Venture Voice

VV Show #51 - Jeff Stewart of Mimeo, Monitor110 and Urgent Career

Gregory Galant — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:22:55 -0500

Jeff Stewart needed that done yesterday. Jeff became an entrepreneur when he founded the web consultancy Square Earth in 1995. Only three years later he became a serial entrepreneur by starting Mimeo, a service that lets you send a file directly from your computer to be printed, bound and shipped overnight. Mimeo struggled in the dot com crash of 2000-2001 just as it was getting off the ground. Jeff was able to pull Mimeo though the downturn despite almost running out of cash, which has allowed the company to flourish and make $55.4 million in 2007 revenues. Ironically, Jeff didn't have the same success in good economic times with ample cash after he raised $20 million for Monitor110. He discusses the company's shutdown and lessons learned. Now Jeff's focused on allowing businesses to hire good salespeople faster with Urgent Career. He announces on this show for the first time that he's just raised a six-figure angel round to speed up Urgent Career's success.

VV Show #50 - Derek Sivers of CD Baby and Muckwork

Gregory Galant — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:55:28 -0500

Download the MP3.

Last time Derek Sivers was on Venture Voice three years ago he told us he had to "whack 'em [investors] off with a stick". Now we know why. Derek announces on our show for the first time the amount he sold his company for this past summer: $22 million. Derek owned 100% of the equity. Though he might have made more money than most of his fellow music entrepreneurs, Derek's no Gordon Gekko. In this interview, Derek tells us how he put all of his money from the sale into a charitable trust, that he didn't even visit CD Baby's office once during the last year he owned it, and what he's up to next.

Want more Venture Voice? Become a Venture Voice member or contact us about sponsoring the show.

Angel Financing Without Hellish Legal Fees

Gregory Galant — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:37:45 -0500

It's great to hear stories like the one where Andy Bechtolsheim handed the Google founders a $100,000 check before they even set up their bank account. Convince an angel to invest and you're off to the races! However, what many aspiring entrepreneurs don't know is that after the one or two page term sheet there are dozens of pages of documents that go into even an angel financing.

Since law firms have templates for these deals you might think it's no harder than copying and pasting. The problem is there are lots of different templates floating around law firms, and a countless number of terms that could be changed. Many of these terms really don't make too big of difference, or if they do their effects are so hard to anticipate that arguing over them isn't worth the time. Lawyers get paid by the hour so they have an incentive to find terms they don't like (and there are always terms to not like). So lawyers will often spend weeks bickering over trivial issues, racking up $10,000s of legal fees, delaying the financing and putting the deal itself at risk.

Enter angel fund Y Combinator, which has just released the financing documents it has standardized and used with dozens of entrepreneurs. If these documents get a reputation for being fair (which is likely given the Y Combinator's good reputation), they could save million of dollars in legal fees for startups. The key is that both the entrepreneur and the investor trust that the Y docs are a fair deal for all, and trust enough to tell their lawyers not to mark it up! This could do to angel investing what Creative Commons did to copyright or what McDonald's did to hamburgers.

UPDATE (8/14): Scott Rafer (a past VV guest) posted his convertible debt note (direct link to doc) he's using for his current company, Lookery. Rafer did a convertible debt deal, which has many advantages as my friends at Venture Hacks have argued. On the other hand, Josh Kopelman has argued against it, pointing out several disadvantages. It seems to be the type of issue that could go either way depending on the dynamics of the particular company, oppertunity and investors -- but if we had a standardized set of docs for each verified by a trusted third party it'd be very powerful. The NVCA did this for later stage docs (of course they're funded by the VCs). Who could do this for convertible debt rounds?

VV Show #49 - Rafat Ali of paidContent and contentNext

Gregory Galant — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:37:03 -0500

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Attention entrepreneurs dealing with the current economic downturn: This interview is for you. After working as a journalist for Jason Calacanis at Silicon Alley Reporter, Rafat Ali ended up broke in a market with a dearth of employment opportunities. To try to find a new job, Rafat created paidContent.org as an "interactive resume." Luckily, no one hired him. From these humble beginnings, Rafat bootstrapped his blog holding company, ContentNext Media, for four years before taking a small investment from famed media investor Alan Patricof in June 2006. From its inception paidContent has doubled revenues each year and was recently acquired by UK-based Guardian Media Group for a rumored $30 million. Listen in as Rafat outlines the past, present, and future of online media, while sharing his war stories from another uncertain economic time.

