Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

As Finance Fridays continues, we are introducing the concept of the Cap Table. We recognize that we are still at the very early basics stage, but as we are taking a case study approach to this we feel like we have to set up all of the pieces before we get into the messy guts. Hopefully you are staying with us and finding this useful – feedback welcome!

Cap Table 133

Cap Table CTO Hire Technical Cofounder Cofounder 133

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Now that Dick and Jane have added a CTO to SayAhh’s founding team, they’ve turned their full attention to working on their product. Today, we’ll look at the impact of the expenses to date on the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement. Since SayAhh is in the pre-launch development stage, the company doesn’t have any revenue yet. They also haven’t launched a product, so there is no corresponding “cost of goods sold” – the direct cost of delivering their product.

Balance Sheet 125

Balance Sheet Fractional CTO Burn Rate Salary 125

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 10, 2011

Congrats to my friends at Avalon Ventures on raising their new $200 million fund. I’ve been friends with and co-invested with Rich Levandov , one of Avalon’s partners, since the mid-1990′s, most recently in Standing Cloud , Zynga , and NewsGator. I’ve gotten to know several of Rich’s partners over the past few years and recently had a wonderful Do More Faster book tour dinner hosted at Avalon’s San Diego office by Kevin Kinsella (a fellow MIT-grad turned VC.

San Diego 125

San Diego Cloud Hosting Finance 125

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

If you are a entrepreneur in Colorado who is working on something related to the Internet, please consider signing the following letter to Senator Udall and Senator Bennet opposing the Protect IP (PIPA) Act. I’ve written why I believe PIPA is effectively censorship and an incredibly dangerous and destructive bill to our economy, entrepreneurship, the Internet, and free speech.

Colorado 150

Colorado Internet Intellectual Property United States 150

Feld Thoughts

MAY 9, 2011

This afternoon in Boulder I’ll be on a panel as part of the White House Startup America Roundtable. If you weren’t invited to the event, there is a web site called Reducing Barriers to Innovation that you can participate in. Over the past few years, I’ve spent some time thinking about how the government can help entrepreneurship. It started with my role as the co-chairman of the Colorado Governors Innovation Council which was my first involvement in any formal way with any gove

Government 143

Government Technical Review Intellectual Property Accredited Investor 143

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 8, 2011

A post in the New York Times this morning asserted that Software Progress Beats Moore’s Law. It’s a short post, but the money quote is from Ed Lazowska at the University of Washington: “The rate of change in hardware captured by Moore’s Law, experts agree, is an extraordinary achievement. “But the ingenuity that computer scientists have put into algorithms have yielded performance improvements that make even the exponential gains of Moore’s Law look trivial,” said Edward Lazows

Artificial Inteligence 140

Artificial Inteligence Algorithm Washington Software Engineering 140

Feld Thoughts

MAY 3, 2011

Boulder is full of software engineers, but we need more. A lot more. So, several local companies pitched in some bucks and the organizers of Boulder Startup Week are buying plane tickets for five people to come out between May 18th and May 22nd. If you don’t know about Boulder Startup Week, take a look at the killer agenda. If you are a software engineer, send ryanwanger at gmail a note containing the following: 1.

Software Engineering 136

Software Engineering Engineer Software Startup 136

Feld Thoughts

JULY 22, 2011

Last week I expressed my frustration with the current lack of financial literacy that I see all around me. In the spirit of Fred Wilson’s awesome blog series MBA Mondays , I’ve decided to write a series of posts about this and asked for suggestions. I got a bunch, but one that stood out was from a group of incoming MBA students at the University of Chicago Booth.

Finance 135

Finance Congo Chicago Cambodia 135

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 28, 2011

As someone obsessed with human computer interaction, the Kinect is an important piece of hardware. Of all the various things Microsoft is working on these days, I find it the most interesting. I’ve seen some awesome things done with it by my friends at Oblong and Organic Motion and saw a ton of neat hacks at last year’s Blur Conference.

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Common Stock Seattle Cofounder 134

Feld Thoughts

MAY 5, 2011

One of my favorite times for me in the life of a company is when it finds its sweet spot and really turns on the juice. Over the past year, we’ve had a number of our Boulder-based investments find this magic moment, including Trada and SendGrid. The most recent Boulder-based company to really hit its stride is Gnip. Gnip is around three years old and is a testament to our belief at Foundry Group that it often takes several years for a brand new company to really find its mojo.

CTO Hire 131

CTO Hire Cofounder Architecture Product Development 131

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 28, 2011

While Jane was building SayAhh’s revenue projections , Dick focused his attention on building the expense side of the projections. He procrastinated for a few weeks because he was deep in product development, but surfaced a few days ago when he realized they had an investor meeting coming up and really should have at least a basic financial model ready in case the investor asked about it.

Revenue 127

Revenue Balance Sheet Forecast Software Review 127

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 9, 2011

My long time friend Matt Blumberg , the CEO of Return Path , wrote a blog post today titled A New Kind of Partnership for Return Path. In it he talks about his recognition, as Return Path has grown (they are now around 250 people), of the gender imbalance in the software engineering team (women are around 15% of total engineering team. He knew about NCWIT from my role as chairman and Matt and his team decided to join the NCWIT Workforce Alliance to engage in helping address this issue.

