February 2011
28 posts
Learning in Public
I finished my freshman year in college with a 1.8 GPA. I was never much for school, but this was a new low. And a wake up call. As the end of my freshman year was approaching, I knew it was going to be bad and I knew I had to do something about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn, its that the way I was trying to do it wasn’t working for me. Lectures, homework, scantrons...
Why I Deleted My AngelList Account
Yesterday I deleted my AngelList account. Doing so generated a lot of questions on Twitter, in email and from the press so I want to explain myself.
Its a decision I’ve been wrestling with for the last few months as I’ve found the service increasingly not matching my investment philosophy. That’s not to say the service isn’t a valuable one for entrepreneurs or even certain...
“Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable”
– Fred’s post today reminded me of this quote from Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad.
“I live in the space between business and spirituality. I live in the place where...”
– Jerry
WatchLast week I posted a quote from a talk Jack recently gave at Stanford. The video of his talk wasn’t online yet. It is now so I wanted to post this snippet.
I think his notion of CEO as Chief Editorial Officer is a powerful one. I’ve embedded just the portion of his talk that adds weight to this idea and made it required weekend viewing here on BRYCE DOT VC.
Extra credit points for...
“When you start a company with a clear revenue model, investors begin asking...”
– Joe Essenfeld, founder of Jibe
TweetLouder →
joelaz:
Find your favorite bands on Twitter. TweetLouder scans your iTunes library, Last.fm, Pandora, or SonicLiving to identify your favorite bands, then creates a personalized list of those bands’ Twitter accounts so you to follow them with just one click. Nice!
A little diddy from OATV co, SonicLiving. Watch this space. These guys are just getting started.
WatchI want to share this presentation from Josh Clark I came across yesterday (best read with his notes exposed). It touches on a number of key themes that are relevant to those building mobile apps. It also highlights a theme that needs more attention as products and services make the move to mobile.
There’s a natural tendency in all of us to stick to what we know works. There’s comfort...
Find a revenue model that goes with the grain of...
Several years ago I heard my friend, @aweissman, say this and it rang as true to me then as it does now.
We’re in an age of emerging web services that are blurring lines that, historically, have been clearly defined. In the past, we had individual users or “consumers” who didn’t pay for web services so we blasted them with digital ads or offers for physical goods that they...
““If you always put limit on everything you do,
physical or anything else. It...”
– (via secondnaturefitness)
“There are a thousand things we could be doing each day, and it’s my job to...”
– Jack
Spend time raising money from the people who want...
This little pearl of wisdom was passed on to me by Eric Paley of Founder Collective during our recent fundraising effort for OATV’s latest fund. Mike Maples passed it on to to Eric and now I’m passing it on to you.
It seems so obvious, but there are powerful subtlties in such a simple piece of advice.
We aren’t plowing any new ground here, but it’s worth noting some...
WatchOut of all the new applications I took for a test drive last year, only one took a coveted spot on my homescreen- Instagram. I’m such a huge fan of the product, the company and its founders. Kevin embodies so much of what we talk about here, which is why this interview is required viewing on BRYCE DOT VC.
PS- sorry for the wonky embed. I would usually delete but this is too good to get hung...
“If you’ve got an idea but aren’t particularly technical you should...”
– Harry H, Foursquare CTO
PS- I’m hugely resisting putting this quote in all caps.
Office Hours Post Mortem
Thanks to the good folks at ohours.org, I held my first office hours yesterday. I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I’d never met any of the people who signed up and didn’t know, in advance, what in the world they wanted to talk to me about. I was as prepared for someone to pull out a knife as I was for them to pull out a powerpoint.
Turns out, I haven’t met all of the...
“the fact that he came from Google along with a lot of the other founders of hot...”
– some thoughts on video discussion with kevin systrom of instagram - cdixon’s posterous (via fred-wilson)
“How big was the social media market before Facebook?”
– This question was posed in a recent board meeting. I haven’t been able to shake it.
The same question could be asked of most important markets:
Was CRM a feature before Salesforce.com?
How big was the virtualization market before VMWare?
How big was the mail order DVD subscription market...
WatchDale Dougherty is one of my favorite people. His creativity and curiosity are infectious in the most wonderful ways.
This TED talk captures so much of his essence and that of other disrupters who are driven by a nagging question: can it be done?
That simple question and the drive to answer it are at the heart of any meaningful personal, technical or entrepreneurial breakthrough.
I hope...
Why I Heart Tumblr
I’m not a blogger. Blogging is for authoritative voices with knowledge to dispense. Fred WIlson, he’s a blogger. Mark Suster, he’s definitely a blogger. Me? I’m still trying to figure it all out.
Kind of like Tumblr.
Its kind of a blogging platform. Its kind of a music service. Its kind of a photo bookmarking site. Its kind of a social network. Tumblr is figuring it all...