Uncensored Interview

Gregory Galant — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:37:20 -0500

The folks at Uncensored Interview were nice enough to turn the tables on me by interviewing me on their show. You can watch all the clips here. Here's me talking about what makes a good interview:

Please join our new Venture Voice Facebook Page.

New York Venture Summit

Gregory Galant — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:01:50 -0500

When: June 24-25, 2008
Where: The New Yorker in New York City
What: Venture Voice is a media sponsor of the 8th Annual New York Venture Summit that will feature over 25 Venture Capital Speakers, 3 Venture Capital Panels with open discussions and 40 of the most promising Emerging Companies seeking funding.
For more information and a list of VC’s confirmed to speak: http://www.vcsummit.com/ (for $100 off current registration price enter code: venturevoice2008)

Next Question?

Gregory Galant — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:32:10 -0500

In our last round of questions on this blog, we asked each former guest about his or her first time (raising money). What should our next question be?

Give us your ideas in the comments or via our contact page.

We've got a number of new audio interviews scheduled. To support the show, please consider becoming a Venture Voice member by clicking here. (Just like NPR, but for entrepreneurs and without the tote bags.) More members = more interviews.

David Sacks' First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:56:59 -0500

This is part of a series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

David Sacks: I asked Peter, Max and Elon to finance "Thank You For Smoking" with me. I didn't have to do too much selling since I had worked with them at PayPal and was putting in my own money.

Kelly Perdew's First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:29:33 -0500

This is part of a series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

Kelly Perdew: I raised my first round of financing ($500K in equity) from friends and family while I was still in business school. Be very careful about taking money from friends and family... while it is easier to access, if things don't go well, you tend to stay in the deal much longer than is good for you to try and save their money!

Evan Williams's First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:20:54 -0500

This is part of a series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

Ev Williams: I asked my mom for $10,000. She gave it to me.

Jay Adelson's First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:49:57 -0500

This is part of a new series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

Jay Adelson: The first round of financing I ever raised was from angels. I was working with Al Avery, who co-founded Equinix with me in 1998. A good friend of mine, who had founded a company in Silicon Valley in the mid-nineties and sold it to Cisco, was mentoring me to avoid going initially to the VCs.

From his perspective, nothing could be worse; Showing up at VC with a business plan, with no executive team, no execution, amounted to no valuation, and the VC taking way too much of the company for a series A.

Instead, he felt, do everything you can to bootstrap or angel fund it, then go back (even a month, or six months later) to the VCs with something they can't argue is as risky.

This friend of mine went to two friends of his, and we raised $100,000.00 to start. We followed his instructions to the letter; We hired some executives, we started the process of operating our business, got an office, etc. We made the business real. Most importantly, we found a great corporate law firm to start all the paperwork, who later would help us negotiate and deal with the VCs.

Three months later we gave away roughly 40% of the business for $12 million dollars. The $100k was set up to convert to essentially $200k worth of stock at the close of Series A. I think they did quite well, and we're all still good friends.

Joel Spolsky's First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:12:14 -0500

This is part of a new series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

Joel Spolsky: I put in a very small amount of money (I think it was about $50,000) from my own savings. That carried us to profitability.

Fabrice Grinda's First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:27:15 -0500

This is part of a new series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

Fabrice Grinda: The first time I had to raise money was for Aucland, a copy of eBay for Southern Europe which was my first Internet startup. I was lucky not to have to raise seed money. While in college at Princeton, I built a company exporting high end computer equipment to Europe (motherboards, memory, CPUs, hard drives, etc.). Given its profits, I left Princeton in June 1996 with $50,000 in cash.

When I joined the McKinsey New York office as a consultant in September 1996, I ran a sophisticated real estate rent versus buy model. The model and my rule of thumb analysis (see Rent … unless you want to buy) were screaming BUY! I bought a large 1 bedroom apartment on 54th and 2nd for $115,000, putting $25,000 down.

With the other $25,000, I bought 4 stocks: Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and Intel. When I decided to create Aucland in July 1998, I sold the 1 bedroom apartment for $185,000. I sold all the stock I owned. After taxes, I was left with around $300,000 in cash. I invested 100% of it in Aucland.

