Management

My long time friend Chris Moody , president and COO of Gnip, has offered to write some guest posts on management – we’ll call the series Moody on Management. In addition to being an outstanding early stage / high growth executive, Chris has made a study of management in startups and is extremely thoughtful about what does and doesn’t work. His first post is aimed at anyone looking to get a job in a startup and talks about how to be effective at interviewing for a job. Feel free to weigh in if you have other “Stop, Don’t, Nevers” or “Pleases” ...

Once again we are in a zone where hiring software developers is incredibly challenging. The market is fully employed and while there is some movement between companies, great developers tend to be decided to what they are doing for a while, especially in an entrepreneurial context. Last night I was at Angel Boot Camp in Boston. It was a dinner for about 50 angel investors – a mix of experienced ones and new ones – organized by Jon Pierce . A few of us (including me) gave short talks and there was a long, vibrant room wide group conversation. ...

I get to work with a lot of great CEOs. When I reflect on what makes them great, one thing sticks out – they are always building their muscles. All of them. As a marathon runner, I’ve got massive legs. Marathoner legs. They’ll look familiar to anyone who runs a lot. In contrast, I have a wimpy upper body. I’ve never enjoyed lifting weights. So I don’t spend any time on it. ...

I spend all of my working time in the domain of software, Internet, and entrepreneurship. Over the past few years I’ve gotten increasingly involved in a handful of political situations – local, state, and national – that directly impact companies either in the ecosystem I’m part of or that I’ve invested in. Many of these political situations stifle entrepreneurship, innovation, or opportunities for these companies. I’ve come to appreciate the importance of organizations of like-minded individuals working together to advocate clear positions and help acceleration entrepreneurship and innovation. Historically I’ve been very reticent to formally join anything, preferring to help as much as I can as an individual contributor. Recently, I’ve stepped up my involvement in some non-profits, adding Startup Weekend and Startup Colorado to the list of non-profits I’m working with in addition to my longstanding role as chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology . ...

I love getting post board meeting emails that are retrospectives from execs in the meeting. This one came a week ago from Jeff Malek, the CTO and co-founder of BigDoor . They’ve been on a tear lately and are in the process of a massive set of Q1 launches for new customers. We had a solid board meeting, but I suggested they were being too casual about a couple of things, including communication about what was going on. This is NOT a casual group and I knew using the word casual would press a few buttons. And they did – the right ones. Jeff’s retrospective is awesome and he was game to have me share it with you to get a sense of what’s inside a CTO’s head during and after a board meeting. ...

Over the past two years I’ve been struggling mightily with the dynamics of “classical VC funded board of directors” and how these boards work. When I hear a VC say “I’m an active board member” it gives me the same nauseous feeling I get when someone says “I’m a value added investor.” I’ve been on some awesome boards, some terrible boards, and everything in between. Today, I refuse to be on a shitty or dysfunctional board and I’m proud that every board I’m on is one that I’d consider to be effective, although they all operate in different ways. ...

Six months ago I wrote a post about how I think about competition which included a list of topics that summarizes my philosophy. I covered the first item, Be The First Mover , but then went on to other things, like thinking about competitors every single day. I’m back today with the second topic, “Resegment If You Aren’t In The Top Three.” If you look at the Foundry Group portfolio , you’ll notice a lot of market leaders. Zynga is the obvious one, but I’ll assert that there are many others, including AdMeld (now part of Google), Cheezburger, Fitbit, Gnip, Makerbot, Oblong, SendGrid, Topspin, Trada, and Urban Airship. After that there is a category of companies who might be market leaders, but it’s too early to tell as they are still very young. And, if you look at some of the successful companies we have had from our previous investing at Mobius Venture Capital, you’d see market leaders like Postini, Return Path, FeedBurner, Rally, Stratify, NewsGator, and Sling Media. ...

This post should be sung to the tune of The World Is A Vampire by the Smashing Pumpkins “the world is a vampire, sent to drain secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames and what do i get, for my pain betrayed desires, and a piece of the game even though i know-i suppose i’ll show all my cool and cold-like old job despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage then someone will say what is lost can never be saved despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage” ...

One of the companies I’m an investor in has a gong in the office. They bang it every time they sign up a new customer. They also have a virtual gong – an email that goes out to the entire company and board that starts with GONG: (Client Name). The salesperson who closed the deal gets to send the email out and write whatever he or she wants. Everyone in the company then piles on with Reply-All commentary. ...

Chris Dixon had an excellent post yesterday titled Recruiting programmers to your startup . The post, and the comments, are full of super useful stuff that every entrepreneur should read carefully. I sent the link for the post out to the Foundry Group CEO email list and it generated a great discussion thread, including one of the companies sharing their full day interview / evaluation process which includes a four hour coding exercise. Among the feedback was a great short list of four addition things that Niel Robertson, the CEO of Trada (and an amazing programmer in his own right) has learned over the years. ...