I’m proud of all the companies I invest in, but I’m especially proud of the ones that just crank up the volume and get it done, especially in markets that other VCs say “eh – boring.” Rally Software is one of these – I’ve been an investor since it was started a couple of years ago and am having a great time watching Tim Miller, Ryan Martens, Don Hazell, and team create a business from scratch. Tim, Ryan, and Don all had a tenure at BEA and their experience and seasoning shows in everything they do.
Agile software development has gotten plenty of play over the past few years. Rally is at the forefront of this trend – providing an on-demand software product for Agile development teams along with a broad range of consulting services for Agile development. This week they announced Release 5 of their product, a web services API for integration with customer management systems, Salesforce.com integration / Sforce Ecosystem authorization, and a formal partner program.
Serious software development companies such as BMC, Intuit, Novell, Webroot, and CNet are now using Rally’s products as a core part of their software development cycle. While I acknowledge my role in this play as an advertisement for Rally (I’m proud of my companies, but also shameless), if you develop software for a living (even if you aren’t currently using Agile methodologies), I encourage you to take a serious look.
I can’t remember why Tobias Wolff’s Old School ended up on my reading pile, but I grabbed it and tossed it in my bag for my trip to San Francisco. I mistakenly thought that Wolff had written a bunch of novels and that this was one of his “classics.” It turns out that Wolff is actually one of the great short story writers of our time (as well as a master of the memoir – e.g. This Boy’s Life). Of course, Amy has all of his other books which she just brought to me with a big smile (e.g. Brad – you philistine you).
Old School – written in 2003 – is his first full length novel. And what a novel it is. While the pretty silver “Finalist: PEN/Faulkner Award” medallion on the cover is a not–so-subtle hint, I still wasn’t expecting to get sucked in by the book. After about 30 pages, Wolff had me and I slowed down and started savoring each paragraph. I realized that I was reading something different. Unlike so much that I read today – where the writer is telling a story, but hasn’t “crafted it” – Wolff takes his time, tells his story, and gives you a rich, flavorful burst of words with every bite. The story is simple – that’s part of the beauty of the book – since the story doesn’t get in the way of the words.
It’s rare that you read the word “boner” in the middle of a sentence and thing “that was perfectly placed.” Robert Frost and Ayn Rand make appearances and Hemingway plays a central role in the plot – none of these things make you think “eh – self-indulgent writer crap.” It’s mostly perfect. Yum.
Harry Potter is up next – I’m managed to pry the books out of Amy’s hands since she gobbled them up while I was on my trip. I never got around to reading the blue one (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) so I’ve got 1600 pages of Harry Potter ahead of me this weekend.
Niel Robertson – the CTO of Newmerix – was interviewed recently about his “four rules of market timing” (as they apply to creating a company). Niel is a successful multi-time entrepreneur (and fellow MIT grad) that I’ve known for a decade. He was an early engineer at NetGenesis, co-founded Service Metrics (I was the lead investor – Service Metrics was acquired by Exodus in 1999) and co-founded Newmerix several years ago (again – I was the lead investor). Niel is also the proud owner of the nicest Ferrari in Boulder.
In the interview, Niel talks about his four rules of market timing. These rules help him determine whether the market is ready for an idea and he tries to apply them to any business idea he is thinking about. They are:
I’m a Firefox fiend (extension count going up daily; Greasemonkey security fears acknowledged) and I just found out that if you have multiple tabs, you can go to tab N by hitting Ctrl-N. If you are like me and can’t visually scan horizontally for numbers (e.g. I have to count from left to right to figure out which tab I’m at – minor dyslexia-like thing) there’s an extension that’ll number the tabs for you.
In the spring, NewsGator announced its Media Platform and a deal with the Denver Post. Today, the DenverPost.com released News Hound, their private-label RSS reader built on top of the NewsGator Media Platform. We’ve got a bunch of other media deals in the works, but this is the first one to ship. While News Hound is a standalone client (which the Denver Post wanted, vs. a web-based client), the integration with the overall platform (e.g. the NewsGator Media Platform) enables either a standalone client or a web-based client, or both.
Download News Hound and give it a whirl. We’d love feedback on it in an effort to make it “easier” for the mainstream user to read RSS content, especially around tightly defined local content (e.g. The Denver Post in this case).
Anthony Nassar, who publishes an ezine called Propel Your Venture, just published an interview with me that he did last month. Simultaneously, VC Experts reprinted a post that Jason Mendelson and I wrote on participating preferred stock called To Participate or Not.
VNU announced today that it is going to start using FeedBurner to help manage and monetize its RSS feeds.
VNU – one of the largest publishers in the world that owns companies and brands such as ACNielsen, Nielsen Media Research, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporting, Computing, Intermediair, and the Golden Pages director – is already very active with RSS. Earlier this year they partnered with NewsGator to launch NewsGator France and NewsGator UK (and are in the process of launching NewsGator products in several other European countries.)
Dominique Busso – the CEO of vnu.net – has been a gracious partner, great to work with, and has consistently been at the front of the curve for spreading RSS across Europe.
I recently discovered an outstanding article by Dennis Jaffe (Saybrook Graduate School) and Pascal Levensohn (Levensohn Venture Partners) titled “After The Term Sheet: How Venture Boards Influence The Success Or Failure Of Technology Companies.” Written in 2003, this is one of the best articles I’ve ever seen of the issues and dynamics surrounding the board of a venture backed company.
The paper covers a lot of ground. It starts by exploring how the board adds value to the enterprise (through social, intellectual, and interpersonal capital) and then describes in details the attributes of successful boards, which include:
It then goes on to talk about the role of the board at different stages of development of a company (start-up / seed, early commercialization, and productivity / expansion) followed by a long discussion of the desirable personal attributes of strong boards, such as:
The article then becomes prescriptive and covers the ten common pitfalls of boards:
The article then discusses the key relationships of the board (board / CEO, board / company, and board / shareholders) and finishes with conclusions and recommendations for boards, such as:
Overall, this is an awesome article that I recommend be read carefully by any member of the board of a venture backed company.
I’m on an airplane for the first time in the last few weeks (from Anchorage to San Francisco). My choices are limited, so I decided to fly on Untied. The plane smells like it needs a shower (nope – that’s not me). The next time you are on an airplane, open up the cover to the food tray and take a good look – yuck.