Blogging by venture capitalists isn’t anything new. Some would even say it’s getting old because it’s been talked about and blogged about so much. But I thought it’d be interesting to step back and take a bit of a snapshot of the state-of-the-art to date, if you will — especially in light of a recent development (more on that later).
Much of this gang of VC bloggers came onto the scene because so many of them were investing in social networking and other Web 2.0 companies, of course, which we can measure in years now. In other words, they were getting so immersed in the whole subject that they naturally started wanting to do it themselves — and they had incentive to, so as to promote the portfolio companies they were pumping money into. Some have done a fine job, writing about lots of interesting stuff (VC-related and not), and sticking with it regularly…others not so much. (Here in Minnesota, where I spend most of my time, our VCs haven’t really gotten into it yet. But there’s been little Web 2.0 type of investing here. In this state, med-tech investing sucks out way too much of the oxygen — pardon the analogy — and the cash.)
To give you a quick overview, I thought I’d run a filter on the many links out there about VC blogging, including articles, other blog posts on the topic, and sites that have been put forth as favorites by others (and me), etc, etc. First, here’s a single RSS feed that aggregates a whole bunch of VC blogs — the ones that this guy, as a VC-blogger himself, likes to read. He’s Babak Nivi, who’s actually an EIR at Bessemer; he calls his feed “Nivi’s VC Channel.” He’s just been at the firm since October 2005, so this is pretty up-to-date stuff.
Another good link, from a VC blog by Jeff Clavier, is an interesting discussion about Paul Kedrosky’s post on “Why Are There So Many VC Blogs?” A more recent item was this short post by my friend Doc Searls, mentioning three VC blogs he particularly likes. A much older post, though seemingly still worthy, is this one by Ross Mayfield, listing what he thinks are some of the better VC blogs.
The New York Times ran a great piece just last week called “Venture Capital Blogs? They’re About Anything But”. It’s a fascinating look at the genre, including this insight: “a general predisposition toward mystery is colliding headlong with a new interest in self-expression.” In this article, Paul Kedrosky, himself a VC, says: “The reason you see so many venture guys blogging is because they have time to do it. How many C.E.O.’s do you have blogging?” As I said in my last post (shades of Willie Nelson): they got the money, honey, *and* they got the time!
I first found the NYT article in this post from Threadwatch.org, which took a rather skeptical look at the practice. And a comment posted there pointed to a piece written by Paul Graham, which is so good I can’t not include it here: “A Unified Theory of VC Suckage”.
In other media coverage, the Venture Capital Journal ran a cover story last year called “My Life as a Blogger”. One of several VCs who blog that were cited in this piece was Steve Jurvetson. Steve’s one of the most thoughtful and intelligent VCs out there, in my book — and a very popular conference speaker. Too bad he doesn’t have time to post more regularly on his blog. But you just know it’s because he’s working on some big, big things! He and partner Tim Draper are two of the VCs I most admire, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet and chat with both of them at conferences I’ve reported on in the past.
Another guy who’s taken the time to write a lot of really good, helpful stuff on his blog is Bill Burnham — a VC who was mentioned in the NY Times article above, and one I list in my blog roll at the right. You may have seen a post I did last month, in which I linked to Bill’s really funny recap of his blog’s stats and financial results.
Which brings me to the latest development in this very active category of blogs: Guy Kawasaki. Here’s an industry player — Mac evangelist, Apple Fellow, book author, wildly popular conference speaker, cum VC — who decided to wait out all the blog hype, think about it, and make sure he had it right before he launched his own blog. As an admitted “late adopter,” he didn’t come forth with his until January 1 of this year. Well, guess what? In 30 days, I’d say we have a new VC blogging star — because, if you believe the traffic stats that Guy just reported yesterday — on only his one-month anniversary — I’d say we could have a clear winner here as far as pure numbers of reader eyeballs.
It will be interesting now to see how many other VCs put up their traffic numbers to his, or shut their sites down in shame. I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that, in this private little, closed club of a world, much of the game is about “mine’s bigger than yours.” Hey, maybe they’ll lose interest and life will just go back to normal — with VCs spending all their time listening to pitches, doing “due dili,” writing term sheets, and investing all that dough that’s supposed to be piling up underneath them.
What am I thinking? Nah! They’ll keep blogging…
[Watch for more on this topic from Demo next week, where lots of VCs will be mingling about.]
Those then each get to do the famed six-minute pitch. How do they choose the companies? Who knows — behind some secure curtain, I’m sure. Do VCs lobby hard for their favorites? Ya think so? There sure are a ton of VCs that attend this thing, big names included, based on a partial attendee list I saw a few days ago.
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