Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

If you are a Colorado entrepreneur and want to be signed on to this letter, please either email me or put your name, company name, and title in the comments. I’ve tried to make this letter substantive around the issues so the Senators understand the fundamental issues with the bills.

Colorado 150

Colorado Internet Intellectual Property United States 150

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

I received a Silicon Flatirons email from Phil Weiser this morning in his role as Silicon Flatirons Founder and Executive Director. The course is so valued that students established an endowed scholarship fund in Brad’s name and created a separate campus entrepreneurship gift in Jason’s honor.

Community 238

Community Colorado Venture Capital Startup 238

Feld Thoughts

MAY 26, 2014

On day three, when I’m not looking at email, anything on the web, or checking my phone, I just breathe deeply and say “wow I needed this vacation.” Bonus points if you figure out what I painted on him (his name is HeartWind). Amy reminds me that I say that on day three of each of our quarterly weeks off the grid.

Dallas 113

Dallas Technical Review Vertical PR 113

Feld Thoughts

MAY 29, 2020

” But, this wasn’t really contact tracing at all and needed a different name. Harper labeled it Exposure Alerting which has finally found its true name as “Exposure Notification.” The tech folks (me included) tried to separate it from classical contact tracing by calling it “digital contact tracing.”

Technology 110

Technology Naming Community Web 110

Feld Thoughts

MAY 7, 2018

The two things I like the best are really simple but dramatically increase my email throughput. name : When I add someone to an email thread, I use the shortcut “+name” to indicate to everyone on the thread that I’ve added them. The new Gmail client for the web is finally here. Yay – finally.

Colorado 73

Colorado Email Naming Internet 73

Feld Thoughts

MAY 28, 2015

Or if you want to go back to 2004 and 2005 when I was really learning about Agile, well before it had become a household name, you could read my posts Agile Software Development with SCRUM or Do You Develop Software For A Living? – Get Agile with Rally Release 5.

Software 70

Software Technology Agile SCRUM 70

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Today’s “founder hint of the day” is to create an email address called founders@yourcompanyname.com and have it automatically forward to all the founders of your company. For the TechStars companies, especially early in each cycle, I have trouble remembering everyone’s names until I’ve met them.

Founder 135

Founder Email Naming 135

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 11, 2021

I still have the Brooks Brothers striped shirt that Len and his partner Jerry Poch gave me when we signed the documents for Feld Technologies to be bought by Sage Alerting Systems (which changed its name to Sage Technologies and then changed it to AmeriData). Under the terms, he signed his name. Ellen, thank you.

SEC 164

SEC Cofounder Boston New York 164

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 8, 2013

” Now – this post isn’t about responding to emails. The first time it happened I was inclined to think it was the investor and that they just couldn’t find the time to send an email response saying, “sorry – no longer interested” Then, it happened again this month.”

Reputation 171

Reputation Venture Capital Matching Email 171

Feld Thoughts

JULY 7, 2020

If you asked me to name ten world-class marathoners, it would be mostly men. Amy and I sponsored it, and I have ten free tickets, so if you want to attend, email me (the first ten get the tickets.) Today’s post covers two things I love to do: run and read. When I reflect on my running and fitness heroes, they are mostly men.

Atlanta 133

Atlanta Equity Networking Naming 133

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 10, 2012

But I’ve worked very hard to cut all of the noise out of my email channel – I have no email subscriptions (thanks OtherInBox ), I get no spam (thanks Postini ), I run zero inbox (read and reply / archive immediately), and am very selective with the notifications I get via email (i.e.

Social Network 152

Social Network Algorithm Email Networking 152

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 8, 2012

They also have a virtual gong – an email that goes out to the entire company and board that starts with GONG: (Client Name). The salesperson who closed the deal gets to send the email out and write whatever he or she wants. So how about a daily gong at the end of the day that the system automatically emails out.

