How real-world corruption works http://vh.co/blCKEu. This is awesome. Great negotiation advice. I read every word. Thank you Internet.
Clay Christensen’s milkshake theory is my favorite way to think about competition & substitutes: http://vh.co/a2nezA
Every time you e-mail prospective investors, include good news (product, traction, team…). It stimulates reciprocity: http://vh.co/9XXzSi
“In a nutshell, anything that takes more than 3 sentences to explain to your peers does not work in reality.” – Kutt, http://vh.co/9qHp1C
“[Apple’s] continuous iterative improvement… is easy to overlook if you’re observing it in real time.” – @gruber, http://vh.co/al0uNF
Instead of showing our avatar next to each tweet, I’ve picked images that are related to the tweet. It’s easy to find your most popular tweets on the Your Tweets, Retweeted page on Twitter. For this post, I picked tweets that had 10+ retweets.
Here are the latest videos from Venture Hacks TV (the best startup advice you can get while you’re folding the laundry). You can subscribe to VHTV via RSS, email, or Twitter.
I’m going to keep my eyes on the videos coming out of TechCrunch Disrupt this week. The best talk on Monday was Charlie Rose’s interview of John Doerr.
I’ve always thought of John Doerr as a salesmen for nerds. And Doerr always looks at the big picture — I remember him talking about how the browser was going to be important again, well before Firefox emerged.
2. Gates convinces Jobs to give him 3 pre-release Macs
Watch how Gates manipulates Jobs hatred of IBM to get his way at 6:45.
Every entrepreneur should see Pirates of Silicon Valley. This made-for-TV movie from 1999 is amazingly well-done. It’s a dramatization of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak starting Apple; Bill Gates and Paul Allen starting Microsoft; and how Jobs and Gates collided.
The script and acting ring true. Wozniak writes that “the personalities were very accurately portrayed.” Steve Jobs actually invited Noah Wyle, the actor who portrays Jobs, to impersonate him at Macworld. And the negotiations are pretty realistic.
Watch the clip above and rent the movie if you like it — it’s cheesy but good.
3. This Week in Venture Capital with Jason Calacanis
“VCs—when we fund raise—never ever are raising money. We’re pre-marketing until the round’s closed.” – Mark Suster @ 44:34
If you’re into startup analysis, check out the deal of the week, Stack Overflow, @ 1:00. Jason’s Q&A expertise shines through here. And here’s Mark’s recap of the episode.
Subscribe to VHTV via RSS, email, or Twitter. Do so immediately and without hesitation. How else are you going to get startup advice while you do the dishes.
“Have you thought about angel investing but weren’t sure whether it was right for you or how to get started? Are you an entrepreneur who wants to learn more about working with angels and how angel investment differs from venture capital? Here’s a chance to learn from the experts.
“Why do angel investing? How do you find and evaluate potential investments? What’s the right amount of money to invest? How do you set terms? How do you work with other angels, entrepreneurs and VCs? What are the legal issues?”
The speakers, presented in a 4×4 array, look great:
If you’re a Boston angel, check out the Boot Camp. Startups are invited too. And when you’re done, join AngelList.
Boot Camp: Stay-at-Home Edition
Angel Boot Camp is modeled after Y Combinator’s AngelConf. Angels who want to learn more about angel investing should read this excellent essay by Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: How to Be an Angel Investor. And this semi-excellent interview with me and Naval: How to be an angel investor, Part 2.
Without angel investing, there would be no VC investing. Fred Wilson writes, “The angel funding mechanism is potentially the single most important funding mechanism in startup land.” I couldn’t agree more.
“Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manger can perform. Consider for a moment the possibility of your putting on a series of four lectures for members of your department. Let’s count on three hours preparation for each hour of course time—twelve hours of work in total. Say that you have ten students in your class. Next year they will work a total of about twenty thousand hours for your organization. If your training efforts result in a 1 percent improvement in you subordinates’ performance, you company will gain the equivalent of two hundred hours of work as the result of the expenditure of your twelve hours…
“When people interview managers, they often like to ask: have you fired anyone? Or how many people have you fired? Or how would you go about firing someone? These are all fine questions, but often the right question is the one that isn’t asked: When you fired the person, how did you know with certainty that the employee both understood the expectations of the job and were missing them? The best answer is that the manager clearly set expectations when she trained the employee for the job. If you don’t train your people, you establish no basis for performance management. As a result, performance management in your company will be sloppy and inconsistent…
“Andy Grove writes, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training.”
