when/if a CEO’s bonus for the previous year is awarded. More often the CEO review is essentially a review of the numbers vs. the financial plan. While that step is important, so is a meaningful discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the CEO and ways they can improved their performance based on the collective input of the board and other mangers at the business. …
January 14, 2008· 4 min read
Bill Gates last days
From CES. The bit with Bono is particularly amusing! Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr5w3X4R8b4
January 11, 2008· 1 min read
On endless calls today
January 10, 2008· 0 min read
Marketers Unite!
Ryan Hunter, VP of Marketing for Mobius portfolio company Newmerix, has started the Front Range CMO’s – a networking and professional organization for marketing executives in the front range. You can check out the group’s blog at www.frontrangecmos.com. The group’s first event is going to be on February 4th down in Denver. You can email Ryan directly if you’d like to learn more. He’s got a great group of local marketing execs already signed up – should be a great event and long term a great resource for the Denver/Boulder marketing community.
January 10, 2008· 1 min read
Sonos – how have I lived without you?!?
I wrote in my last post that soon after installing Memeo I couldn’t figure out how I had lived so long without it. I had a similar – in this case instantaneous – experience last night after installing my new Sonos. I’m not entirely clear why I waited to long to buy one (actually I am clear – I’m cheap and Sonos isn’t exactly inexpensive) but now on the long side of my buying decision, whatever benefit my frugality brought me was completely dwarfed by the sheer joy and excitement I had about 15 seconds after setting up my system. …
January 8, 2008· 2 min read