Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures has a great post up on why he prefers to be the lead investor in the companies he invests in.
Following are some board meeting rules that were recently presented to me and my fellow board members by a CEO at one of his first board meetings at a newly funded early stage company. I thought they were brilliant. Feel free to pass them out at your next board meeting.
Be supportive of the company: Tell us the things we do right and things we do wrong. We are figuring this out as we go. “No comment” is hard to interpret and our imaginations will run wild.
Be responsive to communications: Please ACK emails. If you can’t respond when you read, set expectations when you can. At least say “ack.” I’m generally on email all the time and it’s a real-time communications tool for me.
Be transparent: We have personal relationships around the table. Management should not use board members as “agents.” I don’t want any politics on the board – if I did I would still be going to board meetings from my last company.
Be specific and descriptive: I sit on a board also. I know the temptation to speak in strategic generalities. Please include concrete examples that smaller minds can digest. I give extra credit for using more words.
Look for opportunities: You generally cast a much larger net than we do.
Look for early revenue opportunities: Making money will never go out of style. Generally everything is easier with revenue.
Look for partnerships (Panda Mating): Early stage companies need help with partnerships largely because we don’t have any of particular value yet (like people, brand, data, and money.)
Look for dead-ends: No one wants to hit the wall at 120mph. You’re more experienced so you should see the wall coming before we do. Don’t grab the wheel – just tell us to look down the road.
Scott Converse (CEO of ClickCaster) has post summarizing his first board meeting. Todd Vernon (CEO of Lijit) does also (ok – his second board meeting.) Finally – Jeff Bussgang of IDG Ventures has a great post summarizing the infamous Venture Capital Monday Morning Partner’s Meeting.
Who said lawyers aren’t creative? Come on – it was at least one of you out there. Last night at the Kidstek 6th Annual Tech Leader’s Dinner, each of the 13 tables had to do a “skit” that had something to do with kids, technology, and marine stuff (since the event was at the Denver Aquarium.) My friends from Cooley Godward Kronish sponsored a table and Michael Stack and Sean Arend presented the poem “Pop Ups and Spam” read to the tempo of Theodor Geisel’s “Green Eggs and Ham.”)
That Spam-I-am!
That Spam-I-am!
I do not like
that Spam-I-am!
Do you like pop ups and spam?
I do not like them, Spam-I-am.
I do not like pop ups and spam.
Would you like them here or there?
I would not like them here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not like pop ups and spam.
I do not like them, Spam-I-am.
Would you like them on your screen?
Do you delete them with your mouse?
I do not like them on my screen.
I do delete them with my mouse.
I do not like pop ups and spam.
I do not like them, Spam-I-am.
You may like them.
You will see.
You may like dinner at Chilis’s for free!
I would not, could not eat for free.
Nor buy a car! You let me be.
I do not need a new home loan.
I do not need a new cell phone.
I am not looking for romance.
I do not need to be enhanced.
I do not like pop ups and spam.
I do not like them, Spam-I-am.
Not on my screen or Blackberry
Or from an off-shore pharmacy
I do not need a free plane fare.
I do not need to dye my hair.
I do not need a credit card.
I do not need to melt my lard.
I do not like pop ups and spam.
I do not like them, Spam-I-am.
I would not, could not, buy that stock.
Not in the dark. Not on a rock.
Nor buy a car. You let me be.
I do not like them, Spam, you see.
You do not like pop ups and spam?
I do not like them, Spam-I-am.
You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.
Spam!
If you will let me be, I will try them.
You will see.
Say!
I like pop ups and spam!
I do! I like them, Spam-I-am!
And I am looking for romance.
And I would love to be enhanced.
I sure do need a credit card.
And purple pills and melted lard.
And I will get a new home loan.
And I will buy six new cell phones.
And I will view them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And on my screen and Blackberry.
They are so good, so good, you see!
And I will view them here and there.
Say! I will view them ANYWHERE!
I do so like
pop ups and spam!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Spam-I-am!
I recommend you print this out, go find a nerd friend, and read this to him / her out loud. Michael / Sean – this is brilliant. I hope you billed someone other than me for the time you spent on this.
