Preview: SplicedFeed
SplicedFeedUpdated: 2012-02-10T10:10:00+00:00
Apple's Amazing Run Is Masking That Much Of The Market Is Already Drifting Lower [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-10T02:10:00-08:00 Interesting comment here from BTIG's Dan Greenhaus: ...the S&P continues to push higher although it shouldn’t go unnoticed that the Russell 2000 is down in three of the last four sessions, the transports are down in six of the last nine sessions and a large amount of recent gains in broad markets can be explained simply and solely by strength in AAPL. You can really see the divergence here, comparing the NASDAQ 100 index (just the biggest NASDAQ stocks, to heavily Apple-dominated) to the Russell 2000 (small caps) over the past week. And here's a chart of the aforementioned Dow Transports. No, that's hardly a big selloff, but it doesn't fit with the broader market, that's been edging higher and higher. It's certainly possible that all this is an over-aggressive attempt to find something in this market, which really isn't moving very much. A bullish counterpoint might be to point to the strength in the homebuilders, junior gold miners, and financial stocks, which you wouldn't expect to see if there was some nervousness behind the scenes. Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Guess How Much The Athens Stock Market Is Up Just Since January 10The Simple Argument For Being Bullish On Stocks Right NowIn Times Like These, It's Time To Remember This Great Chart From Japan [...]
peHUB First Read [privateequityHUB] 2012-02-10T02:01:40-08:00 This morning's First Read keeps you up to speed on NYC Tech Day, how Apple is faring without its ferocious leader, and which paper our corporate overlords might buy next!So, who should Thomson Reuters buy next? Get It: The peHUB Daily Wire. Cementing Our Position: NYC Tech Day Sun Capital says ‘Scotch & Soda, with a double of leverage.’ Myntra’s making friends They Know Better? CD&R won’t go public Turkish Delight: Deal time for PE in Turkey? Apple: Just plain killing it Scott Maxwell on CEOs pruning… people? Is the MAC attack back? Going Nuclear: US again building plants USPS: Still a bad idea Will an Iran attack preemptively strike Madge in Tel Aviv? [...]
Take A Hike [HANSEN REPORT] 2012-02-10T01:21:37-08:00 (image) (shot on top of Mount Baldy above Phoenix Lake) Those familiar with my lifestyle know that I prefer a few things in life, one of which is most important, the great outdoors! Blessed we have been in recent days with the clearing of the skies and the return to sun derived warmth. Its good to be back here. A year ago I was busy riding around Manhattan over black ice.
Will my friends in NYC please attend this in my... [HANSEN REPORT] 2012-02-09T20:13:27-08:00 (image)Will my friends in NYC please attend this in my stead? Ummm…thanks and you’re welcome for the heads up.
Here's How Microsoft Could Sell Lots Of ARM Tablets To Big Companies (MSFT) [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T19:36:03-08:00 Enterprises might get a break on Windows 8 devices with Office 15 -- if they happened to have signed a new Enterprise Agreement after mid 2011. That's speculation from Cynthia Farren, principal of a software license consulting company. While Microsoft has not yet laid out its plans for how to charge enterprises for Windows ARM devices, it has offered clues. An Enterprise Agreement is a license with Microsoft which covers much of a company's Microsoft software. It includes side benefits, particularly free upgrades to the latest versions of Microsoft software. Earlier today, Microsoft said that Windows 8 ARM devices will include a special version of Office. In EA agreements after mid-2011, Microsoft deliberately changed the definition of "qualified desktop" to "qualified device" when indicating what type of device is covered by the EA. "If your EA includes Office and specifies 'device' then Microsoft will likely have to include Office 15 on ARM in your EA licensing agreement," says Farren. But the trickier part is how Microsoft will charge for the Windows 8 operating system itself. To understand the potential gotcha, you've got to understand how Microsoft treats non-Windows devices in these agreements. If a company yanks out its Windows desktops and replaces them with iPads that are set up to be able to run Windows and Office apps, Microsoft charges a "Virtual Desktop Access" fee for each device. And it doesn't remove those devices from the cost of the EA agreement unless a company deliberately goes back and negotiates for that. So Microsoft will double charge for those devices -- still charging for the Windows license no longer in use and also charging a fee to access Windows in a virtual Web-based cloud way. Microsoft is clearly trying to penalize non-Windows devices by making it uber expensive to run Windows software on them. So, if Windows 8 on an ARM tablet is considered a "fully functional OS" and not an "embedded OS" then an upgrade to it would be covered by the EA license with SA. A company with a recent EA could swap out other Windows devices with the tablet and be squared away. It is unclear how Microsoft will treat customers with older EA agreements that still use the words "qualified desktop." Farren also says that she doesn't expect Microsoft to be offering any great deals on EA licenses for Windows ARM tablets. While companies may not have to pay for Office 15 or the VDA fee, there are other gotchas. Because employees may actually need two devices -- their PC and their tablet -- enterprises could wind up spending more on Microsoft overall. Please follow SAI: Enterprise on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Windows 8 Tablets Will Probably Launch WITHOUT A New Version Of OfficeFree Alternative To Microsoft Office Adds New Users ... And 'Hackers'Moxie Challenges Jive, Promises Profits This Year [...]
Moriarty and Sherlock’s Anti-Showdown [Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed] 2012-02-09T18:04:38-08:00 From the wonderful BBC reboot of Sherlock Holmes, the superb Season 2 opening Sherlock/Moriarty anti-showdown.From the wonderful BBC reboot of Sherlock Holmes, the superb Season 2 opening Sherlock/Moriarty anti-showdown. (object) (embed)
Alibaba Group plans to take Hong Kong Unit Private [privateequityHUB] 2012-02-09T17:25:28-08:00 At last, a deal for Yahoo! assets draws near--with Jack Ma closing in on a big prize for Alibaba.com.(Reuters) – Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group plans to take its Hong Kong-listed unit, Alibaba.com, private, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Under the yet-to-be-finalized deal, Alibaba would use borrowed money and internal cash as well as an asset swap to buy back most of a 40 percent stake that Yahoo owns in Alibaba Group, the sources said. Alibaba.com shares were halted from trading on Thursday pending an announcement regarding its parent. Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba Group has an estimated value of $14 billion. Under the plans being discussed, Alibaba Group wants to buy back about 25 percent of its stake. Alibaba Group plans to pay one-third of the consideration through a stake in one of its operating assets and the rest through cash. Alibaba.com is the most likely operating unit in which Yahoo may be offered a stake, one of the sources said. Both parties have an understanding on this arrangement, but have not signed any formal deal yet, the source added. The sources declined to be identified as the discussions were private. An Alibaba Group spokesman declined to comment. Yahoo is choosing this route as it wants to achieve tax efficiencies, sources have said previously. Alibaba Group, founded by former English teacher and now billionaire Jack Ma, is looking to raise a loan of about $3 billion, which will be partly used to fund the buyback and the privatization. Alibaba Group currently owns about 73 percent in Alibaba.com, which has a market value of nearly $6 billion. (Reporting by Prakash Chakravarti; Additional reporting by Stephen Aldred, Kazunori Takada, Saeed Azhar and Melanie Lee; Writing by Denny Thomas; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Muralikumar Anantharaman) [...]
A new member of the Spark team [BijanBlog] 2012-02-09T17:00:00-08:00 Our team at Spark Capital has evolved a bit since we started in 2005. Since that time, we promoted Alex from Principal to General Partner. We promoted Mo from Principal to General Partner. And we promoted Andrew, from Sr. Associate to Principal I’m proud that we’ve been able to grow the firm by giving members of the team more and more responsibility. I always tell people that the best part of my job is that I get to meet and work with the most talented and creative entrepreneurs on the planet. The other part of this job I love is that I get to work with my friends. I’ve known Santo for years before Spark. Same with Todd. My kids call our other partner/cfo Paul, grandpa in a joking way because his hair is gray. When we have our holiday party it truly feels like a family event. Today we announced a new addition to the Spark team. Nabeel Hyatt has joined our company as a Venture Partner. Nabeel is super creative, smart and high energy. He gets the social web and obsesses about design. He’s also a serial entpreneur. Nabeel’s latest startup was Conduit Labs which was acquired by Zynga. After that acquisition, Nabeel became General Manager of the Zynga Cambridge office. When I moved to Boston after 10 years in SF, Nabeel was one of the first people I met. He had cofounded Ambient Devices and I bought their Orb. I was so obsessed with connected devices that I reached out to him cold. We became fast friends and we always wanted to find a way to work together. And now we have that opportunity. Nabeel has a post up as well (and it’s on Tumblr wouldn’t you know!) about joining Spark. Welcome aboard Nabeel! [...]
Strategic Titans Validate Cloud Model—But Will it Work for Them? [privateequityHUB] 2012-02-09T16:57:48-08:00 Zuora's Tien Tzuo explains why major bidders are kicking off a cloud M&A frenzy--which must be music to the ears of so many VCs.SAP and Oracle are on a cloud buying spree. While that’s exciting for Wall Street it belies a bigger epiphany for the software industry. Thursday’s announcement of Oracle’s $1.9B acquisition of Taleo follows a pair of other big cloud deals: Oracle’s $1.5 billion purchase of RightNow and SAP’s play for SuccessFactors. By making these acquisitions, both of these traditional companies have validated that the cloud is the future of enterprise software. I believe that when we look back two years from now, we’ll say that the Taleo, RightNow and SuccessFactors acquisitions were the tipping point in the enterprise software industry finally shifting in earnest to the cloud. Starting with salesforce.com, the business of building and selling business software fundamentally changed. Cloud based-vendors such as salesforce.com, Workday and, my company, Zuora, are stealing market share from traditional, on-premise software companies such as Oracle and SAP that they are finding uncomfortable. These old school enterprise providers know the power has shifted from the IT department to functional heads (e.g. insiders at SAP told industry analyst Dennis Howlett that 11 of its top customer CIOs have disappeared). They know that customers are choosing “on-demand” computing in lieu of traditional, on-promise software. They know that innovation in cloud-based software is measured in weeks while on-premise “innovation” creeps along at a glacial pace. And they know that customers don’t want to pay exorbitant, up front licensing fees for software that will become dated in a matter of months. So what’s a big enterprise software company to do? In the early 2000s, ERP players tried building and marketing their own cloud apps, such as SAP’s “Business by Design” product. But in five years, SAP has signed on 1,000 Business by Design customers, less than half of 1% of its install base. Conversely, the significantly smaller SuccessFactors had racked up 3,500 customers in the cloud, representing 15 million subscription seats for its human resources solution. More importantly, SuccessFactors’ growth is off the charts, with 77 percent year over year revenue in the third quarter of 2011 and 59 percent year over year revenue for the first nine months of 2011. Rather than continuing to fight a losing battle, SAP elected to simply purchase SuccessFactors. Call it an attempt at cloud innovation via acquisition. Oracle seemingly purchased RightNow for a similar reason. Salesforce.com has been taking CRM market share from Oracle (and Siebel, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards for that matter) for years. Apparently, Oracle believes scooping up RightNow will allow it to grab a bigger piece of the growing market for cloud-based CRM. But it’s yet another acquisition in a confusing mix of solutions, and one that flies right in the face of Oracle’s “private cloud” vision, which, as salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff explains, “goes hand-in-hand with selling proprietary mainframes.” Of course, Oracle and SAP aren’t the first monolithic, on premise companies who have tried to compete in the cloud via acquisition. In 2003, before being acquired by Oracle, Siebel gobbled up SaaS CRM vendor, Upshot, and subsequently launched its own line of cloud-based CRM. In that one stroke, Siebel signaled that on-demand computing was the preferred model for CRM. But here’s the irony: Siebel had the right idea – realizing that the cloud was the future of computing – the company that most benefited from the acquisition was Salesforce.com. By buying Upshot, Siebel validated cloud-based CRM and, by default, Salesforce.com. Almost overnight, Salesforce.com was catapulted from a laggard position to the lea[...]
