September 2009
21 posts
Consider Berlin for European Expansion
A lot of US startups seem to go to London as a launch pad for their European expansion. There are some obvious advantages, such as the same language and many direct flights. But after one day in Berlin (and so take this with a grain of salt), I think Berlin merits serious consideration for any Internet business. There is not much of a language barrier as pretty much everyone speaks English. As...
Travel Observation (London Edition)
Spent three great days in London. Just like the last couple of times before that, the weather was sunny and warm. It was easy to forget how far north London is compared to say New York, although spending a day on Gavin’s ship for an AMEE offsite provided a reminder with a huge change between high tide and low tide. I was told by the AMEE team that the mild climate in the southern UK is...
3 tags
More Travel Observations (Germany, Part 2)
Here are a few more observations about Germany, even though I have already been in London for a day and a half, but there is a lot going on in Germany at the moment.
On Sunday, Germany held Federal elections and the results will bring about a significant change in the governing coalition. Germany will move from a CDU/CSU+SPD coalition to a CDU/CSU+FDP coalition. Now if the alphabet soup of...
Travel Observations
I left last night for a 1 week trip to Europe. This is longer than I usually like to be away from my family, but I decided to spend a few days with my relatives in Germany, in particular my grandmother who is 96. While on the road I will post some travel observations. Arrival at the Munich airport is a stark contrast with arrival at JFK. Not only is the airport clean that you feel you could eat...
6 tags
On Bandwidth and Net Neutrality
I wrote about the fight for net neutrality earlier this week and got some comments that suggest I did not succeed with my hosting example. I was thinking of clarifying that in a comment. Then I read a column by Holman Jenkins in the WSJ (love reading the WSJ to challenge my own opinions) titled “Neutering the ‘Net.“ That column shows some of the same misunderstanding, so I am...
2 tags
Flaunt Your Data (PR 2.0)
A lot of web startups have interesting data but they don’t make good (or any) use of it. That’s a big mistake. If you have data — flaunt it! Releasing some interesting piece of data, ideally something unexpected, is a wonderful way to attract attention. With a nod to Caterina’s Biz Dev 2.0, I think of this as PR 2.0. My friend Alan Gould, the founder of IAG Research...
And Now the Net Neutrality Fight Starts for Real
Julius Genachowski gave a great speech yesterday outlining his position as the chairman of the FCC on net neutrality. The speech is well worth reading because it provides a coherent argument in support of the neutrality principles. Genachowski first reiterated the importance of the “four freedoms” (later restated as four principles, a good comparison is here). But then he added a...
5 tags
Online Payments Need Shaking Up
Over at DailyLit (my wife’s company), some books are free and others require payment. Right now, DailyLit accepts credit card and PayPal. From that I have some good first hand experience with online payments. Based on that here are some of reasons why the existing solutions are painful and ready for disruption:
1. The fees are outrageous. Not only do the card companies take a cut but...
6 tags
Google's Display Push
A while back, I wrote that display advertising is too complicated. Today Google announced their entry into the display ad exchange business. Both in their announcement and in this conversation with Neal Mohan from Google, the idea of bringing simplicity to the market is cited as a major driving force. Google also describes the system as if it were the first display ad exchange ever.
Of course...
5 tags
The Web and Education: We Need Scale!
Yesterday, I had a fascinating lunch with some very bright folks from the Gates Foundation. In addition to public health, the Gates Foundation appears to be ramping up its activities in education. A key topic at the lunch was the impact of the web on education. The discussion really helped clarify my own thinking about what the critical missing element is (at least so far): scale. Scale on the...
5 tags
Making Versus Planning
Fred had a good post yesterday about why he considers Y-Combinator the “Best Deal in Startup Land.“ I believe that also and want to add a key reason for it: An intense focus on making versus planning. By entering Y-Combinator, teams commit themselves to a mad sprint to get something built. Ideally something that works well enough or is far enough along to actually launch before or...
3 tags
Third Party or No Party?
Walking to the train station yesterday morning, I was intrigued by this tweet from Bijan:
In this age of social media, real time networks and gov 2.0, I’m hoping we will have a viable third political party at some point.
which expresses his frustration with the existing two party system. Now I grew up in Germany at a time when there were at first three national parties and later four...
3 tags
Setting Up a Consumer Blackberry: Google Makes it...
Yesterday I went to T-Mobile to get a new Blackberry 8900 for Susan, who wanted to switch back from the iPhone. There were a bunch of things she did not like about the iPhone. She never got used to typing on the glass keyboard and wanted to have a real keyboard again. She also was super unhappy when we were in Europe this summer that I was using my Blackberry with abandon due to...
Remembering 9-11
In remembering 9-11 the thing that comes as the biggest surprise to me is how normal life in Manhattan has been for years now. I can’t really tell if that is because we have consciously chosen to remain vulnerable over being a locked down city or if there are massive but invisible forces protecting us. Most days I don’t think about it, but today it is hard not to reflect and I think...
4 tags
Presenting a Term Sheet
There has been some interesting discussion about term sheets recently, based on Chris Dixon’s post and Fred’s post, which some people correctly inferred related to foursquare. One aspect that was not covered in Fred’s post was how we like to present term sheets. At Union Square Ventures, we like to send term sheets without a no shop and without a “sign by 5pm on...
4 tags
Paperless (Office) - Pretty Much There!
For the last year I have made a conscious effort not to accept any paper documents. For instance, when someone wants to give me a pitch deck, I tell them to send me an electronic copy. I receive all communication from portfolio companies electronically. I have switched all my brokerage and bank accounts to electronic statements. The few paper statements that I still receive go to an accountant...
1 tag
foursquare
The original plan was to announce the Union Square Ventures investment in foursquare today, but then the news broke on Friday based on the Reg D filing (so much for thinking we could sneak the filing in late on the Friday before Labor Day). If you missed it then, here is a link to our post announcing the investment. All of this made for an exciting start to the long weekend — especially...
2 tags
Reduce, Reduce, Reduce
My two favorite quotes these days are Ward Cunningham’s “What’s the simplest thing that could possibly work?” and Einstein’s “Simplify as much as possible, but no further.” I believe these to be essential to startup success, especially in a highly connected world, where what might have previously been a feature can now be a company.
The temptation,...
3 tags
Why I (Still) Code
Late last night Ivan Kirigin (founder of Tipjoy, now at Facebook) asked via Twitter why I still code. My tweeted answer was that I really enjoy it. On the train into NY this morning I have been thinking more about why that is and have come up with a bunch of reasons:
First, I discovered coding in the formative teenage years and at that time got deeply into it. I had the great luck that at age...
5 tags
Will The Center Hold?
I still follow German politics a bit, if for no other reason than talking to my parents and friends who live there. But right now there are interesting things happening there that are relevant to US politics. Germany has federal elections coming up on September 27 and had state elections in three states last week. The state elections showed a fascinating split with two smaller parties,...
5 tags
eBay Is Doing WHAT With Skype?
So I took today off to go to a water park with the kids (Mountain Creek, not far from NYC and based on today’s visit highly recommended). Apparently, eBay’s management was also out today, because the company decided to sell Skype to a syndicate of investors led by Silver Lake and including Index Ventures (the original Skype backers) and Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen and Ben...