Scott Rafer's First Time (Raising Money)

Gregory Galant — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:54:42 -0500

This is the first of a new series on Venture Voice where we ask a bunch of past show guests a simple question and post their answers.

How'd you raise your very first round of financing?

Scott Rafer: The first money I raised was for Fotonation in 1996. We just had a cashflow issue, so borrowed $25k off a friend of mine in NY, paying him back the principal plus interest and warrants. It was the right thing for the situation. My mistakes were later.

VV Show #48 - Frank Addante of The Rubicon Project

Gregory Galant — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:00:00 -0500

Download the MP3.

Whether working with market trends or against them, Frank Addante has found entrepreneurial success. Before he was 29 years old, one of Frank's companies went public and two were acquired. At his worse, he returned capital to investors. Suffering from serial entrepreneurship, Frank left the Illinois Institute of Technology just four classes shy of his degree. His companies range from an early search engine to a Sequoia Capital-backed enterprise email solution. Now Frank aspires to be a web publisher’s best friend with his new ad network optimization service that he says is boosting their clients' revenues by 30-300%. Listen in as Frank details his ongoing entrepreneurial journey.

Google is Making the Web Free. Will DoubleClick be its Next Free Service?

Gregory Galant — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:55:09 -0500

Over at Silicon Alley Insider, Hank Williams is arguing that VCs are supporting free services that ought to be paid for on the hope advertisers will foot the bill down the road -- thereby eliminating the opportunity for noble paid services to make a couple honest bucks by charging users. It's a dubious argument, as pointed our by the site's own editor (ouch).

If we accept the argument that free is a bad thing, then wouldn't Google be to blame? It's acquired several companies such as Urchin and VC-backed Feedburner (our first guest) that offered paid services and made them free. Google also acquired VC-backed Jot (their CEO talked about plans to charge users on Venture Voice) and GrandCentral, then accelerated their development into free services.

Google understands there's at least two ways to make money from "free" services. Ads, which are time tested and Wall Street approved. And data. Data has tremendous value, especially to Google (as opposed to VCs), as Google can use it to decide on new services to launch and to choose acquisition targets. (Who even needs to do due diligence on an acquisition target if you already are running its analytics?)

What's next? Look to the past. When Google acquired Urchin, Google was working on its own analytics product that it dumped in favor of Urchin's battle-tested service. Urchin had a hosted stats product that was turned into the free Google Analytics service, and a downloadable product with a license fee. Now, Google has its own ad server in development but just closed an acquisition of DoubleClick (their founder interview here) that charges for its industry standard hosted ad serving service and downloadable ad server. Why not dump the Google's beta free ad serving product and just make DoubleClick's hosted ad server free?

To most companies, it'd be a fine strategy to have different product lines for different market segments (e.g. Microsoft Works vs. Office, Toyota vs. Lexus), but not to Google. The beauty of Google has been allowing the same service to scale to companies of any size, most famously in the case of AdSense/AdWords. Will it break this tradition to preserve DoubleClick's hosted ad serving revenue, which is already under attack from many competitors and from an open source solution (OpenX)?

Disclosure: This blog entry is free.

VV Show #47 - Tom Perkins of Kleiner Perkins

Gregory Galant — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:44:34 -0500

Download the MP3.

The name Tom Perkins is now almost synonymous with venture capital, but it's clear that he cut his teeth as an entrepreneur. Educated at MIT and Harvard, Perkins first made his mark by managing the initial growth of Hewlett-Packard’s computer business while simultaneously inventing the first cheap and reliable laser. The company he built around the laser, University Laboratories, made him independently wealthy and allowed for the creation of Kleiner Perkins, one of the most successful venture capital firms in existence. Kleiner Perkins (now Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) has funded a wide range of well known and wildly successful companies including Google, AOL, Genentech, Sun Microsystems, Compaq, and Tandem Computers. Though Tom's wowed the business press for much of his career, later in life he's gained national attention for having a key role in 2006 Hewlett-Packard board controversy, briefly marrying Danielle Steel, and building the world's largest privately owned sailing yacht. Tom has recently stepped back into the media spotlight by publishing a memoir called Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins. Listen in as he discusses his journey from New York to Boston to Silicon Valley, the creation of Kleiner Perkins, and his advice for the entrepreneurs of the future.

