Greg Reinacker has a comprehensive post up about why NewsGator has shifted to subscription pricing for all of their products (except the soon to be released NewsGator Enterprise Server.) If you are a software entrepreneur thinking about “subscription” vs. “perpetual” pricing, it’s worth reading this post. I’ve watched a number of my companies work through this – most end up either with subscription (e.g. Commerce5, Oxlo, Quova, Rally) or perpetual (Klocwork, Newmerix) but some end up with both (StillSecure).
Make sure you separate concept of the way you sell your software (subscription vs. perpetual) from the way you deliver your software (ASP / hosted vs. “shrink wrap” – remember when Apple II and TRS-80 software came in ziplock bags). I find that – even today – lots of folks that I talk to get tangled up in the difference between these two constructs.
Jason and I are feeling the need for closure on our term sheet series as we’ve started gearing up on our next series (M&A). So – we’re going to knock out the balance of the standard term sheet terms this week. We’re still in the “terms that don’t matter much zone” so we’re including Voting Rights and Employee Pool for completeness.
“Voting Rights: The Series A Preferred will vote together with the Common Stock and not as a separate class except as specifically provided herein or as otherwise required by law. The Common Stock may be increased or decreased by the vote of holders of a majority of the Common Stock and Series A Preferred voting together on an as if converted basis, and without a separate class vote. Each share of Series A Preferred shall have a number of votes equal to the number of shares of Common Stock then issuable upon conversion of such share of Series A Preferred.”
Most of the time voting rights are simply an “FYI” section as all the heavy rights are contained in other sections such as the protective provisions.
“Employee Pool: Prior to the Closing, the Company will reserve shares of its Common Stock so that __% of its fully diluted capital stock following the issuance of its Series A Preferred is available for future issuances to directors, officers, employees and consultants. The term “Employee Pool” shall include both shares reserved for issuance as stated above, as well as current options outstanding, which aggregate amount is approximately __% of the Company’s fully diluted capital stock following the issuance of its Series A Preferred.”
The employee pool section is a separate section in order to clarify the capital structure and specifically call out the percentage of the company that will be allocated to the option pool associated with the financing. Since a cap table is almost always included with the term sheet, this section is redundant, but exists so there is no confusion about the size of the option pool.
I’m lucky. I get to live in two beautiful places: Homer, AK and Eldorado Springs, CO (I like to say I live in Boulder because people know where it is, but we actually live in Eldo.) We live in Alaska part of the year because I have to get away from the hustle and bustle of Eldo / Boulder to think straight.
In addition to our nation’s 229th birthday, it was Eldorado Springs’ 100th birthday today. I’ll get back to writing about serious stuff like venture capital, but for now, happy birthday Eldo.
Fred Wilson clued me into a fun use of del.icio.us. He calls it the “for:“ tag. He set one up for his wife Joanne (Gotham Gal). Whenever he wants her to see something on the web, he simply tags it “for:gothamgal”.
I just set up a for:bradfeld tag in del.icio.us. Then – I subscribed to it in NewsGator. If you run across something on the web you want me to see, just tag it.
I stumbled over Edward Tufte’s Sparklines this morning. Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is one of my favorite books and his essay The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint helped shape my point of view that PowerPoint is contributing to the intellectual degredation of contemporary society.
Sparklines are an awesome new way to display high densities of quantitative information. Tufte nailed it once again – hopefully we’ll start seeing these pop up all over the place. Fortunately there’s already a PHP Graphing Library up at Sourceforge and O’Reilly’s xml.com site has a good article with Python code up.
Michael Parekh pointed me to an awesome 10 minute movie of how the United States came together.
Slavomir Rawicz’s The Long Walk has replaced James Frey’s books as the best book of the year. Several people recommended it to me and it was simply awesome.
Rawicz tells the story of his arrest, interrogation, trial, and sentencing for espionage in Russia in 1939. Of course all of this is bogus as he’s merely Polish and has done nothing wrong, but he is stubborn and – rather than admit false guilt (and surely be executed), he hangs in there for a year of abuse and is sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in a Siberian prison camp.
This is where the real story begins. Rawicz describes – in horrifying detail – the deportation to the labor camp. Upon arrival, not surprisingly, the first task for the new prisoners – in the midst of a hideous Siberian winter – is to build their own shelter. This kind of stuff goes on for a while and about 100 pages in, Rawicz starts plotting his escape.
Rawicz and six of his fellow prisoners split one night. The second half of the book is the incredible story of their journey south from northern Siberia, across Russia, through Mongolia, across the Gobi Dessert, over the mountains of Tibet, and finally into India. My description couldn’t do justice to this journey – Rawicz’s description is excruciatingly magnificent.
The entire journey – most of it on foot – is over 4,000 miles from Moscow to India. If you are ever having a difficult day, feel like giving up hope, or merely view the things ahead of you as “a challenge”, pick up this book, open to any page, read 10 pages, and be humbled (and re-calibrated).
Spectacular. Thanks to all who suggested I read it.
I have used a two monitor setup for several years (I’m about to try three just for the hell of it.) I discovered Ultramon the other day, downloaded it, and my life will never be the same. If you use two more more monitors on your PC setup, this is a must have app.
Following are some of the features that I’m already using:
There are plenty of other features, some of which I’m sure I’ll discover over time. Installation is trivial and was flawless for me. I’ve been using it for three days and can’t imagine not having it.
Live8 is just awesome. I’ve been tethered to my computer for a while watching it live on AOL.
Pink Floyd is on stage right now in London (the first time since 1981 as a full band, including Roger Waters.) I love Pink Floyd. I once listened to Dark Side of the Moon for an entire semester during college (I had an early CD player – I started it at the beginning of the semester, pressed the repeat button, and pressed stop at the end of the semester. Yes – I occasionally turned the volume down to sleep at night.) I have fond memories of my mom yelling “turn down that shit” when I was home from college visiting for the summer blasting The Wall.
They started with “Breathe In The Air”, then “Money“, then “Wish You Were Here”, and finished with “Comfortably Numb.” Man, these dudes look old (except for David Gillmour), but boy can they sing and play their instruments.
Seeing a teenager in the crowd wearing a Dark Side of the Moon prism t-shirt made me smile. I wonder if he can sing the following lyrics backwards like I can.
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears, wish you were here.
or maybe
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.
Go sign the Live8 online message to the leaders at the upcoming G-8 Summit.
To: The 8 most powerful leaders in the world
50,000 people are dying, needlessly, every day of extreme poverty.
At this year’s G8 summit meeting, it is within your power to put an end to this tragedy. It is an extraordinary opportunity which it would be shameful to ignore. We urge you to take these 3 steps to make extreme poverty history…
Technorati has a bunch of Live8 tag action going on so I figured I’d add to the mix. live8; live8 pink floyd