Periodically I get backlogged with “stuff I want to blog” that I never get to along with a handful of “links from today that are great.” So – today you get a bunch of things that I’m involved in and turn me out. Click through to whatever interests you.
Jilted in the U.S., a Site Finds Love in India: Ignighter was in the TechStars Boulder 2008 class. Daniel, Adam, and Kevin have pivoted around a few times and ended up creating the fastest growing dating site in India – from their office in Manhattan. The New York Times tells how it came together.
The Fiction of 20%: This is a classic post from Fred Wilson that came up over the weekend in the midst of a negotiation on a deal I’m working on. Every entrepreneur should read it. I’d also encourage every VC and angel investor to read it. Bottom line – there is a difference between “want” and “need.”
Gnip Is Hiring: Sales people and engineers in Boulder.
Shiny Things: Amy and I had dinner with our long time friends Paul and Renee Berberian (Paul is CEO of Orbotix). Renee is in film school and doing amazing work. Her latest project is a short film called Shiny Things and is a two morticians uncovering a dead mans secrets in a small mountain town. She’s raising $1,500 on IndieGoGo – I just contributed $100. Help Renee get this cool film made.
F.lux is Awesome: F.lux automatically adjusts the brightness on your computer based on your lighting conditions and time of day. I noticed it from a tweet from @jvaleski – it’s just killer.
RoundPegg Raises $1.27 Million To Be The eHarmony For Jobs: RoundPegg was in the TechStars Boulder 2010 class. I’ve backed Tim Wolters, one of the founders, in a previous company (Dante – acquired by webMethods). I’m a huge Tim fan and am psyched to see what Tim and his partners are accomplishing at RoundPegg.
The White House Innovation Report Has Been Published: My good friend Phil Weiser was on a team that put this together. It’s a fascinating and very coherent report on the power, impact, and importance of innovation on our society.
Kauffman Foundation Provides $200,000 of Funding for the TechStars Network: This money will be used to standardize seed accelerator application and reporting processes. While it will be built for the TechStars Network, it will be available to anyone that wants to use it. Thanks once again to my friends at the Kauffman Foundation for stepping up and funding an important infrastructure piece of the broad entrepreneurial ecosystem.
A Movie I Helped Fund – The Kite – Gets A Good Early Review: I’ll occasionally toss money at random non-tech things my friends are doing (movies, restaurants, art galleries – stuff like that.) I never have any economic expectations, but I love seeing the projects get done. The Kite is a labor of love for Prashant Bhargava, a relative of Raj Bhargava who is an entrepreneur I’ve been working with for almost 17 years. When Raj asked me to play, I said sure – and it’s fun to see The Kite out in the world.
Ok – time to stop stalling and go back to grinding on the latest draft of Venture Financings: How to Look Smarter than Your Lawyer and VC which is due to the publisher by – ahem – next Monday.