I have started a series of posts which I called Scylla and Charybdis – or why startups are hard. The idea is that on pretty much anything you can err on both sides and only a relatively narrow middle will let you succeed. One of those that will merit an entire post shortly is the adoption of new technologies. You can be too early or too late! The particular technology I want to talk about today is HTML5. For some time now we have had several of our portfolio companies explore whether they can...

I have started a series of posts which I called Scylla and Charybdis – or why startups are hard. The idea is that on pretty much anything you can err on both sides and only a relatively narrow middle will let you succeed. One of those that will merit an entire post shortly is the adoption of new technologies. You can be too early or too late! The particular technology I want to talk about today is HTML5. For some time now we have had several of our portfolio companies explore whether they can...

This post is a bit more thinking out loud than usual but I am grappling with what I perceive to be a big change in the startup landscape. Here are some of its symptoms: the return of TV, print and subway ads for Internet companies; Uber subsidizing their drivers to prop up NY supply; Level Up providing free point of sales Android devices; Udacity, Coursera and Minerva all raising large rounds. All of these are in one way or another signs of the return of the capital intensive startup. Histori...

This post is a bit more thinking out loud than usual but I am grappling with what I perceive to be a big change in the startup landscape. Here are some of its symptoms: the return of TV, print and subway ads for Internet companies; Uber subsidizing their drivers to prop up NY supply; Level Up providing free point of sales Android devices; Udacity, Coursera and Minerva all raising large rounds. All of these are in one way or another signs of the return of the capital intensive startup. Histori...

This is the second post in my Scylla and Charybdis series on why startups are quite so hard. Up today: hiring. Here you can go wrong by hiring too fast but also by hiring too slow. The first problem of hiring too fast is fairly obvious. You wind up spending money too quickly. For most Internet startups payroll is the biggest fixed expense and it is far easier to hire than to fire, which winds up being a problem if raising money turns out to be harder than expected. But there are also more sub...

This is the second post in my Scylla and Charybdis series on why startups are quite so hard. Up today: hiring. Here you can go wrong by hiring too fast but also by hiring too slow. The first problem of hiring too fast is fairly obvious. You wind up spending money too quickly. For most Internet startups payroll is the biggest fixed expense and it is far easier to hire than to fire, which winds up being a problem if raising money turns out to be harder than expected. But there are also more sub...

Today one of our portfolio companies is holding their internal management training in our offices. They have asked me to talk a little bit about my own experience with the challenge of going from being an individual contributor to being a manager. I remember this being a very rough transition for me and it took me quite a long time to get comfortable as a manager. I went from individual contributor to founder and didn’t have the benefit of management training! Looking back the biggest insight...

Today one of our portfolio companies is holding their internal management training in our offices. They have asked me to talk a little bit about my own experience with the challenge of going from being an individual contributor to being a manager. I remember this being a very rough transition for me and it took me quite a long time to get comfortable as a manager. I went from individual contributor to founder and didn’t have the benefit of management training! Looking back the biggest insight...

I have written about the topic of prioritization before, but maybe with a title that was too oblique – “Applying Engineering Business: Binding Constraints.” There I made the point that at any one time a startup tends to have only one binding constraint. It’s the problem the startup needs to solve to get to the next level. That could be the next financing, or hiring people or finishing a key project. But what about more fine grained prioritization? What about the long list in front of the prod...

I have written about the topic of prioritization before, but maybe with a title that was too oblique – “Applying Engineering Business: Binding Constraints.” There I made the point that at any one time a startup tends to have only one binding constraint. It’s the problem the startup needs to solve to get to the next level. That could be the next financing, or hiring people or finishing a key project. But what about more fine grained prioritization? What about the long list in front of the prod...

This is the first entry in my Scylla and Charybdis Series of blog posts. In case you missed the introduction, the idea is that startups are hard because you can always err both by doing too little of something but also by doing too much of it. Since I don’t have a lot of time to write this morning, I am picking a particularly easy one: raising money. If you raise too little money the bad consequences are fairly obvious. In the worst case you run out of money altogether and have to shut down. ...

This is the first entry in my Scylla and Charybdis Series of blog posts. In case you missed the introduction, the idea is that startups are hard because you can always err both by doing too little of something but also by doing too much of it. Since I don’t have a lot of time to write this morning, I am picking a particularly easy one: raising money. If you raise too little money the bad consequences are fairly obvious. In the worst case you run out of money altogether and have to shut down. ...

There has been a flurry of posts about Google’s acquisition of Sparrow. As I was reading the posts, I felt that a couple of important points were missed (or at least didn’t jump out at me). Let’s start with the discussion of whether users have a right to be upset. No matter what view you ultimately take here it seems worth remembering that the dollars spent on the software are not the only costs that were incurred by users. First there is the cost of time. Let’s say that over the course of a ...

There has been a flurry of posts about Google’s acquisition of Sparrow. As I was reading the posts, I felt that a couple of important points were missed (or at least didn’t jump out at me). Let’s start with the discussion of whether users have a right to be upset. No matter what view you ultimately take here it seems worth remembering that the dollars spent on the software are not the only costs that were incurred by users. First there is the cost of time. Let’s say that over the course of a ...

Last night I went to a fundraiser for Venture for America here in New York. I am happy to report that the place was hopping and hopefully a lot of money was raised. Congratulations to Andrew Yang and his team for taking this from an idea just a short time ago to a well running organization. The core mission of Venture for America is to get more young graduates excited about startups as a career option (as opposed to say banking or consulting). The Venture for America fellows are being placed ...

Last night I went to a fundraiser for Venture for America here in New York. I am happy to report that the place was hopping and hopefully a lot of money was raised. Congratulations to Andrew Yang and his team for taking this from an idea just a short time ago to a well running organization. The core mission of Venture for America is to get more young graduates excited about startups as a career option (as opposed to say banking or consulting). The Venture for America fellows are being placed ...

Europe had three elections on the weekend: presidential in France, parliamentary in Greece and regional in Germany. The results are strongly anti-incumbent across he board. In France, Sarkozy is out and Hollande is in. In Greece, the PASOK party went from 160 to 41 seats and no longer has a majority together with New Democracy the other incumbent. And in Germany in the regional elections in Schleswig Holstein, Angela Merkel’s CDU had the worst results since 1950. The results are also strongly...

Europe had three elections on the weekend: presidential in France, parliamentary in Greece and regional in Germany. The results are strongly anti-incumbent across he board. In France, Sarkozy is out and Hollande is in. In Greece, the PASOK party went from 160 to 41 seats and no longer has a majority together with New Democracy the other incumbent. And in Germany in the regional elections in Schleswig Holstein, Angela Merkel’s CDU had the worst results since 1950. The results are also strongly...

Yesterday we had our portfolio company summit with the CEOs of most of our active investments in our office. It is always a really fun day because there are great discussions about a far ranging set of topics from hiring to business models. This year as an opener we went around the room and everyone talked briefly about a lesson learned in the last 12 months. There were a ton of really good insights there and some really funny ones, such as “it is better to have a hole than an asshole” (about...

Yesterday we had our portfolio company summit with the CEOs of most of our active investments in our office. It is always a really fun day because there are great discussions about a far ranging set of topics from hiring to business models. This year as an opener we went around the room and everyone talked briefly about a lesson learned in the last 12 months. There were a ton of really good insights there and some really funny ones, such as “it is better to have a hole than an asshole” (about...