Today was one of the most memorable days of my life. Things in the Middle East got very real today. We spent the entire day on copters flying South to Gaza with the Israeli Defense Force and then North to Golan/Syria and Lebanon with Israel's "Wolf Blitzer".  We were 10 seconds away from Gaza's Hamas mortar […]

Quite the first day…cultural day in Jerusalem (minus our guide saying “all schools have cancelled trips to Jerusalem given events this week…”).   Landed at 8:30am and off to the races. We visited the Old City where we walked through the four quarters, touched the marble Jesus was supposedly laid on (post Cross) and the […]

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore While the Boomer's bemoan (wrongly) Millennial's lack of work ethic, narcissism and lack of respect for seniority, there is a sea of change coming that corporations and start-ups alike […]

As another year draws to a close, I increasingly ask myself the core question: How many people's lives have I helped to make better? Not enough. As I begin to draft my New Year's Resolutions and Goals, I'm going to push myself to get outside of my comfort zone and stretch in helping others in […]

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Our portfolio company, GiveForward, is one of the standout "double bottom line" companies around. They help people with medical needs (and other) raise money to pay the bills. To date, they have raised $62 million for people. Given that 60% of personal bankruptcies are driven by mounting medical expenses, they have helped a large number […]

My friend, Brian Johnson, just posted on an awesome topic…Getting Better vs Being Good. Entrepreneurship is not only tough — it is non-linear and success often opaque. Also, short video link below of Carol Dweck's Mindset work…definitely worth everyone learning more about this. The key to managing this reality is: 1) to know your Northern […]

I increasingly have conversations with both rising and established entrepreneurs around “what is success and why does it not feel fulfilling?” Peter Drucker, the uber-management sage, said that as more people acquired wealth, they would shift to focusing more intently on making a purposeful impact on the world. The Millennials are focused on parallel tracking […]

“We must be willing to let go of the life that we’ve planned so as to embrace the life that is awaiting us.” — Joseph Campbell I am a commencement speech junkie. Dick Costolo’s most recent one is in the top 5…funny, inspirational and spot on about life. I first met Dick 16 years ago […]

“I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas” — Albert Einstein As I look back over my life, the most successful or content people I know were not the most brilliant but the most determined and disciplined. Excellence […]

Ryan Blair posted an interesting piece The Five Steps of Compartimentalization in Forbes last year.  I did an exercise I try every couple of weeks where I lay out all of the commitments I had made ranging from board meeting follow-ups (intros, offsites, etc) to family matters (coaching, attending, traveling) to new deals (diligence, meetings, […]

Some of you might know Byron as the Vice Chair of Blackstone Advisory or as the Chief Investment Strategy Officer at Morgan Stanley for over 20 years. Each year he publishes two of the most read pieces on Wall Street "10 Surprises for the Coming Year" and "Lunch with the Smartest Investor in Europe". I […]

A little perspective from up North. Our Canadian portfolio CEO, Guy Gal, forwarded over a great piece from StartupNorth titled The Things an Entrepreneur Will Never Tell You. It is definitely worth a quick read as entrepreneurs often feel they are unique in what they are going through in terms of high's & lows, feeling […]

A little something for you all laboring to improve the world through your entrepreneurial efforts (from my friend, Brian Johnson at Entheos.com). Have a great weekend:) “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much […]

Love this concept which my friend, Brian Johnson, posted recently.  Great entrepreneurs have a sense of "inevitability" in the belief in their idea and mission. Jim Clark refers to it as "willing a company into existence".  “My earliest mentor, W. Clement Stone, was once described as an inverse paranoid. Instead of believing the world was […]

Great TED talk by Brene Brown on Shame and its role in innovation and society. YouTube Link to Brown Shame Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0 Terrific Roosevelt quote from it for all you entrepreneurs in the arena…I'll call it the Entrepreneur's Manifesto: "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong […]

Below is the overview from my talk this year at the Credit Suisse Entrepreneurs' Summit at Sundance. Maria at BuiltInChicago (click to join) encouraged me to post on this, so here goes… The Hero’s Journey Matthew McCall Partner at New World Ventures and Co-Founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson Portage Venture Partners As one of the […]

Great piece from Aaron Levie, the founder and CEO of Box.net titled Be On A Mission That Doesn't Suck. In essence, he talks about the important of the purpose/reason of what you are doing. Without a sense of purpose beyond making money, flipping your company or being involved with a hip company, you will eventually […]

An awesome quote about perspective for entrepreneurs out in the battle field from Jung (thanks to Carter Cast for sending over). Mike Cassidy of Google, Microsoft, Xfire, Direct Hit fame ($1B), spoke at the DFJ CEO summit. When asked how hard does he burn his teams, he said home by 6:30 for balance (works email […]

My friends Eric Langsur and Brian Johnson forwarded this Frankl quote to me. I think it embodies the heart of success in entrepreneurship (the anti-build and flip approach): “Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a […]

Given the rarified air that my children live in, their mother & I are doing everything we can to help them realize a) with good fortune comes a responsibility to help others and b) their world is not the norm. Two awesome ways is by opening up a family account at Kiva (we focus on […]

This is one of the most powerfully simple observations I have seen, summarizing how many of us live our lives. Thanks, Kirsten, for finding this! So simple and yet so difficult to live in the present — being grateful versus being fearful/anxious. More to come on my blog's new direction in the coming month. ShareTweetShare

Every once in a while, as a father, your children do something that amazes you and makes you incredibly proud to be a parent. My daughter was selected as one of fourteen United Nations GirlUp Ambassadors from over 400 applicants. She had been inspired, after reading Half the Sky, to travel around the US, raising […]

The year 1871 holds a special place in Chicago history…it was the year of the great fire that leveled the city. It was also the year that some of the greatest designers, architects and minds came to Chicago to rebuild the city as a beacon for the future. Daniel Burnham, chief architect of the build, […]

"[Pura Vida] embodies a philosophy in which communal ties are strong and close; difficulties are overcome with a resilient and happy spirit, where life is enjoyed leisurely and to the full, and where fortune of whatever size is heartily celebrated."  – Tony Cousins I have spent the past week in Costa Rica surfing, doing yoga, eating, […]

Erik Severinghaus sent over this hilarious xtra normal video on Stupid Questions VC’s Ask that has been floating around the internet. Erik is an awesome, serial entrepreneur and I’m certain has had more than his share of these fine interogations. Since I focus on showing entrepreneurs behind the VC curtain, here you go:   Stupid Questions […]

Rishi Roongta works with me at New World and is omnipresent. He is curious and tests just about everything under the sun. He came across a new restaurant that redefines both Paying Forward and restaurants in general. As he writes: “Karma Kitchen was pretty awesome. I was a “waiter” and served tables for 4 hours.. […]

I think I need to take a day off to get going on my blog posts again. I apologize for my absence and will work on getting some pearls of wisdom out soon. Lot of travel and deals make Jack a dull (& postless) boy…  In the interim, here is my day off…parody of the […]

I am out at the annual DFJ CEO Summit. Tim kicked off the event with his eight rules for company success based on 26 years in the business. They are: Eight rules for success: 1) Test your product and get it out into market…see if the dogs will eat the dog food 2) Don't run […]

I'm looking to withdraw a little from my Karma bank here. My son just led his high school team to the Illinois State golf championship. This is big deal for his small school (60 kids per class). It is the first state title in any sport in the school's 60 year history. He also finished […]

In 2000-2001, I remember reading negative article after negative article on Amazon. It was burning money quickly, e-tailers were going under left and right and brick & mortar stores were re-asserting themselves. People kept a diligent death watch for it after the demise of Webvans ($1b) and others. In reality, what was going on was […]

