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 tournament season with the kids and I am no longer master of my life.
That said, as many of you saw on Friday, Google formally announced its acquisition of FeedBurner. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the founders (Dick, Eric, Steve & Matt) as well as the rest of the management team (Charley, Rick, Brent, Joe, Chris, Don, Eric, Traci & crew) for a great ride. Usually, in the venture world, investments hit near death experiences before sky-rocketing to success. (some also jump into longer-term death status). FeedBurner came out of the shoots on fire and never looked back. In addition to being one of the best financial deals we have ever done, the FB team was one of the most enjoyable to work with. They were always proactive in identifying both opportunity and issues as well as laying out well-thought through solutions. Other words that come to mind are ethical, open, thoughtful and efficient. The community of users and commentators also seemed to share the same enthusiasm for the team and its approach. This drove much of the viral spread of the business. Note to other entrepreneurs: create a better product, iterate frequently to stay ahead, reach out actively & be responsive to your user base and don’t be arrogant asses.
Gang…I’m gonna miss our monthly board meetings but thanks for a great ride!
Matt —
Thanks to *YOU* for being very very early to recognize this opportunity and midwife it from an extremely early stage to where it is today — it’s a huge win for Chicago in general – and the FB team and yourself have continue to prove out my post — I think we’ll see more and more nice wins coming from outside Silicon Valley — not because SV is not an incredible place to work — but because you can build teams, get great funding, and actually have some excellent perspective outside of the 408 area code. ( I wrote more about this back in February, here: http://www.participatemedia.com/2007/02/27/sweet-home-chicago/ )
Like Performics, I know we won’t hear enough about the deal from the coast — but I know the entrepreneurial community here in town is fired up! Thanks again to the FB guys and also to the you and Ed and the rest of your partners.
–Alan