Inside TaskRabbit: Nobody Does Their Own Chores, So There's More Time For Fun And Pranks [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T16:32:00-08:00 Kobe the dog is TaskRabbit's chief inspiration officer. It's a fancy position for a pet, but it's well-deserved, considering the dog actually inspired Leah Busque to start TaskRabbit. Click here to see what it's like to work at TaskRabbit→ One night on February 2008, Busque was sitting at home and getting ready for dinner with her husband when she realized she was out of dog food. The couple wondered: Are we going to have a cab stop on the way home? Later that night, they kept talking about how it would be nice if there was a place to go to online where could name a price they were willing to pay for someone to get them dog food. Busque quit her job at IBM and founded TaskRabbit in June 2008. The site has grown since we last spoke to Busque: since the company's series A round in May, TaskRabbit has seven times the amount of users, and the posted tasks have tripled. TaskRabbit also closed a second funding round of $17.8 million in December, and is now in seven cities: San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, Seattle, and Portland. The next city is Austin, which will launch at SXSW next month. We visited TaskRabbit's San Francisco offices to see what it's like there...Here we are. That rabbit looks busy! Johnny Brackett showed us around. He's talking to marketing head Jamie Viggiano. Brackett joked that most employees love TaskRabbit so much, they probably should start doing their own errands again. TaskRabbit began serving consumers, but small businesses are beginning to see the value. Susie Cakes likes to use the service for delivery. Companies like Google and Twitter offer a discount to their employees. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.See Also:TOUR: Foodspotting, The Startup That Brings You Personalized Food Porn Meetup Cofounder Raises $100,000 From Gary Vaynerchuk And Others For A 'Paw'-some New StartupThis Hackathon Will Pit The East Coast Vs. Silicon Valley [...]
Google's Foray Into Hardware Will Be A Total Disaster — Here's Why (GOOG) [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T15:56:57-08:00 It's finally clear: Google is getting into the hardware business. Last week, word came out that it was testing some sort of mysterious entertainment device in employees' homes. Today the Wall Street Journal reported that Google will build and market a Google-branded music gadget that will stream tunes around the home. Google is about to finish buying Motorola, the world's biggest maker of TV set top boxes and one of its larger cell phone makers, and Eric Schmidt has said that it wasn't just for the patents. It's even building retail stores. Maybe Larry Page really was jealous of Steve Jobs. Or maybe Google is just jealous of Apple's revenue and profits and market cap. Whatever the reason, this won't end well. Google has never shown that it has any of the characteristics necessary to build, market, and sell consumer goods. Let's take a look at all the things that made Apple one of the biggest and most admired companies in the world. Does Google have any of those things? Design chops? Apple has revolutionized product design several times -- the iMac, iPod, iPhone, Mac Air, and iPad. Google's best design was its original home page, loved for its white space and simplicity. Google+ had some nice elements -- Circles was designed by Apple old-timer Andy Hertzfeld -- but the recent redesigns of products like Gmail, Reader, and Search have caused more anger than delight. Shipping finished products that customers love? Apple products are designed with the customer experience top of mind -- Steve Jobs famously said that Apple doesn't listen to customers first, it figures out what they should want and then goes and builds that. Google is infamous for releasing half-finished products like Music and Google TV, slapping a beta label on them, then gradually improving them over time. That works fine with free Internet services. It does not work with products that you're trying to sell for hundreds of dollars. (Need evidence? Spend an hour with an Android tablet that hasn't been updated to Ice Cream Sandwich.) Customer service? The Genius Bar gives Apple customers on-demand customer service for any problem with any Apple product. Google hardly provides personalized customer service to its most important customers, the advertisers who make up more than 95% of its business -- most Google ad products are self serve for all but their largest and most important customers. Manufacturing? Apple's Tim Cook is a genius at managing Apple's supply chain. Google has done some of this with suppliers for its data centers, but that's different from setting up the parts and manufacturing necessary to build and ship tens of millions of devices on quick turnaround. Advertising? Remember those iPod ads with the white figures dancing? Of course you do. Remember those Google+ ads with the muppets singing along to David Bowie? Probably, but not for the same reason. Can companies change? Of course they can. Microsoft spent 10 years and several billion dollars to get into the game business, and while it's still about $4 billion in the hole (lifetime), the Xbox is finally on a consistent profit streak and Microsoft has passed Sony. But at least Microsoft had a long history of building and selling packaged consumer products like Windows, Office, and CD-ROMs, and even hardware like keyboards and mice. Amazon is becoming a hardware company, but only after selling hardware through its online retail store for years. It understands logistics, advertising, marketing, and customer service, and has a huge store of data about customer buying habits which it can use to help. Google has never successfully sold anything to consumers. Not a single thing. Google is really good at building fast, useful, responsive software that runs at Internet scale, and at hooking up the users of that soft[...]
This Kickstarter Project Raised Nearly $1 Million in One Day [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T15:24:15-08:00 This post originally appeared at The Fiscal Times It’s been a kick-ass week for raising money on Kickstarter. The crowd-source funding site saw a new record set on Wednesday by the Elevation iPhone Dock, which raised over $1 million in less than two months and beat the previous all-time funding record of $942,000 (it’s now up to $1,035,214). Today, it looks like yet another record could be broken. RELATED: Facebook’s IPO: 10 People Who Will Strike It Rich On Wednesday night, San Francisco-based independent video game studio Double Fine Productions posted a new adventure game on the fundraising site with the goal of collecting $400,000, and watched the dollars start to pour in from fans. In just eight hours and 11 minutes, Double Fine had surpassed its goal. Less than eight hours later, they had doubled it. At time of publication, the total raised was over $900,000 and growing by tens of thousands of dollars every few minutes – with 33 days left to collect. Owner Tim Schafer, who is known for popular adventure games like Full Throttle and The Secret of Monkey Island, says, although there’s huge interest from fans, he’s struggled to get any interest from big game publishers to do adventure games like this one. That’s when he turned to Kickstarter. Kickstarter funders don’t receive any ownership of the project, and don’t see a return on their money, but many Kickstarter projects offer perks. Double Fine will give a copy of the game to anyone who gives $15 or more and a signed poster to those who give $250 or more. Donors who give $10,000 or more get lunch and a tour of the studio with Schafer and Ron Gilbert, another developer. One video game animator in Seattle, Will Christiansen, heard about it this morning and gave $100. “Everyone was passing the link around Facebook and Twitter,” he said. “As developers and gamers, we’d love to see this new model take off. It would mean a big shift in the game/publisher dynamic and could make games more interesting, innovative and independent.” Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Why Activision Should Buy Take-TwoCall Of Duty Still Tops As Video Game Industry Dips 5% in JanuaryWhy Activision's Bobby Kotick Is Completely Wrong On Social [...]
Retail Guru Ron Johnson Dazzles In His First Media Controversy As JC Penney CEO [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T15:00:00-08:00 JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson, who was the mastermind behind the Apple stores, is dealing with his first media controversy. A group called One Million Moms has been trying to get JC Penney spokesperson Ellen DeGeneres fired because of her sexual orientation. Johnson, flashing an incredibly charming smile, appeared on CBS to defend DeGeneres. He said that DeGeneres was the perfect pick to represent the new direction of the company because of her positive, outgoing attitude. Johnson also outlined his goals for JC Penney: • to become America's favorite store – not the biggest, not the flashiest; • to implement a new pricing strategy that makes every day a great day to shop (the store has already lowered its prices by about 40%.) • to become part of people's lives but not interrupt them – that means no 4am, early-bird sales on Thanksgiving. His interview would have been almost flawless if he had not overlooked one big detail. Johnson was not wearing a JC Penney outfit for his interview and the anchor caught him. Oops. width="618" height="350" frameborder="no" src="http://embed.newsinc.com/Single/iframe.html?WID=2&VID=23572256&freewheel=90967&sitesection=businessinsider&height=332&width=590"> Please follow Business Insider on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Chinese City Announces Stimulus Program To 'Produce 1,400 New Steve Jobs'WATCH: One Of America's Last Bicycle Manufacturers Is Still Going Strong After 113 Years The 10 Best 'Sh*t People Say' Videos You Must Watch [...]
Groupon Finds A New Executive To Handle Andrew Mason (GRPN) [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T14:41:00-08:00 Groupon is filling the communications hole in its executive ranks, hiring long-time public-relations executive Paul Taaffe, Bloomberg's Douglas MacMillan reports. Taaffe is taking over for Bradford Williams who left Groupon at the end of August. He was on the job for just two months. He didn't get along with CEO Andrew Mason. Taaffe has nice things to say about CEO Andrew Mason, including that he's incredibly talented and has matured quickly, and the two have begun working together to try and change the perception of Groupon by the public and investors. Please follow SAI: Media on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Groupon's Rank And File Couldn't Stand The Departing COOThe New York Times Tries A Living Social OfferThe Corruption Of Our Entire Political Class Explained In One Paragraph [...]
We Hope This Gawd-Awful Cover Letter For An Engineering Job Is Fake [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T14:28:20-08:00 A firm called Open Source Staffing published a job listing for a contract-to-hire API Engineer position located in New York City. According to a tipster, OSS got the following cover letter, which we sincerely hope was an attempt at humor – and not an attempt to get a job: Dear Open Source Staffing & NYC PHP Meetup Group: I'm super awesome and have incredible experience compared to this - it includes the required experience below plus I am trained in MMA fighting, am the mayor of multiple Chipotles, Starbucks, and locally famous restaurants in downtown NYC, and I type really fast. You want to hire me more than anything and you'll be disgusted at how fast and responsive your API is when I'm done. You'll have to pay me ridiculous amounts of money but after the job is done you'll wish you paid me more to stick around because you'll know whatever company hires me next will destroy yours. It will be worth it, you'll feel like I just got ripped off every time you write me a check. Each week you'll feel worse and worse and increase the amount of money you are paying me until one day you realize there's no amount of money that could add up to the value of my insanely awesome skills. It's ok, it happens to everyone. You're welcome, David Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:The Newest VC Discrimination: If Your Startup Has A Small Team, Investment Is Harder To GetWhat's The Real Cost Of Working At A Startup? About 5% to 10% Of Your SalaryIf You Want To Start A Company, Get An Engineering Degree [...]
peHUB Second Opinion 2.9 [privateequityHUB] 2012-02-09T14:07:03-08:00 FBI interviews paint Steve Jobs as a driven, reality-distorting visionary. And Jobs had a membership to the New York Athletic Club, according to The Street.FBI interviews paint Steve Jobs as a driven, reality-distorting visionary. And Jobs had a membership to the New York Athletic Club, according to The Street. Here’s the best press release ever. And it’s for a comic book (aka graphic novel). BofA and four other banks reach a $25 bln settlement to end a foreclosure probe. The settlement may help some but most homeowners will have to fend for themselves. Hey startup dudes. Cut the sexist crap, says Dan Shapiro. Here, here. Picking the right teams keeps investors up at night, says Chris Shipman, Catalyst Investors’ co-founder. Zynga is partnering with Hasbro to bring its toys and games into the real world. Apple will unveil the iPad3 in March. Get ready. Google is developing a home entertainment system that streams music wirelessly. We’re not sure these Peyton Manning stories are true but it makes us sad. The captain of the Costa Concordia (the one that crashed into a rock) admits he was rash. “I didn’t inhale” and other ”Sh*T Mitt Says” from Democratic Super PAC American Bridge. LinkedIn how has 150 million members but how many have gotten a job from it? Mice that were treated with a widely available cancer drug experienced a reversal in their Alzheimer’s. Now cleared of doping allegations, Lance Armstrong will return to triathlon competition. [...]