When you've been in the venture business as long as I have, you have seen your share of dysfunctional, poisonious board/management situations. None of these needed to occur. They all fall into the "life's too short" category. Understanding, alignment and unification (leave your ego at the door) are the key elements of avoiding this.  For […]

"A connecting principleLinked to the invisibleAlmost imperceptibleSomething inexpressibleScience insusceptibleLogic so inflexibleCausally connectableYet nothing is invincible" — the Police, Synchronicity   People, places and events come into our lives for a reason. We rarely fully appreciate or even notice them. Often we'll observe a confluence of them and comment on what a "coincidence" we've experienced. Well, after […]

Everyone watching the mobile OS wars has been expecting Android to become the dominant OS by powering a lot of the non-Apple hardware. The most recent Comscore numbers indicate that the torch (no BB pun) has been passed to Android in Q4, 2010. Below are the share numbers of mobile handsets and OS share. Android […]

I don't want to pile onto or repeat some of the great posts of the current market conditions. Fred Wilson's post, Storm Clouds, was one of the better initial snippets on what is going on. One of the advantages of being in Chicago is that we are the first to lose liquidity and the last […]

On September 20th, I gave a talk about the Chicago entrepreneurial ecosystem at the nominees dinner of the Chicago Innovation Awards. To see the presentation click here on Download 2010 09Chi Innovation Dinner ShareTweetShare

I’m at the Kellogg Innovation Network Global Summit which is the creation of of Rob and Stephanie Wolcott. It is a global group of CEO’s and heads of R&D from Fortune 500’s. Kimmie Weeks from Liberia, founder of Youth Action International, which focuses on raising global philanthropy in youths, kicked off the event with a […]

Well, I got a very pleasant surprise last night in my email. Tony Perkins notified me that I had made the Top 100 VC list in their inaugural year of the list. I don’t usually like to self-promote but this was a particular recognition for me. PE Hub just did a piece on this list […]

Don Wood sent this over today. It says a lot about how we all go about our daily lives and what we miss or overlook, especially as we have our heads down in the New Normal. ..something to think about… Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a […]

My long-time Kellogg/BCG friend, Al Warms, has gone public with his latest effort, Appolicious.  Al sold his previous company, Buzztracker, to Yahoo and went on to successfully run & grow Yahoo News. Appolicious is a community for application discovery. You can upload your current applications (names only) and the site will begin to profile your interests […]

I remember a period in 2000 when I was stressed beyond belief, I was getting little sleep and I had lost 15 pounds. As my portfolio plummeted downward with all others, I envisioned myself working as an evening janitor in some office building. I wrote a post a couple of years ago, Resilience in the Storm, in […]

Meet Joel Bauer. His created character is a riot. I'm going to go one step better. 8×10 cards with music that plays when it opens (Rocky?)…Secrets for the New Normal 🙂  Enjoy ShareTweetShare

There is no doubt that the venture industry is going through a major house cleaning right now. Much of the pruning that should have been done post Bubble is finally going on now as LP's start to wake up and pull back a bit from the asset class. One of the main challenges has been […]

"Even as I write I am watching the eunuchs now posing as Wall Street CEOs bend over backward before some congressional committee…We at Morgan Stanley are pleased by your investment. Now, if you ever want to see a dime of it back, go away. We’ll call you if we need you." — Michael Lewis It […]

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."        — Wayne Gretzky peHUB had a recent post by Connie Lolzos on Josh Lerner's recent research about serial entrepreneurs. There are two general camps. One states that success begets success and serial entrepreneurs […]

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." — Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence Dan Primack set off an interesting dialog around his article Radically Reinventing Venture Capital. There is a growing wave of articles about new or revised models and debate around what went wrong.  […]

"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop […]

Tim Draper has recently launched his blog, titled "The Riskmaster" (http://theriskmaster.blogspot.com/).  He will post on the venture capital business, spreading entrepreneurship, interesting videos and inspirations on the economy.  This blog is guaranteed to be entertaining, informative and challenging. For those of you not familiar with him, Tim is the founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and […]

As the bad news keeps pouring in, a lot of people are wondering what we can expect in the coming years. Additionally, everyone is trying to figure out what hope exists. Well, I’ll give two thoughts on this (briefly). First, the world of technology is driven by two factors: the laws of exponentials and the […]

This is an hilarious Peyton Manning/United Way parody (pardon the ads but this is the only version now available). Many fine examples of leadership and teamwork! Watch more Saturday Night Live videos on AOL Video ShareTweetShare

Back in June of this year, I did a post called Rough Ride Ahead: Buckle Up & Get Your Money Now (if you can). My words of advice were: "If you are close on terms with an investor, do what you need to get it closed now. If you have access to capital, draw it […]

After the downdrafts, you would assume that people would be jumping into market to bottom feed. However, a number of the smartest guys have massive cash positions. Clearly, they are waiting for the other shoe to drop. From a recent Whitney Tilson piece:"These are smart guys, but I think they're wrong here — and think […]

"Wall Street," reads the sinister old gag, "is a street with a river at one end and a graveyard at the other." This is striking, but incomplete. It omits the kindergarten in the middle. Frederick Schwed, Jr., Where Are the Customer's Yachts? Some of you may fear that I have jumped feet first into the […]

"Nobody told me there'd be days like theseStrange days indeed, strange days indeed"                    — John Lennon I have written on several occasions about the likelihood of a correction and pull back in the venture market. I've also said that it will be triggered by a correction in the stock market which […]

In reading through the recent Fortune article, The 50 Most Powerful Women, I noticed that half of them were in the Midwest. This included: #2 Irene Rosenfield    CEO, Kraft#3 Pat Woertz            CEO, Archer Daniels Midland#7 Susan Arnold        President, Proctor & Gamble#8 Oprah Winfrey      Chairman, Harpo#9 Brenda Barnes     CEO, Sara Lee This […]

I love stories about entrepreneurs and inventors who overcome adversity, flirt with disaster & bankruptcy, only to end up hitting the long ball.  The Economist published a great article in May describing the Pixar story.  As usual, things did not start off in a very promising manner. "Ed Catmull's ambition at school had been to […]

Interesting Piece from PEWeek: "Why aren't VCs freaking out as Wall Street burns? It's a question that I've been asking for more than a week now. There is, of course, the usual litany of responses: we're long term investors, we invest in fundamentals, our LPs are going to be good for their commitments because they're […]

Having been through two market cycles already, I have been waiting for the credit mess to filter down into the start-up world. To date, this effect has been minimal compared to that impacting Wall Street and the buyout world. I would expect this to change in the coming 8 months. The question is how it […]

Entrepreneurship is about attitude and perseverance.  Our CFO sent this over to me which I thought I would share for the weekend. It also helps to remind you what is important in life (family) and to keep things in perspective. Stick with the video as it is about a lot more than just another young […]

"Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered" — old folk saying What a two weeks it has been. Who knows what firm will be the next victim of Darwin.  I told you all to buckle up last June because things were going to be interesting. With the Fed letting Lehman go down, now everyone is starting […]

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…" — Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities […]

Jerry Mitchell, who is a special guy here in Chicago for his decades of helping entrepreneurs, just had his 70th birthday. He recently told that Teddy Roosevelt said one of his favorite quotes about perserverence and effort which I really liked: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how […]

Eric Olson and Frank Gruber are launching their first TechCocktail conference in Chicago this week on Thur, May 29th at Loyola University. You can register by clicking here. They have pulled together a great set of panelist including Dick Costolo from FeedBurner/Google, Jason Fried from 37Signal and a host of other luminaries. They have also […]

