BeyondVC

MAY 5, 2004

It has been awhile since my last post as I have been busy with board meetings. In addition, I met a number of interesting companies, a couple of which were service businesses in the process of transitioning their models to become product-driven software companies. It is a familiar formula to many out there. More often than not, the principals of a service business may have developed expertise and a network in a particular industry, developed a solution for a customer, and decided that they could

Product 60

Product Software Review Technical Review Early Stage 60

BeyondVC

MAY 23, 2004

Jerry Colonna has an insightful post on what it’s like to be a CEO of a venture-backed company. Having worked with Jerry on a board before, I find his advice quite practical and thoughtful. One takeaway from his post is about being overcommunicative with your board meaning that VCs do not like surprises. I totally agree as I’ve written about this before.

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BeyondVC

MAY 20, 2004

Jeff Nolan has a good overview of stock option expensing, and why we should get involved. While I agree for the need for complete transparency of stock options, I also do not believe that expensing all options at the grant date will get us closer to true economic reality. In addition, I believe the unfair burden of stock option expensing falls on private companies-FASB even recognizes this.

Stock Options 60

Stock Options Stock Securities and Exchange Commission Option Pool 60

BeyondVC

MAY 19, 2004

It is on the newswire today- Cometa Networks , the wi-fi service provider backed by IBM, AT&T, and Intel, is shutting down. There is much analysis out there discussing the merits of the business and what went wrong. In a recent News.com piece, analysts discuss how Cometa did not build critical mass quickly enough to make the economics work. Rather than focus on what went wrong, what strikes me about Cometa Networks is not the business or market it was going after, but the hype and attention

Networking 60

Networking Operations Partner Marketing 60

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in

Startup

BeyondVC

MAY 17, 2004

As you all know, part of a VC’s job is to promote their portfolio companies. And yes, even though Expertcity is no longer a portfolio company since it was bought by Citrix, I would like all of you to know about the new collaboration service that the company is launching, GoToMeeting , which will be FREE until July. At the end of the day, I love the service and product and that is why I thought you would like to try it out.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Design Email Product 60

BeyondVC

MAY 13, 2004

This month seems to be my month for CIO meetings. Part of a VC’s job besides helping management with strategy and hiring people is to help with customer introductions and strategic partnerships. In this tough market, my partners and I have been doing our best to help along these fronts. While being in New York can be a disadvantage in terms of finding new companies and hiring great industry people, it is great for our access to customers and the Fortune 500.

Guinea 60

Guinea New York Vertical Hiring 60

BeyondVC

MAY 7, 2004

I was in a meeting with an executive at a large financial services company today discussing some of his technology problems and how my portfolio companies could address them. One of the big issues he mentioned was spam and stopping worms. Even though his company has spent real dollars in those areas, they are still problems which need to be solved. As Sasser and other worms and blended threats spread rapidly around the Internet, it got me thinking about what needs to be done to make us more secu

Security 60

Security Internet Networking Software 60