Here's How To Use Google+'s Most Valuable Feature (GOOG) [Silicon Alley Insider] 2012-02-09T13:24:00-08:00 (image)"Circles" is one of the only Google+ features that neither Twitter nor Facebook has been able to emulate. Circles feature lets you share links, pictures, and videos with only the people of your choosing. You group these people into Circles like "Family," "Best Friends," or "Work." Having Circles like these lets you truly control your privacy and who you're sharing with. Here's how to make some Circles: (image)
Web 2.0 Summit Day One [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-11-05T18:58:47-08:00 The Web 2.0 Summit started today. If there was one word to describe the overall atmosphere and mood is that it was 'muted.' Despite the new president, the mood lacked the spark and feeling of being part of something big. It was definitely there two years ago. That was then, this is now. We'll see how the rest of it goes. I heard one good stat. Even though the iPhone is only 5% of the smartphone market, it represents 74% of the mobile web traffic. That's an eye-popping number. Once again proof that if you design something well, like the UI of the web surfing experience, people will use it. Welcome to the design era of technology. AT&T must be very happy with its deal and the data revenues its getting as a result. Also, Mary Meeker gave her state of the internet presentation. Lots of good data in there. Whou would think that Skype is about to become the world's largest carrier? You can get it here.The Web 2.0 Summit started today. If there was one word to describe the overall atmosphere and mood is that it was 'muted.' Despite the new president, the mood lacked the spark and feeling of being part of something big. It was definitely there two years ago. That was then, this is now. We'll see how the rest of it goes. I heard one good stat. Even though the iPhone is only 5% of the smartphone market, it represents 74% of the mobile web traffic. That's an eye-popping number. Once again proof that if you design something well, like the UI of the web surfing experience, people will use it. Welcome to the design era of technology. AT&T must be very happy with its deal and the data revenues its getting as a result. Also, Mary Meeker gave her state of the internet presentation. Lots of good data in there. Whou would think that Skype is about to become the world's largest carrier? You can get it here. [...]
The NY Times Says Yelp has Arrived [Nothing ventured, nothing gained] 2008-11-04T19:08:24-08:00 It's not often that the venerable New York Times publishes a glowing piece on one of my portfolio companies. This is a welcome bit of good cheer amidst the backdrop of a generally gloomy economy. When I invested in the young company founded by Jeremy S. and Russ S. back in 2005, Yelp had attracted about 100,000 San Franciscans to its site. Today, with more than 15,000,000 monthly visitors, it (image)
Humor without the lies, please [Nothing ventured, nothing gained] 2008-11-02T12:01:58-08:00 I admit that I'm a frequent reader of Valleywag, a low-brow blog full of silicon valley gossip. It's often pretty funny, and I know many of the people referenced in the stories, which only adds to the entertainment value.Last week, however, the blog ran an entry containing a fabricated story. The entry was meant to embarrass Jimmy Wales, an entrepreneur we backed two years ago. If there is (image)
Pumpkin O-The Times [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-10-31T21:11:10-07:00 One of our close friends have a pumpkin carving day tradition. This one was one of the best pumpkins carved that day. Thanks Pete & Ayse. Happy Halloween!One of our close friends have a pumpkin carving day tradition. This one was one of the best pumpkins carved that day. Thanks Pete & Ayse. Happy Halloween!
Thoughts on European Start Ups [localglobe] 2008-10-30T09:34:59-07:00 I had a great time putting this presentation together past week to give at the O'Reilly Web2Expo in Berlin.Thoughts on European Start UpsView SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: startups vc)Thanks to everyone for the embedding, the video and the really great feedback - much appreciated.For some really practical advice, check out Robin's great post on cash management. [...]
It's The Economy [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-10-29T20:23:26-07:00 I've been traveling to Canada a lot for work lately. Air Canada has shown me many movies on demand, United has not given any choice, and both have shamelessly asked for $3 for headphones I haven't paid. None of the movies I saw moved me except for one. Ironically, it was the one I thought would be the worst and avoided consistently until the last leg of the final flight that I am writing this now. I watched "Hancock", barely finished it. I watched "The Incredible Hulk", didn't finish it. I watched "Sex and The City" and couldn't finish it. The plane was landing. I watched Indiana Jones again, and again didn't like it as much as the previous one, "The Last Crusade". The last movie I saw was "Swing Vote". It was a painful movie to watch in the beginning. It was also bad in the middle...but the ending. When Bud asked that question I couldn't help but cry. We need a president who wakes up every morning and asks himself the same question and spends his whole life building a legacy around answering it. I am not going to tell you what question that is. You need to watch the movie if you haven't yet. But this blogger believes that the candidate who can devote his life to answer it is Barack Obama. P.S. This is not a political blog, but around this time, once every four years, there may be a politically inclined post :-)I've been traveling to Canada a lot for work lately. Air Canada has shown me many movies on demand, United has not given any choice, and both have shamelessly asked for $3 for headphones I haven't paid. None of the movies I saw moved me except for one. Ironically, it was the one I thought would be the worst and avoided consistently until the last leg of the final flight that I am writing this now.I watched "Hancock", barely finished it. I watched "The Incredible Hulk", didn't finish it. I watched "Sex and The City" and couldn't finish it. The plane was landing. I watched Indiana Jones again, and again didn't like it as much as the previous one, "The Last Crusade".The last movie I saw was "Swing Vote". It was a painful movie to watch in the beginning. It was also bad in the middle...but the ending. When Bud asked that question I couldn't help but cry. We need a president who wakes up every morning and asks himself the same question and spends his whole life building a legacy around answering it. I am not going to tell you what question that is. You need to watch the movie if you haven't yet. But this blogger believes that the candidate who can devote his life to answer it is Barack Obama.P.S. This is not a political blog, but around this time, once every four years, there may be a politically inclined post :-) [...]
Android Is a Success [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-10-29T09:51:04-07:00 For a new mobile technology, let alone an operating system, to go from announcement to shipping product is, however you look at it, a spectacular success. That's exactly what happened to Android with the G1 phone available from T-Mobile. It normally takes years for any technology to get in a carrier's network. Android did it in one year. In addition, Walt Mossberg called it "a worthy competitor to the iPhone". Given the iPhone is one of the most impactful technology innovations of the last 3 years, that's is a big statement. Now we are also hearing that Motorola is reorganizing around Android. Yet another sign of success in such a short period of time. Last year I predicted that Android would be a success, I consider that prediction to have come true. Here is what I wrote then, still quite valid: "1) The Success of Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance: This means that handsets will become more like PC's and wireless carriers will become more like landline DSL providers. This is a bold statement because both handset makers (like Nokia) and carriers (like Vodafone) don't want this to happen. So why do I predict a change in an industry where dinosaurs were surviving for such a long time? Because a meteor the size of Texas hit the wireless industry in 2007 and it was called the iPhone. For the first time in the wireless industry, the handset chose the carrier as opposed to the carrier choosing the handset. The product was so impactful and well designed that some carriers agreed to share 30-40% of their data revenues with Apple in order to have the device on their network. That could be a very meaningful $200 dollars to Apple. Why did carriers agree to that? Because the carriers did the math and the revenue share probably made up the customer acquisition cost that they no longer had to pay which, in the US, is about $200. In return for that bargain they gave up ALL revenue from applications, ringtones etc. The consumers wanted it, they gave it, and doing so opened up the market an catalyzed the next innovation which came from Google. Android and the Open Handset Alliance, enables other people to quickly create new iPhones. It creates an environment that let's developers focus on what they do best, which is writing innovative applications. So that somebody can come up with a device so compelling that it too will chose their carrier (if carriers need a nudge Google can share search revenues, if they need a punch they'll fund an open carrier). Once that happens, the carriers become a dumb pipe, but a dumb pipe with similar economics and no worries for churn. The second reason carriers may embrace Android, is so they don't have to be hostage to Nokia which is exerting a bigger and bigger pressure on carriers. They are even building an ad network and making carriers pay them a piece of their ad revenues....For a new mobile technology, let alone an operating system, to go from announcement to shipping product is, however you look at it, a spectacular success. That's exactly what happened to Android with the G1 phone available from T-Mobile. It normally takes years for any technology to get in a carrier's network. Android did it in one year.In addition, Walt Mossberg called it "a worthy competitor to the iPhone". Given the iPhone is one of the most impactful technology innovations of the last 3 years, that's is a big statement.Now we are also hearing that Motorola is reorganizing around Android. [...]
The Bessemer 10 laws of SaaS - Fall 2008 Release [Cracking-the-code] 2008-10-27T10:05:40-07:00 When we first published Bessemer’s Top 10 Laws for Being "SaaS-y" in early 2008 in conjunction with our annual invitation-only SaaS CEO Summit, we were overwhelmed with the positive response and feedback we received. We continue to incorporate the best elements of this feedback into our evolving SaaS success profile that follows below. Like SaaS products themselves, we now intend for these laws to be periodically refined through major releases to reflect the changing landscape of the SaaS world. Here is theFall 2008 version:Your key monthly business metrics are: CMRR (Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue), Churn, and Cash flow - “Bookings” is for suckersCustomer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer LifeTime Value (CLTV) are the best indicators of long term value creationTune before you scale: the Sales Learning Curve is even more critical for SaaS and it takes at least $300k MRR to climb it. Stop at three sales reps until at least two of them are making $100K MRR quotasSeparate your “hunters” and “farmers” and pay them all on CMRR growthSaaS is a whole new ecosystem where traditional IT channels don’t work – Focus your business development efforts on business services channels, but you will need to sell directly for a long time as these new set of partners are not easy to ramp-upBy definition, your sales prospects are online - Savvy online marketing is a core competence (sometimes the only one) of every successful SaaS businessStay local - Prove your business in North America first. Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand. Save Asia for post-IPOSingle instance, multi-tenant, single datacenter - Have only one version of the code in production. Really. “Just say no” to on-premise deploymentsThe most important part of Software-as-a-Service isn’t “Software” it’s “Service”! Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Load up for the long trip and pace your consumption of calories!BONUS LAW: You can ignore one of these, but not more than two. Great companies innovate, but pick your battles!If you are interested in learning more about the Bessemer 10 Laws of SaaS, you can listen to the webminar we did earlier this week with Salesforce by clicking on the picture below:You can also download the full white paper on the SaaS section of the Bessemer website or browse quickly through the slides on slidehsare [...]
Hard times... [Cracking-the-code] 2008-10-27T09:34:33-07:00 Lehman Bank employees stage a protest by blockading the entrance to the Bank's Headquarters(image) (image)
Congratulations Like.com [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-10-23T11:11:37-07:00 Congratulations Munjal and the rest of the like.com team on the fundraising! It is just one more testament to the fantastic product you are building. As an angel investor, it is a great pleasure to see the team grow, mature and become that great business that it deserves to be. What a wonderful ride to be a part of.Congratulations Munjal and the rest of the like.com team on the fundraising! It is just one more testament to the fantastic product you are building. As an angel investor, it is a great pleasure to see the team grow, mature and become that great business that it deserves to be. What a wonderful ride to be a part of. (image)
Like.com Raises $32M Series C [Venture Explorer] 2008-10-22T11:16:58-07:00 TechCrunch reports on portfolio company Like.com's recent funding. Munjal's timing was exquisite and the company is now very well-positioned to not just survive, but thrive, in a tough climate.TechCrunch reports on portfolio company Like.com's recent funding. Munjal's timing was exquisite and the company is now very well-positioned to not just survive, but thrive, in a tough climate.
Macbook Environmental Report [Salman's blog] 2008-10-15T14:52:58-07:00 Kudos to Apple for putting out an environmental report on their new Macbooks (via earth2tech).Of course, I will have to point out that Apple estimates its embodied emissions (ie emissions from production and transport) to be 60% of the total lifecycle emissions of the product, versus 39% for customer use. Not to repeat myself too often, but why is it every one seems to be focusing on the 39% portion? (image)
Hamon Washoku Opens Today in San Carlos [Consuming Ambitions] 2008-10-15T13:00:15-07:00 Last Saturday my friend Bobby treated me and some friends to a sneak preview 7-course meal at his sleek new Japanese restaurant, Hamon Washoku (note, web site still under construction at press time) which opens today. Replacing the French crepes-n-coffee...
