BRYCE DOT VC

"Give yourself a Do Over. Let go of the shame, guilt, anger, fear from eating too many Oreos and try..."

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:45:43 -0500

“Give yourself a Do Over. Let go of the shame, guilt, anger, fear from eating too many Oreos and try again today.”

- 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.

- Kanye

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:22:04 -0500

- Kanye

(via fourface) Love that Will is thinking differently about the...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:26:52 -0500

(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.

"I could try and get more legitimate mural work, but scaling a drainpipe is still probably a lot..."

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:34:22 -0500

“I could try and get more legitimate mural work, but scaling a drainpipe is still probably a lot easier than getting an original idea past a committee.”

- Banksy

Deal Fever

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:55:45 -0500

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...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:41:26 -0500

Apparently bryce.vc has been hijacked by foursquare.tv, but this was too good not to share.

foursquare:

“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!)

"And when you have a choice between using the product of a small company or a large one, give the..."

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:40:00 -0500

“And when you have a choice between using the product of a small company or a large one, give the small one a chance. This helps protect choice and diversity. And if someone creates something new, and they are not working for a big company, celebrate that, make them famous, make sure everyone knows. The myth is that the only new stuff comes from big companies. That’s never been true. The only way to change that is to make sure people hear about the new stuff that comes from individuals.”

- Big change in the tech world. (Scripting News) (via fred-wilson)

Dear Padma, Can we be friends on Foursquare? I’d follow...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:17:22 -0500

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...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:20:37 -0500

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...

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:43:00 -0500

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...

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:40:00 -0500

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

"Greg Battle here, at your service. Neither rain, nor sleet nor snow nor hail will stop us from..."

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:17:00 -0500

“Greg Battle here, at your service. Neither rain, nor sleet nor snow nor hail will stop us from shortening URLs, by hand, the way Grandma used to do it. ;-)”

- 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...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:02:08 -0500

A really insightful series over at Make by entrepreneurs getting Atomic businesses (you know, that actually make tangible stuff) off the ground.

laughingsquid:

Because We Can Featured on Maker Business

Today’s song is inspired by Bijan’s excellent post...

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:29:01 -0500

Today’s song is inspired by Bijan’s excellent post about the devil you know. Don’t sell yourself short because you’re afraid of the unknown. You’re better than you think.

Don’t Sell Me Short by Bad Religion

Meaty post on designing metrics that drive desired behavior.

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:50:26 -0500

Meaty post on designing metrics that drive desired behavior.

"If you’re using bit.ly to shorten URLs and add a Techcrunch (techcrunch.com) or Onion (theonion.com)..."

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:28:32 -0500

“If you’re using bit.ly to shorten URLs and add a Techcrunch (techcrunch.com) or Onion (theonion.com) URL to the compose window in TweetDeck, instead of shortening to a bit.ly link you’ll get an appropriately branded short URL i.e. tcrn.ch or onion.com.”

- A glimpse into some of the very cool things under development at Bitly.

Branded short URLs in the wild and on TweetDeck - TweetDeck’s posterous (via rafer)

"Success of a start up is dependent upon whether co-founders want it enough. People tend to over..."

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:13:09 -0500

“Success of a start up is dependent upon whether co-founders want it enough. People tend to over emphasize the brilliance of idea. For any successful start up idea, you can find 20 bitter losers who say “I had that idea 20 years ago.” This shows you that it’s the people, not really the idea that matter. “The most important thing is to be DETERMINED. Measure of determination is not quitting and not giving up.””

- This quote from Paul Graham reminds me a bit of this SNL skit (starting at about 4:30). In it Hilary Clinton (Amy Poehler) responds to Sarah Palin’s (Tina Fey) assertion that you can have anything, including the presidency, if you really want it by mocking “I guess I should have wanted it more”.

Determination is certainly necessary but not sufficient for the success of a start-up.

‘betcha didn’t see this coming.

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:33:00 -0500

‘betcha didn’t see this coming.

Did Steve Jobs Drink Steve Blank's Milkshake or Kool-Aid?