Software Engineering 124

Software Engineering Engineer Programming Software 124

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Next week at Defrag I’ll be giving a talk titled “Resistance is Futile” I’ll be talking about my premise that the machines have already taken over. A few days ago a friend of mine emailed me a perfect image to summarize where we are today. Ponder and enjoy.

Technology 196

Technology Email 196

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 25, 2011

A few weeks ago a guest post titled Minimum Viable Personality appeared on Fred Wilson’s blog. The author was a Giant Robot Dinosaur who has been dishing out wisdom in all caps in the comments on Fred’s blog for a long time. I’m a huge fan of FAKEGRIMLOCK, occasionally commenting on his comments, but often laughing out loud or smiling with recognition of their brilliance when I saw them.

Startup 195

Startup 195

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 31, 2011

I go off the grid four times a year for a week at a time. During these weeks I put up a vacation reminder that says I’m off the grid, not checking email or phone, but if it’s an emergency I can be found by my assistant Kelly. While I leave her email and phone info in the vacation responder text, she still checks my email to make sure that nothing critical is going on.

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Email 195

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2011

Recently, two bills have been introduced into Congress that – if passed – will do irreparable damage to the Internet, entrepreneurship, free speech, and job creation as a result of the continued entrepreneurial activity around the Internet. Fred Wilson has a strong post up titled Protecting The Safe Harbors Of The DMCA And Protecting Jobs that explains the situation.

Internet 194

Internet IP Naming Video 194

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 14, 2011

Today Senators Kerry (D-MA), Lugar (R-IN) and Udall (D-CO) unveiled the Startup Visa Act of 2011. This is an updated version of the Startup Visa bill from last year that is aimed at making it much easier for foreign entrepreneurs who want to start a company in the US to get a visa. Today, this process is incredibly difficult and has been stifling the creation of new companies and the corresponding job creation that these companies provide.

Startup 182

Startup Green Engineer Web 182

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 26, 2011

It’s Sunday morning. Take a deep breath. It’s summer time. Go for a walk. Or a run. Play with your family. Take a nap this afternoon. Read a book. Go to a movie. Chill. Last week, I had two close friends tell me some version of “I’m too busy.&# One insightfully said “I have no time these days. I’m doing too much.&# The other simply said “sorry I didn’t call back – I have no time.&#.

Alaska 177

Alaska Restful Video Entrepreneur 177

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

There are two very disturbing bills making their way through Congress: Protect IP Act (PIPA - S.968 ) and Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA – H.R.3261 ). These bills are coated in rhetoric that I find disgusting since at their core they are online censorship bills. It’s incredible to me that Congress would take seriously anything that censors the Internet and the American public but in the last few weeks PIPA and SOPA have burst forth with incredibly momentum, largely being underwritten

Egypt 175

Egypt IP Architecture Internet 175

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 13, 2011

On my run yesterday in Central Park, I was thinking about the characteristics of some of my favorite companies. Suddenly a phrase popped into my head about what ties all of these companies together – they are the silent killers. When I look at the Foundry Group portfolio , we’ve got a bunch of them in it. They don’t spend a lot of time trying to get written up in TechCrunch.

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Portfolio Community Revenue Partner 171

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

One of the jokes in my little universe is that “every time I hear the word ‘marketing’ I throw up a little in my mouth.” I’ve been joking about this long enough that it’s become conventional wisdom that I hate marketing. Yet, if you look at many of our successful investments, they are extraordinarily good at marketing and some people suggest we (Foundry Group, me) are also good at marketing.

Marketing 171

Marketing Portfolio Leadership Community 171

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 18, 2011

I’m about to head out to TechStars New York Demo Day. Our investment in SideTour – one of the TechStars New York companies – was announced yesterday and I’m excited to introduce them along with hanging out with all of the other great entrepreneurs from this session. If you’ve been watching the Bloomberg TechStars series , we are doing the finale tonight where we meet with all of the teams and see where they are six months after the program ended.

Community 170

Community Entrepreneur New York Video 170

Feld Thoughts

JULY 16, 2011

I love LEGOs. So, when I saw the page yesterday of the new LEGO Minifigures (sent to me by Lucy Sanders, the CEO of National Center for Women & Information Technology ) I threw up a little in my mouth. Like me, Lucy is a LEGO enthusiast, but she was not happy to see how women (or minorities) were represented in the LEGO Minifigures sets. Sure, there is a female snowboarder, a female tennis player, and a lifeguard, but the rest of the female Minifigures are a hula dancer, pop star, cheerleade

Restful 168

Restful Engineer Technology Product 168

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

In the “if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at&# category, I present the video I’m A VC. The formal press release, Foundry Group Premiers Documentary Film About Secret Lives of Venture Capitalists , explains things more fully. My partner Jason Mendelson created, composed, wrote, sang, and produced the whole thing and explains the back story of I’m a VC on his blog.