Next, We Drink Coffee [Permanent Record]robhayesCoffee 2008-10-15T05:47:37-07:00 As you might imagine, the conversation du jour in VC and entrepreneur circles is around the current market gyrations, the Sequoia conclave (and kudos to those guys for kicking off this conversation), the subsequent very smart opinions from VCs and entrepreneurs alike, and what happens next. My opinion on what happens next? Hell, I don’t [...] As you might imagine, the conversation du jour in VC and entrepreneur circles is around the current market gyrations, the Sequoia conclave (and kudos to those guys for kicking off this conversation), the subsequent very smart opinions from VCs and entrepreneurs alike, and what happens next. My opinion on what happens next? Hell, I don’t know. And in many ways, I don’t really care. If you focus on what you control, you shouldn’t either. Listen, it’s not like we’ve just been through a time where the IPO cup runneth over. We’ve seen nothing but bad news about exits for the last year and it’s clearly not going to get much better next year. And, yes, it is likely going to be more difficult to get funding this week than it was two weeks ago. I have, however, seen a lot of great entrepreneurs build great companies over the last four years; companies they started in very dark days. The majority of them have not seen liquidity and now they probably have at least another 1-2 years before the liquidity window opens up again. But they are psyched about their businesses and they are prepared to leverage the probable downturn to best position themselves for when we come out of this. Over the next 12-18 months is again going to be a great time to start a company. If you are thinking of starting one, read the deliciously vulgar and beautiful post by Dave McClure. He says it better than I could. If after reading that post you want to start a company even more, or you aren’t sure, or you just want a free cuppa joe, come talk to us. Kent and I will be holding Office Hours at University Café on Tuesday from 11-1, coffee is on us. [...]
Stock Market Got You Down? Here's What $8.06 Buys at Fisher Farm [Consuming Ambitions] 2008-10-12T22:35:38-07:00 In the midst of the current economic meltdown comes a welcome recession buster from Doug Klein, CEO of LightPole and earnest foodie. He recently visited Fisher Farm and wrote in to describe his exploits: I stopped by Fisher on the...
Quote of The Day [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-10-09T14:08:29-07:00 "Apparently the Nigerian government has warned its citizens that if they get any e-mails from Irish/UK/US banks, promising government-backed deposit security and seeking bank account details, its a scam...""Apparently the Nigerian government has warned its citizens that if they get any
Portfolio Company Politics [Nothing ventured, nothing gained] 2008-10-01T19:01:08-07:00 I got nervous today when I heard one of my consumer internet portfolio companies had posted a political advertisement on YouTube. It seemed obvious to me that any consumer company is likely to alienate half of its customer base by making a political statement. No matter how well-executed the ad, it is guaranteed to hurt business as much as it helps.It appears that I may have jumped too quickly to(image)
Geography [Permanent Record]robhayesEnvs_00011_medium_3 2008-09-29T19:31:09-07:00 I love living and working in the Bay Area for many reasons…the weather, the people, the landscapes, the startups. It’s the best place in the world to be a venture capitalist. However, there are points in the venture-funded economic cycle where it pays to spend time out of the area and I have seen enough [...]I love living and working in the Bay Area for many reasons…the weather, the people, the landscapes, the startups. It’s the best place in the world to be a venture capitalist. However, there are points in the venture-funded economic cycle where it pays to spend time out of the area and I have seen enough local FNACs ("feature not a company") lately to know that now is one of those times. As such I have been spending time in Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle and they are all great places. But this cycle is the first that I have spent a signficant amount of time in Boulder. I joined the board of Yieldex a year ago and started traveling there regularly experiencing both the rocking summers and the cold, but lovely, winters. We recently made an investment in Gnip which means I get to spend even more time in Boulder. If you haven’t been, you should. It is an outdoor paradise with extreme skiing, hellacious whitewater rafting, and righteous venture capitalists. Indeed, if I were starting out in a career, Boulder would be one of the places I would be seriously considering as a landing place. The good folks of the tech community in Boulder are interested in seeing more people make their careers in Boulder and as such have created a brilliant event that you should be applying for. An all-expenses paid trip to Boulder where you interview with a bunch of companies and in return they wine and dine you and maybe even give you a job offer. What do you have to lose? [...]
Money fears [Nothing ventured, nothing gained] 2008-09-29T14:42:10-07:00 Doesn't this new version of the dollar bill do a perfect job capturing the essence of the Treasury Department's current state of mind?(image)
A Must-Read Blog for Entrepreneurs [Venture Explorer] 2008-09-29T14:32:35-07:00 My friend Eric Ries, co-founder/CTO of IMVU, has a great blog that's a must-read for entrepreneurs: here's the feedburner link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/startup/lessons/learned Subscribe now! This will save you time, money, headaches and ulcers ...My friend Eric Ries, co-founder/CTO of IMVU, has a great blog that's a must-read for entrepreneurs: here's the feedburner link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/startup/lessons/learned Subscribe now! This will save you time, money, headaches and ulcers ...
An Interesting Counter Argument - Why Paulson is Wrong [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-09-26T16:06:27-07:00 http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/Why_Paulson_is_wrong.pdf Here is the first paragraph as a teaser Why Paulson is Wrong Luigi Zingales Robert C. Mc Cormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance University of Chicago -GSB When a profitable company is hit by a very large liability, as was the case in 1985 when Texaco lost a $12 billion court case against Pennzoil, the solution is not to have the government buy its assets at inflated prices: the solution is Chapter 11. In Chapter 11, companies with a solid underlying business generally swap debt for equity: the old equity holders are wiped out and the old debt claims are transformed into equity claims in the new entity which continues operating with a new capital structure. Alternatively, the debtholders can agree to cut down the face value of debt, in exchange for some warrants. Even before Chapter 11, these procedures were the solutions adopted to deal with the large railroad bankruptcies at the turn of the twentieth century. So why is this wellestablished approach not used to solve the financial sectors current problems? The rest is herehttp://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/luigi.zingales/Why_Paulson_is_wrong.pdfHere is the first paragraph as a teaser Why Paulson is Wrong Luigi Zingales Robert C. Mc Cormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance University of Chicago -GSB When a profitable company is hit by a very large liability, as was the case in 1985 when Texaco lost a $12 billion court case against Pennzoil, the solution is not to have the government buy its assets at inflated prices: the solution is Chapter 11. In Chapter 11, companies with a solid underlying business generally swap debt for equity: the old equity holders are wiped out and the old debt claims are transformed into equity claims in the new entity which continues operating with a new capital structure. Alternatively, the debtholders can agree to cut down the face value of debt, in exchange for some warrants. Even before Chapter 11, these procedures were the solutions adopted to deal with the large railroad bankruptcies at the turn of the twentieth century. So why is this wellestablished approach not used to solve the financial sectors current problems?The rest is here [...]
Venture Capital into Ad technology reaches $580mn in 2008 [The coffee shops of Mayfair] 2008-09-25T07:00:00-07:00 I have got some research done for a speech at today's Ad:Tech conference to look at Global Investment into the online ad / technolgogy Category: I knew it was large but not trending to one billion dollars a year! What's...
Kindo ties the knot with MyHeritage [localglobe] 2008-09-22T16:51:34-07:00 Congratulations to Nils, Gareth and Andrew and the rest of the Kindo team. They have just announced that they are tying up with MyHeritage. See coverage on Washington Post via Techcrunch, VentureBeat and PaidContent.Over the last year the team has built a simple product which is a pleasure to use in over 14 languages -- all the while building a really nice tone of voice, perfect for the family market. Combining this savvy with MyHeritage's scale and smart technology for photos and family history promises something to look forward to for consumers.Related articles by ZemantaMyHeritage raises $15 million from Index and AccelKindo Finds a New HomeFamily Tree Wars Continue: MyHeritage Raises Big Round, Shows Impressive GrowthFamily Tree Site MyHeritage Gets $15 Million Second RoundNils is getting famous in SwedenKindo's day in the sun [...]
Last Day of Seedcamp Week 2008 [localglobe] 2008-09-22T16:04:59-07:00 (object) (embed)Seedcamp Day 5 Highlights from Seedcamp(image)
Oh my Goldman [Nothing ventured, nothing gained] 2008-09-18T17:40:16-07:00 I got a first-hand sense of how badly Goldman Sachs felt the pressure of the crumbling financial markets this morning. At the start of a private company's board meeting I was attending, a director received a call on his cell phone. One member of the board had not yet arrived, so the director answered the call in case it was the missing attendee. He dispatched with the caller after about a (image)
Super excited about Seedcamp [localglobe] 2008-09-14T05:29:29-07:00 It seems like last week that we were finalizing preparations for Seedcamp 07 and announcing last year's winners, now we're just 72 hours away from Seedcamp 08. I am really excited.A lot has happened since last September and we have came an incalculable distance from the original sketch of an idea last February. Without doubt the most important thing is the impact that Reshma has had, since coming on board as CEO. She has created a super-slick organization that has taken us on the road and put on fantastic Mini Seedcamps in Paris, Berlin, Kiev and London and spread the word across Europe in places as diverse as Warsaw, Stockholm, Edinburgh, Tel Aviv and Zagreb.We always wanted Seedcamp to be much more than a once year event and with the development of Mini Seedcamps, Reshma has driven the brand across Europe - deepening relationships with advisors, investors and most importantly founders. We have found great talent and passion for building companies wherever we go and the result is that Seedcamp is now a much richer platform for supporting entrepreneurs both locally and across the region. In one year this is no mean feat, so hats off to the team and look out for more developments next year.All of this effort has led to a really exciting line up for this year's Seedcamp Week, which starts next Monday Sept 15th.We have a great set of teams from across the globe - including Austria, Poland, Finland, Romania, Ukraine, France, Germany, Slovenia, US, India and Sweden. Happily we also have some teams from the UK, but not just from London - from Wales as well. The diversity is fantastic and shows how wide the talent pool really is in Europe and that killer teams can come from anywhere nowadays - although Zemanta, taught us that lesson last year by putting Slovenia on the Internet map.But to me, the coolest thing about Seedcamp is how generous and engaged the community of advisors and investors have been throughout the year. We don't have the built-in network and easy informality of the Valley in Europe and one of the key motivators for Seedcamp (and OpenCoffee) was to help kick start this process.People like Fred Destin in Paris, Oliver Beste in Berlin, Alex Hoye in general and the rest of the Seedcamp Board, Advisory Panel & Judges have all been incredibly generous with their time, energy and networks to support the emergence of an ecosystem. The resulting line up of panelists and advisors (many of them are repeat offenders from last year!) is awe-inspiring for any first-time entrepreneur looking to get feedback, guidance and support within Europe.The 23 Seedcamp teams coming to London next week will be bringing along 53 founders and those founders will be able to spend next week intensively hearing from and having one-one mentoring sessions with over 220 advisors including serial entrepreneurs, hackers, investors, product designers, marketeers and lawyers. As one of the advisors said when they saw t[...]
Imagini partners with Hotels.com [localglobe] 2008-09-11T14:24:38-07:00 Imagini, a relatively early TAG investment which now includes Atomico and Northzone as investors, has always been at the cutting edge of developing really creative and useful applications of its VisualDNA technology. Even from its earliest days, people seemed to have always loved the metaphor of using your response to certain images to help you discover the people and things you might like.The core offering is now wrapped in a service called Youniverse which builds on the original idea of people finding people based on their VisualDNA, but has also now added apps for travel, health, movies and dating as well as working on specific applications with brands like MyDeco and Pepsi.The newest application with Hotels.com is a really great application of the technology - selecting some images which map to your ideal travel experiences leads you to a filtered list of hotels which would suit your taste and mood. Very cool stuff. Give it a try.Related articles by ZemantaYouniverse Matches Lovers Based on Picture QuizzesYouniverse Sort of Launches a Dating SiteMake Your Holiday Wish List with Imagini's GiftFinder [...]
Hadron Collider Starts in Half an Hour... [From Istanbul To Sand Hill Road] 2008-09-09T23:02:19-07:00 Here is the video that says it allHere is the video that says it all (object) (embed)
Because "Bad, Dirty, and Unjust" Somehow Isn't Appealing [Consuming Ambitions] 2008-08-29T17:04:40-07:00 This weekend Slow Food hits Baghdad by the Bay. With a slogan of "Good, clean, and fair," the international movement started in 1989 launches perhaps its finest moment to date with a shindig billed as the largest celebration of American...
Those Who Live by the Sword ... [Venture Explorer] 2008-07-30T09:02:30-07:00 Cuil, a much-hyped search engine, launched yesterday. The blogosphere, after eager anticipation, has not been kind to Cuil. Web 2.0 is all about throwing things out there and seeing what works, but if you're going to drum up hype, you...Cuil, a much-hyped search engine, launched yesterday. The blogosphere, after eager anticipation, has not been kind to Cuil. Web 2.0 is all about throwing things out there and seeing what works, but if you're going to drum up hype, you have to feed the hype monster tasty morsels. The reaction from bloggers and commenters seems all the more vitriolic for having been promised foie gras and fobbed off with crackers instead. At the risk of seeming to jump on the bandwagon of Cuil-bashers, I must confess that Cuil didn't do a great job finding me on the web either: the search results for "Vineet Buch" seemed of tertiary interest and didn't discover my professional page (that I am a Partner at BlueRun Ventures), or my LinkedIn or Facebook profiles.