"…it’s more about people skills and the ability to assess whether there’s a market for something."  — Dick Kramlich, co-founder NEA I was cleaning out my files the other day and came across a 2005 NYT article by Gary Rivlin on the venture industry titled "So You Want to Be a Venture Capitalist". It is […]

The nice thing about doing angel investing on the side is that I can invest in fun, if not wacky, ideas from time to time. I put a little money into a friend’s (John Funk, wonderful serial entrepreneur) IP incubator called Evergreen IP. His partners come out of the CPG world and they have licensed […]

There seem to be two styles of bloggers. Those that drop shorter snippets into posts but do so once or twice a day and those that like to write longer posts but do so once a week/month. While I have always assumed that the former better fits people’s consumption behavior, there have been a variety […]

I was looking at the global statistics page at the back of the most recent Economist Magazine and noticed that it had a chart laying out the % of households in each country that use IPTV (internet) as their primary means of getting their television services (vs. cable, satellite, etc). Below are the top 7 […]

Following up on my post on the buyout world, the VC world has also experienced valuation inflation over the past year. As more and more liquidity comes into the sector (mostly acquisitions), VC’s are beginning to feel bullet proof again. We are starting to see VC’s promising entrepreneurs $80m and $90m pre-$ valuations if they […]

JB Pritzker sent this over to me recently. Shades of reality but tons of humor in this… How to manage your company’s board of directors: 1. Meet by phone whenever possible. Most of them will be doing their email or goosing their admin or something and not paying any attention at all. They’ll just vote […]

Daniel Primack wrote a great piece on the continuing insanity in the buyout world. It is amazing that the writing is clearly on the wall and is nearly identical to the venture world in 2000 and yet the LP’s and funds continue unabated. VC’s kept raising massive funds even though it was clear that the […]

We are very happy to announce that we recently hired Eric Olson as an Associate at DFJ Portage. We originally got to know Eric when he was in publisher services at our portfolio company, FeedBurner. He also co-founded TechCocktail which is now in several cities around the US and is one of the key tech […]

"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough."  — Randy Pausch Well, I […]

Last Thursday, I gave a speech at Ignite Chicago on the relevance of "black swan" events on entrepreneurship. I had originally been asked to talk on fundraising.  However, after a compelling talk by Steve Jurvetson on our monthly network partners call, I made an audible at the line.  So, thanks to Steve for inspiration and […]

And we wonder why Buffett says that the credit markets are redefining the term "junk" debt… How Citi, HSBC, Morgan, Et Al Vaporized Billions Henry Blodget | November 28, 2007 9:07 AM Mystified about how Wall Street’s best and brightest could suddenly up and lose tens of billions of dollars on insanely risky mortgage bets? […]

My friend, Mike Iannelli, sent me the following link Here Comes Another Bubble. Clearly, we are seeing some funny money deals popping up as the economy takes a dive. Perhaps there is a blog on why Billy Joel seems to be the song writer of choice for these music montages… ShareTweetShare

I have been using LinkedIn for a couple of years now and Facebook for about 6 months. While I have found both interesting and have played with an array of Facebook applications, I haven’t found either extremely useful from a business perspective. In comparing notes with others, most tell me that they use them but […]

One of the readers at Ask the VC posted the following question and I did a guest post on it for Brad and Seth: Question: (1) How do Web 2.0 companies like Feedburner make money?  (2)What makes a blogger or content provider select one network or blogcommunity over another (i.e., are the bloggers themselves being […]

Whitney Tilson noted the following in his recent email newsletter. I think this is amazing and hope that our buyout and venture brethren follow suit. I have always believed that the philanthropy tsunami unleashed by Gates, Buffett & the Silicon Valley crew would lead to new era of giving equal in impact to the robber […]

Over the years, Don Valentine (founder of Sequoia Capital) has had quite a few memorable quotes. He was the original investor behind successes like Apple, Cisco, EA and Oracle and is known to never mince words.  After coming across one of his quotes the other day, I used Google to chase down an array of […]

In yet another example of the new wave & breed of philanthropists, Feeney made his fortune in duty-free shops. In Out of Sight, Till Now, and Giving Away Billions, O’Cleary gives a taste of what is in Feeney’s upcoming biography The Billionaire Who Wasnt: How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune Without Anyone Knowing […]

Vineeth forwarded this article onto me: Google’s new role: Venture Capitalist. In yet another sign of where we are in the cycle, strategic VC’s are accelerating their activity. Strategic activity tends to peak (along with angels’) right before a market pull back. Google may be a different animal, but many of the strategics are diving […]

TiE Midwest is holding its annual conference on October 5th from noon to 6 at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago. This is a great event and this year, they have the dynamic and always interesting brothers, Glen (CEO of Allscripts) and Howard (founder CCC & CEO of Flashpoint) Tullman keynoting. Definitely worth the time if […]

As many of you may have followed, there is a battle royal brewing around the taxation of carry (the 20% of the upside GP’s receive). Historically, this has been treated as capital gains (usually long-term) so enjoys a low tax rate. With the excesses of the hedge fund & buyout managers, Congress has begun evaluating […]

My friend from B-school and BCG, Al Warms, recently sold his firm, BuzzTracker to Yahoo.  Al created a viral approach to linking news stories with leading blogs to determine the importance of a given article. You have seen the VC channel of BuzzTracker in my left rail for nearly a year now. Creating channels is […]

David Dalka asked an interesting follow-up question to my post yesterday about the consolidation in the venture business. What does this consolidation mean to the business? A couple of things:1) a lot of the firms out of the business now should not have been in it to begin with. They drove up prices and encouraged […]

The team at OVP Partners in Seattle/Portland puts out a quarterly newsletter. In the most recent one, Charting the Course, they cut into the NVCA Yearbook numbers to get a better sense of what is going on with the consolidation in the industry. As I wrote in Fidelity Comes to VC, LP’s are driving a […]

My wife sent me this article. She is on the Women’s Board over at Children’s Memorial and comes across  these stories often. Talk about keeping things in perspective. No matter how hard my working world becomes, it is nothing compared to this one… The Night RoundsThere’s no darker place than a children’s hospital at night. […]

This is a hilarious video for all of you parents: ShareTweetShare

I am a firm believer that random acts of kindness are the lubrication that greases the entrepreneurial and VC worlds.  People doing good by others builds up the positive karma bank account. There is so much uncertainty in the tech world, that you never know when you will have to call in a favor or […]

On August 23rd, ironically on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a tornado hit the western Chicago suburbs and a micro burst swung through the northern suburbs where I live and work. By the time the storm had passed with its 70+ mph winds, Winnetka looked like a scene out of the movie, Twister.  Nearly […]

On August 23rd, ironically on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a tornado hit the western Chicago suburbs and a micro burst swung through the northern suburbs where I live and work. By the time the storm had passed with its 70+ mph winds, Winnetka looked like a scene out of the movie, Twister.  Nearly […]

This summer has been a crazy one for me and I have, as one friend wrote, "gone dark" since early June. So, as I begin to sprout prose again here, why not jump back in with a depressing post on the debt debacle & its impact on the our entrepreneurial world… Over the past year, […]

One of benefits of being in venture capital is that you can see activity and trends across a broad array of industries. Additionally, you spend a considerable amount of time talking to people about deals, career changes, financings or general assistance. You can also get a sense of how certain companies are doing based upon […]

I have been using the FeedBurner stats PRO and MyBrand services since day one and paid the monthly fee. FeedBurner recently announced, in Google customary fashion, that these both will now be available for free to all users. Definitely worth checking out if you are using or have considered using FeedBurner’s core service to manage […]

