This is a unique approach
I was sent the following a few days ago: In order to give investors a sneak peak of what we’re up to, we’ve created a short video (4 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9fiEu_TBdU I appreciate the effort behind stuff like this (as well as the novel thinking). While we’re on the topic, if there’s ever something you want me to take a look at, tag it to my del.icio.us account (for:slevine).
March 27, 2007· 1 min read
VC Pitch “Rules”
I often get emailed requests to include content in my posts. While I can’t always oblige I do look for interesting content to repurpose or link to or build a large post around. Today I received the following links from Laura Fitton on a topic near and dear to my heart – giving effective venture presentations. One of my very first posts for VC Adventure was on this topic, and much of Laura’s advice corresponds well to my thoughts on the subject. …
March 26, 2007· 2 min read
Perspective
Ben linked to a great post on how trained artists vs. trained psychologists look at the same picture. The lines on the pictures below denote eye movements of the study participants as they viewed each picture. Artists are specifically trained to discern perspective in composition. They do this by looking not only at the focal point, but also more broadly at the context around that focal point. In the study this came out clearly in the differences between the focus behavior of the psychologists (who tended to focus on the primary subject of the picture – represented in the left set of eye movements in the pictures above) vs. artists (whose concentration was across the picture – the right set of eye movements). …
March 22, 2007· 2 min read
Is this an ad?
Plenty has been made of Google’s recently announced pay-per-action beta (where advertisers pay not for a user clicking over to their site, but only if they take some defined action such as filling out a web form, downloading a whitepaper or purchasing product). Few people (notable exception TechCrunch, although for some reason the thread doesn’t seem to have been discussed widely) are talking about something that was buried in the release: …
March 22, 2007· 1 min read
The start-up office
I visited a company the other day that had a classic start-up office. One big room with a ¾ wall separating out two workspaces, two guys, plastic folding tables for desks and a bookshelf that served as the printer stand, kitchen, library and server rack. I love it!
March 6, 2007· 1 min read
The stupid things VCs say
Entrepreneur: “Yah, we’ve talked with Ryan about this” Me: “Oh. So Ryan already sat through this presentation” Entrepreneur: “Um, yah – something like that” Oops – that wasn’t what I really meant.
March 2, 2007· 1 min read
Modern day Pavlov
I made a simple change in my life a few weeks ago that ended up being much more dramatic than expected. For reasons extraordinarily practical – I wanted to keep my phone on at night when I was traveling without being woken up 30 times overnight with the ‘chrip’ of a new email – I turned off the email notification on my Dash. (I know – I could have created a new profile and programmed it to allow the phone to ring but I was in a hurry so I just modified my main profile.) A few days passed before I realized that I wasn’t constantly interrupting what I was doing at any given moment to check new emails as they came in – no longer a slave to the friendly ping of my phone happily announcing each new message as it arrived (like Pavlov’s dogs, I had lost my power to resist). …
February 28, 2007· 1 min read
Is your VC a rockstar?
I had two people at VC in the Rockies this week say that VC’s were rockstars. I hope that’s not really what most VCs actually think. I always thought of entrepreneurs as rockstars. We’re just the groupies.
February 23, 2007· 1 min read
Venture Capital at Altitude
Every year the Colorado Venture Capital Association (soon to morph into the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association after combining with similar associations in a few neighboring states) puts on the “it” conference for Colorado venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and the lawyers, bankers, search firms, etc. that support us – Venture Capital in the Rockies. I love this event – it’s a great chance to see the best of Colorado deal flow and it concentrates pretty much everyone in the region who has anything to do with venture in one place for the better part of two days with plenty of opportunities to connect, catch up, share ideas, gossip, etc (oh – and did I mention that the conference is in Beaver Creek?). The goal of the conference is to draw out of state venture capitalists and show off the best companies in the area that are currently raising capital. …
February 23, 2007· 6 min read
Delivering bad news
Let’s say you have some bad news to deliver to your board/investors. For example, you lost a huge customer or your software has a major bug that’s going to set you back 6 months or your CFO just got arrested for cheating on his taxes, etc. Should you: Take out an advertisement in the Journal announcing this and then send out a note to your board with a link Rent one of those sign trucks and have it drive by your investors offices repeatedly Bury it deep inside a board book and hope no one notices it Don’t say anything – your investors/board are too involved in your business already and ask way too many questions as it is None of the above This won’t come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog, but my suggestion (strong preference, actually) is that the companies I work with be direct about news – good and bad. If you’re just before a board meeting, include the news in your CEO letter that prefaces the board material (see my post on running better board meetings for more detail). If you’re not, either call your board directly or send an email around updating everyone. Better yet – do both. …
February 13, 2007· 2 min read