Video 166

Video Partner Entrepreneur 166

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 6, 2011

Long ago I concluded that life is just a video game. We fly on airplanes to get mileage points so we can get free stuff and or level up to get more priority. We used to get green stamps (when I was a kid) whenever we bought stuff so we could get free stuff (most of it shitty, but free). Our credit cards have points programs (and lots of free miles), we get credit (implicit and explicit) eating at the same restaurants over and over ago, and when you buy a dozen cups of coffee at the coffee shop d

Green 164

Green Programming Video Conversion 164

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 25, 2011

I just received the “amusing email of the day&# from Google. I feel like I’m in one step forward / one step back with Google Enterprise Support. If you read my two recent posts on this, you saw that I started by saying that it’s Time For Google To Get Serious About Enterprise Tech Support and I followed up with My Increasing Love Affair With Google Apps.

Database 164

Database Email Search 164

Feld Thoughts

JULY 18, 2011

My partner Jason Mendelson and I are psyched to announce that our book – Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist – has been published and is now available. We are also relaunching AskTheVC – the companion website to the book that we maintained for several years, went dormant for a while, but is alive with content once again.

Term Sheet 162

Term Sheet Venture Capital Capitalization Table Finance 162

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 30, 2011

I received an email from an entrepreneur today asking me about something that made my stomach turn. It’s a first time entrepreneur who is raising a modest (< $750k) seed round). There are two founders and they’ve been talking to a VC they met several months ago. Recently, the VC told them he was leaving his firm and wanted to help them out.

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Vesting Cofounder Angel Investor 162

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 13, 2011

James Bessen, Jennifer Ford, and Michael Meurer of BU School of Law have written a phenomenal paper titled The Private and Social Costs of Patent Trolls. Rather than be politically correct and refer to NPE’s simply as “non-practicing entities”, they cut through all the noise, define what a patent troll is, and go through a detailed and rigorous analysis of the private and social costs of patent trolls.

Cost 156

Cost Software Technology Partner 156

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 16, 2011

I was at lunch at Japango with some of my Foundry Group gang yesterday. When I went to my house in Alaska last July, I took a Mac with me but left my PC at home. Ross bet me $100 that before the month was out I’d beg him to fedex my PC to me. He lost and I decided to use my winnings to take whoever was around yesterday out to lunch. We were enjoying our sushi and talking about random things, like what our family restaurant was when we were growing up (Godfathers, Pizza Hut, Burger King wer

San Diego 156

San Diego Alaska New York Hosting 156

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 5, 2011

Today is Finance Friday and post #2 has been drafted by the Finance Friday team from University of Chicago Booth and is waiting for my edits. I’m procrastinating so I thought I’d write one of my periodic public service announcement for entrepreneurs. This one is more specific than “ignore the macro economy&# – instead, it’s “ignore the Dow and the stock market and get back to work on your business.&#.

Stock 155

Stock Entrepreneur Chicago Finance 155

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 23, 2011

Today we announced that we’ve led a $10m round for MakerBot Industries and I’ve joined the board. I’m super excited to be working with Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, Zach Smith, and the rest of the MakerBot gang to create consumer-grade 3D printers. When I first met Bre, Adam, and Zach at the Botcave in Brooklyn, it was love at first sight for me.

Term Sheet 154

Term Sheet Restful Partner Product 154

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 19, 2011

Over the past month I’ve been systematically cleaning up my social graph. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to do this, as I’m a very active user of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Google+ along with a bunch of applications that leverage these various social graphs. Historically, I’ve been a very promiscuous friender, accepting almost all friend requests.

Security 152

Security Networking Technology Social Network 152

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

I recently spent some time with a long time friend and entrepreneur who I’ve funded in the past. He’s working on a new company which I think is really neat and I’m already a user of. He called me for feedback on his fundraising strategy as well as to see if it’s something that we’d be interested in investing in. It’s outside our themes and different than the type of business we invest in.

Bootstrapping 151

Bootstrapping Partner Entrepreneur Customer 151

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 14, 2011

The English language badly needs a gender neutral pronoun. The more I write, the more I feel the need for this. In my post yesterday, Does Your VP of HR Report To Your CEO? I felt this very acutely as I tried to be gender neutral to avoid the “CEO’s are male, VP of HR are female&# bias. But I failed and just used “he&# throughout the post.

Technology 151

Technology 151

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

My friends at Standing Cloud have closed another $3 million financing from us ( Foundry Group ) and Avalon Ventures. They’ve also added a long time friend, co-investor, and amazing entrepreneur Will Herman to the board. Standing Cloud is a great example how one of our funding strategies plays out. We are the seed investors and have been working closely with the company since inception.

Cloud 148

Cloud Java PHP Open Source 148

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 29, 2011

I feel strongly that the one of the important elements of building a sustainable entrepreneurial community over a long period of time is for the entire existing entrepreneurial community to be extremely welcoming to young college graduates. For the folks with a knee jerk reaction to call me ageist, please note that I said “one of the important elements …&#.

Community 148

Community New York Seattle Colorado 148