I have been using the FeedBurner stats PRO and MyBrand services since day one and paid the monthly fee. FeedBurner recently announced, in Google customary fashion, that these both will now be available for free to all users. Definitely worth checking out if you are using or have considered using FeedBurner’s core service to manage […]

In addition to Bill Gates, one of the largest influencers in the venture philanthropy world is Chris Hohn, who is one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the world. His fund has been closed for some time and he donates a significant portion of its profits to his Foundation. He is known for […]

The most recent issue of Institutional Investor (its "40th Anniversary Issue") has a series of interesting perspectives from the pioneers and leaders of the financial world ranging from John Bogle & Warren Buffett to Arthur Rock & Henry Kravis. If you can chase it down, it is quite the interesting read. One of the pieces […]

A number of you have been wondering if I am still alive or have given up blogging. Life has been busy to say the least and a 36 hour day would certainly help on getting the posts out. Several companies of mine are selling, financing or working on strategic partnerships. This combined with travel soccer […]

This post is directed equally towards 1) entrepreneurs trying to figure out how we value companies and 2) regulators, auditors and such trying to get true market pricing for our assets. I was recently talking with Eric Nath who is one of the more forward thinking appraisers. We were discussing the mess that all of […]

I posted last week about the consolidation of the venture capital industry. Whitney Tilson recently pointed out that this is also happening in the hedge fund world. LP’s will increasingly gravitate towards brand where they also have the added benefit of being able to deploy larger sums into larger funds  (versus a lot of smaller […]

The shakeout and consolidation in the venture business continues forward at a strong pace. Brand and scale are increasingly driving success. The larger the venture firm, the greater the in-house domain expertise and the wider the breadth of deals in each vertical. In an effort to simplify the guessing involved with picking funds, institutional LP’s […]

Google announced this morning that it would acquire DoubleClick for $3.1B. This is quite a windfall for Hellman & Friedman who took the company private in 2005 for $1.1B. DoubleClick has always been one of the premier assets on the internet and after it went public, saw its fortunes decline due to poor management. I […]

"Something wicked this way comes…"  — Ray Bradbury We have just survived our annual audit season and it is clear to me that things are going to get increasingly murky, confusing and ugly for valuations in the venture capital world. For those of you not well versed in the intimacies of the portfolio company valuation […]

My friends at Comscore have filed to go public. A recent Mashable article has a few details on it as does their online SEC filing. It has been a long road for Gian and team, but they are another stellar example of persevering through adverse times to get to the payout. Tom Berman at Adams […]

I am back from Spring Break with family and in-laws. I had a relaxing week in South Carolina with good food, quality time with family and golf. The only downside in visiting my in-laws is the every present no see ’ems which always do a job on my skin. Being the soft-hearted VC that I […]

“Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.”               — Felix Adler If you are into postings about inspiration, self-improvement or resiliency, Brian Kim does a good job with his posts at BrianKim.Net. It is one of the blogs that I track in this category and […]

Click on the Buzz in the left rail and you’ll see a piece on the recent announcement about NBC & News Corp partnering to create a YouTube "killer". The labels are slashing about for a strategy as IPTV comes roaring at them. Some, like Viacom, are using the classic sue and ally model. NBC/News are […]

Some of you may have noticed that I have a VC Buzztracker list in my left column. My buddy, Al Warms, launched Buzztracker after his investment in and experience with Real Clear Politics. His belief is that analyzing what news items and leading posts get the most links is the best way to identify what […]

I have a friend, Frank Gerber, who writes a nice blog called Frankly Green about environmental issues and things we can all do to improve our immediate environments. He has me thinking a lot about my daily routines ranging from driving my car to throwing away trash at our house. In particular, I have been […]

" Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime."  — Chinese proverb (surprisingly not a biblical quote as I believed) You would have to be living in a cave not to notice the seismic change in people’s attitudes and interests in helping […]

This Krugman piece, The Big Meltdown, appeared recently in the NY Times. As I have said before, there is a lot of irrational behavior going on in both the public and private markets. Debt remains high, all asset classes have seen big rises and investors, hungry for the rush of another "hit", stretch further and […]

While I am on a productivity tear here, I will also recommend another of Merlin’s post at 43Folders called "Becoming An Email Ninja". It has a series of links to his classic email productivity posts for both receiving and composing emails. One of his most emphatic suggestions is to turn your "check for new email" […]

“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.”      — Benjamin Franklin Like with the weather, everyone talks about productivity & time management but few do anything about it. Over the past year, I have found that I have increasingly less control over my day and seem […]

When I was in college, a friend of mine had three pirahna he kept in his dorm room. Over the course of a year, Blinky ended up eating Zero and Fatboy. He then looked very lonely. My friend used to say that he "had trouble feeling sorry for someone who just ate his two friends." […]

"Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it."              – Peter Lynch I have often thought that I could do well managing public company investments based upon the experiences, perceptions and fears of our early stage companies interacting […]

A friend of mine asked if I had died since he hadn’t seen a post in a a bit. Well, all is well and I had a great ski outing with my son (first father-son effort). During the week, a friend of mine, Rob Albertson, forwarded on an interesting post by Vivian Wu as a […]

Comscore recently released the results of their consumer survey that quantified "Americans’ attitudes and opinions related to Super Bowl XLI." In my Doritos post this week, I mentioned the various benefits that Frito-Lay gained from their user generated ad strategy. Not only did they get significant buzz/free publicity and lower production cost on the ad, […]

I have written a couple of times about the growing trend in "crowdsourcing" in the marketing world where advertisers seek ideas and even campaigns from their user base. I was curious to see how the various experiments played out on the Superbowl, especially Doritos’ effort which planned to run a $2.4m UGC ad. As Fred […]

Too many days start in a rush, get picked apart by one off events and end up feeling like enough was accomplished. Lifehacker pointed out a piece by Jim Citrin on Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine in which he interviewed 20 successful CEO’s and executives about how they went about their day. Unfortunately […]

I was bemoaning the other day how klutzy my MyYahoo homepage was. You have limited ability to move things around, adding feeds is cumbersome and you can’t readily add cool widgets. I was thinking about how great it would be if they or someone came out with an aggregator of widgets. It would be an […]

As you all may know, I continue to get more involved withe world of venture philanthropy. Much like venture capital, if done well, drives innovation and change into the corporate world, I believe that venture philanthropy can also positively impact traditional philanthropy. I’ll define what I view as key principles to venture philanthropy in a […]

A number of you have emailed with an issue that when you go to my feed, you are prompted by a log-in request. This is being driven by an issue with an old post called Global Perspective. I fixed the issue and reposted but most readers have the old version. Delete the Global Perspective post […]

A couple of months ago, Brad Feld had mentioned to me that he was excited about a new blog he was going to come out with. Given the success of Feld Thoughts, I was curious how he could top it. Well, he launched AskTheVC a couple of weeks ago and it looks like another winner. […]

The difficulty of tactical maneuvering consists in turning the devious into the direct, and misfortune into gain. – Sun Tzu A number of you wrote me after my post on "The Power of Dry Powder".  Many of you have heard about contentious situations between investors in the same company and were curious about how this […]

Sports Illustrated did a great piece on Dick Hoyt and his commitment to his handicapped son. There is also a link to short video on them on YouTube… "[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to […]

My friend, Jim Kalishman, sent me the following link (Flu Outbreak Sickens Hundreds) about a recent outbreak of the Novovirus on the Queen Elizabeth 2 that took down 17% of the passengers. They mentioned that sanitizing poker chips and not allowing self serve at buffett limited the spread. Makes you think twice about grabbing that […]

