Category
VC
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10.30.07The Marquis de Lau Phenomenon in Venture CapitalThere's a curiously engaging book called How Proust Can Change Your Life, written by Alain de Botton, that looks at Marcel Proust's life and works (novels) in the context of universal life lessons. Chapter 2, entitled "How to Read for Yourself," conveys the notion that Proust believed in novels as "a kind of optical instrument" (Proust's words) with which to examine one's own life. De Botton relates the story of Lucien Daudet who had occasion to visit an art gallery with Proust: Daudet tells us that they went into a gallery hung with a painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio. It ...
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10.20.07Birth Order and the EntrepreneurLife's full of randomness. Some thinkers even encourage seeking it out as stimulus or influence. But as Jeffrey Kluger nicely sets up his most recent reportage, "Of all the things that shape who we are, few seem more arbitrary than the sequence in which we and our siblings pop out of the womb." Yup. It's easy, I think, to fall into generalized discussion of birth order implications, and hard to quantify or demonstrate statistically significant data upon psychological attributes or behavioral measures. Those that are effectively "tempering" the science deserve credit and attention. In his recent Time piece on the subject, Kluger ends ...
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09.13.07The Generalist Investor’s DilemmaMichael Pollan is a genius wordsmith (and a fellow parenthetical commentator). Rarely is the koala reduced to a "thimble-brained monophage." Nearing the end of his culinary exploration, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, I ran across the following, an apt description of the venture investor's competing modalities: Whenever they encounter a new food they find themselves torn between two conflicting emotions unknown to the specialist eater, each with its own biological rationale: neophobia, a sensible fear of ingesting anything new, and neophilia, a risky but necessary openness to new tastes. At times the investor operates like a rat, taking ...
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09.12.07The VC View on Bootstrapping Your BusinessTo some, bootstrapping and venture capital are diametrically opposed. Where's the self-sufficience in a pile of outside money, after all? In fact, the two startup approaches are eminently compatible, even complementary. Naysayers, follow along. I recently finished Greg Gianforte and Marcus Gibson's Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money. It's a no-nonsense guide to guerilla startup techniques that work in a low funding environment and is packed with examples of folks who have "made it" on a small pile of dimes and no outside capital. The advice is nicely tiered, flushed out with details (e.g., bring at least 200 business ...
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07.11.07Anyone Can Start a BusinessIf you haven't yet seen Pixar's new masterpiece, "Ratatouille," run, do not walk, to your nearest theater and avail yourself of what the NYTimes' A. O. Scott has deemed "a near flawless piece of popular art" (no joke; can't remember the last Times review that even approached that level of praise). That being said, as fair warning the below offers something of a spoiler. If you're so inclined, do head to your next feed, or another (inspiring) blog. In the movie's final moments, with a happy twist, writer/director Brad Bird offers up the following polemic (controversial for its candor), which, as one in ...
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06.12.07Israel RisingTom Friedman's op-ed piece in the Sunday New York Times (subscription required) is worth a gander. It sings an old tune - that of promising young innovators, and their financial backers, as economic growth drivers - against the unusual backdrop of Israel's seat in the global tech engine. Here's the "money" quote: If you want to know why Israel’s stock market and car sales are at record highs — while Israel’s government is paralyzed by scandals and war with Hamas and doesn’t even have a finance minister — it’s because of this ecosystem of young innovators and venture capitalists. Last year, VCs poured ...
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05.22.07The Wilson Brothers Dig Venture CapitalIf imitation is flattery, the venture business should be enthused by the Wilson brothers' recent spate of VC costume-bearing. First, Owen dons the hat in "Wedding Crashers" and now Luke takes the baton in "The Wendell Baker Story": "Venture capitalist: that’s the misleading job description preferred by the title character of the slight and silly “Wendell Baker Story.†Wendell (Luke Wilson), a cheerful Texan slacker, runs a profitable operation on the Tex-Mex border selling fake driver’s licenses to illegal migrant workers." (Source) Admittedly, it's been the Wes Anderson films that won me over to this duo, but now I'm 100% sold. PS. I rather like Stephen Holden's ...