Entrepreneurship in South Africa

Gregory Galant — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:35:51 -0500

We just received this e-mail from Sydney Mfuniselwa who gave us permission to post it:

My name is Sydney from South Africa, I am really moved by the interviews on show. I wish we had something like this here in South Africa because I think my country needs stuff like Venture Voice as it still developing.
My point is I am 25 young black man as software developer, trying to go on entrepreneurship but its hard in this part of the world because most of the people cannot even use a computers and I already made my mistake by planning and planning for a long time in developing a database for the company I work for which i did developed and presented to my senior manager but just heard the company has already sign up for a new system to be implemented because of this I felt so down for a while up until i manage to put my hands on one of venture voice interviews. Two things I have highlighted from the entrepreneurs you interviewed are:
1. Do not waste time trying to plan a perfect product execution is the key.
2. And do not let million rejections wear you off.

Now I am trying again because i believe I should be an entrepreneur and i just open internet cafe on one of historical known building in Carlton in the Johannesburg CBD.

I truly appreciate Venture Voice.

Silicon Valley Postcard

Gregory Galant — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:01:48 -0500

Silicon Alley Insider asked me to write about my trip to the West Coast (DEMO in San Diego, Podcast Expo in LA, meetings in Silicon Valley). Enjoy!

Venture Voice Rebooted

Gregory Galant — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:31:41 -0500

We took off for the summer from Venture Voice. E-mails like these from loyal fans made it a painful experence:

Great show, have you taken the summer of? I hope to hear you back on the pods soon.
Cheers!

pb
Penticton, BC

----

I talked with Joel Spolsky recently and he said that you are no longer doing Venture Voice! I have learned so much from your podcasts and was disheartened to hear this news. I do hope that you continue VV. I wish you the best in what you are now doing. Diwant

I can explain!

I was busy launching a new business called News Groper, a network of parody first-person blogs. For example, if you want your fix of business news, you can read blogs "by" Tom Perkins, Ben Bernanke, Stephen Schwarzman and Jeff Skilling.

But fall's upon us. Venture capitalists are back from vacation, customers are ready to do deals again and entrepreneurs are more than ready to pounce. As such, we're ready to give you the content you need.

I'm very excited to announce that Eddie LeBreton has joined the Venture Voice team to help take things to the next level.

Now we need your help: What can we do better? Who should we interview? Any other great ideas for us? Want to sponsor Venture Voice? Please post in the comments or contact us.

Facebook: Crossing the Chasm in Reverse

Gregory Galant — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 19:08:29 -0500

I had the pleasure of being in the very first Facebook generation. My college was one of the first 13 to be added to Facebook, and we were all jazzed just to see photos of each other and occasionally get a "poke" -- the implications of which are not clear to this day.

I only have a couple of friends from college who are not on Facebook. The rest are. And I went to a college without a computer science department.

Generally the way new technologies spread, according to Geoffrey Moore's Cross the Chasm, are by starting with early adopters and spreading to the early majority. The early adopters are visionaries and do things simply for the sake of trying a new technology (e.g. being at the leading edge of "social networking"). The early majority are pragmatists who try something when they're sure of it's value (e.g. seeing what your friends are up to). Crossing from one to the other is a huge and often fatal challenge.

LinkedIn took this challenge and started with the early adopter Silicon Valley scene. They started to invite their friends, VCs, lawyers, bankers, etc. until it eventually spread so that many professionals -- even here on the East Coast -- know what it is. Reid said on my show that he doesn't think it's hit its "tipping point", but I believe it's crossed the chasm.

Facebook's another story.

Their first few thousand users included most of the college kids at the original 13 schools allowed in. While college students are more computer literate than many, most of that audience could not be considered early adopters. I had friends on Facebook in those days who didn't know what a blog was.

Facebook didn't start with the traditional early adopters, or if they did they only started with a small subset of them and didn't stay there long.

Moreover, they didn't even allow in the typical Silicon Valley/TechCrunch 53,651 early adopters in until recently (unless they happened to be in college).

Now, after Facebook has launched its API and the tech world has taken notice in a big way of the business opportunity in Facebook, you're starting to see lots of typical early adopters -- tech entrepreneurs and VCs (e.g. Fred, Josh, Roger, Dave, Howard, Andy) -- experiment with Facebook.

