Eight is NOT Enough! Today is the eighth anniversary of the founding of Return Path. No offense to Dick Van Patten or Grant Goodeve, but Eight is NOT Enough. We are just hitting our stride here! Congratulations to our incredibly hard working and dedicated employees, and thanks to our clients, partners, and investors for all their support these past 8 years. Eight may have been Great…but Nine will be Fine!
Category
Entrepreneurship
VCs Are Full of It
VCs Are Full of It …at least that’s what Brad says. Well, he says a lot more than that, but certainly makes for a good pre-holiday headline, doesn’t it? Brad’s brilliant advice is not to confuse data – or even worse – anecdotes – with fact. I’d add to the axiom my own observation that “just because someone says something with extreme conviction doesn’t mean it’s true.” His whole post is very worthwhile – one of the best ones I’ve read in a long time. Read it here.
Academic Inspiration
Academic Inspiration I just read in my alumni magazine that at Opening Exercises for incoming freshmen this year, Princeton President Shirley Tilghman closed her remarks with the following: For the next four years, you will be encouraged – and indeed sometimes even exhorted – to develop the qualities of mind that allowed Katherine Newman, Simon Morrison, and Alan Krueger to change what we know about the world. Those qualities are the willingness to ask an unorthodox question and pursue its solution relentlessly; to cultivate the suppleness of mind to see what lies between black and white; to reject knee-jerk reactions to ideas and ideologies; to recognize nuance and complexity in an argument; to differentiate between knowledge and belief; to be…
The Social Aspects of Running a Board
The Social Aspects of Running a Board I’ve posted about the the topic of Boards of Directors a couple of times before, here and here. We had one of our quarterly in-person Board meetings yesterday, which I always enjoy, and one of my directors pointed out that I never posted about the social aspects of running a Board. Since this is a critical component of the job, it is certainly worth mentioning. A high functioning Board isn’t materially different from any other high functioning team. The group needs to have a clear charter or set of responsibilities, clear lines of communication, and open dialog. And as with any team, making sure that the people on a Board know how to…
Child Prodigies, or Misspent Youths?
Child Prodigies, or Misspent Youths? I just got an email from a reader of this blog with a subject line of "15 year-old entrepreneur" and a series of engaging questions around starting a business (and actually, quite a good idea for one as well). It got me thinking about being a kid and being an entrepreneur at the same time. The author of this email is impressively savvy and focused on the world of business and startups. Ben Casnocha is another one. Ben is 19, has already started two companies, and has written and published a book called My Startup Life. When I was 15, I actually did have an inkling that I was going to go into business someday,…
More Good Inc.
More Good Inc. Last year I was pleased and proud to write about our debut on the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. At that time I wrote that “Now our challenge, of course, is STAYING on the list, and hopefully upping our ranking next year!” Well, I am again please and proud to announce that we, in fact, stayed on the list. (You can read all the Inc. coverage here and see our press release about the ranking here.) Unfortunately, we didn’t make the second part of our goal to up our rank. But, we did up our growth – our three-year revenue growth rate was 18% higher than last year. This is a testament to the…
Father/Mother Knows Best?
Father/Mother Knows Best? USA Today had an interesting article today about how founder-led companies perform better than their non-founder-led counterparts, with a 15-year stock price appreciation of 970% vs. the S&P 500 average of 222%. That’s pretty powerful data. The general reasons cited in the article include founders having deep industry knowledge…having a powerful presence in the company…having a huge financial stake in the success of the business…not looking for the next job so can take a long-term perspective…being street fighters early on I think all those are true to some extent. And it’s certainly true, as one of the CEOs interviewed for the article said, that it’s not because founders are smarter or harder working. But to add to…
A Model for Transparency
A Model for Transparency Rob Kalin from Etsy (a marketplace for handmade goods) wrote an outstanding blog post today that Fred describes as a transparent window into what makes the company tick. I’d like to riff off of two themes from the post. First, the post itself and the fact that Rob, as CEO of the business, is comfortable with this degree of transparency and openness in his public writing. I still think that far few CEOs blog today. There is probably no better window into the way a company works or the way a management team thinks than open and honest blogging. One member of our team at Return Path described my blogging once as “getting a peek inside…
Must Read Post on Entrepreneurship
Must Read Post on Entrepreneurship As usual, I’m a little late to the party, but let me echo Fred’s and Brad’s sentiments and endorse Marc Andreesen’s new blog. If you’re an entrepreneur or like thinking big entrepreneurial thoughts, this is a gooe blog to add to your blogroll. My only critique is that some of his postings are really long — but they’re worth it. His most recent post, which finally prompted me to post this, is a list of reasons why NOT to do a startup (it also includes a good list of reasons TO do a startup). Just a snippet to pique your interest, but you have to click through to see all of it — the richness…
Google en Fuego
Google en Fuego Google announced on Friday the acquisition of RSS publishing powerhouse FeedBurner (media coverage here and here). I was fortunate enough to be a member of FeedBurner’s Board of Directors for the past year and had a good window into the successes of the business as well as the deal with Google. It was all very interesting and good learnings for me as an entrepreneur as well as a first time outside director. My original post (the “fortunate enough” link above) contained all the things I love about FeedBurner in it, so I won’t rehash those here, but I will try to distill my top 3 learnings from my experience with the company: Creating value through focus is…
Old and Young Alike?
Old and Young Alike? Fred has a couple good posts today about the age of entrepreneurs (here, here). His evidence is that most entrepreneurs are in their late 20s or early 30s — in a very non-judgmental way. I have a slightly different take on it. I heard from someone once that entrepreneurs are either late 20s/early 30s or in their 50s or even 60s. So basically, the young entrepreneurs have nothing to lose because they’re so early in their careers…and the older ones can afford to take risk because they have already made their money elsewhere. Not sure how much universal truth there is to that, but one thing I’m certain of is that using the Internet as a…