The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part III To recap other postings in this series: my original, Brad Feld’s, Fred Wilson’s first, Fred’s second, Tom Evslin’s, and my lighter-note follow-up. So speaking of lighter-note takes on this topic, Lary Lazard, Tom Evslin’s fictional CEO who ran Hackoff.com, now has his own tips for effective board management. You have to read them yourself here, but I think my favorite one is #3, which starts off: Never number the pages of what you are presenting. Lots of time can be used constructively figuring out what page everybody is on. Enjoy.
Category
Entrepreneurship
Counter Cliche: Connected at the Top
Counter Cliche: Connected at the Top Fred hasn’t written an official VC Cliche of the Week for a while, but his post yesterday on Connectors is close enough — in it, he talks about how he likes to be a good Connector between people and thinks it’s a quality of great VCs. First, we should give credit to Malcolm Gladwell for a great definition of Connectors in The Tipping Point. Gladwell not only defines Connectors as Fred has but also defines two other types of people who are critical in the social networking/buzz building arena: Mavens and Salesmen. I’d argue that a great VC has to have a bit of all three! But in terms of entrepreneurs (the point of…
The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part II
The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part II Much has been written of late on various VC and entrepreneur blogs on effective management of a Board of Directors, Board materials, running good Board meetings, and the like. A couple years ago, I even wrote out a few tips for those things myself. But here’s one critical ingredient of a good Board you won’t find in all those posts: have fun! This picture was from today’s Halloween Board meeting at Feedburner…as one of Dick’s colleagues labeled it, The Dawn of the Living Costolos. Happy Halloween!
Another Entrepreneur Blog
Another Entrepreneur Blog My friend Jason Devitt, founder and CEO of mobile application company Vindigo, is contemplating his next career move and has started to blog more actively about entrepreneurship (after a 9-month around-the-world honeymoon which made for a great travel blog). His most recent post is about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, which I thought was great, and he promises more good ones on related topics to come soon.
Choose Voice, Part II
Choose Voice, Part II One reader writes to me: I am a vice president at a startup that isn’t in great shape. We have some customers and a product that is meeting some market needs, but we’re way off our plan and don’t show signs of changing our trajectory in a material way. I disagree with the direction our CEO is taking things, which is ok, but more important, our CEO refuses to listen to me when I try to discuss and debate strategy with her. One of our board members has asked me what I thought we should do. I don’t want to be disloyal to our CEO, and I want to seem like a team player who rallies…
Counter Cliche: Between Permission and Forgiveness
Counter Cliche: Between Permission and Forgiveness In today’s VC Cliche of the Week, Fred actually takes a Counter Cliche position himself when he talks about how in a startup, it’s NOT usually better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, as the team needs to be aligned and on the same page. But Fred does go on to say that startups as organizations need to act like mavericks, essentially that the organization needs to break some eggs in the industry in order to make an omelet. I actually think in most organizations — particularly companies who used to be startups but are growing out of that phase (which is where we are at Return Path now) — there’s…
Getting Good Inc.
Getting Good Inc. There’s an old saying in PR about “getting good ink,” referring to good press – a phrase that will probably replaced by something like “getting good bits” soon enough now, I’m sure. Anyway, Return Path was very fortunate to be ranked #167 in this year’s Inc. Magazine Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America. See the list here and our press release here. We were also happy to see clients of ours like Constant Contact, Fishbowl, and Zappos on the list, as well as fellow email companies Exact Target, Vertical Response, and research panel Epocrates. That’s all the sign of a healthy industry! While we never rest on our laurels, it’s certainly nice…
Your Goal: Professional Nirvana
Your Goal: Professional Nirvana Brad wrote a delightful post the other day entitled "My Work is Play to Me." His theory about how to achieve it is worth reading. I, too believe that my work is play (under this definition), and that has been one of the things that’s kept me going as an entrepreneur for nearly seven years now. And you don’t have to be a VC, or a CEO, or be working remotely to achieve the state. This is reminiscent of the Fish books (here, here, and here), although in a more fundamental, philosophical, internally-generated way. Those are good, quick "airport" reads — at least get the first one, which is the story about the famous Pike Place…
Good Help is Hard to Find
Good Help is Hard to Find We’re having a bitch of a time lately hiring good sales people. We’re growing like crazy this year and are trying to invest more in our salesforce, but it’s not easy. And we’re a good catch. Good brand, healthy company, good comp and benefits, charming CEO, the works. I just traded emails with a friend who is CEO of another online marketing services firm who said the same thing, with the exact same explanation I have: I have been so unimpressed with everyone from our space (weak links drop out, mediocrity churns from company to company, and true talent is retained). Anyway, we have gotten very lucky with a few key hires the past…
Feedburner…They’re Real AND They’re Spectacular
Feedburner…They’re Real AND They’re Spectacular Sometime in early 2004, I met Dick Costolo, the CEO of Feedburner. We met about at the same time he also met Fred and Brad (I can’t remember who met who first), both of whom subsequently invested in the company. We hit it off and had a number of informal and formal conversations over the past two and a half years about online media, the interplay of RSS and email and blogs, and entrepreneurship. Feedburner and Return Path have developed a still-somewhat nascent partnership as well to bring ads in feeds and ads on blogs to Return Path’s Postmaster advertisers. I was recently fortunate enough to be invited by Dick and his team to join…
Counter Cliche: Sometimes You Need a Shortstop
Counter Cliche: Sometimes You Need a Shortstop Fred’s Chiche of the Week this week is about drafting the best available (corporate) athlete. I think he’s right lots of the time, especially in startup companies where people need to wear multiple hats. And it might also be a good rule of thumb in larger companies, when you want to have flexibility to move managers around from group to group and get them to easily take on new challenges or responsibilities. But sometimes, you just need a shortstop, and if you were the GM of a baseball team, your manager or owner would be pretty ticked off if you went out and hired a decathlete for the job. Companies who are in…