Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: VC (Page 7 of 10)

Some of the Great People I Met at DEMOfall ’07

Well, once again — who’d have guessed? — I made a whole bunch of new contacts at DEMO! 🙂  Once I get home from these events and go through my cards, I’ve made it a tradition to do a post and say-hey to these folks. So, here ya go, friends!

Demofallstagebanner

The names below are just new people I actually got a card from. My apologies to all the others I met but didn’t have time to exchange cards with — that’s why cards are good: they help us remember!  Regardless, it was great meeting all of you!  And I hope to see you again soon in my travels, or at a  future conference. And to all those old friends and acquaintances I ran into again, it was awesome to see you, too!  I just wish I could have had a chance to talk more with all of you… Things are so rushed at these conferences, especially when you’re blogging like mad as well.  [That’s why the coming new DEMO.com community site will be so great!]

Here are those from whom I got a card (in alphabetical order by last name):
-Sean Ammirati, VP Business Development, mSpoke (FeedHub), Pittsburgh, PA
-Matt Biscuiti, VP, The Lippin Group, NYC (for PeopleJam)
-Alistair Campbell, CTO, TruPhone, London, UK
-Scott Chou, Chairman, iForem, Redwood Shores, CA (and Gabriel Venture Partners)
-Allison Clark, Ink Tank PR (for ideablob), Highland Park, IL
-Adam Darowski, UE Designer, BatchBlue Software, Providence, RI
-Chris DeMarche, Director, MotionDSP (FixMyMovie.com), San Mateo, CA
-Mike Garity, VP Marketing & Business Development, DEMO
-Thor Harris, President, Percepture, Lake Hiawatha, NJ
-Jonathan Hirshon, Principal, Horizon PR, Santa Clara, CA
-J. Johnson, Chairman, Global Communications, Houston, TX
-Ami Kassar, Chief Innovation Officer, Advanta (ideablob), Spring House, PA
-Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff, VP Sales, iForem, Redwood Shores, CA
-Joanne Kisling, PR, Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park, CA
-Colin Kurth, Events Manager, PR Newswire, Chicago, IL
-Rene Lacerte, CEO, CashView, Palo Alto, CA
-Dave Mawhinney, CEO, mSpoke (FeedHub), Pittsburgh, PA
-Macario Namie, Sr Director, Product Marketing, Jasper Wireless, Sunnyvale, CA
-Alex Olson, Cofounder, FilmCrave.com, Kansas City, MO
-Stephen Pieraldi, CEO, iForem, Redwood Shores, CA
-Trish Ridgway, Sr Account Executive, Ignite PR, Belmont, CA
-Michelle Riggen-Ransom, Communications Director, BatchBlue Software, Providence, RI
-Ori Soen, CEO, MuseStorm, Yahud, Israel, and Sunnyvale, CA
-Cathy Sperrazzo, EyeToEye Communications, San Diego, CA
-Oliver Starr, Senior Analyst, Guidewire Group, San Francisco, CA
-Sean Varah, CEO, MotionDSP (FixMyMovie.com), San Mateo, CA
-Rob Vickery, Clarinova, Del Mar, CA
-Amanda Wheatcroft, Principal, Beta PR, San Diego, CA

I’m gonna have to try getting onto BatchBlue’s free site for DEMOfall attendees (see my previous post on that company) so I can reconnect with people — both these and the ones I didn’t get cards from. There are so many conversations I wanted to have, so many great new companies and technologies I wanted to learn more about, so many old contacts I wanted to reconnect with, but (sigh) just not enough time. These two-day events are such a whirlwind!

VCs Who Blog vs. Those Who Don’t

Great piece in the Boston Globe yesterday by Scott Kirsner: In Venture Capital, a Growing Rift Over Blogs. It’s the best look I’ve seen so far into why some VCs blog and why others pass. Makes some excellent points about the main advantage for VCs — better deal flow — and the main advantages for entrepreneurs — leveling the playing field, including from a geographic standpoint.  That latter point is one I’ve written about a lot, and a very real issue for founders not lucky enough to be located in one of the VC hotbeds.

I like the way Kirsner characterizes VC blogging as the "new parity in the world of venture capital."

The article quotes one of the best-known VC bloggers out there, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures in NYC, a guy who’s invested in many Internet and Web 2.0 deals. Here’s an excerpt from the article that quotes Fred:

Venture capitalists who blog say it isn’t just about helping pump up
their firm’s reputation and show how market-savvy they are. Blogging,
writes Wilson via e-mail, is "the best tool for VC investing that I’ve
ever seen, and I’ve been in this business for more than 20 years."

Wilson
says his blog not only helps him meet more start-ups, but it brings him
companies that are "more targeted and more relevant" to the areas he’s
interested in. Wilson also likes it when his readers argue with him or
tell him about companies he might not already know; it’s not unusual
for one of his posts to attract 25 or 30 comments. "You can’t buy that
kind of education," he writes, "and I get it every day for free."

Later in the piece, an opposing viewpoint is put forth:

"My gut says that there’s no correlation between VC blogging and
financial returns," Spark Capital’s (
Bijan) Sabet says, noting that blogger
Fred Wilson has done well with his investments – but so has John Doerr
of the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins, who doesn’t blog but has
put money into Amazon, Google, and Intuit.

The trouble with that characterization, however, is that those latter deals were done long before blogging was popular. Granted, it’s hard to argue that big-kahuna KP needs to blog. But there’s a whole universe of newer, younger VCs out there who are finding it benefits them.

IDG Ventures’ Jeff Bussgang adds this great thought:

…as entrepreneurs increasingly maintain blogs of their own, Bussgang
says, "they want to see that the VCs are their peers and are wrestling
with similar issues and thinking through things."