Who has time to watch all this? You don’t. Neither do I. But I do have time to watch some of it while I’m brushing my teeth, folding laundry, and cleaning the toilet. If I watch it and like it, we’ll link to it on venturehacks.tv.
Why Tumblr?
We’ve been using WordPress since the dawn of time but we’re trying Tumblr for VHTV. First, I just wanted to try Tumblr and see what it’s like. Second, Tumblr themes are badass. Third, topherchris’s blog sucked me into Tumblr. He’s Tumblr’s Editorial Director and general internet jackass. Everyone running a community should watch and learn from topherchris.
Update: A nice side effect to publishing on Tumblr is that people are now following us on Tumblr. That’s a new distribution channel for us.
Now, please head over to venturehacks.tv and watch pmarca in formal VC Wear:
Instead of showing our avatar next to each tweet, I’ve picked images that are related to the tweet. And it’s easy to find your most popular tweets on the Your Tweets, Retweeted page on Twitter. For this post, I picked tweets that had 8+ retweets.
Fred Destin tells me that Venture Hacks is too serious. He tells me that even The New Yorker publishes cartoons beside their articles about mass starvation in North Korea. And so, courtesy 1938 Media, we present:
The topics aren’t new but I always learn something when I listen to Naval. He discusses the three traits you need to look for in a partner, how important it is to be in Silicon Valley, and lots more.
Last week, I tweeted some thoughts for first-time entrepreneurs raising money and asked Naval, Chris Dixon, and Mark Suster to chime in. Here are the results.
Me
If this is your 1st time raising money…
It takes way longer than you think.
You’ll assume you’re much further along than you really are.
It’s not about optimizing the round, it’s about whether you can raise the round at all.
The biggest problem is “anchor tenants.” Once you get them, the lemmings will follow.
Everyone wants a “deal.” Even rich people. Get the highest profile anchor tenants and give them a deal. My commentary is specifically related angel investing.
Everyone obsesses with dilution from investors. The biggest dilution comes from co-founders. If you have 2 co-founders, you’ve diluted 66% before doing any of the hard work. Start by yourself and bring in co-founders for smaller stakes once you’ve got initial momentum. Unconventional wisdom, but the most economically practical advice you’ll ever get.
Today we’re announcing that MightyMeeting is the fourth startup to raise money with AngelList. MightyMeeting is “WebEx for iPad” and it also works on iPhone and the Web. They also happen to be based in New York.
George Zachary from Charles River Ventures introduced us to MightyMeeting’s founder, Dmitri Tcherevik. I think George met Dmitri at Founder Showcase. George was already committed to the financing and wanted to use AngelList to help raise the rest of the round. We sent MightyMeeting to AngelList, and Dmitri got 10 intros in 4 days. The AngelList investors, including George, are:
Great startups can raise money wherever they are. In this case, a bunch of Silicon Valley investors invested in a New York startup. But AngelList has investors from all over the world (New York, London, Boston, LA, Europe…). And startups apply for intros from all over the world (Israel, Sweden, Italy, Argentina…).
How real-world corruption works http://vh.co/blCKEu. This is awesome. Great negotiation advice. I read every word. Thank you Internet.
Clay Christensen’s milkshake theory is my favorite way to think about competition & substitutes: http://vh.co/a2nezA
Every time you e-mail prospective investors, include good news (product, traction, team…). It stimulates reciprocity: http://vh.co/9XXzSi
“In a nutshell, anything that takes more than 3 sentences to explain to your peers does not work in reality.” – Kutt, http://vh.co/9qHp1C
“[Apple’s] continuous iterative improvement… is easy to overlook if you’re observing it in real time.” – @gruber, http://vh.co/al0uNF
