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…
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Technology
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…
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…
I Don’t Want to Be Your Friend (Today)
I Don’t Want to Be Your Friend (Today) The biggest problem with all the social networks, as far as I can tell, is that there’s no easy and obvious way for me to differentiate the people to whom I am connected either by type of person or by how closely connected we are. I have about 400 on Facebook and 600 on LinkedIn. And I’m still adding ones as new people get on the two networks for the first time. While it seems to people in the industry here that “everyone is on Facebook,” it’s not true yet. Facebook is making its way slowly (in Geoffrey Moore terms) through Main Street. Main Street is a big place. But not all…
More Useful Than I Thought
More Useful Than I Thought I’ve had a Twitter account for a couple years but only started using it in earnest in the last couple of weeks. And while it is to some extent yet another distraction and flow of information, it’s proving to be much more useful than I thought. Here are some nuggets from literally less than a week of heavy usage: – Nice quick exchanges with three existing customers who I otherwise wouldn’t talk to – Already have over 200 followers, at least 50% just in the last few days – One set of direct messages, and we turned a skeptic into a free trial provided that the client work with us on an important but difficult…
I Can’t Tell If I Like This Or Not
I Can’t Tell If I Like This Or Not I am blogging at 35,000 feet, using American Airlines’ new GoGo in-flight Wi-Fi service. I am definitely having mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it’s nice to download the 47 emails I just wrote before two-hours after landing (sorry, team!). It’s also nice to be able to clean out my Inbox so it’s not overflowing when I get to our California office. On the other hand, it has the potential to destroy one of the last few places in my life that’s completely free of connectivity. That kind of makes me sad. I think I’m going to turn it off once I do a single pass at the Inbox. I…
Why Do People Behave Like Jackasses Online?
Why Do People Behave Like Jackasses Online? I won’t disclose the name of the person who did this, but here’s the chain of events: Person registers for our Postmaster Direct service to receive targeted offers via email. This is a closed-loop, double opt-in registration process (so the person had to register and then click on a confirmation email) Person receives a handful of relevant, targeted offers from us Person finds my name on our corporate web site and messages my wife on Facebook to tell her that her husband is a dirty spammer who needs to learn a lesson, and would she please make him and his company behave? Person finds my blog and comments on it saying “don’t give…
Pendulum Swinging Back?
Pendulum Swinging Back? The TechCrunch news du jour is that Jason Calacanis has stopped blogging and is instead using email to communicate with his circle. It’s interesting to note that after months (years?) of “email is dead” stories specifically around blogging, RSS feeds, and social media in general, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to email. You should read Jason’s words yourself, but his notes are mainly that there’s too much noise and self-promotion in the blogosphere, while email promotes intimacy and efficiency. Not surprisingly, TechCrunch is a doubter, but we’ll have to see.
Driving Out of the Bubble
Driving Out of the Bubble It’s easy for those of us who live in the Internet bubble to confuse the words “startup” and “entrepreneur” with the word “technology.” Every once in a while, I am struck by a fantastic entrepreneurial idea that’s low-tech or no-tech. In the last few weeks, I’ve learned of two of them — oddly, very similar ideas. They’re both going after the New York City black car limo market (all those car services that take business travelers to and from airports and meetings), which is a lucrative but kind of gritty business. I’ve used black car services for 16 years now, and while I’ve found one that’s pretty good, they all have massive customer service problems…
Blogiversary, Part IV
Blogiversary, Part IV Four years on, as the British would say, OnlyOnce is going strong. Cumulative stats show a steady 457 posts, about one every three days on average (same as it’s been all along), and a scant 409 non-spam comments. Maybe some day I’ll start being more edgy and provocative. Or prolific. Or Twitterific. Or something. Looking back over my initial “how’s it going” post and the last three anniversary posts, I’d say my reasons for blogging, out of my four original ones, have consolidated now around “Thinking” (writing short posts helps me crystallize my thinking) and “Employees” (one of our senior people once called reading OnlyOnce “getting a peek inside Matt’s head). But I’d also add two new…
Wither the News? (Plus a Bonus Book Short)
Wither the News? (Plus a Bonus Book Short) It’s unusual that I blog about a book before I’ve actually finished it, but this one is too timely to pass up given today’s news about newspapers. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture, by Andrew Keen, at least the first 1/2 of it, is a pretty intense rant about how the Internet’s trend towards democratizing media and content production has a double dirty underbelly: poor quality — “an endless digital forest of mediocrity,” no checks and balances — “mainstream journalists and newspapers have the organization, financial muscle, and and credibility to gain access to sources and report the truth…professional journalists can go to jail for telling…