I wonder how many VC bloggers will be at DEMOfall, starting later today?  I’m looking forward to talking with them.

What do you think about blogging representing "the new parity in venture capital"?  What are your experiences?

 

Stylin’ Times for ‘Tech’ and ‘Venture’

Things may seem dull here in the dog days of summer as August fizzles away, but it’s only temporary. Signs are solid for the technology industry and the venture investment sector going forward. First, check out this post by Keith Benjamin, saying he thinks the current credit crunch will actually help the venture industry. And he reiterates his positive feelings in an op-ed piece on VentureBeat, saying technology stocks are “swinging back into favor.”

VMware’s IPO, which priced August 13, has become the latest symbol. It’s even been called “the Google of Virtualization,” as this piece from CNBC states. VMW offered its shares at $29, and they proceeded to rocket to $50 on the first day of trading — thus becoming the most successful IPO since Google. The shares are now trading around $70. For more detail on the VWware story, see this overview on Renaissance Capital’s IPOHome.com. Vmwarechart

Now, fast forward ten days and check out this AP story from August 24th: Tech Revival Predicted in IPO Market. It talks about what more is now coming in the way of tech IPOs, including NetSuite, EqualLogic, 3Par, and our own Minneapolis-based Compellent.

Look for a very upbeat fall if you’re a tech investor or a participant in the technology venture industry.

No Wonder Marc Andreessen Has So Much Time to Blog Lately

Marcandreessen
Seems a little deal has been brewing. He just got rich — again. This just in from the Wall Street Journal:

Hewlett-Packard agreed to acquire software maker Opsware for $1.45 billion as the PC giant continues to bulk up its non-hardware offerings. Opsware was co-founded by Marc Andreessen, the young brain behind Internet pioneer Netscape.

Not that he wasn’t already rich. Why does this guy even need to work, anyway? I guess he’s still too young to know any better…. 🙂

Here’s Marc new blog if you haven’t seen it yet. Where he reminds us that the deal was for all cash. Several bloggers, myself included, have been going on and on lately at how great a job he’s been doing with his blogging — really some nice, long, thoughtful pieces, tips about raising VC, etc. (I’ve cited them somewhere on one of my blogs — forget where right now). Suddenly he was being so generous with his time! Sure, he has a great CEO running his popular new firm, Ning (which, by the way, just announced a $40M+ VC infusion).

But I say, hooray! He gets richer, and we all get to benefit more from his great writing — his new career of blogging. Go for it, Marc….

Time for “Life 3.0” in the Valley?

Back in late 2002, in the doldrum years after the Tech Crash, my friend Rich Karlgaard (the Publisher of FORBES) became compelled to start writing a book about a phenomenon he’d been observing in Silicon Valley. People were leaving in droves — entrepreneurs and other business people, tech workers of every stripe. Good people, successful people, and so many of them disallusioned. Life20cover They’d had it with the expensive living and the rat race up and down the 101, and they were determined to find a better life elsewhere. It’s a great book — called “Life 2.0” — and it’s on my recommended reading list in the right sidebar. He came to Minnesota to interview me when he first began writing it.

Well, hold on, but another book could be in the offing here, from somebody, based on what we read yesterday from two leading Valley-based technology bloggers. First, Michael Arrington launched this bomb on Tech Crunch: Silicon Valley Could Use A Downturn Right About Now…the most telling sentence of which was this: “Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks.” Here’s another excerpt, his concluding paragraph:

I left Silicon Valley at the peak of the insanity last time around, and I was pleasantly surprised when I returned in 2005 to see so much goodwill and community surrounding innovation. Now, it’s just like the old days again, and Silicon Valley is no longer any fun. In fact, it’s turned downright nasty. It may be time for some of us to leave for a while and watch the craziness from the outside again. In a few years, things will be beautiful again. The big money will be slumbering away, and the marketing departments will be a distant memory. We can focus, once again, on the technology. And the burgers and beer.

The post had 210 comments(!) at last count, so it’s obviously hitting a nerve. But, as if that wasn’t enough, Robert Scoble then chimes in essentially seconding the motion. I like Robert — he’s one of the nicest, most likeable, down-to-earth guys you will ever meet in this business. (And his wife, Maryam, is a real sweetheart, too.) So, when Robert talks, I listen. I respect what he says. Well, yesterday, he further enlightened all us unwashed masses of Valley outsiders with what it’s really like to be an insider there these days. And it does not sound particularly pleasant. His post was titled Why I’m in a malaise…, and here’s an excerpt:

I too look wistfully back at the days when we had almost the entire Social Software industry in one little coffee shop back in 2002 — none of whom were talking about making billions of dollars. Back then it was more like the Homebrew Computer Society, where geeks came to show off their stuff (and everyone was pretty much not getting paid anyway so of course we were doing it just for the love of it).

It seems to me that both Robert and Michael are tired of the grind — the relentless parade of me-too companies and legions of PR people and VCs trying to get their attention, and the hellish treadmill they’re on producing content day after day, night after night. You can only do that for so long before you get burned out — and it seems both of them have reached that point.

Then again, who knows, maybe they just need a vacation? What I do know is that I wouldn’t want either of their jobs. Sure, I’m a blogger, but these guys are hardly your typical bloggers anymore. They’re both part of serious, money-making publishing businesses (Robert also being a VP at PodTech), and both inextricably caught up in the big-money world of tech VC. Now it seems they’re both wondering, “Is this all there is?” And it begs the question: is this crazy Web 2.0 startup world getting closer and closer to a bubble burst?

Makes me glad I live in Minnesota, where things are a great deal more sane. And I know Rich Karlgaard would be the first to agree with me.

UPDATE: To add book link.

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