Is Google's Dominance of Search Self-perpetuating? [Venture Explorer] 2008-07-29T14:12:53-07:00 Mashable's Stan Schroeder expounds an interesting theory: that Google's current (and expanding) dominance in web search, at least in the English-speaking world, has trained websites to do all they can to show up high on Google - to such an...Mashable's Stan Schroeder expounds an interesting theory: that Google's current (and expanding) dominance in web search, at least in the English-speaking world, has trained websites to do all they can to show up high on Google - to such an extent that no upstart search engine can hope to do better than Google for broad horizontal search. Stan's review of recently launched, well-funded search startup Cuil, as also the TechCrunch review, are lukewarm at best and support Stan's thesis - but this thesis assumes that Google has the best possible knowledge of a user's intentions, and since websites will compete to match Google's algorithm that expresses that intention in a query, Google is by default the winner in any search competition. The flaw in this argument is that Google has very little information about a user's intention - indeed, Google doesn't even seem to use all the information it could have about the user, because of privacy and latency considerations (for instance, I doubt if Google looks up my interests in my Facebook profile when I search as a logged-in Google user, to discover that by typing the search term "kayak" I probably mean a watercraft and not a travel search engine). Google is constantly refining its approaches to divining intention, of course ... and the masses of data generated by user searches help it get better every day. But web search is far from perfect today, and it stands to reason that Google's own momentum - and success - will lock it into the innovator's dilemma of doing little more than tweaking its existing algorithms. And some enterprising startup will bring a refreshing new take to searching the web. Wonder what it could be?
Is the Online Display Ad Market Being Overhyped? [Venture Explorer] 2008-07-29T13:22:05-07:00 Back in April, I'd written about the really slow movement of brand ad dollars online. Advertising Age just ran an article diving into some of the points I'd raised, and they're worth exploring again. There are a few choice quotes...Back in April, I'd written about the really slow movement of brand ad dollars online. Advertising Age just ran an article diving into some of the points I'd raised, and they're worth exploring again. There are a few choice quotes from Ad Age that I felt compelled to mention here:
The CAT is out of the bag [Salman's blog] 2008-07-27T09:33:44-07:00 I’ve been toying with the idea of a Value Added Tax on embodied carbon, and I’ve been meaning to put some thoughts in writing. So I came up with what I thought was the brilliantly original acronym: CAT for a “Carbon Added Tax”.Then I did a search, and found that Nobel-laureate Joe Stiglitz recently proposed the same idea: "A carbon added tax (CAT), levied at each stage of production, would have some of the same advantages that a value added consumption tax has. Each producer would have to show receipts for the carbon tax paid on inputs into its production. The taxes levied at each stage of production would be passed on to consumers. It is as if the tax were imposed on consumers… A carbon value added tax will both discourage production in more carbon intensive ways and discourage the consumption of carbon intensive goods."His proposal pretty much sums up my thought process… But perhaps even more interesting is that some one called Ewan O'Leary, registered the URLs for carbonaddedtax.com and .org last February. Now that is some real forward thinking!!! ;-)
OUR personal data on the web [Salman's blog] 2008-07-17T04:07:29-07:00 Our data is born free, but everywhere it is in chains.We need a new "Social Data Contract" for the web.
The 11 Best Foods You May Not Be Eating [Consuming Ambitions] 2008-07-16T23:20:41-07:00 Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times did a piece recently boldly titled The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating -- a bit presumptuous in that anybody who is at least somewhat health conscious is heeding the frequently heard advice...
Letters to Economist Editors [Salman's blog] 2008-07-11T13:25:32-07:00 I read the Economist religiously - or rather I partly skim and partly read the Economist religiously every week. So it was nice that they published a letter I wrote them. (Of course, it relates to Embodied Emissions.)What was surprising is how much they edited the letter. At first, I was taken aback: after all, they had lost the nuance of some of my points. On reflection though, it is quite amazing and flattering that they would take the time and effort to completely re-write such letters to drive home the point they think is worth publishing.In any case, here is the original letter I sent:Dear Sir,Your article entitled “Emissions Suspicions” (June 19 2008) ignores the principle of “consumer-responsibility” - that consumers can be responsible for the carbon embodied in the goods they consume. If our society decides to proactively reduce its total carbon emissions, it makes little sense to just focus on the carbon being emitted (or “produced”) directly in our society. For example, a study by Oxford’s Dieter Helm showed that while “UK greenhouse gas [emitted directly in the UK has] fallen by 15% since 1990…on a consumption basis, the illustrative outcome is a rise in emissions of 19% over the same period… Trade may have displaced the UK’s greenhouse gas appetite elsewhere.” Whether this displacement was caused by carbon regulations or other factors is less relevant - What matters is the total amount of carbon that was emitted to produce the goods and services consumed in the UK.As such, a “carbon tariff” on embodied carbon should not be compared to traditional “import taxes”. The correct analogy is a “Sales tax”. Today, governments tax goods and services both at the point of production (via corporate taxes) and consumption (via VATs or other sales tax). But emissions regulations to-date have been aimed solely at the “production” of green house gases. It is the principle of reducing carbon “consumption” that matters more than the economic implications of leakage (which is the focus of your article.)But is this principle practicable? Your article also claims that assessing embodied emissions is an “impossibly complicated task.” But much work has been done in this area, specifically by UK based “Carbon Trust” (with the BSI and DEFRA) to create standards and make the process simpler, fair and practical. It would have been more appropriate to reference (if not, assess) these efforts in your article, rather than to dismiss them out of hand, as impossible.Regards,Salman Farmanfarmaianhttp://salmanff.blogspot.com/Geneva, SwitzerlandAnd here is how it was reprinted:Green consumer-taxes[...]
Marten Mickos of MySQL on building Open Source Software businesses [Venture Explorer] 2008-07-07T17:28:08-07:00 I had the privilege of attending an informal presentation by Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL, last week at SAP Labs. Marten was his usual candid self, and spoke frankly about the challenges of making money in Open Source, why MySQL...I had the privilege of attending an informal presentation by Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL, last week at SAP Labs. Marten was his usual candid self, and spoke frankly about the challenges of making money in Open Source, why MySQL sold to Sun and the ups and downs after the acquisition closed. Key takeaways:
Beer Brewing FAQ [Consuming Ambitions] 2008-07-01T11:16:23-07:00 Okay, last time we did wine, so now it's time to give beer some air time. I am fortunate to work with a bona fide beermeister, and by that I do not mean somebody with Animal House style binge tendencies,...
Miyowa lève 8 millions de dollars pour son second tour de table [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-07-01T03:34:34-07:00 Moins de deux ans après sa première levée de fonds, l’éditeur de messagerie instantanée mobile clôture un deuxième tour de table. Objectif : lancer un nouveau produit et se développer outre-Atlantique. Après une première levée de fonds de 3 millions d’euros réalisée en septembre 2006 auprès des fonds de capital-risque Techfund et Sophia Eurolab, Miyowa [...](image)
The Polluter is the Consumer [Salman's blog] 2008-06-24T01:58:22-07:00 Here is another high level analysis of embodied carbon in imports by Oxford’s Dieter Helm (et al). It looks at the UK’s carbon emissions from the “consumption point of view.” The paper notes that using conventional producer-based carbon accounting-methods,“UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 15% since 1990. In contrast, on a consumption basis, the illustrative outcome is a rise in emissions of 19% over the same period. This is a dramatic reversal of fortune… It suggests that the decline in greenhouse gas emissions from the UK economy may have been to a considerable degree an illusion. Trade may have displaced the UK’s greenhouse gas appetite elsewhere.”The same paper has a well-articulated overview of the “consumer vs producer” paradigm:“Both these [currently used] methodologies are based on the location of the production of greenhousegases. This, however, is a somewhat misleading and partial basis for policy purposes. For a country could have a very low production of greenhouse gases, but at the same time have a high consumption level. It could produce low-GHG-intensity goods, but import and consume high-GHG-intensity goods. Thus, a developed country might cease to produce steel, aluminium, glass and chemicals domestically, but import the manufactured goods from abroad. In the UK’s case, the shift of production in such activities to China, India and other developing countries in the last two decades suggests that this effect may be considerable… China might argue that, although it produces high emissions, these are on behalf of consumers in developed countries, and therefore the consumers should pay for the relevant reductions. In this way, the polluter is not the producer, but rather the consumer.”Also, the paper finds that “by 2006, the trade deficit in greenhouse gases [in the UK] was 341 MtCO2e, around 50% of domestic UK greenhouse gas emissions.” Another data point in understanding our total carbon footprint.____________________________Notes:Thanks to David McKay’s blog for pointing me to the above paper.Also - Bold emphasis above added.[...]
Muxtape 2.0 [Dav-generated Content] 2008-06-12T20:13:00-07:00 I made another one http://davduf2.muxtape.com/In other news, I'm leaving Desjardins Venture Capital next week to join the JLA Ventures team as an associate. More on this - and an overhaul of this blog, including, hopefully, actual blogging - very soon. Also, in the last few days I have lost my spot as the #1 Tungle Space creator and intend to win it back. That is, unless I follow Rick's advice and get a Mac laptop and then have to wait for Tungle's complete Mac and Google integration. But, right now sitting here, I'm having Voodoo Envy envy.
Entrepreneurial “procrastination” – easy to be a victim [Sid Mohasseb] 2008-06-02T19:29:14-07:00 The first proof of the preacher himself committing the sin is my inability to do a Blog in recent weeks – shame on me for procrastinating!Now back to preaching… Procrastinating on getting to revenue equals sudden death. Recently an entrepreneur passionately indicated that they have potential customers that are willing to buy their product NOW, but they are holding back until they raise more capital! because they are concerned about the growth and how they can control it; they have seen this before as they claimed. Upon further investigation, it became clear that the product works, there are no technical reasons for delay, and that the customer is actually willing to pay a portion of the fees in advance; which can support staffing and internal expenses. This conversation has bothered me to the point of motivating me to write a post (thank god for the motivation!). So, I would like to remind some of my entrepreneur friends of the following key facts of entrepreneurship: 1. Avoiding a potential mistake, may be as bad as making a new mistake 2. A business is built on revenues not raised capital 3. The more of the company you keep the better off you are! 4. Before you control growth you should experience it 5. Risk is a part of life. 6. Fear of failure is as BAD as if not worst than fear of success 7. There is a thing called “competition” , while you ponder they are executing!(image)
Fred Wilson on how he made it as a VC [Venture Explorer] 2008-06-02T16:28:35-07:00 Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures just wrote a very informative and articulate post on how he made it as a VC. Here's what Fred thinks you should do (as opposed to what he did): The way you do that...Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures just wrote a very informative and articulate post on how he made it as a VC. Here's what Fred thinks you should do (as opposed to what he did):The way you do that is you work for at least ten years in the industry, getting operating experience, building a killer rolodex, and learning how the business works from the inside. Then in your mid to late 30s, you can make the move to the venture capital business, as a partner, not as a wet behind the ears associate who doesn't know anything other than how to push numbers around a spreadsheet.A number of VC firms do, in fact, hire precisely based on this profile. If you're not prepared to take such a circuitous path, here's a post I wrote a while back on finding a job in venture capital.
Judging at Under The Radar Social Media and Entertainment Summit [Venture Explorer] 2008-05-27T13:05:18-07:00 I'll be a judge at the Games track at the Under The Radar Social Media and Entertainment Summit June 3rd in Mountain View. Good mix of companies and I'm looking forward to it!I'll be a judge at the Games track at the Under The Radar Social Media and Entertainment Summit June 3rd in Mountain View. Good mix of companies and I'm looking forward to it!
