Cracking the Code

JANUARY 28, 2008

Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Monday, January 28, 2008. Happy New Year 2008! Happy New Year to you, Cracking-the-code reader! You have been 2,950 to visit the site in 2007 and you looked at 3,920 pages. This represents an outstanding 2,298% growth vs. 2006 (this type of growth seems big but you get used to it when reading business plans is you day job).

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review Los Angeles Europe 48

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 6, 2008

I've never been able to walk into a large group of people and feel like I can "work the room." Sure, I've read various articles on this stuff, but honestly, I still struggle with meeting interesting people. I seem to be very adept at meeting financial planners, attorneys, accountants, etc. - and after 10 seconds of conversation, I'm at a loss. I can make small talk with them, but unless I'm going to see this person a few times or unless they have a tech specialization, ummm, not the best use of

Networking 191

Networking Search Naming Conversion 191

Professor VC

JANUARY 27, 2008

ProfessorVC. The last blogger in Silicon Valley. Sunday, January 27, 2008. Is the Grass Really Greener on the Dark Side? The spring semester of my Entrepreneurial Finance class starts tomorrow. During the next four months, we will examine over a dozen entrepreneurial ventures from a diverse mix of industries - technology, service, food & beverage, and fashion.

San Jose 28

San Jose Technical Review Angel Investor Venture Capital 28

BeyondVC

JANUARY 31, 2008

First of all, Google announced some amazing numbers growing its revenue over 50% and its earnings around 17%. That being said, investors in Google have high expectations and the stock fell in after hours trading. One note that many in the blogosphere seemed to pick up on is the higher cost of traffic acquisition from partners and the fact that social networking is not delivering results as expected( read Between the Lines for more).

Social Network 68

Social Network Networking Advertising Acquisition 68

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

VC Adventure

JANUARY 26, 2008

Non-disclosure Agreement 88

Non-disclosure Agreement Entrepreneur 88

Jason Ball

JANUARY 16, 2008

Like I do with every Apple iTunes new feature, I buy immediately to help promote the format. The introduction of Movie Rentals is no different… If you rent a movie through iTunes, a new source appears in iTunes “Rented Movies” I decided to watch Pirates of the Carribean (one of our portfolio companies’ software has been used in the various Pirates films).

Portfolio 28

Portfolio Software Cost 28

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 18, 2008

Last Saturday, I was a panelist at the CalTech - Social Networks event. It was a really good event with lots of interesting folks in attendance. I would guess that there was about 100 people - on a Saturday in Pasadena. That shows some interest in the topic. The presenters had some interesting things to say on a wide variety of topics. A post by Elrend Wilhelmsen discusses some of what was discussed.

Social Network 150

Social Network Networking Community Audience 150

Professor VC

JANUARY 17, 2008

ProfessorVC. The last blogger in Silicon Valley. Thursday, January 17, 2008. Touched by an Angel. I think the title of this post is a TV show, but fitting as there has been much debate in the venture community as to the whether angel investors are good or bad for entrepreneurs and VCs. What would the VC corollary to Touched by an Angel, be. Well, you can certainly peruse The Funded for some descriptive terms for investors.

Pre-Money Valuation 28

Pre-Money Valuation Angel Investor Angel Groups Valuation 28

BeyondVC

JANUARY 22, 2008

Congratulations to Bill, Scott and team on our new $27mm round of funding led by Meritech and including Sun Microsystems and SAP Ventures. You guys have been pushing the envelope since I have known you and delivering some spectacular results to boot. It is nice to see our team and product get validated with a significant round of funding so we can continue our battle to bring our customers a better, faster, and cheaper way to access and analyze massive volumes of data.

Finance 60

Finance Open Source Database Acquisition 60

VC Adventure

JANUARY 26, 2008

Non-disclosure Agreement 75

Non-disclosure Agreement Entrepreneur 75

Jason Ball

JANUARY 16, 2008

I posted last year’s figures from Icon Corporate Finance, showing how exit valuations were 1.5x -2x sales. I use figures like that as 3rd party data when discussing valuations. This year’s data focuses on one of the same two metrics used last year price/EBIT (no price/sales data was provided). What’s clear though is that the multiples for 2007 are trending down from those of 2006… If you’re an entrepreneur out fundraising, you need to keep these multiples in mind.

Valuation 28

Valuation Private Equity Open Source Equity 28

Genuine VC

JANUARY 29, 2008

Do you have a drawer or closet full of old cell phones, iPods, and digital cameras? You know that you’re not supposed to throw them away because it’s not good for the environment. Plus, they still work. You could sell them on eBay or Craigslist, but that’s such a pain. And who knows how much you could get for them? I am happy to share that we at Venrock have made an investment in a startup which directly addresses this problem.

Technical Cofounder 101

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Angel Investor 101

Occam's Razor

JANUARY 29, 2008

Engagement is a buzz word. It is a quest. It is altar at which many worship. Often though, atleast online, our hopes are dashed, efforts expended rarely have adequate ROI, the hype is followed with a bucket of cold water. It is not that measuring if "Visitors" / "Customers" itself is a ignoble goal. It is more that our execution efforts in measuring engagement are fatally flawed.

Analytics 99

Analytics Web Metrics Customer 99

Professor VC

JANUARY 17, 2008

ProfessorVC. The last blogger in Silicon Valley. Thursday, January 17, 2008. Who does this ProfessorVC think he is? Ok, so I think Im the last guy in Silicon Valley to start a blog. Ive thought about it for the past 5 or 6 years and finally decided to do it this afternoon. Im so late hopping on the train that we are probably pulling into the station.

