I got an email from Matt Blumberg this morning with the above image that said, “We have been blogging for 19 years. I can remember sitting together above Super Liquor futzing with Typepad like it was yesterday.” “Super Liquor” is Superior Liquor in Superior, Colorado, which was on the first floor of the building off of Hwy 36, which was my office at the time. There was also a pizza restaurant on the first floor. ...
Matt Blumberg has a new book out titled Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams . It’s a follow-up to his previous book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business. I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. That year, we merged two companies: Return Path and Veripost. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. Fred Wilson was his lead investor. I was the lead investor for Veripost. The two companies did the same thing and were the only two competitors in a nascent category called “email change of address” (Veripost’s original name was IECOA which stood for “Internet Email Change of Address”). They were bashing each other over the head in a non-existent market as the Internet bubble began collapsing. ...
Historically, almost everything I do uses a network model. Foundry Group runs as a network. If you take a look at the Foundry Group partner funds or talk to us about our investment strategy, you’ll immediately see the texture of a network. Techstars is a worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. All of my ideas around Startup Communities incorporate network theory. If you are involved in any organizations I’ve helped create, such as Energize Colorado , you’ll immediately recognize the network model underlying them. ...
Seven years ago this week, I posted about a new book in our Startup Revolution series called Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business , by my friend Matt Blumberg, then CEO of email marketing company Return Path in the Foundry portfolio. Today, with more around 40,000 copies sold all over the world and in multiple languages and formats, Matt and our publisher Wiley & Sons in partnership with Techstars have published a Second Edition of Startup CEO, which you can pre-order here . ...
Last week, Return Path announced it was being acquired by Validity My fellow board member Fred Wilson wrote a great history titled The Long Game and Matt Blumberg wrote a beautiful tribute titled OnlyOnce, Part XX . I’ve been involved in Return Path as an investor since 2001 when Return Path and Veripost merged as part of a funding done by Sutter Hill (Greg Sands), Flatiron Partners (Fred Wilson), and Mobius Venture Capital (me). I wrote the very long story in a post titled Return Path Acquires Netcreations in 2004. This post has a ton of Return Path history in it in case you want to go back in time 20 years. And, if you want to only go back in time 10 years, take a gander at Happy Birthday Return Path which is a post about Return Path’s 10 year anniversary and includes the story of the negotiation between me and Fred to merge Return Path and Veripost. ...
Matt Blumberg, the CEO of Return Path, has an outstanding post up this morning titled The Difference Between Culture and Values . Go read it, I’ll be here when you get back. If you liked that, go get a copy of Matt’s book Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business. It’s one of the books on my list of books all CEOs should read . Matt distinguishes between culture and values. His punch line, which he reveals early, is: ...
On Saturday, I polished off Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook . I started it last weekend at the tail end of my Weekend Reading on Startup Communities but four books weren’t in me so I didn’t finish it. It was excellent and is now on my “all startup CEOs must read” list. My recommended book list for startup CEOs is very long, but there are only three books on the must read list. ...
tl;dr – If you are a CEO and want to take an amazing online course about being a CEO by Return Path’s Matt Blumberg, sign up for Startup CEO from NovoEd now. Yesterday, I wrote about Rand Fishkin of Moz falling out of love with the CEO role . Today I read Jason Goldberg of Fab’s great post on his struggles as CEO in 2013 and what he learned from it. This topic is front of mind for me as many of the companies I’m on the board of are growing extremely fast and the demands on the CEOs are significant. ...
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. ...