Much of the regulation that we have in the financial markets (and other markets for that matter) predates the Internet. While there has been the occasional patch here and there, too many anachronistic concepts remain that should simply be eliminated entirely. My favorite example is the “quiet period." As even the SEC notes on their own web site, the quiet period isn’t even found in federal securities law. Instead, as this blast-from-the-first-bubble-past article from Wired describes, the quie...

Much of the regulation that we have in the financial markets (and other markets for that matter) predates the Internet. While there has been the occasional patch here and there, too many anachronistic concepts remain that should simply be eliminated entirely. My favorite example is the “quiet period." As even the SEC notes on their own web site, the quiet period isn’t even found in federal securities law. Instead, as this blast-from-the-first-bubble-past article from Wired describes, the quie...

Facebook recently released Messenger as a separate mobile app. Google+ launched with multiple separate mobile apps (Google+, Huddle, Places). What’s going on here? We are seeing the results of limited screen real estate combined with effective notification systems and a fully logged in user on mobile. Unlike on the desktop (Microsoft) and even the browser (Google, Facebook) this means that large integrated apps or even “suites” have no advantage from a usability perspective. For instance, whe...

Facebook recently released Messenger as a separate mobile app. Google+ launched with multiple separate mobile apps (Google+, Huddle, Places). What’s going on here? We are seeing the results of limited screen real estate combined with effective notification systems and a fully logged in user on mobile. Unlike on the desktop (Microsoft) and even the browser (Google, Facebook) this means that large integrated apps or even “suites” have no advantage from a usability perspective. For instance, whe...

As soon as your new startup has some actual endusers a fear of changes sets in. What if people don’t like it? What if they start to protest? I sometimes meet startups with only thousands of users that are firmly in the grip of this fear. That’s why it is so awesome to see companies such as Facebook and Twitter with hundreds of millions of users still make big changes to their services. As of today I have “New New Twitter” – while it doesn’t represent some fundamental change in how Twitter fun...

As soon as your new startup has some actual endusers a fear of changes sets in. What if people don’t like it? What if they start to protest? I sometimes meet startups with only thousands of users that are firmly in the grip of this fear. That’s why it is so awesome to see companies such as Facebook and Twitter with hundreds of millions of users still make big changes to their services. As of today I have “New New Twitter” – while it doesn’t represent some fundamental change in how Twitter fun...

The European Union (EU) has been a work in progress for many years. Since its inception there has been tremendous tension between what can be decided at the EU level and what is decided by the individual countries. Despite an expensive European Parliament the vast majority of the power is held by country governments. That’s in stark contrast to the US where thanks to the Federalists, the Federal government has real clout. As we are now experiencing, the European setup makes it difficult to ma...

The European Union (EU) has been a work in progress for many years. Since its inception there has been tremendous tension between what can be decided at the EU level and what is decided by the individual countries. Despite an expensive European Parliament the vast majority of the power is held by country governments. That’s in stark contrast to the US where thanks to the Federalists, the Federal government has real clout. As we are now experiencing, the European setup makes it difficult to ma...

Roger Ehrenberg has an excellent post today on the question of whether there are too many companies or not enough venture capital. Roger’s answer, which I agree with, is “neither” - but there are too many companies that act as if they will raise venture capital. And Roger points out correctly that most of those companies would be much better off if they never put their sights on venture capital and behaved accordingly. I find myself giving that out as advice a fair bit to entrepreneurs. I mee...

Roger Ehrenberg has an excellent post today on the question of whether there are too many companies or not enough venture capital. Roger’s answer, which I agree with, is “neither” - but there are too many companies that act as if they will raise venture capital. And Roger points out correctly that most of those companies would be much better off if they never put their sights on venture capital and behaved accordingly. I find myself giving that out as advice a fair bit to entrepreneurs. I mee...

The GOP debate brought more talk of a “wet blanket of regulation” weighing on economic activity. Apparently even President Obama thinks that environmental regulation is at issue here and has sadly rolled back some clean air standards. That’s quite ironic at a time when the Chinese are tightening their air quality standards and when we should be looking at creating (clean) tech jobs (as opposed to smoke stack ones) is biting. Instead we should be looking at the cost of financial regulation tha...

The GOP debate brought more talk of a “wet blanket of regulation” weighing on economic activity. Apparently even President Obama thinks that environmental regulation is at issue here and has sadly rolled back some clean air standards. That’s quite ironic at a time when the Chinese are tightening their air quality standards and when we should be looking at creating (clean) tech jobs (as opposed to smoke stack ones) is biting. Instead we should be looking at the cost of financial regulation tha...

Once in a while I find myself in a product or strategy or biz dev discussion at a startup which goes something like: “we are doing xyz to defend against ”. My reaction is to ask whether xyz is also part of what the startup was trying to build in the first place. If the answer is no, then I will argue strongly that they shouldn’t do it at all. Why? Startups have very limited resources. They succeed by putting all of those resources into a singular effort. That means being on the offense and bu...

Once in a while I find myself in a product or strategy or biz dev discussion at a startup which goes something like: “we are doing xyz to defend against ”. My reaction is to ask whether xyz is also part of what the startup was trying to build in the first place. If the answer is no, then I will argue strongly that they shouldn’t do it at all. Why? Startups have very limited resources. They succeed by putting all of those resources into a singular effort. That means being on the offense and bu...

One of the nearly routine items at startup board meetings is the discussion and ratification of option grants for new employees and possibly refresh grants for existing employees. Too often unfortunately this information is presented to the board in a way that requires way more time than should be necessary because critical pieces are missing. Here is what you should always include as a bare minimum when presenting option grants to the board 1. Employee name 2. Title/role at company 3. Absolu...

One of the nearly routine items at startup board meetings is the discussion and ratification of option grants for new employees and possibly refresh grants for existing employees. Too often unfortunately this information is presented to the board in a way that requires way more time than should be necessary because critical pieces are missing. Here is what you should always include as a bare minimum when presenting option grants to the board 1. Employee name 2. Title/role at company 3. Absolu...

I have had the privilege of observing a number of founders grow their companies from just a few people to over a hundred employees. Leaving all the other growth challenges aside, I have come to conclude that personal scaling is the most important issue. By personal scaling I mean figuring out how to go from mostly doing to mostly managing. There are many aspects to this transition but the central one would seem to be trust. A map at 1:1 scale isn’t useful. And as I discovered yesterday during...

I have had the privilege of observing a number of founders grow their companies from just a few people to over a hundred employees. Leaving all the other growth challenges aside, I have come to conclude that personal scaling is the most important issue. By personal scaling I mean figuring out how to go from mostly doing to mostly managing. There are many aspects to this transition but the central one would seem to be trust. A map at 1:1 scale isn’t useful. And as I discovered yesterday during...

There have been many great posts about the various terms that go into a termsheet for a venture investment. As a result entrepreneurs are much better informed which is a good thing all around. I am still puzzled at times though at the approaches taken by both VC firms and entrepreneurs when it comes to actually negotiating a term sheet. Here are a few things that I have learned. For VCs (I have written about the VC side before, but this seems worth repeating): Behavior during the term sheet p...

There have been many great posts about the various terms that go into a termsheet for a venture investment. As a result entrepreneurs are much better informed which is a good thing all around. I am still puzzled at times though at the approaches taken by both VC firms and entrepreneurs when it comes to actually negotiating a term sheet. Here are a few things that I have learned. For VCs (I have written about the VC side before, but this seems worth repeating): Behavior during the term sheet p...