What does it mean that the early adopters are giving their two cents only after the early majority (at least among 18-30 year olds) have already adopted?

Teaser for Next Episode: iContact

Gregory Galant — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:48:48 -0500

I usually don't like to give hints about who's coming up on Venture Voice, but I can't resist breaking news: Ryan Allis -- who left college early to start his business iContact -- just raised a $5.35 million for his already profitable company. Stay tuned to hear the story.

Immigration

Gregory Galant — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:50:38 -0500

I was reminded of how immigration policy affects all parts of the economy while reading Fare is Fair, one of my favorite columns in The L Magazine that's a collection of quotes from those most in the know in NYC: the cabbies.

A number of our past guests on Venture Voice are immigrants. How does the immigration policy affect entrepreneurship in the US?

VV Show #46 - Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp

Gregory Galant — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:23:23 -0500

Download the MP3.

Jeremy Stoppelman is the co-founder and CEO of Yelp, a site where users can write and share reviews of local businesses. Everyone's now a restaurant critic. However, local reviews were not the original focus, but just one of several features in the earlier versions of the site. Noticing the growth of this buried feature, Yelp re-tooled the site around reviews and hasn't looked back since. Does this story sound familiar? Jeremy's the former VP of Engineering at PayPal, which also had to drastically alter its business early in its life. Listen in to hear Jeremy's thoughts on growing a local enterprise, giving users and identity, and how to recognize and act upon the need for change.

Bad Influence

Gregory Galant — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:57:31 -0500

Bill Gates gave a very provocative Harvard Commencement speech. I was struck by this passage:

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I’m a bad influence.

While he said it jokingly, it's a great reminder that one of the entrepreneur's biggest jobs is team building and convincing others to take risks.

(Un)fair Advantage

Gregory Galant — Tue, 08 May 2007 10:00:00 -0500

Anyone who's worked with venture capitalists knows that they have a language of their own -- and for the most part it's quite fun. Terms like "burn rate", "first-mover advantage", "monetization" and "defensibility" never get old. But I've noticed that many VCs I respect are using the term "unfair advantage" to simply describe an advantage. Jeremy Liew describes having the best news coverage as an "unfair advantage". Susan Wu calls having a community and leveraging network effects an (outdated) "unfair advantage".

Good Angry Customers and The Death of Sucks Sites

Gregory Galant — Fri, 04 May 2007 11:40:34 -0500

The social news site Digg (whose CEO is a past Venture Voice guest) recently had a user revolt after it gave in to the demand of a cease and desist letter and blocked a posting. The users voted stories up to the main page of Digg that criticized Digg. It was viewed as a big negative at the time, and journalists are still reveling in the site's supposed hardship with headlines like Digg Flap Exposes Cracks.

Worthwhile Reading

Gregory Galant — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 15:48:54 -0500

After mistaking me for an expert, people often ask me what I read. Sure, as you can tell from numerous past posts, I read all the sites you must read to keep up with the industry, including paidContent, Techcrunch and Techmeme (the founder of which, who I recently met, is both a fan of Venture Voice and an adept impersonator of my voice). I also read blogs from past Venture Voice guests, such as Fabrice's, Dick's and Jason's, which always offer interesting thoughts.

But if entrepreneurship is dependent on seeing the world in a different way from others, then we can't let the media we consume be defined by our industry or job title. I go out of my way to find writing that's bold, provocative, and unafraid of breaking social mores. Here are the sources that I won't start my mornings without:

VV Show #45 - Kevin Ryan of Panther Express, ShopWiki and Music Nation

Gregory Galant — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:56:44 -0500

Download the MP3.

Not many entrepreneurs have a motor like Kevin Ryan's. Kevin is best known for his work as CEO at the on-line advertising firm DoubleClick, which he grew from a 20 person start-up to the largest Internet company in New York at the height of the dot-com boom. After escaping the ensuing bust in an arguably improved strategic position, the company has since changed hands twice. In June 2005, the company was sold to the private equity firm of Hellman and Friedman for $1.1 billion and has made headlines yet again with its recent acquisition by Google for an astonishing $3.1 billion. Yet, this success has not slowed Kevin one bit. Since departing DoubleClick, he has already launched three start-ups, with plans for a fourth this summer. Listen in, as Kevin describes his DoubleClick experiences in both boom and bust, outlines his new start-ups, and explains why now is as good a time as ever to start a company, especially in the Big Apple.