Email 138

Email Sales Naming Customer 138

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

I sent out a few emails to mentors of mine who had been VCs in the 1980s. However, none were based in the Silicon Valley and are probably unfamiliar names to today’s practitioners. While I don’t know Jerry very well, I like him and thought his post was extremely detailed and thoughtful. This isn’t true.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

You still get way too much email and VR is still pointless for anything except video games. Instead of names, put characteristics in the boxes. After you’ve done this, you can put names against the future board members when the person fits the characteristics. There are new politicians in office. Open your eyes.

Leadership 122

Leadership Cofounder Revenue Equity 122

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 11, 2017

I haven’t kept up with Ted other than a periodic email. But whenever I see his name, I think of him fondly. .” I know him from an angel investment in Dogster, a company he founded and ran from 2003 to 2011 when he sold it to SAY Media.

Internet 115

Internet Naming Email Media 115

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 30, 2011

I received an email from an entrepreneur today asking me about something that made my stomach turn. In my email exchange with the entrepreneur, I asked two questions. This is the kind of behavior that gives investors a bad name. It’s a first time entrepreneur who is raising a modest (< $750k) seed round).

Entrepreneur 162

Entrepreneur Vesting Cofounder Angel Investor 162

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 29, 2013

By this point I had sent emails to several of my friends who were experts in the email / SMTP / IMAP / security ecosystem and was already getting feedback that generally trended negative. Scott co-founded Postini and a bunch of email stuff at Google after Google acquired Postini in 2007. Details on their approach here ([link].

Oauth 151

Oauth Security Cofounder API 151

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 9, 2012

You may recognize Mahendra’s name – he wrote The Business of Venture Capital which I reviewed recently. It can be anonymous or include you name and email if you are willing to be interviewed in more depth. This book is part of my continuous effort to dramatically improve startup company boards.

Startup 121

Startup Venture Capital Naming Email 121

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 27, 2012

I sent myself email reminders on my iPhone constantly. In general I don’t take notes (I have an excellent general purpose memory) but if I want to remember to do something specifically, I send myself a short email to do it when I have time. And I have Dave Tisch to thank for turning me on to it about a year ago.

Email 130

Email Naming 130

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 9, 2012

If you are an investor and missed demo day but find any of the companies interesting, it’s easy to connect with them via the TechStars Demo Day Email Intro App (ok – that’s not the official name for it, but it just reinforces that you shouldn’t let me name things.).

Programming 124

Programming Naming Community Email 124

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

I’ve been obsessed with the notion of email as the ultimate social network for a while. I eventually decided that the email address is the ultimate reference id for one’s current online identity and that it was ludicrous to ignore this notion. If I searched by name, all the dupes came up.

Denver 131

Denver Social Network Email Architecture 131

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 21, 2017

For a while, I subscribed to his monthly Reading List email but in a fit of unsubscribing from everything, I unsubscribed. We ended up at a dinner together at either SXSW or CES a number of years together and I remember an interesting and engaged conversation. I just re-subscribed. I sent this one out this fall.

Portfolio 80

Portfolio Naming Conversion Email 80

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 14, 2014

It all started with an email exchange, wherein Eric thought one of my posts would make a good conference, I told him how much I disliked tech conferences, and we resolved to go build one that was done the right way. A little over eight years ago, Eric Norlin and I decided to start Defrag.

API 116

API Colorado Conversion Mobile 116

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 17, 2014

” “What is your name.” I vaguely remembered sending an email to Amy and my assistant Colleen somewhere between getting to the hospital and being in the room I was in. Thanks for all the Facebook notes, tweets, emails, and checkins. After a short time, I answered “Barack Obama.” You seem ok.

Slovenia 194

Slovenia America Email Naming 194

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

While there’s still plenty of that in the system, many of the products and services are maturing and the particular segment Standing Cloud has gone after has suddenly become incredibly important to a large number of hosting, managed services, and cloud providers (often the same thing) not named Amazon.

