Simplicity Rules

Adam DuVander on keeping it simple

What is a VC?

by

The first time I heard the term VC (venture capital / venture capitalist) was the late 90s. I was in college, observing and not understanding the internet boom that was going on all around me. From what I could see, VC (the name of the industry, as well as the people within it) was just the noun form of greedy. I put them in the same crowd as San Francisco office space landlords who demanded stock options in addition to rent.

So, when someone came to town, bought out my favorite pizza place, and started talking about expanding, it seemed fitting to refer to him as “the VC.”

During the last year, I’ve been reading the weblogs of a number of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. I have weeded my way down to just a handful who have helped me become a little more objective about the position of VCs in startups. Interestingly, the posts that got me started were about bootstrapping (i.e., saying no to venture capital).

It turns out that venture capital is more similar to entrepreneurship that it is different. They both involve calculated risk, competitive analysis, and nurturing a business. And while the VCs do demand a large piece of the pie, they also do their fair share of work to ensure a business succeeds.

My favorite VC-related sites also have a heavy dose of personal posts. This is probably why I kept reading them, as their business-related writing is fuller when I have a complete view of the writer’s world view.

VC-related weblogs

  • Feld Thoughts – Brad Feld, a Colorado-based VC. He has an ongoing feature describing term sheets.
  • A VC – Fred Wilson is based in NYC and has started a new venture fund. In addition to chronicling his 50 favorite albums, he also has a VC Cliche of the Week.
  • Only Once – Matt Blumberg is a first-time entrepreneur. His company has investments from both Feld and Wilson’s venture firms. I always look forward to Blumberg’s “counter-cliche,” his response to Wilson’s VC cliches.

How to make a zillion dollars and not lose your soul

by

Wil Shipley gave a talk to some students about How to Succeed Writing Mac Software. He made a PDF of his slides (165K) available.

Most slides are impossible to follow without being present at the talk, but these are great. He fits a lot in while keeping them simple, yet I can tell he must have added a fair amount of meat to his points.

I’m not sure exactly how he found this balance. If you ever give presentations, go check out his slides and copy whatever it is he is doing, even if you aren’t interested in making zillions writing Mac software.

If you’re interested in hearing what he adds to his written points, are into the whole Podcast thing, and don’t mind spending 90 minutes listening to him, he has recorded his talk and made it available.

Order first, sit second – etiquette from Mr. Manners

by

Gentle reader: This author has noted recently a certain breach of what he can only call common sense when it comes to waiting one’s turn at a busy café with counter ordering. Chances are that if a long line exists, you are in a popular place. In addition to the long line, there are often only a precious few open seats.

Mr. Manners understands the desire to claim one of these spaces for yourself before taking your place in the queue. Resist this temptation. It is possible that those waiting to reach the counter might also be waiting for a table. Having a member of your group–or worse, your personal items–squat in your stead is tantamount to skipping ahead of your fellow line-dwellers.

Find the nearest third grader and ask this dear child how he or she feels about those who “take cuts.” For some reason our society is able to teach this lesson before a child’s tenth birthday, yet grown adults cannot transpose this knowledge to obviously similar circumstances.

Gordon Gekko is not a role model, gentle reader. Greed is not good.

Random acts of unlikelihood

by

Over at that famous biography site I help with, there is a random profile of the day. We look at the bundle of over 2,500 famous people and pick one at random to be plastered on the front page that day.

Yesterday it was John Cusack.

Because I’m paranoid about the code I wrote to provide a snippet of the profile, I receive an email every day with the “profile du jour.” I did a double-take and had to check my archives when I saw that…

Today’s profile is John Cusack.

The likelihood, if I may get technical, of the same random profile being chosen two days in a row is one in 6.25 million. That computer has good taste, picking one of my favorite actors two days in a row.

For those who believe in miracles, check in tomorrow and see whether Cusack makes it a hat trick (tech details: 1 in 15.6 billion).

Increasing responses with repeated requests

by

Along with my postcard mailing last month, I also participated in an email campaign to direct a specific group of people to a survey for BestPlaces. As with WifiPDX, replying to the request was actually to the benefit of the recipient.

It shouldn’t be surprising that we received a lot more replies right after each message. It seems to be human nature to either respond immediately or decide it’s not worth responding “late.”

Seth Godin noticed it in June with his eBook experiment and any salesman knows how important it is to cause action and not let a potential sale “think about it.”