August 2009
9 posts
4 tags
Does Your Startup Have The Right DNA?
In 1997 I started a company with two professors from MIT in the emerging Internet healthcare field. We made a lot of mistakes, but probably the biggest mistake was made at inception. We did not have the right DNA in the company for what we were trying to accomplish. The two professors were academics and I had a consulting services background (albeit a consulting startup). Their research had...
4 tags
Clouded Email Deliverability: Startups Pay...
It has been great for startups to be able to fire up instances on Amazon EC2 or Slicehost for next to nothing, but one thing that has gone down the drain in doing so is email deliverability. I try out a lot of new services all the time and at this point I would say that well over half of those new services don’t get their email messages into my inbox. Instead they get swallowed up by...
Clearing Up Some Annoying PHP Static
While on vacation I started some prep work for using MongoDB at DailyLit, which is mostly written in PHP. The prep work consists of creating a lightweight way of getting PHP objects in and out of MongoDB (I know there are some things out there already, but what’s the fun in that?).
Here is a slightly simplified summary what I am shooting for:
class Fruit extends mdbObject { } // provides...
4 tags
Craigslist Is Vulnerable
Yesterday, Fred wrote a post about what we can learn from the “mess” that is Craigslist. The “mess” referred to a Wired article titled “Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess.” Fred explains why we at Union Square Ventures love this “mess” and refer to it frequently in posts and meetings with entrepreneurs. Given how much I have personally referred to...
3 tags
Patently Absurd: Proposing a Change to Litigation
A number of companies in the USV portfolio are being sued over patents (e.g., Twitter). For a startup, such a suit is a huge distraction and potentially a major drain on financial resources. Even for large companies such as Microsoft, patent law suits are a real pain to deal with (see Brad Feld’s post on the latest involving XML).
Some folks have suggested doing away with software patents...
4 tags
Crisis Averted? Or Wasted?
The stock marekt has had quite a run. For instance, on March 9 of this year the S&P 500 closed at 676. This past Friday it closed at 1026 for a gain of 350 points or a staggering 51%. There has been quite a bit of discussion along the way about whether this is a sustainable rally with some fairly vocal folks (such a Roubini) saying that it isn’t and that there is a risk of the economy...
3 tags
Leaving for "Workation"
I am leaving later today for a family vacation in Europe. Like last year, it turns out that I am in the middle of several business things that can’t really wait until I get back. I don’t find that to be a problem though, especially when heading to Europe. For starters, I tend to get on European time right away, which means that I have a couple of hours in the morning before...
Passing Is Sometimes Hard
This morning in the shower I realized that I am having a 10 year anniversary of sorts: I began investing in startups in 1999. Over that decade I have learned a ton and I continue to learn new things all the time (one of the reasons why I love what I do). One key area of learning has been to quickly identify deals that are not going to work and then pass on them (VC jargon for saying no). Doing...
4 tags
Don't Know Much About The Internet
That would have to be the updated chorus line for Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World for many of today’s kids. Sure, they use the Internet “like all the time,” (sorry) but it is surprising to me how little many of them seem to know about its operation.
I am basing this on giving an evening class recently to a bunch young folks from the publishing industry and then yesterday...