Congrats to FeedBurner for being selected as one of the AlwaysOn 100. Keep burnin’ them up! ShareTweetShare

You are increasingly going to hear me write about Venture Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship. I see a blending or cross over starting to occur between the venture/entrepreneurial world and the philanthropic one. Both sides can benefit from approaches and axioms of the other. Just as in our economy, you need to continually innovate and find […]

Hilarious rip on Microsoft. This spoof has been around for a number of months, but Ajaxian did a recent post on the release of the new "Microsoft Firefox 2007 Professional edition". At first, I was impressed to see Microsoft embrace the open source world, but then my finely honed VC senses tingled that something was […]

Given where we are in the market cycle, we should be seeing explosive growth in the IPO world. The Dow has set a new record high, high profile acquisitions like YouTube are providing lucrative exits and the economy continues to walk the fine line between inflation and recession. These bursts of activity are the life […]

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ~Winston Churchill Historically, yearend has been a slow time in the venture world. From Thanksgiving through New Year, firms focused mostly on wrapping up loose ends in their portfolios. Last year, as echoed in the public markets, ended with a […]

Bob Geras, perhaps Chicago’s most prolific angel investor, sent me an email with the following quote from his dad. I liked it and thought I’d pass it along: "Money and success come and go. What’s really important and lasting is your integrity, reputation and self respect. It’s really very simple. Treat others the way you […]

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."— Declaration of Independence I saw a very intense movie with my wife and another couple just before vacation called […]

Reposted with working links to photos… I am back from the Caribbean and fully tethered back to my Blackberry. In addition to the beauty of the Caribbean, what struck me was also the poverty surrounding the high end luxury tourist sites. The Cayman Islands are selling $3m two bedroom condos at the Ritz. In Haiti, […]

The surprising answer is that the Cayman Islands is the Fifth Largest financial center in the world. This tiny island, because of favorable tax treatment and a host of other things, has become home to many off-shore vehicles, especially hedge funds, private equity funds and such. Amazing… For those interested more in the stories of […]

"The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed."— Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy (supposedly from a Chinese proverb) It occurs so frequently that it has become a cliche. The entrepreneur who is on the verge of dismal failure, grinds it out and builds a successful business. In many ways, […]

Pirates of the Caribbean has been a popular Disney ride since I was a kid and now has become a series of popular movies (Jack Sparrow, the Black Pearl, etc). I never fully appreciated the history behind the title until coming down here on vacation. To begin with, I did not understand that there are […]

We spent yesterday on Cozumel (Island of the Swallows), which I had always associated with Spring Break, Cancun and such. However, I did not realize the deep & tragic history the island had. Most recently, it was devastated by Hurricanes Emily and Wilma two years ago which basically flattened the island, destroyed its hotels and […]

I am with my family on the Freedom of the Sea, Royal Caribbean’s newest addition to its fleet which is now the largest cruise boat in the world. It has multiple pools, a wave machine for surfing, minature golf course & simulator, an ice skating rink, a climbing wall and a sports court. The most […]

Kirsten Osolind who blogs the re:invention marketing blog recently memed me. Like her, I have not posted in a number of days and may soon go dark for another week as I board a cruise with my family tomorrow morning. The venture business is supposed to be sleepy from Thanksgiving and New Years, but not […]

Just so you all don’t think all VC’s are humorless moneymen without souls, I am posting Blueprint Ventures very funny holiday video about Gary Snoman, his snowman empire and becoming a VC. Enjoy. ShareTweetShare

John Dvorak and the TWIT folks were talking about the cult Ellen Feiss Apple ad. While not under the influence, she has become known as the Stoner Girl as a result of this ad. Pretty funny… In another note, Mac’s new spokes guy, Justin Long, in the Mac/PC ads is going to be retired. I […]

Quantcast is an interesting "open internet ratings service". Much like Alexaholic is a poor man’s comscore, Quantcast provides demographic information on various websites pulled from their affiliated partners. It will give you a  quick overview, though the accuracy is going to highly variable depending upon the panels and the site.  That said, it is  interesting […]

"You’ve got access to a global creative department of 4 billion people" — Steve Henry, Exec Creative Director at TBWA People have always said that you should listen to your customer. Well, with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, firms are taking this advice literally. I mentioned a while ago that I expected to see […]

Young children around the world have seen their parents disappear from their lives in the saddest of circumstances. Perfectly normal, functioning parent have contracted severe cases of Berryitis (also known as Screensucking) and disappeared from everyday family involvement. I am certain we will be seeing TV ads to help support these poor orphaned children… My […]

The paid search revenue model is very addictive. New companies are launching everyday, leveraging online paid search engines to drive revenue. This obviates the need for bag carrier or other uncertain, high cost sales models. With cheap, commoditized infrastructure, any Joe and their dog can get into the online game. There has also emerged an […]

Chicago was hit by its first hard snow of the winter. American cancelled a lot of its flights from midnight through noon today and the roads are an icy mess (though starting to shape up). Our dog is in second heaven, jumping through the snow and as we shovel the walkways, thinks we are throwing […]

"No longer can America take for granted its global superiority as a market for capital"— the Economist In a recent November 25th article "Down on the Street", the Economist lays out a very compelling analysis and overview of the mess our domestic financial markets are in. As discussed often in this blog, if we don’t […]

Andy Kessler recently posted a series of posts about his view on the future of media and web. In "Media 2.Uh-Oh", he consolidates the six different posts into one piece. In it, he describes how the media model of old, owning the pipe, has been broken by the wave of new Web 2.0 technologies and […]

I am sorry to say this is about Warren and not me. I have to admit that, while a wild-eyed VC, I am also a closet Buffett fan (aren’t we all…). Whitney Tilson posted Warren’s recent CNBC special on YouTube. I’ve posted the CNBC special from last night on "Warren Buffett: The Billionaire Next Door" […]

“Silicon Valley is not built on success as it is on rubble” — Paul Saffo At our dinner last night, Paul Saffo gave a great talk on the different emerging forms of capitalism. He also gave a concise and interesting descriptions of what makes Silicon Valley tick. Paul teaches classes on the future of engineering […]

One of my favorite times of the year is our annual worldwide shindig out at Half Moon Bay. Many of the partners and portfolio CEO’s from all of our offices around the world descend on the Ritz for three days of meetings, outings and discussion. As you may or may not know, we have a […]

I have written about this great Jobs Graduation speech at Stanford. Here is the YouTube of the original speech: ShareTweetShare

Daniel Primack has an interesting piece on Ben Stein and his critical comments about MBO’s. Ben is our era’s Leonardo di Vinci in that he has been in various White Administrations, writes and is on TV often regarding investments and, most importantly, is an actor best known for his teacher role in Feris Bueller’s Day […]

"“Don’t equate raising money to success. I’d rather see start-ups be scrappy, frugal, and … on a lean diet of ramen noodles.”— Ram Shriram Roger NcNamee is one of my favorite writers and VC’s. I am always interested in hearing what he has to say. Recently, he and Ram Shriram, the reknowned angel investor in […]

Rick Klau, one of the FeedBurner mafia, just sent me a great list from Jack Welch on his 6 Commandments. Love these. Thanks Rick! The Top 10 Jack Welch’s Six Rules 1. Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. 2. Be candid with everyone. 3. Don’t […]

Chess has been called the "Drosophila of cognitive science" (in honor of the experimental fly) because it can be measured, broken into components, observed and modified. Much of the research in cognitive science has been around trying to understand the "Expert Mind" and whether its skills are innate or acquired. More importantly, how does the […]

“Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The Secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work.”— Fortune Magazine Two years ago, I went down with my son to the Ledbetter Golf Academy for a father-son week. Ledbetter is part of the IMG (sports management giant) sports complex that […]

It’s the weekend, so time for a more satirical look at the tech world. There is a growing outbreak in the technology world around capitalization. It is now passe for a firm to have just one capitalized letter in its name. Names are being created by combining words and each of the original words get […]

In my on-going tributes to inspirational graduation speeches, I am writing about a column written by Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich. Okay, so this is cheating since it never became a speech though she said this is what she would have said if she had ever been invited. Baz Luhrman put it to music. This […]

The sign of a world class CEO is that he/she has an infectious personality. The risk is that you get very homogenous board meetings. Well, it finally happened at FeedBurner this past Board Meeting on Halloween…   ShareTweetShare

A friend recently invited me to the Morgan Stanley Mercedes Day at the Tracks. Mercedes supplied $5M worth of cars totaling 15,000 hp. The star car is their $450,000 SLR McLaren which was beast on the race track (0-60 in about 3.5 secs)…photo of yours truly in the drivers seat. I asked how many they […]

"80% of success is just showing up."— Woody Allen Patience and resilience are core requirements for the entrepreneurial world. Often, it seems like an eternity as you wait for customer behavior to come around or for a market to take off. You do everything you can to keep the company afloat so that you don’t […]

In the previous post, I referred to "the starfish story". Here it is. A young boy and his grandfather were walking down the beach. It was a beautiful afternoon and the tide had pulled backed leaving hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand. The boy began to run around, picking up the starfish and throwing […]

What if God was one of usJust a slob like one of usJust a stranger on the busTrying to make his way home— Joan Osborne Song It is very easy to get wrapped up in the challenges and tests of the day. In the venture business, unfortunately, approximately 50% of investments end up in the […]

Quick follow-up. I just noticed that all of the anti-US footage in the post below has been removed. Whether you support the war or not, this is a bit surprising. This definitely puts Google into another censorship bind like with China. In this case, it is the US government applying the pressure, not China. This […]

"The first casualty when war comes is truth," — Senator Hiram Johnson User generated content is obviously having an impact on all corners of life. I figured that it would just be a matter of time before user generated ads started hitting and, sure enough, we have three coming up in this year’s Super Bowl. […]

I really feel sorry for this poor guy. He is getting absolutely roasted alive on the web. It was not the brightest move to do something this cocky and over the top, but his punishment is unbelievably severe. This is the dark side of the viral online video world. He created this video, allegedly, for […]

Make it simple and make it work well. This is a product development mantra that I believe strongly in. Elon Musk, Michael Moritz and others are very product centric in their view of successful tech companies. If the product works well, people will not only use it but also virally recommend it to their friends. […]

A number of articles have started to appear that shine a harsh light on the mezzanine merchant bank groups like Advanced Equities. These groups specialize in raising capital for later stage venture companies. These firms have formed strong relationships with various brand name venture groups and help them raise "pre-IPO" capital for their businesses. These […]

Keith Schacht and his cohorts at Freshwater Venture (no "s" on the end) have an interesting effort underway in Chicago. They are marrying known entrepreneurial efforts with a Google map mash-up, family trees and profiles. One of the challenges with the Midwest region (and many other regions for that matter) is not that talent or […]

I am watching the "The Day After Tomorrow" with my son as I type this post. It is a Hollywood version of accelerated Global Warming. In the middle of the movie, a flash freeze sweeps across the Northern Hemisphere, immediately freezing everything in its path (minus 150 degree F) which is cold even by Chicago […]

For those of you with the political bug and a right of center leaning, Real Clear Politics is a great site. My b-school & BCG buddy, Al Warms, has really done some interesting things with the site. He lays them out in a recent post including a variety of interesting things with RSS and email […]

Comscore released its stats on Social Networking demographics which is on the following table. What surprised me most about all of these is the high % of 35-54 year olds in each user base (33-40%). MySpace was the biggest outlier on this front with almost 41% of its visitors coming from the older crowd. Now, […]

I recently received an email asking "do we have our priorities aligned properly".  While the email was a humor email (punchline below), the first half of it was illuminating in a more serious way. In all of our individual efforts to feel important and to be recognized (socially, in business circles, publications, in boardrooms, etc), […]

ESPN announced that it was pulling the plug on its MVNO venture.  This is an unfortunate trend since MVNO’s are new service and application vendors best shots at getting into the market place. Since MVNO’s, by definition, are marketing oriented, they should, in theory, be more willing to integrate new apps or services. However, the […]

"The word "Tipping Point", for example, comes from the world of epidemiology. It’s the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It’s the boiling point. It’s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards."  — Malcolm Gladwell Is it just me or are […]

After much worrisome debate, we bought a trampoline for the kids this summer. It is our small attempt of staying up with our neighbors and their seven connected trampolines. After seeing this video, I feel much better about our decision… 🙂 ShareTweetShare

When I thinking of online gaming, I think of 15-24 year olds battling away until the early hours of the night, loaded with Red Bull. According to a recent Comscore Gaming report, the average gamer is 41 years old and 52% of the gamers are women. I know that some of our gaming properties have […]

Comscore just released its Top 10 Video Ratings. According to Comscore in July:Property              Unique U.S.          Streams Initiated               Streams per                                       Streamers (000)      by U.S. Users (MM)      Streamer——–              […]

A couple of readers pinged me about Xdrive versus S3 (Amazon) and Googlebase. S3 is competitive at $0.15/GB and $0.20/GB transferred. Googlebase is free but Google crawls your info. I still haven’t gotten over the creapy experience of reading an email in Gmail (say a friends Caribbean trip) and seeing Caribbean ads served up by […]

AOL has launched an online file storage service called Xdrive which is offering 5GB of storage for free and 50GB for about $100/year. I love digital photography and my collection continues to grow. I have backup hard drives, burned DVD’s, etc as I am absolutely paranoid that all of the family memories are going to […]

After a very successful first event, TeckCocktail, an informal and stripped-down quarterly networking event for technology professionals, will hold its second gathering Oct. 12 at the Gramercy in Lincoln Park. TechCocktail is run by Eric Olson of Feedburner and Frank Gruber, a local tech blogger and product manager with America Online. What I like about […]

Nice piece in the Chicago Sun Times "Feedburner’s investors have its technology at their fingertips." It is not a common experience when investors can actually approach an investment as a customer. If this happened more often, I am certain that surprises and failure rates would go down in the business… Participate Media’s "Feedburner" post also […]

Sorry for the broken link on the Pipeline Spreadsheet. I relinked it on the post below. ShareTweetShare

I came across this 1997 interview with John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins fame from Fast Company. A good read for entrepreneurs about startup teams…John Doerr’s Startup Manual Also, timely piece in VentureBeat about Doerr’s daughter’s comments on Global Warning "Dad, I’m scared and angry.  Your generation created this problem." What are we going to do […]

While I could never see raising my kids anywhere but in Chicago (actually Winnetka), I do dread the period of time in Oct-Nov when the days shorten, the temperature begins to drop and the famed Chicago Winter begins to rear its head. I grew up in La Jolla, CA and find nothing more soothing that […]

"Dogster: where every dog has a webpage" I kid you not. Dogster has launched which is MySpace/Friendster for dogs and their owners. Dogs have always suffered from isolation and limited avenues to social networking. Now, they have a chance to unite and move up the food chain. Here is Wolfjohn’s profile a giant Schnauzer. He […]