If you haven’t tried Judy’s Book in a while (or ever), take another look. The “morph” is in progress to the place for smart shoppers.
Scott Converse – the CEO of ClickCaster – has a long and very personal post about his experience in the run up to his first board meeting. I’m sure he’ll have a follow up post after the meeting today. If you are a first time entrepreneur who has just raised money, or are just starting to have board meetings, Scott’s perspective will be additive to your world view.
While I like TLAs, I much prefer short descriptive words. I’ve been living in the world of “sync” for a long time, dating back to when – as an early Lotus Notes user – I discovered the joy of “replication.” While Amy and I never had any replicants running around our house, I have always been infatuated with the notion of one copy of my data being available to me anywhere I happen to me with it always automagically being kept in “sync.”
In the last few years, I’ve gotten sync working nicely with things other than email. My Firefox bookmarks/cookies/history is now synced (thanks Google), my RSS stuff is now synced (thanks NewsGator), my files will soon be synced (thanks Tilana), my contact data is sort of synced (um – thanks Plaxo?), all my social networks are – er – wait a sec. I like working on a desktop so I’ve got them scattered all over the place and – for the most part – whenever I sit down at one it works like all the others. Except for all that new data I’m generating out there on the web in all those nifty new web applications that TechCrunch reviews every day that I feel compelled to create a user name and password for (wait – what about my password data – why isn’t that synced?) Shit – maybe it doesn’t work so well.
I was in a meeting the other day where we were talking about two different data modalities whose instantiations are spreading like tribbles. There are all kinds of fancy names for them – I like to think of them as “slurp” (as in my system can slurp in data from anywhere) and “spew” (as in my system can spew out data to anywhere). Yeah – I know API’s and Web Services enable all this stuff – and that’s nothing new, but my dad understands slurp and spew a lot better.
The second order issues with slurp and spew are brutal. Thanks – now I’ve got copies of my data everywhere. But – unlike sync – when I change something on one system – the receiver needs to know what to do with it. While sync might solve that, then everyone has to sync with everything and that won’t work. Or – someone has to come up with a universal sync format – and that won’t ever happen. Or – everyone just has to trust someone who then has to build a 100% uptime / 100% secure / 100% transparent system. Yeah right.
A couple of companies that I’m an investor in are doing really clever things with slurp and spew. I like those words – maybe they’ll stick.
Whew – I just finished getting my daily feed dose from FeedDemon. I have a daily routine for when I’m home – get up at 5am, try not to wake Amy up (I failed today), make a cup of coffee, get a bowl of fruit, go downstairs, feed the dogs, sit down at my computer, fire up Outlook, Firefox, and FeedDemon, Open-in-tabs my “News” folder in Firefox, and then read for an hour (or so). While I’m at it I usually write a few blogs. By 6:30 I’m done for the day with this stuff – I shut down FeedDemon (and don’t open it up until the next day), and then go get ready for a run.
Normally I’m able to get my email inbox cleared by 6:30 as part of this routine. Today it’s 6:30 and I haven’t tackled it yet. There were a flurry of interesting posts to read in FeedDemon and a surprisingly good set of articles in the NY Times, including a generally negative review of Daniel Libeskind’s new Denver Art Museum (I think the museum is brilliant and am completely in love with everything about it – demonstrating my complete inability to be an “architecture critic.”)
A number of the entrepreneurs I work with wrote some good stuff today (actually most of it is from yesterday – why is everyone most prolific on a Wednesday – hmm?). Following is a short summary in case you are interested:
Time to get after the email (yup – no run today – a tendon in my right leg has been bothering me and rest is good.)
Dan Bricklin was recently an expert witness in the Hyperion vs. Outlooksoft case that was tried in the US District Court in Marshall, TX. Outlooksoft (the defendant) won – and Dan’s testimony was critical to invalidating the Hyperion patent.
Dan has two excellent essays up about this – his experience in the case and his general thoughts on Patent Litigation circa 2006. Dan is a remarkably clear thinker and excellent writer (as well as general software wizard and hugely nice guy) – if you are interested in software patents, these two essays are a must read.