BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 5, 2004

Fred Wilson has a great post about building a “customer-obsessed company” as opposed to a “technology-obsessed company.” This is good advice and reminds me of a number of companies built during the bubble period which were technology companies in search of a problem to solve. For early stage companies building their business, some of Fred’s advice includes investing “in the customer facing side of the business and in particular account management and customer

Customer 60

Customer Software Review Technical Review Bootstrapping 60

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 23, 2004

Recently, a number of people asked me why I blog as a VC. Isn’t privacy a good thing for VCs? Don’t you want to keep the good ideas to yourself? For the past couple of years, I had my own personal blog which I mainly used as a bookmarking tool so I could retrieve interesting news stories and my running commentary from any web browser. As I made the leap to the public blogging world, I really did not know what I would find until I threw myself out there.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital RSS Conversion Audience 60

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 18, 2004

I try to limit the number of conferences that I attend every year to a handful. Besides Esther Dyson’s PC Forum , there are few others that I like to attend regularly. However, I have to say that Chris Shipley’s Demo was a great show. Read more about it on Ventureblog. Being on the east coast, it was great to catch up with a number of west coast VCs that I have not seen in awhile.

Mobile 60

Mobile Security Management Startup 60

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 17, 2004

The morning is off to a great start with a few home networking/digital media boxes for consumers. The battle for the home is in full swing between MSFT’s vision of the PC as the gateway to the home and companies like Akimbo , BravoBrava!, and Molino Networks bringing full digital media management to the set top box. It is truly quite amazing how much functionality continues to be added to these consumer devices, and how easy they make it for the consumer to view, listen and share their CDs

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Portfolio Hosting Video Networking 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

FEBRUARY 16, 2004

I am at Demo 2004, and it is great to feel the positive buzz in the room. There are lots of VCs and press in attendance, and it is clear that entrepreneurship is alive and kicking. In fact, it never went away as a number of companies that presented in the morning have been around for a few years. Hopefully, I will get a chance to post on some interesting companies and technologies that I see but for now please stay on top of Demo through Jeff Nolan’s Day 1 posts.

Technology 60

Technology 60

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 16, 2004

Day 1 is about over and after having sat through a number of interesting pitches, it is funny to hear the PR folks saying that many of the journalists are more interested in consumer/web-oriented companies than the enterprise-related businesses. Has the pendulum swung back to the consumer and web? It seems to me that home entertainment, wifi networks, and blogging are all the rage these days.

Agile 60

Agile PR Portfolio Web 60

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 10, 2004

While tapping the growth of the Chinese market sounds like a good idea, a fellow VC who just got back from a trip to Beijing and Shanghai says he completely understands why his companies are not getting any real traction in that market. Besides the highly politicized nature of business, there is a pervasive “catch me if you can” philosophy inherent in the economy.

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China IP Government Operations 60

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 1, 2004

Many of you have heard the analogy that the VC due diligence process is like dating and getting the investment is akin to being married. For all of you in relationships, you also understand that honest and open communication is one of the keys to success. Similarly, the VC and entrepreneur relationship should be built on the same foundation. Trust me, I know when one of my portfolio companies closes a new and important deal because good news always travels fast.

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Due Diligence Entrepreneur Portfolio Venture Capital 60