Sorry that the microscopic font keeps slipping into my posts. I will do a better job double checking in the future. Both Greatest Fear and Crystal Ball had fonts that were unreadable in most readers due to size. I have changed them (which doesn’t help with the feeds already pushed out but will on the […]

I saw another great movie this weekend with the wife and kids called "Akeelah and the Bee". You have probably either seen it or at least read about it in the papers. It is the story of an 11-year old girl from the poorest region in South LA who strives to win the national spelling […]

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future."        –Nils Bohr,  Nobel laureate (yes using this one again!) Having made the error of writing about politics, I am now going to stick my neck out and make a prediction about our upcoming economy. Many would argue that the best way to […]

The NY Times published a nice overview on the emerging opportunities and challenges of online coupons called "Clip and save holds its own against point and click". It talks about the common theme here of how hard it is to break consumer habits, but how this is inevitable. Google is one of many new attacks […]

"When God closes a door, he opens a window" There are a mulititude of stories of entrepreneurs bouncing back from failure. However, none are as literal as Norman Stingley. Norman was a chemist for a rubber company that made "blow out preventors" for oil wells. He discovered a material and process that failed miserably in […]

"There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else."          — Andrew Carnegie The world of the entrepreneur or investor can be all consuming. Unchecked, our life becomes one of chasing one task list and fire drill after another. Unless we take the time to step back […]

Linked In has become the leading networking tool in the business community. How do you leverage it (and do you even use Linked In)? Vote in right rail! On the last poll, 60% of you thought market drove success more than management (40%). ShareTweetShare

"All the consumer needs to do it take 15 seconds a day to…"
    — many a dead internet start-up hoping for consumer behavior change

Consumers don’t always behave in the most efficient or logical manner. Many a start up has gone under waiting for the consumers to see the light and change their daily routine. Unfortunately, for most, people don’t like to change their routine and the best solutions involve interacting with consumers while they are doing something they are already doing. Online couponing has been one area that has always held significant promise but failed to deliver.

"Patents are like nuclear bombs, you just got to have some.  I have never seen patents make a business, but I have seen lack of patents hurt a business on many occasions."      — Fred Wilson VC Cliche of the Week Entrepreneurs often ask me about how useful patents are (and for what). Many […]

For a venture capitalist, I have a pathetic memory. I can never remember names of people of meetings from even the day before. I cling to my Blackberry (searching calendar, to do’s and email) for my institutional memory. I have limited ROM and use all of these means for scalable RAM. A very cool product […]

"The utter stupidity of this is staggering"       — Michael Arrington, TechCrunch article When it rains, it pours at AOL. It is becoming a fantastic case study in how tech companies can go wrong. I only pray that they can save the brand. Couple of quick points: 1) read the tea leaves and respond […]

As you may recall, I have been trying to chase down a polling tool for my side bar for six months now. There are a number of interesting ones out there like Majikwidget (inspired/created by Guy Kawasaki) and WebPollCentral (Barry Moltz turned me onto that). However, TypePad finally saw the light and have integrated Vizu […]

      "That’s what Tiggers do best…"                           — Tigger Joe Born had a great follow-up email to the Venture Philanthropy post. He wrote: "…what if we were sold/brought on new managment sometime down the road.  What would my life be like if I was full time on […]

I came across an interesting new venture blog, Startup Review, written by Nisan Gabbay at Sierra Ventures. I like the format, which is more case study based than traditional postings.  My fellow Feedburner board member/investor and uber-blogger, Brad Feld, gave a nice overview of Nisan’s new blog. ShareTweetShare

I came across an interesting new venture blog, Startup Review, written by Nisan Gabbay at Sierra Ventures. I like the format, which is more case study based than traditional postings.  My fellow Feedburner board member/investor and uber-blogger, Brad Feld, gave a nice overview of Nisan’s new blog. ShareTweetShare

"Who’s the U-Boat Commander? "             — Service Manager after Tom Cruise                puts his dads Porsche in Lake                 Michigan (Risky Business) How do you mess up a business this badly? AOL had 35 million subscribers at its peak. See the NYT’s […]

Nik Rokop just forwarded on a cool link…http://www.goodsearch.com/. The site allows charities to sign-up and as members use the Good Search engine (powered by Yahoo), the charity gets money. Kinda like uPromise meets affiliate marketing. Most charities seem to be raising small amounts here (hard to change consumers behavior like what they search with), but […]

Wow. If you want to see a big difference between the buyout and VC world, check out this article in PE Week: Return of the Corporate Raider. It never ceases to amaze me how often the buyout shops will charge egregious fees for services that are standard, free value-add in the venture world. Return of […]

My father-in-law started in the brokerage trading business in the mid-1960’s. He showed me an industry tombstone advertisement page from 1969 that had over 50 regional and local brokerage firms, along with a handful of the growing national players (like Merrill Lynch). Today, nearly all of them are either dead or acquired and it is […]

"So you say you want a revolution…"       — The Beatles In previous posts, I have discussed how entrepreneurs are making a difference in philanthropy. This approach is very similar to how venture capitalists approach early-stage investments. I also want to point out that you don’t have to be Bill Gates to get involved. […]

On Monday, I will post my detailed breakdown of the new Venture Philanthropy model. However, one of the key elements is the importance of focusing your initial efforts very focused, small scale initiatives. Make the difference in a single (or couple of) person’s life and scale from there. Anthony Kennedy, Assoc Justice of the Supreme […]

Quite a few readers have asked for more posts around Venture Philanthropy. This is consistent with what Peter Drucker predicted in the early 1990’s. In a variety of books and articles, he wrote that the there would be a growing base of people with wealth, much of it gained through entrepreneurial activity. He also said […]

Slowly but surely, I find myself becoming a commencement speech junkie. Perhaps it is because we all look for inspiration and affirmation in our lives. Anna Quindlen is one of the most talented columnists of our generation (in my humble opinion). I came across this speech by chance when I was trying to chase down […]

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”                                                 — John Lennon Sorry for the delay in postings. I am out in Telluride on vacation with my family which is an internet challenged part of the world. […]

I am a very frustrated Republican. As a result, I am violating a tenant here by throwing up a political post. The far right is pulling the party way too far to the right.The most recent incursion of this over-reaching is Bush’s veto of the recent stem-cell legislation. It is the first veto of his […]

For all you budding sociologists (or simple voyeurs), Google Trends is a must. You can type in a term of choice and it will return what region of the US has devoted the largest percentage of its searches to that term. Steve Rushin, at Sports Illustrated, points out that:— Salt Lake City leads all for […]

Congrats to Dick, Steve, Matt, Eric, Brent, Rick and crew on their recent acquisition of Blogbeat. They say it much better than I so click on this article link for details. ShareTweetShare

Recently a reader sent me a follow-up email to my incubator post. He had a central question that goes to the heart of commercialization. Why are universities, who have such great research, so inefficient at commercializing it? We have thought long and hard about this very question. We have pulled technology out of well over […]

John Funk and I have been going back and forth regarding Patent Trolls resulting from his posts on In Defense of the Trolls. He jokingly just pointed out a recent Bridge Troll incident (really) in Boulder where a misguided LSD enthusiast set up a Troll Tollway.   ShareTweetShare

Have I mentioned that I hate Vonage? After all of those witty ads and promising benefits, I was suckered into signing up. I even ported our main line over. How much do I dislike thee…let me count the ways:1) after 6-8 minutes, calls are often dropped. Really great when you are on hold with Vonage […]

"We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."                                                        — Benjamin Franklin Just a reminder that Jason Rexilius’s BarCamp is this Saturday (from 12pm) to Sunday (8pm) at  648 W. Randolph, 3rd Floor. Over 90 […]

