The Unsustainability of Hyper Growth VC Startups
B2C Internet plays are all about fashion trends and I’m not an arbiter of fashion. I can’t tell you whether this is the right time to make millions using sock puppets to sell pet food. I can tell you how to solve a hard problem that has valuable ROI in the Enterprise. I prefer the latter as a way to maximize the value of my career investment portfolio.
How to Position a VC Startup for Acquisition: You Can’t
How do you position and maneuver your VC-funded startup for acquisition? The short answer is, “You can’t.” The VC’s didn’t sign up for an acquisition. They are seeking a billion dollar revenue opportunity because that’s what it takes to move the needle on their portfolio. If they are willing to talk about an acquisition at all, […]
There’s a Revolution in Desktop Manufacturing Underway
My day job involves running a company that makes Manufacturing Software called CNCCookbook. It’s a bootstrapped company that I built from scratch–software, marketing, content–the whole ball of wax. It’s been great fun and is starting to pay the bills as well. I’ll be telling the full story of what I’ve learned over time, but right […]
What is the Entrepreneur’s Social Contract with their VC’s
Another great post from Jason Lemkin has me responding again. Jason seems to be going over all the dark thoughts entrepreneurs and founders have about VC’s and blogging about it instead of what most entrepreneurs do which is to keep quiet so as not to offend potential future investors. Good for him, it’s about time […]
You Can’t Do Cr*p with a $750K Seed Round in Enterprise SaaS, So Don’t Even Try.
Hat tip to Jason Lemkin for sharing an article with a similar sub-title with me this morning. This has been going on a long time. I wrote about it 2 years ago and it wasn’t a new development back then: http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/contrarian-vcs-good-idea/ VC’s are addicted to finding more Googles and Facebooks. They’re addicted to placing their […]
The Two Most Desirable Features of a Platform as a Service
Big Data? Multitenancy? Uber DB scaling? Mad Hadoopishness? Faster app development? Universal Social Connectivity? Not so much. Some platform or other claims all of those things, but the two most desirable features of a PaaS appear to be revenue generation and commodity pricing, not necessarily in that order. Let me first say that I’ve come […]
Square: It’s All About the Momentum, Baby!
Reading about Square’s latest $100 million in capital raised at a $1 billion valuation, it’s tempting to write another Bubble Story. While it’s undeniable that it would be hard to do that financing in the wake of the recent Sequoia RIP Good Times era, there’s something more interesting to think about here. First, let […]
There’s a New Sheriff in Town and His Name is “Content”
Just read a great top-level overview of Google’s Panda on SEOMoz. If you haven’t been following Panda, or you’re not involved with marketing much, it is Google’s latest algorithmic attempt to minimize the ability to game search results. This article is at a good level for CEO’s, Board Members, Investors, and other Interested Parties to […]
Quality is Part of the UX Too
Just had a back and forth with @dahowlett on Twitter about Dropbox’s recent breach of security. For about 4 hours passwords didn’t matter to Dropbox–you could type in whatever you wanted and access anyone’s data. Dennis went on a pretty good rampage about it, and I have a hard time blaming him. Yes, accidents happen, […]
When Will Your Job Be Consumerized?
It’s become all the rage to talk about the Consumerization of IT in the last few years. There are a lot of definitions of what the term means. Those who are looking to downplay it somewhat will toss out the idea that it’s copying consumer web technology into business software. One gets the idea that […]