Churchill Club 2008 Top 10 Tech Trends [Cracking-the-code] 2008-05-15T17:56:26-07:00 I attended yesterday the 10th Annual Top Ten Tech Trends organized by the Churchill Club at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. This year, the panel included Steve Jurveston from DFJ, Vinod Khosla from Khosla Ventures, Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital, Roger McNamee from Elevation Partners and Joe Schoendorf from Accel. The panel was moderated by Tony Perkins, the Editor-in-chief of AlwaysOn. Unfortunately, John Doeer was not in the panel this year, but Tony said he could not believe anymore in John's forecasts after his support of Hillary's presidential campaign...The top 10 trends this year were around the emergence of mobile platforms (thanks Apple for the iPhone!), the rise of CleanTech, and the next wave of web applications and services, with a hint to the potential of the baby boomers. It was a bit unfortunate though that 4 of the 10 trends focused on mobile computing and were somehow very close (one would say that all great minds converge, but the session had an air of "deja vu" each time a new mobile trend was unveiled. So without further dues, here is the list:1) Demographics are destiny creating opportunity (Steve)Every 11 seconds a baby boomer turns 60 and they already represent a market of 75 million people today. Steve believes these baby boomers will become a large market of internet savvy people up for grab. One specific example: mental exercise is bound to become widespread as people spend 1/3 of their live in retirement Audience: 70 percent voted “Yes”2) The device that used to be a phone will turn into a mainstream computer (Vinod)Vinod predicted that soon cell phones will have a projector inside to project the screen anywhere and turn a small square into a decent size visual interface. His time horizon: 2 year. The main obstacle highlighted by Roger against this trend was the quality of the wireless infrastructure in the US. Audience: 40 percent voted “Yes” (while people believed overall in the emergence of the platform, the projector example did not resonate well - may be because the audience was not composed mostly of baby boomers)3) The rise of the implicit internet (Josh)This one deserves a bit of explanation. The idea is that all your personal data captured when you browse and transact on the web today is held in silos (Amazon, Netflix, Google...) but we have reached the inflection point when these silos will get connected. The next wave of internet wi[...]
The Landscape of Cloud Computing [Venture Explorer] 2008-05-13T20:17:29-07:00 It's pretty well known that Amazon Web Services' EC2 and S3 initiatives have taken off and are gaining users not just in startup land but in Corporate America as well. Amazon provides a compute and storage cloud, and the rush...It's pretty well known that Amazon Web Services' EC2 and S3 initiatives have taken off and are gaining users not just in startup land but in Corporate America as well. Amazon provides a compute and storage cloud, and the rush of companies big (e.g., Google) and small (e.g., Nirvanix) beginning to compete with Amazon in providing clouds has spawned a term and a movement - Cloud Computing. I've been involved with precursors to cloud computing (Utility Computing, Grid Computing, Application Service Providers - ASPs) from my days at Corio, an early ASP acquired by IBM in 2005. In fact, back in graduate school at Cornell, I did research on assembling commodity hardware into compute grids. Small wonder, then, that Cloud Computing is an area I'm looking at quite actively for potential investments. Peter Laird has a great blog post that defines the landscape of Cloud Computing; I encourage anybody interested in the space to read Peter's post. And Peter's cheat-sheet on the players is invaluable if you want to appear well-informed :-)
Transportation and Carbon-Conscious Consumers [Salman's blog] 2008-05-03T14:14:09-07:00 As a sector, transportation is certainly a significant source of carbon emissions. But perhaps because it is so visible, or even tactile, transportation gets a lot of attention, and people tend to overstate its role in embodied emissions. Some recent NY Times articles make references to some related data which are worth quoting:From the Green Issue of the Magazine: “It is the locavore’s dilemma that organic bananas delivered by a fuel-efficient boat may be responsible for less energy use than highly fertilized, nonorganic potatoes trucked from a hundred miles away. Even locally grown, organic greenhouse tomatoes can consume 20 percent more resources than a tomato from a far-off warm climate, because of all the energy needed to run the greenhouse.”The same issue also quoted the famous New Zealand studies, though in a somewhat skeptical tone: “A handful of studies have recently suggested that in certain cases under certain conditions, produce from places as far away as New Zealand might account for less carbon than comparable domestic products.”Also, when Timberland studied the embodied emissions of its shoes, “the company was surprised to find that transportation may account for less than 5 percent of its greenhouse-gas emissions — while almost 80 percent may come from making the leather, a process buried deep in its supply chain.” (Note however that Timberland seems to have overestimated the emissions related to the leather.)The above study is consistent with Weber and Matthews’ study on the embodied emissions of imports into the United States, which suggests that “CO2 emissions due to international freight transport are unlikely to increase the totals [of embodied emissions in imports] by more than 10%.”In an article on the environmental impact of groceries, it was calculated that a bottle of European wine drunk in New York has 1.4kg of embodied CO2, while a Napa bottle would have 2.5kg. Ironically, in this case, the major difference does lie in transportation, since Napa wine is trucked to New York, while French wine is shipped, thus consuming far less carbon per mile shipped.So much for drinking local (or at least national.)Finally, a hopeful note in today’s article on transportation’s direct carbon footprint. “A paper presented by Travelport at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January… stated th[...]
Discounted admission to UTR Social Media and Entertainment [Venture Explorer] 2008-05-01T09:27:02-07:00 Dealmaker Media is offering readers $100 off the Under the Radar Social Media and Entertainment event on June 3rd in Mountain View, CA. Click here or on the image below to register with the discount. Here's the conference description (I'm...Dealmaker Media is offering readers $100 off the Under the Radar Social Media and Entertainment event on June 3rd in Mountain View, CA. Click here or on the image below to register with the discount.Here's the conference description (I'm a judge, btw): Under the Radar: Social Media and EntertainmentJune 3, 2008 | 8:00am – 6:00pm Microsoft Campus | Mountain View, CA If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. No longer is big media trying to compete with the content companies that were stealing the show - instead, they're offering them a premium channel. From YouTube to Bebo and MySpace to Club Penguin, every media mogul, Hollywood tycoon and Silicon Valley innovator wants a piece of this pie. But even Toto knows we're not in Kansas anymore - technology has changed, business models and ad metrics are being reinvented, and the pressure to turn millions of eyeballs into billions of cash is on. Blink once and they just might get side-swiped by a startup with a better product, a smarter model and, even worse, nothing to lose.Under the Radar will uncover 32 startups in the entertainment and social media space that have launched within the year. Covering social networks, advertising, casual gaming, virtual worlds, measurement tools, video, commerce, publishing and more, Under the Radar is the only forum that empowers its audience to discover tomorrow’s leading tech companies. PRESENTERS: 33Across - Identifies influential online users Animoto - Create personalized, professional-quality videos from images and music, offering a new alternative to traditional online photo slideshows AudioMicro - Stock music and sound effects licensing platform Aviary -Suite of web-based applications for people who create and a marketplace to sell that content Dizzywood - A virtual world that allows kids to dress up 3D avatars, play games, explore worlds and meet new friends in a safe environment Comedy.com - aggregated comedy entertainment siteCrowdSPRING - crowdsourcing of creative talent.ffwd - Organized, multi-platform, video content delivered via a browser, wit[...]
Novaled AG is awarded Red Herring Europe 100 Winner 2008 and announces financial results for 2007 [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-04-21T05:47:29-07:00 Novaled, a major know how and service provider for highly efficient long lifetime OLEDs, announces today that the company is winner of Red Herring 100 Europe 2008, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies each year. At the same time Novaled releases the last year’s results proving the enterprises rapid growth.Red Herring’s [...](image)
Saul Griffith’s Carbon Footprints Part II – Some numbers [Salman's blog] 2008-04-20T13:03:33-07:00 Following my previous post, I thought to look at Saul’s energy usage / carbon footprint calculations by separating out his personal energy usage from his work related consumption.See the notes below on how I have separated the work from the personal energy usage. The chart below separates out the numbers into 4 categories, and speaks for itself. Almost half of Saul’s home energy usage comes from “Food and Stuff” which represents the embodied emissions of his consumer purchases. Of course, as Saul has pointed out, he has probably underestimated the energy usage associated with these categories.Again, people can dispute the difficulty of calculating the embodied emissions of “stuff”, but at almost 4 times the energy usage of his home heat and electricity, Saul’s calculations should at least, again, put the importance of embodied emissions in perspective.__________________________A few other notes:Like the truck driver in my previous post, Saul’s major source of carbon emissions relates to his travel for work. His total work related energy use should be compared to the value of his work, in revenues from his company or at least with the costs associated with the company. This figure should be compared to other businesses in the same sector.Energy usage of ‘stuff’ related to work would probably need to be more comprehensive, including things like capital goods (servers, furniture), services delivered to his workplace (fedex, as well as consumables (like pencils and paper and printer toner.)Here is the data:Some notes on separating work from home usage:Saul mentions that most of his air travel is for work, so I put in a “wild guess” number of 90% related to work. Inversely, I assumed 90% of his car usage was for personal (ie home) use.In stuff, I only allocated his laptop to work. As noted above, there are probably other work related goods that should be added to his work “stuff”The allocation of societal consumption is an interesting one. Here I have assumed it is half for work and half for home. After all, government exists to serve both individuals and to support businesses. Although the actual impact at ~3% in total is not very big, a more thoughtful method may still be needed here. For example, there could be an argument that[...]
VCs and Risk Aversion [Permanent Record]robhayesNailbiter 2008-04-15T18:02:00-07:00 Paul Graham writes another thought-provoking essay today on both why founders don’t sell early (or why they might) as well as castigates corporate development organizations and VCs for not being risk takers when it comes to valuing companies. I think he is mostly right, as usual, as do a bunch of other people. On venture [...] Paul Graham writes another thought-provoking essay today on both why founders don’t sell early (or why they might) as well as castigates corporate development organizations and VCs for not being risk takers when it comes to valuing companies. I think he is mostly right, as usual, as do a bunch of other people. On venture investors taking risk, I get asked at least once a week something to the effect of “Where exactly is the ‘venture’ in venture capital?” Frankly, I agree. I am often surprised at how many venture capitalists aren’t very “venturesome”. I think part of this is simply that venture capitalists have to put more money to work today. I cannot overemphasize how many entrepreneurs tell me that they really only need $1MM but are asking for $3MM-5MM because that is what they have been told investors want to invest. If I was a VC at a traditional firm and needed to invest $3MM I would be risk averse too. Say that I am buying minimum 20% of the company. That implies a $15MM post-money. For me to get my 10x return on just my initial investment, I need an exit of $150MM to make it work. It takes a darn good company to exit for $150MM these days (in fact, more than 75% of all M&A transactions in the last four years have occurred at prices lower than $150MM). If I have questions about the team, the market, the distribution strategy, the competition, or even if I have a bad consultation with my ouija board, I am going to pass on the deal. This is why I like seed investment and the First Round Capital model so much. Our initial investment is much smaller (our average initial investment is $500K) and the post-money valuations are correspondingly much smaller. Which means to get to our 10x takes a much smaller exit. And hey, if you want to take the company big, I love that too.&nb[...]
Saul Griffith’s Carbon Footprints Part I – More on Consumer vs Producer Responsibility [Salman's blog] 2008-04-15T14:36:32-07:00 “Power Consumption at work... This... brings up a very interesting point... where do you draw the lines in figuring out your own energy consumption? Does work energy go against you or the product of that work?”Saul Griffith’s excellent presentation gives a very thorough view of carbon foot-printing, and the particular question above is quite fundamental. I would argue that personal energy consumption should be treated separately from energy use for work. The energy use related to our work should show up embodied in the product of our work.A few examples could help illustrate why…Say I am truck driver that delivers apples ( ;-) ) to a local grocery store. It would not make sense to mix my personal energy consumption behavior with my job as a truck driver. Even if I lead a carbon neutral personal life, mixing my stellar home footprint and my work related emissions would give a distorted view of the choices I can make – ie the factors which are under my control, in my personal life.Now let’s imagine the exact opposite case. Let’s say you are a small business owner, doing most of your work from the office using emails and phones. Again, you could be driving a hummer from home to work, and leave your oven on 24 hours a day, but if you mix your personal and work energy usage, you would still seem more eco-friendly than the me.Now, to drive the point home, imagine that you are my boss, and you are responsible for deciding the kind of truck I would drive. Clearly, the distortion created by mixing personal and professional energy use and footprints would make the exercise quite meaningless.This is not to say we shouldn’t worry about our work related energy use. All of us have some say in the energy consumption of our workplace. And we can make choices to affect it. But the energy consumption of my apple delivery business should be compared with the energy consumption of other apple delivery businesses, or delivery businesses in general. The result of our work, and the energy we consume to deliver it, would both be manifested in the product of our work – in this case, an apple. So it would also make sense to use metrics like CO2 emissions per apple delivered…Or, for practical purposes, so a[...]
