While listening to Harry Stebbings interview Boris Wertz on the 20 Minute VC, I heard Boris refer to his free ebook A Guide To Marketplaces. So I read it. It was a quick read, but very useful for anyone who is interested in marketplaces. Boris lays out all the terminology, explains different types of marketplaces, dynamics of building a marketplace, and metrics you should pay attention to. If you are building or investing in marketplaces, make sure you grab a copy and read it.

If you are the CEO of a VC or angel backed company, will need to raise more money in the future, are doing more than $100,000 of revenue a month, and are growing more than 25% a year, then this post if for you. In January, you finalized your budget. Unless something went horribly wrong, you made your plan in January, especially if the plan was finalized in February. Assuming things were on track, you made March and declared victory on Q1.

If there’s one consistent concern I hear from the companies I work with, it’s the shortage of qualified tech talent. But just like in so many other areas, a Boulder entrepreneur has come up a great idea to address the problem that not only adds to the talent pipeline, but also brings in more diversity — a personal passion of mine. Too often, aspiring engineers who lack the funds to pursue a computer science degree from a university or take part in a bootcamp find themselves locked out of technology jobs, despite often severe talent shortages. Think about it: if you need to pay rent and buy groceries, it’s pretty tough to quit, or work part time, and pay either tuition or boot camp fees. To address this, Heather Terenzio, founder and CEO of Boulder’s Techtonic Group, developed Techtonic Academy, an innovative solution in the form of Colorado’s first federally recognized by the Department of Labor technology apprenticeship. Rather than paying thousands in tuition or fees, qualified individuals can get their foot in the door to a tech career while earning a salary from their very first day.

Terry Kawaja is brilliant. I give you three minutes of his amazingness. That is all.

As I noticed quotes from the Code Conference dominate my Twitter feed yesterday, I saw a few from the Jeff Bezos interview that made me say out loud “Jeff Bezos is amazing.” I love his use of the phrase “cultural norms” (it’s one of my favorite phrases) and I particularly thought his comments on Donald Trump and the Peter Thiel / Gawker situation were right on the money. The interview prompted me to think about how biases affect my thinking. I’ve been struggling with the Peter Thiel / Gawker stuff and have asked a few friends closer to the situation and the people involved to give me their perspectives as I’ve tried to determine whether my biases are overwhelming my perspective on it. As a result, I haven’t discussed it publicly, and instead have thought harder about it at a meta-level, which is actually more interesting to me.

I was at a Nima board meeting today and was asked by a new friend on the team about my link to Homer, Alaska. After a brief explanation, I said “McDonald’s made Homer famous around some Super Bowl by making a completely inappropriate TV ad there.” I couldn’t remember the year – I thought it was in the 1980s somewhere. It was 1990. Google found it immediately. It’s hilarious, and completely inappropriate. This is where Amy and I live, some of the time.

It’s summertime and Snoopy is happy. I’m happy also. Summer is my favorite season. I’ve always been at my most creative in the summer and some of the profound life experiences that influenced me happened during the summer. When I was a pre-teen, summer meant tennis. Endless tennis. Eight+ hours a day in the Texas heat except for the three weeks I went to Camp Champions. It was awesome. I remember one summer with over 30 days of temperatures over 100 degrees. A break for lunch inside at the North Dallas Racquet Club felt really decadent. It was always a challenge to get back outside at 1pm, but we did it. And kept playing tennis.

We are starting to work on the teaching materials for the 3rd edition of Venture Deals, which is coming out in the fall of 2016. If you have either taught or taken a class using Venture Deals and are willing to talk to our publisher at Wiley about what kind of teaching materials would make the book even more useful, please send me an email. As part of this, we are doing a refresh of the Ask the VC website so if you have suggestions for that, just toss them in the comments.

Signups are open for the second Reboot VC Bootcamp happening January 19-22, 2017. It will – once again – be at my house in Longmont, Colorado. If you are interested, here are some reactions to the first Reboot VC Bootcamp.