The Sequoia “RIP: Good Times” presentation: Super clear presentation about how we got ourselves into this mess and why it will take a long time to get back on track. Must reading for everyone (not just entrepreneurs).

The Sequoia “RIP: Good Times” presentation: Super clear presentation about how we got ourselves into this mess and why it will take a long time to get back on track. Must reading for everyone (not just entrepreneurs).

Today we are having our annual portfolio company summit. We bring together folks from all our investments for a day in New York City. It is an awesome opportunity for all of us to learn from each other. Given our strong focus, almost all of the companies face similar issues. For instance every one needs to worry about SEO. But we also have enough breadth to have real experts on every topic. Wondering what your iPhone strategy should be? Talk to the folks from Pinch Media. Curious about what i...

Today we are having our annual portfolio company summit. We bring together folks from all our investments for a day in New York City. It is an awesome opportunity for all of us to learn from each other. Given our strong focus, almost all of the companies face similar issues. For instance every one needs to worry about SEO. But we also have enough breadth to have real experts on every topic. Wondering what your iPhone strategy should be? Talk to the folks from Pinch Media. Curious about what i...

I bought GOOG at the IPO and have owned it since. I simply did not but nearly enough of it. Now I believe all of us who made that mistake will get another shot at buying into GOOG at a reasonable price (that is assuming you have some cash around). I am not suggesting anyone go all in right now, but I have started to buy and will continue to do so over the coming months. I also think that EBAY is a buy at current prices. They have a lot of cash which is something in short supply these days. A ...

I bought GOOG at the IPO and have owned it since. I simply did not but nearly enough of it. Now I believe all of us who made that mistake will get another shot at buying into GOOG at a reasonable price (that is assuming you have some cash around). I am not suggesting anyone go all in right now, but I have started to buy and will continue to do so over the coming months. I also think that EBAY is a buy at current prices. They have a lot of cash which is something in short supply these days. A ...

Given the financial crisis, there have been a lot of posts about trimming costs by laying people off. But there may also be opportunities to save money by hiring people. This (generally) does not apply to tiny startups but only to businesses that have achieved a certain scale and employ consultants. It is often the case that consultants are brought in to work on a specific project but wind up working on essentially a recurring basis. So in times like this it’s a good idea to look at all your ...

Given the financial crisis, there have been a lot of posts about trimming costs by laying people off. But there may also be opportunities to save money by hiring people. This (generally) does not apply to tiny startups but only to businesses that have achieved a certain scale and employ consultants. It is often the case that consultants are brought in to work on a specific project but wind up working on essentially a recurring basis. So in times like this it’s a good idea to look at all your ...

MultiplicationShooter1.0: I am a huge fan of MIT’s Scratch project. It is a visual programming environment for kids. Instead of writing code in a text editor, kids snap together templates to form scripts. The scripts are attached to sprites. Creating sprites is also super easy in the integrated graphics editor. Another wonderful thing about Scratch is that with the push of a button you can publish your project to the Web (where it runs as a Java Applet). My kids have created many projects wit...

MultiplicationShooter1.0: I am a huge fan of MIT’s Scratch project. It is a visual programming environment for kids. Instead of writing code in a text editor, kids snap together templates to form scripts. The scripts are attached to sprites. Creating sprites is also super easy in the integrated graphics editor. Another wonderful thing about Scratch is that with the push of a button you can publish your project to the Web (where it runs as a Java Applet). My kids have created many projects wit...

The NYT Sunday magazine had a great cover story about Kleiner’s Greentech push (link to be added). Amidst all the news of financial meltdown and impending recession, it was heartening to see that we may yet witness the commercialization of technologies to help us fight the damage we have been doing to the environment. A firm of Kleiner’s reach and reputation taking a high profile lead will result in many more dollars being invested. For starters, other VC firms want to be in Kleiner deals, ma...

The NYT Sunday magazine had a great cover story about Kleiner’s Greentech push (link to be added). Amidst all the news of financial meltdown and impending recession, it was heartening to see that we may yet witness the commercialization of technologies to help us fight the damage we have been doing to the environment. A firm of Kleiner’s reach and reputation taking a high profile lead will result in many more dollars being invested. For starters, other VC firms want to be in Kleiner deals, ma...

Entrepreneurs sometimes wonder why VCs are so bent on owning a 20% stake in the companies they invest in. The answer is surprisingly simple: It’s a successful heuristic. Heuristics are “rules of thumb” and they turn out to be really useful whenever you deal with a lot of uncertainty. As an investor, one might be tempted to try to optimize the ownership percentage on a deal-by-deal basis. But so much can go wrong with any particular company that such optimizations are likely to backfire – if y...

Entrepreneurs sometimes wonder why VCs are so bent on owning a 20% stake in the companies they invest in. The answer is surprisingly simple: It’s a successful heuristic. Heuristics are “rules of thumb” and they turn out to be really useful whenever you deal with a lot of uncertainty. As an investor, one might be tempted to try to optimize the ownership percentage on a deal-by-deal basis. But so much can go wrong with any particular company that such optimizations are likely to backfire – if y...

We had our annual portfolio summit yesterday. Lots of great discussion around a broad range of topics. One that was especially interesting was whether or not a ‘headless’ web service can be successful. By 'headless’ I mean a web service that is all backend and does not have its own frontend. Such a service would rely on third parties to build frontends for it. One argument against this approach was that it would put the service at the mercy of other developers who might never create a co...

We had our annual portfolio summit yesterday. Lots of great discussion around a broad range of topics. One that was especially interesting was whether or not a ‘headless’ web service can be successful. By 'headless’ I mean a web service that is all backend and does not have its own frontend. Such a service would rely on third parties to build frontends for it. One argument against this approach was that it would put the service at the mercy of other developers who might never create a co...

When I started this blog, I picked the name continuations. But at the time, continuations.com was not available and so I used a subdomain at wenger.us. I am happy to report that thanks to the capable negotiating help of Eric Friedman, I am now the proud owner of continuations.com. Old links should still work as I am forwarding requests.

When I started this blog, I picked the name continuations. But at the time, continuations.com was not available and so I used a subdomain at wenger.us. I am happy to report that thanks to the capable negotiating help of Eric Friedman, I am now the proud owner of continuations.com. Old links should still work as I am forwarding requests.

Finally getting around to my fourth cloud principle: In the cloud it should be easy to consume and produce web services. When you build something in the cloud, you should be able to focus on the essential innovation of your site or service and be able to rely on other web services for everything else. Conversely, it should be easy for you to expose any part of your site or service as a web service that someone else can consume. Together this is what I call “ease of assembly.” We have made hug...

Finally getting around to my fourth cloud principle: In the cloud it should be easy to consume and produce web services. When you build something in the cloud, you should be able to focus on the essential innovation of your site or service and be able to rely on other web services for everything else. Conversely, it should be easy for you to expose any part of your site or service as a web service that someone else can consume. Together this is what I call “ease of assembly.” We have made hug...