Carbon Emissions in Developing Countries: Producer vs Consumer Responsibility [Salman's blog] 2008-04-06T11:02:18-07:00 “Developing countries, whose economies and populations are growing fastest, [will] contribute 74% of the increase in global primary energy use [until 2030]. China and India alone account for 45% of this increase.” World Energy Outlook 2007, IEA So three quarters of all new power production capacity will be in developing countries. Close to half of it in India and China. And according to the same report: “China, with four times as many people, overtakes the United States to become the world’s largest energy consumer soon after 2010. In 2005, US demand was more than one third larger.”And... “In the longer term, [in China,] demand slows as the economy matures, the structure of output shifts towards less energy-intensive activities and more energy-efficient technologies are introduced.”This last sentence is the most interesting. It sounds like the basic assumption of the report is that China will make a typical progression towards a more advanced economy: As the country becomes richer, not only will it care more about the environment and prioritize more energy efficient technologies, but the economy as a whole will become more service oriented, much like that of the US. Of course, this does not mean that the world will consume fewer goods. It just means that those goods will be produced in a new generation of up and coming developing nations – and those nations would account for the ~30% of the total increased energy use until 2030.One could imagine that, like China today, those countries will want to use the cheapest (and thus potentially the dirtiest) fuels. They might also argue that it would be unfair to impose environmental restrictions on them since they too have a right to grow their economies. Just as China points to Europe and America’s growth and how they were fueled by dirty coal, those countries may point to China along with Europe and America and make the same argument.And from their perspective, they would be right, just as China is “right” in its argument today.The problem is the paradigm upon which the argument relies. It is a “producer responsibility” paradigm of CO2 emissions, looking at em[...]
Muxtape [Dav-generated Content] 2008-04-04T07:04:00-07:00 Muxtapes are the new Scrabulous. So I made one. davduf.muxtape.comI love the minimalist, clean, easy, no frills interface. A breath of fresh air in these days of functions-overload, social-everything and ads-everywhere.
Reims Aviation acquiert la société Flying Robots [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-04-03T09:30:14-07:00 Reims, le 2 avril 2008 : Reims Aviation, leader européen de la surveillance aéroportée légère, annonce avoir signé un protocole d’accord pour l’acquisition de la société Flying Robots(image)
Venture Capital in Emerging Markets Conference, 9 - 10 June 2008, Istanbul, Turkey [Golden Horn Ventures] 2008-03-29T03:09:05-07:00 Golden Horn ventures is organizing a conference in Istanbul, Venture Capital in Emerging Markets. The goal is to bring together fund investors, venture capitalists from all over the world and entrepreneurs and discuss investment strategies, the right and wrong practices...
Novaled opens its first subsidiary in Asia [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-03-19T11:48:56-07:00 Novaled, a major OLED know how and service provider reinforces its presence in the Asian market by opening a Japan Branch office.Effective from 10th March 2008, Novaled set up a Branch Office in the Tokyo area. With this new opening, the company confirms its commitment to the OLED industry in Asia. The Novaled Branch office [...](image)
Le capital-risque « vert » prend son envol en France [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-03-12T14:39:07-07:00 Les technologies du développement durable « cleantech » s’affirment désormais comme l’une des priorités du capital-risque. Aux Etats-Unis, l’engouement pour le capital-risque vert a même provoqué en fin d’année dernière une mise en garde de l’association des investisseurs en capital, la NVCA, inquiète du risque d’une nouvelle bulle. La croissance est en effet très rapide [...](image)
One order a day... [Cracking-the-code] 2008-03-10T15:18:39-07:00 Interesting picture taken in a UK start-up! I love British humor...(image) (image)
L’avenir très prometteur des énergies vertes [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-03-08T13:22:34-08:00 Emission de France24 évoquant les Cleantech : alors que les industriels américains ont déjà réagi favorablement au secteur des énergies renouvelables, les entreprises européennes se mettent enfin au vert.(image)
Entrepreneurial support – The conversation series [Sid Mohasseb] 2008-03-02T18:13:28-08:00 So here is something new for interested entrepreneurs.Venture Farm Institute Web Conference YOU CHOOSE THE TOPIC & WE PAY FOR IT (IT'S FREE) First event : March 17,2008 8:30am-9:15 pst Pick Your Topic & Register The purpose of the series is to inform and enrich the entrepreneur to understand the Funding Process and focus on Business Execution. The Conversation series is also a complement to our workshop Series with Rapid Fire <learn more>, a 3hr Live Roundtable of providing early stage companies uncensored feedback, from the investor perspective, as well as a 2-Day Workshop on Effective Entrepreneurship <learn more>. How to participate?: This series is online. You need a computer with web access. What is on the Agenda: The selected topic will be discussed. A short Q&A for you and your guests is also scheduled. Who should participate in the webconference?: Any Entrepreneur who wants to build a great company...and yes that may include raising money! Hope to see you on line. (image)
Interview de Thierry Lepercq, président de Solaire Direct, sur LCI [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-02-27T11:26:39-08:00 Thierry Lepercq, président de Solaire Direct, est interviewé au sujet de la progression de 200% du marché de l’énergie solaire et photovoltaïque en France.(image)
Entrepreneurial lesson: Ingredients of a failed presentation [Sid Mohasseb] 2008-02-21T19:34:28-08:00 AND CLUES FOR A SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATION!In the past couple of weeks I have heard a few pitches and noticed some common ingredients. So in my humble opinion here is what did not work. 1- Selling features and product capabilities as opposed to a vision and a company. 2- Being in love with the idea and failing to see the need for a business model. 3- Getting lost in details and going on tangents. 4- Pretending to know it all. 5- Failing to demonstrate how investors can get a return on their investment. 6- Having a big salary for founders built into the projections. 7- Too much animation (distracting) and too small of fonts (can’t read). 8- Disagreeing partners 9- Asking for too much money or not enough to get to the next milestone - winging it. 10- Offering a pre-cooked deal – We have a private placement memorandum (PPM).(image)
Aromates: interview d’Antoine Weil, président d’Expway [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-02-20T11:48:32-08:00 (image)
Citilog announces MediaIntruder(TM), its intelligent incident detection software-based solution [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-02-15T09:34:13-08:00 Citilog, a world leading provider of intelligent real time video monitoring and surveillance solutions for traffic, transportation,security and safety management, today announced MediaIntruder(TM), its intelligent incident detection software-based solution, is now available in North America. MediaIntruder automatically detects in real time any indoor or outdoor intrusion activity using video streams from video surveillance cameras.It uses [...](image)
Après les Caisses d’Epargne, Solaire Direct signe un accord avec le Crédit Agricole [Techfund.Info]Gregoire 2008-02-11T11:59:37-08:00 Après la Caisse d’Epargne Provence-Alpes-Corse, l’énergéticien Solaire direct vient de signer un partenariat avec le Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence. Objectif : encourager professionnels, agriculteurs et propriétaires de maisons individuelles à installer des panneaux photovoltaïques chez eux grâce à la mise en place d’un prêt sur-mesure.Installer des panneaux solaires photovoltaïques sans que cela ne pèse sur [...](image)
Entrepreneurial Observation: yet another reason to be agile [Sid Mohasseb] 2008-02-08T17:51:08-08:00 Just came back from the Always On event in NY; over 600 people packed into a couple rooms on the 36th floor of a fancy hotel – I was reminded of the events and conferences during the late 90’s – lot’s of buzz, loads of optimism and discussions of the perfect storm!This time the typhoon (as Tim draper from DFJ calls it) is centered around the digital media and what it is doing with advertising models incumbent distribution channels, production time frames, schedule, etc. Lots of acquisitions, big number valuations, bigger venture investments, and all that Jazz ! just like it use to be in late 90’s. Not that I mind it. Although I do buy the argument that things have changed since the 90’s; including better business models, proven models of monetization, etc. but a typhoon is a typhoon and when it leaves it destroys! I am advising to all entrepreneurs that agility is now more critical than ever; execute fast, forget about perfection, build a business that can get to stability and sustainability and fast track to exits if you can. (image)
Commercial Interruption: ZERO TO ONE MILLION [Jon's Ventures] 2008-02-07T08:30:21-08:00 I'm not big on plugging products, etc, but I'm making an exception in the case of Ryan Allis and his new book, Zero To One Million.Ryan is CEO of iContact, one of my firm's portfolio companies. iContact is a high-performing company, and at just 23 years old Ryan is a high-performing guy. He's also an extremely genuine, altruistic young man who operates far beyond his years in both business and philanthropy. Zero To One Million is Ryan's effort at sharing what he learned while building iContact from the ground up, and given his deliberate, focused approach to success I highly recommend a read for entrepreneurs and for those that aspire to be such. You can find it on Amazon, among other places. [...]
Entrepreneurial Consideration: Managing the ripple affect [Sid Mohasseb] 2008-02-03T22:49:50-08:00 A non academic view of business change & improvementStating the sometimes forgotten obvious:A business is a living entity that embodies many functioning organs. It performs the best and is healthy when all the elements are working together in harmony. The physical components of this living organ includes sales, marketing, IT, logistics, accounting, etc. and its psychology is represented by the core values, cultures, and beliefs. A pain or a dis-functionality in any organ influences the effectiveness of the business entity as a whole – if you are ill mentally or physically you can not be fully productive.An illness maybe addressed by a better diet or some vitamins or a few pills a day for a few weeks (process improvement, overtime, incentives, etc.) or may need more drastic measures such as chemotherapy or surgery (re-organization, firings, new IT systems, a new business model, change of partners, etc.).Almost always, to cure an illness the prescribed actions have some side effects. A change in the sales force compensation plan, influences the accounting daily practices, may require new software, may increase returns and impact the resource needs at the warehouse. An improvement in the resource planning software impacts the practices at both payable and receivable ends, Promote the person who is not competent and deal with your good folks looking for another job, etc. etc. Sometimes we actually create the illness with our actions (cutting our hand with a knife or hiring the wrong person).Stating the not so obvious challenge:So BECAREFUL of what I call “THE RIPPLE EFFECT” – Make a decision about A and watch for the ripples impacting B. And every decision big or small has some ripples. So what should an entrepreneur do, not make a deci[...]
The Dirty Dozen Mistakes of a Startup Entrepreneur [Golden Horn Ventures] 2008-02-01T07:24:03-08:00 Entrepreneurship is hard. Tackling technical and business problems and building a business from the initial idea up, one step at a time is very difficult. Starting from the idea, technology entrepreneurs make certain mistakes that make their lives even more... Entrepreneurship is hard. Tackling technical and business problems and building a business from the initial idea up, one step at a time is very difficult. Starting from the idea, technology entrepreneurs make certain mistakes that make their lives even more difficult. These mistakes can be caused by the entrepreneur fixating on what she is comfortable with - people tend to stay in their comfort zones -, or misconceptions of what is valuable in business or maybe simply being a first time entrepreneur. As investors in early stage technology companies, we keep on seeing similar problems in different companies, which tells us that these are common mistakes, especially in emerging regions. Below is a list of these mistakes which we have seen and which might eventually cause a business to fail or or an opportunity to be missed. It isn't intended to be exhaustive but rather indicative. Some of the mistakes listed are common to the nature of the technology entrepreneur, but some are the results of the state of the sector in emerging countries. Mistake No 1: "We are a framework company and can do it all" The idea of a framework company sounds attractive. Especially, in this region entrepreneurs tend to collect their expertise into a "framework" with no product or application definition. Having a framework that works can be very advantageous. However, the downside is the entrepreneur's indecisiveness on selecting a focal application that will act as the showcas[...]