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:11:58 -0500

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on planes this week and as a result have had a chance to catch up on a few books that I’ve been meaning to read. In my stack for this trip (yes, stack, I actually carry real books in a real bag) was one I’ve been hearing great reviews and implementations of called 4 Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank. Admittedly, its a fairly dry read so I’ve been slowly working my way through it but I’m struck by a few of his ideas and how they apply, or don’t, to how Steve Jobs operates particulally in light of the iPad launch yesterday.

Blank posits that to successfully launch a company or product one needs to create a system for what he calls “Customer Development” which includes a process of validating assumptions about your product based on pre-emptive customer feedback and direction. This, he goes on, should inform your Product Development thus creating feedback loops which validate market fit BEFORE investing time and resources into staffing up to deliver a product for whom there may be no real customer base or urgent application.

Enter the iPad and the Jobsian path of product development; which, on the surface may seem counter to Blanks ideas around Customer Development yet still succeed time and time again. The product launch video actually begins with Jonathan Ive suggesting that users won’t know they need it until they see, feel and use it. Hmm, doesn’t sound much like “we want to know what our customer needs” rather “we’ll tell them what they need” Which, on the surface, would appear that one Steve is drinking the others milkshake.

And blogs and twitter are lighting up to tell the world why this was the wrong approach. Didn’t he know we’d want a camera, or an ability to multitask or how ‘bout a freaking’ keyboard. C’mon!

Its these very comments that lead me to believe Jobs may be drinking the Kool-Aid after all. As Blank’s theories have evolved there has emerged the concept of a minimal viable product. Getting something in the hands of users so you can really begin to understand what they want and need. Note- there was a bunch of promotion from Apple around a new SDK for developers to start building next generation apps that leverage the gestures and form factor of the iPad. I sense they’ll be taking a lot of ques from these developers about what they want to be able to do with the new technologies perfectly packed within the skin of this thing they’re calling the iPad. The device ain’t perfect, buts its enough to get it into the hands of customer and developers so they can begin to better understand and deliver what they really want. You can almost here Jobs breaking through the walls of the Yerba Buena Center saying “Oh Yeahhhh!”.

Which leads to my last point. This launch was really not about the iPad at all. Whether that particular device actually creates a new, large market for a 4th screen is really secondary. This launch was about Apple setting the agenda in personal computing for the next 10 yrs. It was about packaging a new user experience which really comes down to the software’s gesture interface, the SDK and the underlying hardware that powers it all. You can’t tell me that once you’ve gone all in on your iPhone that you want every screen you use to be a touch screen. That you aren’t disappointed when you can’t press, pinch and expand screens that aren’t touch sensitive in the way your iPhone is.

I may never buy an iPad as the use case for it is just not there for me today, but I’m certain that as the form factor morphs and the gesture interfaces find their way into other Apple products that I, and a very large number of others, will never think twice about using a traditional PC again.

(*please note I’m only a few chapters into Blank’s book so I likely butchered may of his principles. If you’re into this stuff, I love you to clarify or expand on this post in the comments)

Tripit

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:18:00 -0500

Love to see love for our portfolio co’s on Tumblr. I’m with you Daryn- don’t know how I lived without it. And, its just going to keep getting better, so stay tuned…

daryn:

I first heard of Tripit when they launched a couple years back, but though people raved about it, I didn’t really see the need. I had my own system for tagging all of the emails related to a trip in my gmail, as well as manually entering things into iCal, and for the handful of times I travel each year, that worked fine for me. Well, I finally started using Tripit a few weeks ago, and boy have I been missing out.

Tripit is awesome! It is so dead-simple. Just forward all your travel receipts to plans@tripit.com, and you get a sweet itinerary built for your trip, and available in your calendar, on the website, and via their iPhone app. Here are my SXSW plans, for example.

You can also publish your stream to LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, as well as Tripit’s own dopplr/plancast-esque social network (which I’d love to connect with you on), but the utility value of the organizer alone is enough to keep me a loyal user.

Truly fantastic.