Join the Venture Voice Team

Gregory Galant — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:30:54 -0500

How would you like to be the first person to hear the next episode of Venture Voice and even make a couple of bucks for listening? We're hiring listeners to write show notes for new episodes (just check out past shows for an example). Great writers will even get to take a shot are writing the intro paragraph. If you're interested, please contact us.

West Coasting

Gregory Galant — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:50:26 -0500

As I mentioned in my last post, we do our best to cover how business gets done on both coasts, and everywhere else. I'm headed out to San Francisco for the first time in a few months for the Web 2.0 Expo. If you're out there too or you know of anyone we should be talking to, drop us a line.

NYC Entrepreneur Panel

Gregory Galant — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 13:32:18 -0500

I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of excellent entrepreneurs for MBAs at NYU's Stern School of Business. The panel included Thrillist co-founder Adam Rich, Daily Candy's Eve Epstein, Sean Pfitzenmaier of stealth startup Social Sauce, Music Nation founder Daniel Klaus and Jonah Beretti who's a founder of The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

VV Show #44 - Venture Voice Startup Workshop Coverage (part 2)

Gregory Galant — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 02:39:17 -0500

Download the MP3.

Marketing a startup is tricky business. Every entrepreneur faces the dilemma between allocating time to improving the product and marketing the product. If the two can be mixed just right, then perhaps sterile marketing can go viral. We tackle that issue in part 2 of 3 of our very own Venture Voice Startup Workshop coverage in New York City. David Hornik of August Capital leads the session, but he doesn’t finish uninterrupted as the entrepreneurs on the panel jump in.

Run Your Startup in the 2008 Election

Gregory Galant — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:02:18 -0500

On the cover it would seem entrepreneurs and politicians have little in common. One creates value in the economy, the other, um, I'll refrain from any bashing of politicians. But both entrepreneurs and politicians have a lot to potentially gain in the drawn-out election season leading up to November 2008.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Gregory Galant — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:22:09 -0500

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then we must have been dead on in our list of the Top Five Venture Capital Firm Web Pages. In a very bizarre case documented by Dan Primack of peHUB, Sequoia Capital is suing ComVentures for copyright infringement of its website:

Online Social Network Entrepreneurs Social Network Offline

Gregory Galant — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:50:44 -0500

Last Saturday, Venture Voice show producer Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell dropped in on the Community Next: The Present and Future of Online Communities conference held at Stanford University. Here are some of his musings on day:

Talking Back to Your iPod

Gregory Galant — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:06:33 -0500

Ever listen to Venture Voice and wish you could say something back to our guests? You can. Pop onto our site and leave a message in the comments -- most of the guests read them. Our most recent guest, Fred Seibert, just highlighted a provocative comment from a Venture Voice listener in his blog. One blogger mischaracterized some data Guy Kawasaki shared with us, and Guy corrected him in a comment on his blog.

If you feel text can't do justice to the passion in your comment, remember you can leave a message on our listener line, just dial (212) 461-4850 or skype "venturevoice".

If there are any other ideas out there to further enhance the Venture Voice community, let us know!

Community Next

Gregory Galant — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:48:19 -0500

When: February 10, 2007
Where: Stanford University
What: Venture Voice producer Kosh Mayer-Blackwell will be at Community Next looking for social network entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who use social networks. The conference is organized by the always-entertaining Noah Kagan and features some past Venture Voice guests as speakers including Premal Shah and Guy Kawasaki.

VV Show #43 - Fred Seibert of Frederator Studios and Next New Networks

Gregory Galant — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:50:58 -0500

Download the MP3.

Before the rise of the Internet, cable TV was the new form of distribution remaking the entertainment business. Life-long entrepreneur and former jazz producer Fred Seibert pioneered that field, and is known in the industry for branding MTV (remember their ever-changing animated logo) and Nickelodeon (remember Nick-at-Nite). While he was figuring out what to do next, Ted Turner hired him to be president of the then-struggling Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio. Fred turned the famous studio around and kept his hand in the cable business until some friends dragged him into the Internet business. He now runs Frederator Studios which produces several cable and Internet TV shows. He also just launched a new well-funded startup called Next New Networks to create Internet TV networks.

