feld — I first heard the word “grinfucker” a decade or so ago from a close friend who was a former investment banker. He said, in response to a meeting we were in with a person who was very polite and charming “he’s such a grinfucker.” I loved the word and, as...
avc — This is the kind of thing that happens in the age of the Internet and Kickstarter. My daughter Emily told me one of her friends was involved in opening an art gallery and they are using Kickstarter to raise the funds to make it happen. In their own words, the "Teen...
askthevc — I get asked this question many times in many different ways. Sometimes people are coy about it (“someone is expressing strategic interest – what should I do?”) other times people are clear and direct (“someone wants to acquire my company – help!”). David Cohen, the CEO of TechStars, has encountered this...
theequitykicker — Since the beginning of the year I have been running an experiment to see if I can consume all my print media digitally. That means only buying Kindle books and getting my morning news fix exclusively on one of my tablets or my phone. So far, with two caveats that I...
avc — It's fun friday again. And because this weekend brings us the big game, I figured we'd talk about it. I'm rooting for the Giants. They were 7-7 and going nowhere and then something happened and they have got a winning attitude and are surging going into the big game. As a...
continuations — I was going to write a post about Facebook’s valuation, but Bill Gurley has done such an excellent job, that the better idea is to point at his post explaining “Why Facebook Clearly Belongs in the 10x Revenue Club.” There is one other important point to consider in thinking about...
feld — Over the past two years I’ve been struggling mightily with the dynamics of “classical VC funded board of directors” and how these boards work. When I hear a VC say “I’m an active board member” it gives me the same nauseous feeling I get when someone says “I’m a value added...
abovethecrowd — Attached are my quick thoughts on the Facebook S-1 along with some quick stabs at valuation. As a quick disclosure, Benchmark Capital has a minority position in Facebook as a result of the acquisition of FriendFeed, a company that was incubated in our offices. I thought it would be useful...
avc — Back in early December 2011, I wrote a blog post about Engagio, a new web service launched by our very own William Mougayar. For those who didn't read that post, Engagio is a service that aggregates your comment activity across many of the major social platforms and gives you a...
feld — Put this in the “every business traveller thinks this on a regular basis” rant category. Sure – I’m whining, but I imagine I’ll feel better after I get done. I doubt it has any impact on the universe, but hopefully it’ll be a story that rings true to some of...
avc — On Monday, I trained it up to New Haven to meet a Yale professor named Dina Mayzlin and talk to her class. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Dina's class as it allowed me to work on some new material in a comfortable setting. But the talk Dina and I had...
theequitykicker — Back in August Marc Andreessen wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal explaining why Software is eating the world. His main observation was that the fastest growing companies in almost all industries are betting their future on software. He gave several examples of which the best two from a...
continuations — Today we are continuing on with the web request cycle. After the browser has parsed the URL and obtained the IP address of the server via DNS, the browser now has to communicate with the server. That is done using the so-called Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP for short. The...
avc — Twitter is one of the most misunderstood companies I've ever worked with. When you are in the inside, or close to the inside, and you see what people write, it makes you shake your head. Yesterday Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, was interviewed by Peter Kafka on stage at the D:...
feld — It’s Monday and I’m back in Boulder after being on the east coast for three weeks. My partner Jason Mendelson got me possibly the best remote control toy ever. Even though I’d love to stick around Boulder all week, I’m heading to DC tomorrow and then NY for a day. Oh...
feld — I noticed something when I tried out two apps (Mingly and Cobook) this morning – they each immediately asked to connect me to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter during their onboarding process. And, by using my Gmail as the starting point / authentication, they connected me to G+. Microsoft is conspicuously absent...
theequitykicker — It seems that every other startup we see these days espouses lean principles. I’m not always sure that there is a thorough understanding of what that means though. Partly for this reason I recently wrote a post about how Path and Flipboard are seemingly abandoning lean startup principles which, combined...
avc — Next up on our guest posts on the subject of The Management Team is AVC community regular JLM. For those that don't know, JLM runs a public company and before that built and sold a large real estate operation. He's also written one of the best guest posts ever on...
avc — I've been to a bunch of 3D movies now. It seems to be all the rage in the movie theaters these days. I have to say that I am not a fan. I have yet to go to a 3D movie where I didn't want to take the glasses off...
bostonvcblog.typepad — I am co-teaching a class at Harvard Business School on entrepreneurship called "Launching Technology Ventures" along with my friend and colleague, Professor Tom Eisenmann. The class kicked off this week with two cases: Dropbox and Aardvark. As I reflect on the class discussions, one of the interesting tension points that arose...
avc — I was at a meeting yesterday regarding the ongoing online piracy discussion and the conversation turned to search as a source of traffic to sites with pirated content. I stopped the conversation and noted that search isn't what it used to be and pointed out that many websites get more...
avc — Yesterday Techmeme launched a redesign. I like it. Nicely done Gabe. I thought I'd use this news as a jumping off point to talk about my favorite feature on Techmeme. When a news event happens, I like to see various pundits' take on it without having to click thru and read...
continuations — How do you boil a frog? Slowly. Apparently the same is true for endusers and even software developers. That at least is what Apple seems to believe. And while this has been debunked for frogs (they do jump out as the water gets too warm), it’s not clear that the...
feld — After a long really fun day yesterday at TechStars and StartLabs I wandered over to 34-101 to be on a panel for Joost Bonsen and Joe Hadzima‘s IAP class 15.S21: The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans. It’s not really a class about business plans rather a class about starting a business and has been...
avc — Blog polling widgets have been around a long time. I've tried out a few of them on AVC over the years. And polling has never taken off as a major form of engagement on blogs (as has commenting, liking, tweeting). I'm curious why that is so. I met with a young...