| — | I haven’t met Jerry, but I love his soul. If you aren’t reading his blog, you’re missing out on some valuable gems from someone who’s seen the views from many high peaks and many of life’s low valleys. |
(via fourface)
Love that Will is thinking differently about the UI for Foursquare’s app. Reminds me of some of the fun UIs etsy offers for exploring their products. Check out FourFace in the App Store.
| — | Banksy |
The winds of change are sweeping into the start up scene once again. Spring is, er, springing and checkbooks are opening in full bloom. In our world, spring fever is being replace with a new seasonal condition. The companies who struggled to get VCs attention 9 to 12 months ago are closing up rounds. And certain companies are getting a disproportionate amount of interest from would be VC suitors.
Its the latter case that has got me thinking this morning. Note this isn’t a post about a specific investment of ours or a specific VC firm, just an observation, that’s all.
Given the VC landscape there are a lot of options available to entrepreneurs. Angels, Seed funds, Traditional VCs who do a little of the former and Growth Funds. All are in the business of putting others money to work in companies they think can return it many times over. The further removed from what we do as seed investors, the larger the check sizes and the larger the cash on cash return requirements to meet certain acceptable thresholds. I’ve heard many later stage VCs note that there are only 3 to 5 deals a year that matter- meaning only a select few companies each year have the potential to see the very large outcomes that make traditional VC math work. Now, I’m not agreeing with this theory, just giving you a peek into a certain mentality that drives behavior.
Its this sense of scarcity and hyper competitive deal dynamic that is opening my eyes to a condition I’ll call “deal fever”. The lead indicator of deal fever is when the switch flips from genuinely seeking an opportunity to invest in an idea, company or CEO to “not wanting to lose a deal” For anyone who may feel a case of deal fever setting in, please remember that these aren’t deals (one of my least favorite words in our business), these are companies run by real people riding a very real roller coaster of emotions, adrenaline and unmet expectations. They’re looking for long term partners, not the hot hand who is willing to offer bottomless valuation options and 31 flavors of value add.
The only cure for deal fever is to take a chill pill. Be yourself, create more value for the entrepreneur than you try to capture for yourself, find opportunities to make a personal connection with the people behind the heat and give it time. If you’re doing all you can without being obnoxious, things will play out and you’ll be in a good position to invest in a real company and not just “get in on a deal”.
Apparently bryce.vc has been hijacked by foursquare.tv, but this was too good not to share.
“Badges Like Us”, the foursquare rap. Amazing.
Special shoutouts to @thenewb & @borismsilver, the masterminds behind this gem.
And yes, we spent all of yesterday (Snowpocaylpse!) driving around NYC blasting this out the windows of Team Foursquare’s tricked-out Escalade. (think: badge-themed spinner rims!)
Dear Padma,
Can we be friends on Foursquare? I’d follow all your tips.
xoxo,
Bryce.vc
Oh and Foursquare/Bravo commercial, hello!
Picture and story snipped from this WSJ article featuring Foursquare:
“AJ Bombers, a burger joint in Milwaukee, joined up with FourSquare last summer by promising a free burger and fries to anyone who dethroned its “mayor”—a title FourSquare bestows upon the person who “checks in” to an establishment the most via the free mobile application.
The restaurant also ran a promotion where customers could get a free cookie by posting a recommendation to their FourSquare profiles of a menu item or something to do while they’re at the eatery, such as play a board game.
AJ co-owner Joe Sorge says sales of menu items promoted on FourSquare have risen roughly 30% since the restaurant began using the service.”
One of the most powerful TED talks I’ve seen. This is part of the problem we’re hoping to attack via our investment in Local Dirt.
Dear Google,
Bright and early I logged into one of my favorite services and saw this news.
You’ve been catching a lot of heat lately. The echo chamber seems to think you want to be everything to everybody. As though dominating our search box wasn’t enough, now you want to control our friendships, our health records, what we carry in our pockets and the pipes into our homes.
I for one welcome out new overlord. Not because you will dominate in all of these categories or even do any of them all that well. Frankly, I think many of the powerful subtleties of these servies and devices will be lost on you.
No, I welcome you because each time you plant a stake in the ground it makes everyone uncomfortable. It makes them nervous. Because as much as we love to hate you, your engineers and your reach scare us.
You see, we need competition. It brings the best out of us. We can fall into the rut of seeing nice month over month growth and increasing market share that leads to high fives ‘round the board room tables for meeting our modest metrics. As true as this scenario is in start ups, its even more true in large companies who’ve been holding back innovation in the fields of mobile, media, telecom, energy, health and education.
Yes, you’ll make missteps and may never gain the kind of presence in any of these categories that you have in search, but I don’t think that’s your point. I think you see the same complacency we see in very large markets and want to rattle the cages to remind us we’re all still alive and we all need to compete every day to deliver the best possible experience for our customers.
Look, I’ll probably never own a Nexus One, but I think my iPhone will be better for having you put Apple’s feet to the fire. I may never switch from Comcast, but I bet they’ll up their service level and bandwidth speeds with you in the market. And I may never store my health records with you, but I bet we’ll get closer to a transparent health system with you in the mix.
So, thank you Google for a reminder that the aim of competition is to bring the best out of us all. Oh, and, Game On!
XOXO,
bryce.vc
| — | This is a snippet from an email forwarded to me, unprompted, by a friend who was just thrilled by the customer service they were getting from one of our portfolio companies. It served as a brief reminder of just how fortunate I am to be working with some truly amazing and talented people. |
A really insightful series over at Make by entrepreneurs getting Atomic businesses (you know, that actually make tangible stuff) off the ground.
I co-founded O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV) with my partners Tim O'Reilly and Mark Jacobsen. I invest in things most VCs won't. I don't wear blue shirts and khakis. I work in the city and live in the mountains. I own more bikes than cars and more skis than bikes. I have a wife and 4 kids that my world revolves around.
