*“History is written by the victors” – maybe said by Winston Churchill **“History is Written By the Winners” – George Orwell *“To the victor belong the spoils” – New York Senator William L. Marcy Yesterday I wrote a post about my first experience as a venture capitalist . I didn’t try to dramatize anything – I just wrote what I remembered. I got a handful of emails from people involved in some way. ...
I’m a huge believer in TAGFEE . But I also respect confidentiality. Every company approaches this differently and it’s important to recognize which context you are in. Following is an example from an email I got (on the all@ list) from a company I’m on the board of (and yes – I checked to make sure I could post this.) You know what they say about flattery, right? That’s an idea worth keeping in mind when someone is talking to you about what we’re doing here at as friendly compliments and questions mask an effort to obtain confidential info. ...
So far I’m pleased with my shift to Maker Mode this summer . I’ve managed to get in a solid four hours of writing on my Startup Communities book each day and will have a full draft to circulate to a small group of people on Saturday. I chose deliberately to skip TechStars New York Demo Day (which looks like it went great) this year, which was a hard choice for me but I just didn’t want to break the flow of what I’m doing. And I’m still running on inbox zero and – other than physical proximity – haven’t heard any concerns about my responsiveness or availability. As a bonus, I’m getting to spend 24 hours a day (except when I’m out running) with my amazing wife Amy. ...
Today SEOMoz announced that Foundry Group has led an $18 million financing and I’m joining the board . Rand Fishkin (The Wizard of Moz) has an incredibly detailed post up titled Moz’s $18 Million Venture Financing: Our Story, Metrics and Future describing the financing process and company history in great depth. In it, he includes all kinds of numbers that people writing articles about financing are always asking for but never getting – it’s an extraordinarily (in my experience) transparent description of what, why, and how it went down. My partner Seth Levine also has a nice post up about our previous miss on financing SEOMoz titled Getting It Right The 2nd Time . And the official press release has a bunch of Internet Memes (thanks to Cheezburger ) along with the liberal use of the word fuck. ...