Never Stop Selling [Jon's Ventures] 2008-01-28T17:32:49-08:00 In an world where the means exist to engage customers (nearly) constantly, why is it that so few companies Never Stop Selling?Every successful On-Demand/Software as a Service (SaaS) business I've seen has a highly efficient sales process, measuring every move its components make and doing its best to expand the gap between Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). The best know that nothing is more inefficient than finding qualified leads...so it's critically important to give the opportunity to become a customer to anyone engaging with the company at any time, anywhere - on the web, in person, whatever. Naturally the web is one of the most efficient means of all, yet it remains grossly under-utilized by many as a means to convert a Browser into a Buyer.This shouldn't be limited to SaaS businesses, or those focused on consumers, by the way. There's no reason why, in any software company, be it targeted at the Enterprise or the SMB, that Marketing can't meld with Sales to become a massive lead generation engine. So say good-bye to old-school brochure web sites, and hello to a call to action on every page. "Click here to sign up for our weekly webinar", or "Go there to talk to someone now". If you bring customer support, online developer communities, and other aspects of the business into the game and incent them appropriately, you'll get results.And the engagements need not be obtrusive...simply give the customer, each and every time you touch them, the chance to say "Tell me more" or "Let me have one of those."I'm not breaking any ground here, just observing that something so easy is a lot less prevalent than you'd expect. [...]
A few thoughts on last night's Startup Camp [Dav-generated Content] 2008-01-24T06:23:00-08:00 Thanks to Embrase for organizing this. Great crowd. Lots of young entrepreneurs. Awesome. Not enough angels (unless they all kept very quiet and/or are wealthy at a surprisingly young age). Probably just the right number of VCs, although there's a bunch of early-stage investors I would've expected to see there and didn't. (Forget Réseau Capital for a while, guys... your next 10X deal was in the room last night).Format was a bit too strict and people couldn't keep from loudly networking during some of the presentations, which I think is natural and expected. Cool by me. Startups are chaotic, so I can't see why startup events shouldn't be.Sylvain Carle live-blogged Graham Hill's (TreeHugger dude) talk. Check it out, good simple, advice.I've seen two other good posts about last night:Mike LQuebec ValleyQuick thoughts on the presenters (check out their websites):Cozimo: Looks very promising, very user-friendly. Not sure how much value they add to what's out there already (not a space I know very well). If I were them I'd go after very specific market niches, tailor a solution for each of them and focus. If you're a startup and your addressable market is over 1 B $ at Day 1 there's usually a problem.Tungle: I'm totally biased, of course, but I believe these guys are going to be huge. (But 1st they have to LAUNCH, goddammit). One thing's for sure, Google and Mac support has to be early in the roadmap, since they seem to be the calendars of choice for a lot of the evangelists and early adopters out there.Streametrics: Makes a lot of sense. Not sure anyone really understood how it works (only through their own player ??! website doesn't really clarify this f[...]
Startup Camp Montreal [Dav-generated Content] 2008-01-21T12:03:00-08:00 Wow, this little "blog" of mine has been pretty quiet lately, eh ?I consider it worthy of reactivating this page that the 1st Startup Camp to be held in Montreal is happenening this Wednesday evening, at the SAT. Check out the wiki page. It's organized by a handfull of upstanding tech citizens and by the fine folks at Embrase. It'll be my 1st time at a ___camp event, so I'm excited. There are a very interesting things happening in the Montreal tech startup community right and I know a lot of the main actors of this general goodness are going to be there, as well as a lot of the people that can help make things happen. I'd like to point out that, as an event Guru (so they say...) I did not vote for my portfolio company... would've been tacky, no ?. Also, by now, I've heard the pitch numerous times and will only be satisfied once everyone I know uses the product. That said, they still got in. See you there...
Sales lessons – my souvenir from Mexico [Sid Mohasseb] 2008-01-17T22:42:42-08:00 During the holidays I had a chance to take a short vacation in Cancun Mexico. Upon arrival I quickly was forced to deal with various types of sales people with a diverse range of techniques. And as any good entrepreneur would (or should), I began to pay attention and learn.Imagine an endless row of stores all selling pretty much the same products, as a sales person how do you have a customer buy from you and not the guy next door? Now imagine you are selling a $20,000+ time share - and so are about a 100 other people in a 100 yard radius - and you have a few minutes while a tourist is walking by to open and no more than a few days to close. How do you do it?After observing a significant number of data points (and it is not difficult as you can … yes, imagine again), here is some key learning: Stay observant and you can build a relationship in under a minute - it pays. Quality is a perception and price is not as important as most sales people think.You must ask for the order.It is not about sales pipeline or funnels - it is about real transactions and exchange of payment. Don’t be afraid to negotiate.Every sale matters – it is a matter of eating that night.Dead lines are important in closing[...]
Things Get Ugly in the World of Wine E-Commerce. Very. [Consuming Ambitions] 2008-01-13T22:16:40-08:00 In the recent past, we've heard grumblings of frustration from management of leading wine e-commerce player Wine.com, over the fact that many wine shops and other merchants were skirting the byzantine laws which govern the distribution and shipment of alcoholic...
Follow-up discussion: more on channels for raising equity [Sid Mohasseb] 2007-12-09T18:21:29-08:00 In follow-up to the Podcast discussion Frank Peters, Dave Berkus and I had a couple of weeks ago (http://www.thefrankpetersshow.com/), a few entrepreneurs wanted to learn a little more about the various channels of raising equity and particularly the characteristics of each channel.Following is a 10,000 foot level, but focused discussion of the various equity sources:Friends & FamilyYour dad, uncle or a rich body – almost always non-strategic, almost always come with confused valuations and even more confuse structures that will be costly to clean-up later, and often the money raised gets to be wasted on experimentation. It is however, the easiest money to raise since they know you and trust you the most. Raising Friends and Family round generally does give the VC’s and the Angles the warm and fuzzy that at least your relatives and friends trust you.Angels (individuals & groups)An individual angles or group of angles that pull together to invest – generally invest as individuals or as an LLC. If you have the right angel or the right lead (if a group) to spearhead the process things go smooth, the right group or person can bring significant focus to the process, the wrong angels can introduce a confused direction, non-professional angels often offer less assistance than you expect or they originally may claim, professional angles go out of their way to help a good entrepreneur. Angles often do not make second round investments, if dealing with a group the process may take longer than you expect. Example: Tech Coast AngelsIncubatorsProvide a pla[...]
Entrepreneurial Case Study: A true failure story. [Sid Mohasseb] 2007-11-30T09:54:26-08:00 … and it happens everyday - different people and different businesses.A year and change ago, I was asked to make an investment in a venture – a couple of smart technologist with previous management experience creating a VOIP related company. I knew the entrepreneurs and was absolutely convinced that they are smart and dedicated. The business model, however, did not make sense to me and I did not invest.The company raised around $500K. A few months later, they are looking for money and are considering a change in the business model… and later, a new angel investor with another $500K or so has influenced the team to focus on an originally tangent mobile technology to create a novel consumer application.The new business model and technology was intriguing and reached for my check book! But before signing, met with the two founders and the recent addition to the team, a brilliant new CEO with big telecom and carrier experience.So, I met the team and my check book was quickly back in my pocket. The founders were showing early stages of the “founder disease” – we are in love with what we are building, we know exactly how it should work, if we only need money to scale the product and market it, the company is worth millions and WE will build it into a new giant. In short, I found the team non-coachable and looking only for a check book and not a partner. I also found the new hotshot CEO Was suffering from the “big company syndrome” -- very limited early stage experience; I did it at XYZ so I can do it here, we had a $100 [...]
Open Discussion on early stage funding options [Sid Mohasseb] 2007-11-29T14:05:14-08:00 Recently, Dave Berkus, Frank Peters and yours truly participated in a round table style podcast on the the Frank Petes Show -- click here to listen. http://www.thefrankpetersshow.com/You may find it interesting. Additionally, Graeme Thickins did a nice summary of the podcast on his blog at: http://graemethickins.typepad.com/graeme_blogs_here/2007/11/raising-startup.html(image)
For Those About to Carve [Consuming Ambitions] 2007-11-21T16:36:26-08:00 Just in the nick of time, my wife came through with a pointer to a very helpful article in the New York Times (registration required) describing an excellent turkey carving technique. She is hoping to save me from the ignominy...
A Trillion is a Thousand Billion? Why Wasn't I Informed of This? [Venture Again] 2007-11-06T22:21:50-08:00 With the title of this post, I am paraphrasing another favorite New Yorker cartoon (again).As I toil away trying to raise a million here or a million there for some great cleantech companies (see the side bar of this blog), PetroChina made its debut on the Shanghai stock market, tripling in value, and becoming the world's first trillion-dollar market cap company.Certainly, PetroChina cannot qualify as a Cleantech company, despite some notable important activities. So this boom is just a reminder of the importance traditional energy continues to play in our global economy, and the extent to which demand for it is now driven by China and other developing nations.I guess investors were not concerned by the strong non-market forces which affect the stock price. Chinese regulators just announced a delay in the expected lowering of restrictions on capital flows from mainland investors. These restrictions have driven an unsustainable difference between the Shanghai-listed shares and Hong Kong-listed shares of several comapnies.Also (coincidentally?), Chinese regulators raised the mandated price of retail gasoline last Friday by 10%. These higher prices substantially aid PetroChina's financials, since they buy crude on the world's open market, but sell refined gasoline into a price-controlled market in China.With all these non-market influences, it is difficult to see how this trillion-dollar threshhold could be long maintained. (This also raises broade[...]
Entrepreneur Effectiveness alert - The curse & bliss of emails; mundane but important [Sid Mohasseb] 2007-11-02T17:37:05-07:00 This topic may not be sexy or intellectually challenging, BUT, I think it is important. As emails go, I think we are confusing effectiveness and speed.I get in excess of 250 emails a day. So often important issues may be ignored due to volume and unimportant matters may take a lot of time. And I am not the only one inundated with so much volume.The problem is that simple issues that can be resolved in minutes with a quick personal conversation actually take multiple emails. Important issues that require real discussion is boiled down to snippets of responses – the result is that decisions are most likely not as comprehensive and often based on either partial information or influenced by the desire to quickly get to a yes / no answer. We achieve speed of exchange but in a lot of situations lose effectives. I can’t count the number of occasions when efforts are duplicated because some one acted on partial information exchanges in emails and had to re-do things. Now, add the complications of global operations, language barriers and time zones and you have a real challenge on your hand.There are clearly two schools of thought 1) short, abrupt, and to the point emails vs. 2) verbose and detailed – focusing on CYA. Some write so much stuff that makes me wonder, if they have nothing better to do, and others are so quick to rush to an answer that makes me wonder if they truly care about how their answers may effect the compan[...]
Socolow’s Wedge vs. Archimedes’ Lever [Salman's blog] 2007-10-30T15:00:21-07:00 On Platforms Versus PrescriptionsIt had been a while since I first read Socolow and Pacala’s classic paper laying out the concept of “Stabilization Wedges” – the idea that we can implement several current technologies, each a wedge, to reduce carbon emissions to quasi-sustainable levels.I didn’t feel comfortable with the word “wedge”, and wondered about its philosophical underpinnings. Why did they choose the word?According to Wikipedia, “A wedge is… used to separate two objects… through the application of force.” (emphasis added.) Sounds like somewhat of a primitive method. (Little surprise that the wedge “has been in use as early as the Stone Age.” ;-) )Of course the paper itself is great, in that it sets tangible goals to reduce carbon emissions, and emphasizes that the goals are technologically achievable. But the term ‘wedge’ seems to have been used just because the savings from emissions in the paper’s graph looked like wedges. No deep philosophical underpinning intended!Except that such terms tend to take lives of their own – and in this case, the problem I have with it, is that it can take on a prescriptive connotation. Take these phrases (from the paper) for example:“A wedge would be created if twice today’s quantity of coal-based electricity in 2054 were produced at 60% instead of 40% efficiency.”“a wedge of nuclear electricity.. would require [...]
He has no credibility, but I think he's 100% correct [Nothing ventured, nothing gained] 2007-10-23T04:23:32-07:00 For several months now, I have been privately telling anyone willing to listen that search advertising, though incredibly effective, is over rated. At first glance, it would appear that advertising to someone in context of his search activity is an utter utopia for marketers. What better time to advertise a DVD player, for example, than when a consumer types "DVD player" into Google's search box.(image) |
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