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• 06.18.08
  Personal Relationships Drive Investment
  Venture Capital

    The old adage for raising money is that investors invest in the team first and the product or service second. Therefore, if investors primarily invest in people, then what they are really investing in are relationships built on trust. This is why entrepreneurs tend to raise money from friends and family first –  they know you best and trust you most. Though it's not easy, trust can be created from scratch. That said, if you've quickly burned through all your immediate prospects with whom you have significant pre-existing trust and relationships, you need to must be prepared for the consequences: fundraising ...
  
  
• 03.03.08
  On Being a Better Entrepreneur (And VC)
  Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

  I have noted that a new trend among VC firms seems to be an annual, or bi-annual gathering of their portfolio companies. I think this is an exceptional practice, and as an entrepreneur, the first VCs I would approach for money are the ones supporting these types of interactions. It’s a clear indication that being ‘part of that particular family’ means access to connections and learning experiences. Such gatherings are all the more important when you consider a finding from a recent study featured in Time Magazine and on Mind Hacks (one of my favorite blogs!). Turns out experience isn’t all ...
  
  
• 02.25.08
  Nominations Closing!
  Entrepreneurship

  If you want to nominate someone for the startup all-star team you have until Friday.
  
  
• 02.24.08
  How Consulting Paid for 50% of my MBA
  Entrepreneurship, My Experiences

  Recently someone wrote me asking for advice on how to break into the world of consulting. I thought the best way to address this was through a post on my personal experience... When I was 24 I lost my job. I won’t get into specifics, but it was a difficult time because everything I had worked so hard for suddenly seemed to have been stripped away from me. At the time I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I did not want to put my trust into another corporate experience for a long, long time. ...
  
  
• 02.21.08
  It Could Be Called ‘Enterprising 2.0’
  Workstreamr

  Last month the Wall Street Journal compiled a list of seven common activities technology is helping to transform. Notably absent was ‘how we work.’ My last post discussed why I feel the phrase Enterprise 2.0 is not the best one to represent the next generation of enterprise software. I arrive at this conclusion based in the fact that work culture is fundamentally changing. As a result of these changes, the next wave of software innovations cannot simply be ‘additions’ to already existing architectures. Maybe this would be fine if we were in a maturing industry; but we are not. Thus, our ...
  
  
• 01.21.08
  Business Idea: Subscribe to Tagged Magazine Articles
  Business Models

  Darren Herman has a nice post asking someone to help him start a new website featuring RSS headlines tailored to individual subscribers. Darren’s post reminded me of an idea I had last week... One industry that clearly falls under the long tail effect is the magazine industry. While many magazines make some of their content free available online, for the most part I have stopped subscribing to print magazines because there are few I read cover to cover. Nevertheless, magazines are still proliferating and some B-list mags, like blogs, occasionally have great articles I would love to read. ...
  
  
• 01.07.08
  Introducing /Anecdotes: Personal Experiences in Entrepreneurship
  /Anecdotes, My Experiences

  I have been struggling to think of a way to capture many of the interesting things taking place in my life as an entrepreneur. I think friends and family (and some readers) will find these experiences a much better way to connect with and understand what I've been up to (along with Ben and whole slew of the interesting characters that comprise the Heights Media Group ensemble). However, I do not wish to publish these personal stories publicly as they may include personal infromation that I don't care to share with clients, or have freely passed around the internet. If you are ...
  
  
• 12.03.07
  A Whirlwind of General Thoughts
  Business Models, My Experiences

  Is It Ever Okay to Pirate Music?: Say I were to pirate music, for example, to rip from Limewire the latest tracks of a musician I just heard playing at a bar. Perhaps his name is Wax Tailor. If I do not pirate the music, I am likely not going to buy his albums. However, by ripping the music (illegally), I come to like it and I tell 10 friends about it. Maybe I play it at a party. Maybe I blog about it. Maybe I attend a concert. Aren’t these outcomes all worth the artist letting me have access ...
  
  
• 11.04.07
  The Art of Entrepreneurship: Noah Charney
  Entrepreneurship

  Entrepreneurs are an innovative breed, but it takes someone special to innovate within an industry that has existed for centuries. One of these people is my good friend, Noah Charney, whose debut novel, The Art Thief, is now available in a bookstore near you. Despite the wild success of the Da Vinci Code and its allusions to art theft which captured the minds of millions of readers and film goers, surprisingly, no formal academic efforts had ever been contributed to the field…that is, until Noah. Noah is a graduate of Colby College and Oxford, where he invented his own degree ...
  
  
• 10.07.07
  Money Quote on Entrepreneurs…
  Entrepreneurship

  by Andreessen and a great exclamation point for my most recent post about the personalities of the new tech nerds:   Entrepreneurs? Smoking dope. What are they thinking? Why aren't they all working for Apple, helping to build a fatter Nano? What's wrong with them? Potsmoking, mussed-hair, rooftop party-going, trendy glasses-wearing, sandal-clad, Red Bull-snorting, laid-getting wankers, the lot of 'em. The sooner they realize the world never changes and there are no new opportunities to pursue, the better.
  
  

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