David Sacks Launches Geni

Gregory Galant — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:01:38 -0500

Past Venture Voice guest David O. Sacks launched Geni today, as TechCrunch reports, which aims to be the ultimate family tree.

Many have tried in this area before, none have achieved dominance. I've tried about 5 of these types of services in the past (including one from Joe Kraus's Jot) and none have caught on with my family no matter how many e-mails I've sent out.

Geni's got one of the fastest registrations I've ever seen, so I couldn't resist pestering my family members yet again. As I've said before, never bet against a PayPal alum. Let's hope that, as Valleywag eloquently put it in reference to his Hollywood venture, David Sacks has another "disgustingly successful foray".

VV Show #42 - Simon Daniel of USBcell

Gregory Galant — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:31:17 -0500

Download the MP3.

The battery is an afterthought for most inventors. All the fun seems to be in developing a device, not in powering it. But when was the last time you cursed your phone, camera or podcast player because it ran out of batteries? Simon Daniel got fed up with his batteries, and decided to do something about it. He invented the USBcell, a standard sized battery (yes, it comes in AA) that can recharge using any USB port. This isn’t his first invention. Previously, he invented the folding keyboard and licensed the technology. This time he’s bringing the USBcell to market himself through the company he founded called Moixa (axiom spelled backwards). Though this might force you to think differently, don’t worry, we won’t play the podcast backwards.

Jazz

Gregory Galant — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:07:39 -0500

Jazz has undergone the ultimate irony. Born in New Orleans, Jazz was once deplored by the music establishment and academia as modern day rap is now considered offensive by ears accustomed to Beethoven. It was the devil's music. Now it's hard to find an article about it in anything other than media outlets aimed at upscale audiences. The New York Times just printed an article titled Jazz Is Alive and Well. In the Classroom, Anyway.

Confusing Comfort with Happiness

Gregory Galant — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 17:10:47 -0500

I'm not sure that there's any correlation between entrepreneurship and fitness, but there seems to be a lot in common among people at the top of their game -- be them entrepreneurs or athletes. Outside magazine ran an interview with "ultrarunner" Dean Karnazes (thanks to Michael Hyatt for the link) in which he said:

Bah, Humbug!

Gregory Galant — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 13:32:23 -0500

Nothing like A Podcast Carol to change one's outlook on podcasting for 2007.

How are you keeping in touch with your clients before the new year? What does your vacation look like?

Happy Holidays!

Taxing Entrepreneurship

Gregory Galant — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 18:03:40 -0500

The government pays a lot of lip service risk-taking, entrepreneurship and small business. In fact, many believe that it can be advantageous for tax purposes to be an entrepreneur (write-offs, SBA loans, hiring family members, etc.). In a fascinating blog post titled Should We Worry about the Rising Inequality in Income and Wealth?, Judge Richard Posner considers how a high marginal taxes effects entrepreneurs and other risk takers:

What are the causes, and what are the effects, of this trend in the income (and of course wealth) of the highest-earning segment of the distribution? Part of it is reduced marginal tax rates, because high marginal tax rates discourage risk-taking. Consider two individuals: one is a salaried worker with an annual income of $100,000 and good job security, and the other is an entrepreneur with a 10 percent chance of earning $1 million in a given year and a 90 percent chance of earning nothing that year. Their average annual incomes are the same, but a highly progressive tax will make the entrepreneur's expected after-tax income much lower than the salaried worker's.

The Irony of You

Gregory Galant — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:51:24 -0500

Setting off a barrage of cutesy opening lines by bloggers, Time Magazine designated "You" as the person of the year. Bloggers responded with begrudging thanks, collective self-congratulations, lessons in semantics and more musings. Triumph! Citizen media has finally overtaken professional journalism in influence. However, what does it say that a silly magazine award (published by the "M.S.M." no less) can still set the blogosphere a flutter?

People have always placed too much authority in the "Man of the Year", I mean "Person of the Year", oh, "People of the Year" award. But the editors at Time did their job well: They cause controversy and got attention. After all, they're pros.

If this shift was really the most significant thing to happen in 2006, why not give the award to one of the entrepreneurs behind it? After all, all of the big players in this shift were startups, not new ventures by existing big companies. When a politician has a lot of influence, "you the voter" who put him or her in office doesn't get the award. Let's remember that entrepreneurs change the world, and that they made their mark on 2006.