Silicon Valley 31

Silicon Valley San Jose Angel Investor Venture Capital 31

BeyondVC

JANUARY 17, 2008

I got a call before the holidays from a prospective customer that I introduced to one of my portfolio companies. He said he loved our product, saw it fitting in perfectly into their platform, but that we were not responsive enough to their needs. I was able to get a second chance for our team but since deals are momentum-based, I knew that it would be an uphill struggle to win.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Partner Technology Sales 60

VC Adventure

JANUARY 23, 2008

Entrepreneur 53

Entrepreneur 53

Jason Ball

JANUARY 7, 2008

I was given a Moshi Monster phone charm by our “secret santa” this year. I was pleased to see that Mind Candy (an Accel and Spark Ventures investment) was behind the charm and that it linked to a virtual pets style website. I’ve now registered and adopted a monster, my new, if somewhat despondent, moshi monster called Alpi: Moshi Monsters is kind of a Second Life for Kids with a tamagotchi thrown in… the puzzles they offer kids as edutainment are definitely cool -some of

Software 28

Software 28

Genuine VC

JANUARY 29, 2008

Do you have a drawer or closet full of old cell phones, iPods, and digital cameras? You know that you’re not supposed to throw them away because it’s not good for the environment. Plus, they still work. You could sell them on eBay or Craigslist, but that’s such a pain. And who knows how much you could get for them? I am happy to share that we at Venrock have made an investment in a startup which directly addresses this problem.

Technical Cofounder 100

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Angel Investor 100

Occam's Razor

JANUARY 8, 2008

I was merrily using Time on Page and Time on Site metrics for quite some time before I actually realized how they were being measured. It was a real Doh (!) moment. Turns out we have not rfid'ed every visitor and they don't rub their head against their monitor before starting their session on my website (and of course another head rub when they decide they have had enough and exit).

Metrics 121

Metrics Analytics Web .Net 121

aweissman.com

JANUARY 7, 2008

skip to main | skip to sidebar. aweissman.com. Maximizing the serendipity around you. Jan 7, 2008. Media Physics. Ian Rogers of Yahoo and elsewhere writes that that scale of the web creates media opportunity through the creation of : ". a loosely-coupled value chain including users as value creators. The value chain is not owned by a single entity ( LimeWire , Apple, or Universal).

Media 20

Media Social Media Web Naming 20

BeyondVC

JANUARY 16, 2008

Here is another example of one of my portfolio companies’ mantras: Google giveth and Google taketh away ( see my post from April for more on this). Who knows the real reason why Google shut off Adsense for Incredimail (Nasdaq: MAIL) but look at what happened to the stock in one day—a 40% drop. I am not saying that startups should not use Adsense but this just reminds that one should always take a hard look at their business and if they are too heavily dependent on any one customer or

Distribution 60

Distribution Stock Portfolio Partner 60

VC Adventure

JANUARY 14, 2008

53

53

BeyondVC

JANUARY 16, 2008

I am helping a friend who has the most popular books on baby naming bring it all online. Our development on the backend is close to complete, and we are looking for a great web designer who can create a few templates and themes for us. This is a database driven site and the homepage will include some social elements in it as well. If interested please send me a note with some samples of your sites you helped design.

Web 60

Web Design Database Naming 60

BeyondVC

JANUARY 9, 2008

I was catching up on my feed reader this morning and noticed my friend Jeff Nolan’s post (also see Brad Feld ) on Newsgator and FeedDemon RSS clients now being free. I know that Jeff joined Newsgator because of his belief in the enterprise, and I applaud the company’s new strategy. As I have written before, enterprise sales is incredibly hard.

Sales 60

Sales RSS Revenue Software 60

BeyondVC

JANUARY 8, 2008

As you know, I am a huge believer in open standards and that open standards (over time) will usually prevail over proprietary, closed networks. And my one wish from a social networking perspective was to really be able to manage all of my relationships from various networks and my interests from one meta-application. In June this year I wrote about Linkedin and Facebook on a possible collision course.

Social Network 60

Social Network Networking Java Internet 60

BeyondVC

JANUARY 9, 2008

I had a great conversation wtih a friend of mine yesterday about the latest release of his product. He had mentioned that one of my clips from the Economist (see below) on Evan Williams from Blogger and Twitter fame spurred some lively debate at his company. The key thought from Evan is rather than worry about adding another feature or function, ask yourself what can be taken away to create something new.” This is a central idea and one that reminds of me the KISS method of writing that my

Search 60

Search Conversion Product Developer 60

BeyondVC

JANUARY 1, 2008

I have been a Ravens fan for quite awhile, and I am glad they finally made this move. Being an avid sports fan and former DI lacrosse player, I have always tried to take lessons from the sports world into the business world. This is yet another example that reminds me of working with startups. At the end, Coach Billick lost control of his team as they lost faith in his strategy and execution.

Leadership 60

Leadership Naming Startup Management 60

VC Adventure

JANUARY 8, 2008

52

52

VC Adventure

JANUARY 23, 2008

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur 48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 11, 2008

48

48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 30, 2008

48

48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 30, 2008

48

48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 23, 2008

Web 48

Web Customer 48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 21, 2008

Hosting 48

Hosting 48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 21, 2008

Hosting 48

Hosting 48

VC Adventure

JANUARY 21, 2008

Partner 48

Partner Programming Employee 48