Created in 2005 by Michael Arrington, Techcrunch captures the pulse of Web 2.0. With over 85,000 subscribers (all through FeedBurner :)), it is the largest blog in its space. Michael reviews an amazingly broad array of new technologies and services before anyone else and overlays insightful commentary on top. For those of you new to […]

Created in 2005 by Michael Arrington, Techcrunch captures the pulse of Web 2.0. With over 85,000 subscribers (all through FeedBurner :)), it is the largest blog in its space. Michael reviews an amazingly broad array of new technologies and services before anyone else and overlays insightful commentary on top. For those of you new to […]

A friend gave me one of those condensed subject books (about 4"x4") that you see at checkout at Borders. It is mental candy they hope, like at the grocery store, you will impulsively buy. This once had a series of "Eastern Wisdom" quotes. One I liked in particular, which should be as much a VC […]

Lot of great comments on my Incubator post. Too late tonight to consolidate, but will definitely do so and respond this weekend. I am coming back late from the Tech Cocktails event tonight which was a roaring success. Great job to Eric Olson (of FeedBurner fame) and Frank Gruber. I think many of us expected […]

Tomorrow night is Tech Cocktail. It is the first in what will be a series of tech networking events in Chicago. Eric Olson from Feedburner and friends are pulling this together. I will be there as will a number of our local entrepreneurial and tech scene. You can register above. Hope to see as many […]

I owe Camilo Telles a post on incubators. I have been promising him and others this post for over two months. The key question is do incubators work? About every 10 years, incubators come into vogue. We see a flurry of them, not much comes of it and they fade into the background. While there […]

I’d like to think that this blog is more of a community vehicle and less of a platform for Matt to drone on with random thoughts. As a result, it’s key to hear back from the reader base. It would be great to hear from as many of you as possible via comments or email. […]

Many thanks to Andrew Fife for including me on his list of top 10 VC bloggers on the net. Below are the other bloggers on the list. All of them (including Andrew’s) are worth a read and have great insights into the venture and entrepreneurial worlds. Brad Feld – Mobius VenturesJeff Nolan – formerly of […]

From time to time (maybe even weekly…), I’ll try to list a blog of the week. These will of bloggers in the entrepreneurial or venture world. One of Chicago’s finest is Signal vs Noise which is created by the founders of 37Signal. It is very entertaining and often has great suggestions for entrepreneurs. One of […]

From time to time (maybe even weekly…), I’ll try to list a blog of the week. These will of bloggers in the entrepreneurial or venture world. One of Chicago’s finest is Signal vs Noise which is created by the founders of 37Signal. It is very entertaining and often has great suggestions for entrepreneurs. One of […]

Wow! In an upcoming Fortune cover story, Warren Buffett has announced that he will give away 85% of his fortune in the coming years versus waiting until after he has passed away. This is a living, $35 billion+ donation, surpassing his friend, Bill Gates. Of even more interest is that he plans to give over […]

Created by several doctorial students at the University of Essex several years ago, this guide is a riot (in a nerdy kind of way).  In Britney’s Guide to Semiconductor Physics, with Ms. Spears’ help, the boys provide an useful overview and introduction to semiconductors. Just in case you had an interest this weekend… Introduction The […]

I watched the painful last gasps of the US soccer team on the World Cup stage this morning. They played poorly, with the greatest disappointment being Donovan. Sad but true article from ESPN sums things up. Not certain what the "entrepreneurial" angle on this is other than don’t hire an incompetent for a coach (Arena) […]

Tim Draper and Brad Feld have a variety of interesting observations in a recent Always On panel. One of the topics discussed is about the IPO/acquisition exit mix. Historically, this number has been around 20-25% IPO and 75-80% acquisition. Today, IPO’s make up less than 10% and dropping (and this includes overseas IPO’s). Tepid markets, […]

“The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.”                                                                                                — Mark TwainAs investors, we are continually trying to identify trends […]

I was at the recent ITA dinner talking to Rob Harles from Comscore about how prominent or interesting technology firms are in the Midwest that no one knows about. My favorite example is SSA. A company that nearly no one, even folks in the tech community here, has ever heard of. SSA is a Software […]

The WSJ recently had an article discussing a notion that a number of value investors have been championing for some time now: breaking Microsoft up. Since each of the pieces seem to rely on each other (especially on the PC and mobile operating systems), this would be a very tricky proposition to pull off. Food […]

One of the great emerging applications for FeedBurner (and RSS as a channel) is commerce. In the first wave of applications, publishers have used RSS to push content (mostly text like blog posts, news articles, etc) to feed readers. This past week, we got a glimpse of the future of RSS. Geffen announced a new […]

I have heard of having a religious following, but my friend, Rob Albertson, has taken things to the next level. You can create these viral signs at: www.churchsigngenerator.com. ShareTweetShare

Entrepreneurs, dust off those business plans. The gang in the valley is eager to get capital out of their newly raised funds. Inspired by a couple of big exits, VC’s are starting to increase their bets out in the market. The industry moves in tandem. When things feel safe and it looks like the markets […]

"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation…is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do."                                     — Malcolm Gladwell We, in the entrepreneurial world, live or die based upon Tipping Points. Al Gore […]

"Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship… the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth."                                        — Peter Drucker VC’s can be a cynical bunch. It takes a lot to get our attention. Well, this morning I was absolutely […]

""Nior dhun Dia doras riamhnar oscail Se ceann eile" (God never closes one door without opening another)                                    — Irish Saying I have often written about the importance of Resilience in entrepreneurship. As they say, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. This is easy […]

""Nior dhun Dia doras riamhnar oscail Se ceann eile" (God never closes one door without opening another)                                    — Irish Saying I have often written about the importance of Resilience in entrepreneurship. As they say, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. This is easy […]

"You say you want a revolution…We all want to change the world"                                                — Beatles Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley’s Internet Diva from the Bubble, is back and firing on all cylinders. She gave a great presentation at the Stanford Graduate School […]

"History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sometimes does rhyme"                                                                — Mark Twain Here we go again. In Q1, we saw the highest median fund size raised on record according to Venture One (see the […]

Nothing is more powerful than the law of exponentials (Buffett refers often to the power of compounding interest). We all like to think in a linear fashion. If I work twice as hard, I will get twice the benefit. Products around me will continue to get incrementally better over time. The next version of software […]

"In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."                                                                                        — Andy Warhol Thanks to Brad & Adam from ePrairie and Tim at StoryQuest for my […]

In 1995, the London Stock Exchange launched the Alternative Investments Market (AIM) to offer smaller firms a less regulated market upon which to float their shares. While initially viewed by many as a novelty, it has begun to gain scale and respectability as more and more international firms are using it for going public. While […]

Technology revolutions always have a boom-bust-rebirth-boom pattern. The key to this is surviving the down draft when it hits. Mary Meeker, whose career has taken a similar path, laid this out in a very powerful way. She aggregated the market caps of Google+Yahoo!+eBay+Yahoo!Japan+Amazon over time.    Pre-2000 IPO           = $2B    3/2000 […]

If you work for one of the TV networks (or even the cable guys), you are about to have a really unenjoyable two months coming up. We are entering into the upfront ad sales season for TV and for the first time, internet advertising and, increasingly, IPTV are making things uncomfortable for the networks. Advertisers […]

"Be careful how you treat people because the toes you step on today may be attached to *#s you have to kiss tomorrow"                                     — Aunt Scotti I had an entertaining talk with Bob Lepowski today about the state of the VC industry. It […]