Another Only Once Moment, Sort Of I’ve never handed over the reins of a company before (no, I’m not leaving, and we aren’t selling Return Path). But I did the other day, for the first time. As many people know, last year we reorganized the company to focus entirely on deliverability and whitelisting and spun out Authentic Response, a company in the online market research business, into a completely separate entity. Since then, I have been CEO of both companies. Although Return Path has had more of my focus — Authentic Response had excellent day-to-day leadership under Co-Presidents Jeff Mattes and Rob Mattes — I’ve still been working in both businesses. Today, we officially announced the hiring of my replacement,…
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Entrepreneurship
The Gift of Feedback, Part II
The Gift of Feedback, Part II I’ve written a few times over the years about our 360 feedback process at Return Path. In Part I of this series in early 2008, I spelled out my development plan coming out of that year’s 360 live review process. I have my new plan now after this year’s process, and I thought I’d share it once again. This year I have four items to work on: Continue to develop the executive team. Manage the team more aggressively and intentionally. Upgrade existing people, push hard on next-level team development, and critically evaluate the organization every 3-6 months to see if the execs are scaling well enough or if they need to replaced or…
Scaling Frustrations
Scaling Frustrations Two things have come up in spades lately for me that are frustrations for me as a CEO of a high growth company. These are both people related — an area that's always been the cornerstone of my leadership patterns. That probably makes them even more frustrating. Frustration 1: Worrying that I don't get completely candid feedback from deep in the organization. I've always relied on direct interactions with junior staff and personal observation and data collection in order to get a feel for what's going on. But a couple times lately, people had been warning me (for the first time) when I've relayed feedback with comments like, "Of course you heard that — you're the CEO. People…
Ten Characteristics of Great Investors
Ten Characteristics of Great Investors Fred had a great post today called Ten Characteristics of Great Companies. This link includes the comments, which numbered over 70 when I last looked. Great discussion overall, especially for Fred’s having come up with the list on a 15-minute subway ride. Fred used to write a series of posts about VC Chiches, and I would periodically write a Counter-Chiche post from the entrepreneur’s perspective. This post inspired me to do the same. So I’ve taken 15 minutes here, pretended I’m on the subway, and here is my list of Ten Characteristics of Great Investors, in no particular order: Great investors know how to give strategic advice without being in the operating weeds of a…
Book Short: Go Where They Ain’t
Book Short: Go Where They Ain’t Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne isn’t bad, but it could literally be summed up by the title of this post. I think it’s probably a better book for people who aren’t already entrepreneurs. That said, there are two chapters that I found pretty valuable. One is called “Reconstruct Market Boundaries,” which is a great way of thinking about either starting a new business or innovating an existing one. It’s a strategy that we’ve employed a few times over the years at both Return Path and Authentic Response. It’s hard to do, but it expands the available territory you have…
Techstars Roundup: Why I Mentor Other Entrepreneurs
Techstars Roundup: Why I Mentor Other Entrepreneurs Yesterday was Demo/Investor day at Techstars in Boulder, Colorado. A lot of people have written about it – Fred, Brad, and a great piece by Don Dodge on TechCrunch listing out all the companies. My colleague George and I co-mentored two of the companies, SendGrid and Mailana, and we really enjoyed working with Isaac and Pete, the two entrepreneurs. I posted twice earlier this summer on the TechStars experience. My first post on this, Where do you Start?, was about whether to be methodical in business planning for a startup or dive right into the details. My second post, One Pitfall to Avoid, was about making sure you don’t create a whizzy solution…
Self-Discipline: Broken Windows Applied to You
Self-Discipline: Broken Windows Applied to You Just as my last post about New Shoes was touching a bit of a nerve around, as one friend put it, "mental housecleaning," my colleague Angela pointed me to a great post on a blog I've never seen before ("advice at the intersection of work and life" — I just subscribed), called How to Have More Self-Discipline. Man, is that article targeted at me, especially about working out. I think the author is right — more discipline around the edges does impact happiness. But it also impacts productivity. Not just because working out gives you more energy. Because having your act together in small ways makes you feel like you have your act together…
New Shoes
New Shoes This isn't really a post about new shoes, I promise. Remember, I live in the world of pattern matching and analogies. But I did go running yesterday morning — my first run in a new pair of running shoes. I usually get new running shoes every 3-6 months, depending on how much mileage I'm logging. And I find the same thing every time: I may not realize I'm uncomfortable running in the old shoes, but the minute I put the new ones on, I realize just how far the old ones had deteriorated and just how much better life is in the new ones. Same model shoe – just a fresh pair. And I run faster, stronger, and…
Techstars: One Pitfall to Avoid
Techstars: One Pitfall to Avoid George and I met with our Techstars “mentee” companies again yesterday. As was the case with the last meetings, the sessions were energizing and fun and great to see new companies unfolding. One lesson I was reminded of yesterday with both companies is a timeless one, since at least the beginning of the commercial internet: Don’t create a “solution looking for a problem” I call this the Pointcast problem, after the mid-90s service that pulled headlines into screensavers and clogged corporate networks until the fad passed. One of the companies we’re working with has this challenge looming in front of them. They have a very cool concept and technology. It’s clear that it solves some…
Poking a little fun at VCs
Poking a little fun at VCs Fred posted a great slideshow this morning of “things VCs will never say.” I can’t tell if the show is meant to be serious or not — some of the things would be great to hear from VCs, some would be terrible — though Fred’s comment at the bottom leads me to believe he thinks it was serious. At any rate, it reminded me of the brilliant and hilarious “VC Calendar Calisthenics” post of Dave Hornick from 5-6 years ago, which you can see here. Even if you’ve read it before, it’s worth a refresher.
First day at Techstars: Where do you start?
First day at Techstars: Where do you start? I’m a new mentor this year at Techstars, a program in its third or fourth year in Boulder (and this year also in Boston for the first time) that provides a couple dozen companies with seed capital, advice and mentorship, and summer “incubation” services in a really well conceived for-profit venture started by David Cohen in Colorado. Yesterday was my first day up there with my colleague George Bilbrey, and we met with three different companies, two of which we will tag team mentor through the summer. I won’t get into who they are at the moment, mostly because I’m not sure what the confidentiality issues are offhand, but I’ll make the…