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05.15.07Chrysalis Ventures Seeks Analyst/Associate CandidatesDear Readers: My employer, Chrysalis Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Louisville, KY, is actively seeking Analyst and Associate candidates. We offer a fast-paced, intellectually-charged work environment with significant exposure to all aspects of the venture industry from business plan review to portfolio company support. If interested, please email me at mwinn [AT] chrysalisventures [DOT] com with a cover letter and resume. We'd appreciate you forwarding along to qualified candidates as well. Job descriptions follow: Analyst / Associate I look forward to hearing from you!
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04.15.07Venture Impact: Southeast Figures ProminentlyI finally got around to looking at Global Insight's recently released study, "Venture Impact: The Ecomonic Importance of Venture Capital Backed Companies to the U.S. Economy." This one's great emotional candy for anyone in the business. After all, venture-backed company employees represent 9% of all private sector employees, and employment at venture-backed companies grew at triple the rate of overall domestic growth in the period from 2003 to 2005. Hoo-rah! I'm not surprised by the above, but what took me aback was data on venture-backed company jobs by state, which prominently figures Georgia and Tennessee amongst other eye-openers. Peek at the following table ...
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03.27.07MyShape - New "Custom Fit" EntrantDespite what has been a marked uptick in consumer facing startups over the past couple years, it's not altogether often that e-tailers make it into VentureWire. If memory serves, 1-800Diapers.com was the last that graced its e-letter. So I was interested to read the scoop yesterday that a shopping site called MyShape received $2 million from angel investors. Here's the skinny on the company per Erica Owen's reporting: MyShape, which launched six months ago and is based in Altadena, Calif., matches shoppers measurements, body shape and preferences with the varying sizes of participating brands to help overcome the fashion industry's lack ...
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Welcome to Punctuative! Here you'll find occasionally insightful comments on entrepreneurship, venture capital, technology, and the future, as well as a nifty tool (coming soon) meant to help open doors in the financing world. Go ahead and explore.
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Subscribe to Tumblr FeedNYTimes Gaffe
July 6, 2008“An article today in Sunday Business about missed opportunities to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil refers to a 1990 effort by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, to block higher mileage requirements for vehicles and notes that Mr. Helms did not return calls seeking comment. The section went to press on Thursday, before Mr. Helms’s death Friday morning.” [from today’s NYTimes]
More and more, this kind of thing just feels like a mistake. How can text published on a Sunday be “sealed” on a Thursday? Consumption expectations have changed.
bluetooth baby monitor? oi. [via NYTimes]
June 17, 2008
bluetooth baby monitor? oi. [via NYTimes]"Stento believes the industry will yield better returns in the long run than buyout investments,..."
June 14, 2008“Stento believes the industry will yield better returns in the long run than buyout investments, despite the huge growth of the latter in recent years. “Relative to buyouts, I think of it as the tortoise and the hare. I think the [venture] returns from the 2001-2005 funds will beat buyout returns, but we may not know that for three to four years.””
- Greg Stento, HarbourVest Partners. VentureWire. Friday, June 13, 2008"A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9..."
June 10, 2008“A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.”
- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/opinion/10brooks.html"…the success of a Broadway show depends increasingly on the presence of bankable Hollywood..."
May 15, 2008“…the success of a Broadway show depends increasingly on the presence of bankable Hollywood names on the marquee, even for a nonprofit company like the Roundabout. “The reality is that stars sell single tickets,” Mr. Haimes said. “A third of our budget” — about $14 million a year — “comes from single ticket sales, and probably the most important aspect to single ticket sales is the name of the show and who’s in it. There is pressure, no doubt about it.””
- The British Actor Ben Daniels Seduces American Theatergoers as Valmont in ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ - New York TimesThe ride reminds me of the Italian art futurism movement (early...
May 11, 2008
The ride reminds me of the Italian art futurism movement (early part of the 20th century) and the rider, a 50s hipster. Cool asics. [via]
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