Cloud 148

Cloud Java PHP Open Source 148

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 8, 2011

It went something like the following via several emails over the course of a week. Me: Can you send me a short email overview so I can tell you whether or not it’s something we’d be interested in exploring? <time passes> Entrepreneur: Following is an email describing my idea. Can we get together to discuss?

NDA 146

NDA Email Matching Operations 146

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 15, 2017

There are four more that I can name (one on St. I sent out an email asking a bunch of local friends what they used and how they liked it. This happens every day I drive between my house and my office. There is a dead spot at the corner of St. Vrain and 36. There is another dead spot on Broadway just across the street from Amante.

SMS 79

SMS Boston .Net Mobile 79

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 8, 2012

Instead, I emailed myself their names and bought them later that night on Amazon. I recognized some of the street names, neighborhoods, and buildings from conversations with my parents and the few times that I’ve been through the Bronx in recent years. He noticed me noticing them and told me to borrow them.

Arkansas 110

Arkansas New York City New York America 110

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Fred Wilson emailed me a link to Dennis Crowley’s post I’m running the NYC Marathon tomorrow! And if you recognize Dennis’ name, that’s because he’s the founder / CEO of Foursquare. Fred knows my obsession with human instrumentation, marathons, and social media. of the NYC Marathon via RunKeeper.

New York 125

New York Colorado Social Media Naming 125

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 16, 2012

” To all of my friends in Colorado’s tech community I encourage you to express your support for Mark – both now (comment on this blog, send his office an email or a letter, write your own blog post, or give him a hug the next time you see him on the street) and in the future.

Colorado 130

Colorado Government Community Leadership 130

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

If you are interested in applying for one of these scholarships, just email Eric Norlin (enorlin AT mac.com) with your name, company website, and a 100 word (no more) explanation of why you should be at Defrag.

Naming 119

Naming Networking Email Cost 119

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 17, 2012

I love the emails I get from readers of this blog. It turned out to be a guy named Christopher Couch , who was an undergrad at MIT that had crossed paths with me for some reason I can no longer remember. Skiing off of Polar Express. “Hi Brad, Happy holidays. She asked him what he was doing.

Dallas 134

Dallas Boston Algorithm Engineer 134

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 30, 2011

This started a very engaged conversation between us (up to 35 emails in my Gmail conversation as of right now) and eventually looped in the folks from Downtown Boulder, Inc. that’s fine, but please do #1 AND consider leaving a comment why you don’t want to join (or send me a separate email with this information.).

Colorado 138

Colorado Affiliate Community Database 138

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 4, 2010

Given the amount of email I jam through on a daily basis, my Outlook workflow is particularly well tuned and while I’ve tried to switch to Gmail, it hasn’t happened yet. However, not the remnant message – the last email that I was reading that I recently hit delete on – in the right reading pane. They got half of it right.

Email 100

Email Conversion Web Naming 100

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 22, 2010

As Paul Berberian, the CEO of Orbotix said to me in email, “it doesn’t get much more fun that this.&#. If you are going to be at CES and are showing off something cool that you want me to see, toss your company name and booth number in the comments and I’ll make sure to come by on Wednesday or Thursday.

Las Vegas 115

Las Vegas Portfolio Cloud Finance 115

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 17, 2014

I recall discovering “anonymous coward” on Slashdot and – after thinking someone had come up with a particularly clever user name, I realized that was their label for all “guests” who commented anonymously. We already know how much easier it is to be cruel over email versus in person.

Austin 142

Austin Security Naming Conversion 142

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 22, 2012

Or Isaac Saldana of SendGrid , who initially named the company SMTPAPI. He has a great chapter in Do More Faster where he wrote about how he “Looked for the Pain” as a developer, found it in sending transaction email, and created SMTPAPI (now SendGrid) to address it.

Founder 147

Founder Marketing Cofounder Lean 147