Disqus - Latest Comments for Shurtleff

Re: Hospital Competition Would be a Good Thing

Shurtleff — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 19:03:37 -0000

I believe the number of slots in medical school are also constrained as another form of market dislocation.

Re: Why Government Subsidies Never Make Anything More Affordable

Shurtleff — Mon, 08 May 2017 14:10:23 -0000

Seems like there is a middle of the road, Basic College ie community college or basic in state 4 year state school program, ie Cal State vs Univ of Cal), should be free. Maybe you even do a voucher system so folks can transport this funding to other institutions. Incent colleges to provide additional Free Tuition, like make donations to a college deductible if they go to the free tuition pot, and not free if they go to the school at large. Making college accessible for middle class and lower without massive debt is in the best interest of the nation.

Re: Weighing in on Judge Gorsuch

Shurtleff — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 14:59:03 -0000

Appreciate your perspective, i am totally aligned on the sentiment you express. Feels like the D's are over playing their hand on this one choosing to filibuster vs looking like the grownups in the room.

Re: Taking a deep breath

Shurtleff — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 14:55:49 -0000

Seth, as i explained to my distraught millennial daughter on election night, our democracy was resilient enough to deal with Nixon when i was a millennial, it was very scary, it wasn't fun, but it worked out, take the long view. There is a lot to be learned and work to be done to fix the situation the nation is in, Suster's post yesterday is a good place to start: https://bothsidesofthetable...

Re: Founder Dilution

Shurtleff — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 15:58:47 -0000

Fred, would appreciate your perspective on incubators and the level of equity they are vacuuming off the table. Recently saw a quality deal that had come out of a "lab style incubator", where the idea in part comes from the lab management. The lab management are not active in the business, yet they had 65% of the common, this left the founders in a deep minority position before the first external dollar was raised. The team was looking for seed stage funding, so the funding road was going to be long. We passed based on the structure alone...

Re: Hire a VP Finance Sooner Rather Than Later

Shurtleff — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:40:48 -0000

Amen...

Re: Walking The Dog

Shurtleff — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 14:35:47 -0000

last weekend we were staying with friends, sans dog. i took my cup of coffee for a walk, not as good as with Shasta, but way better then not going at all. When asked where i was going, the answer of course 'for a walk with the dog' best way to start the day (taking the virtual dog for a walk made a lot more sense then taking the coffee cup for walk)

Re: Canary Backer and Pre-Order Update—March 26

Shurtleff — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 16:11:21 -0000

nice improvements. any schedule for being able to view the data from a browser, big screens are much better for viewing, small screens are good for alerting

Re: Feature Friday: Phone Number Parsing

Shurtleff — Sat, 08 Nov 2014 11:33:27 -0000

drives me nuts that new features are never available on google apps (ie the service you actually pay for...) fine to let admins control, ideally with a choice to auto enable.. but making apps users always wait is lame

Re: My Ideal Board Meeting

Shurtleff — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 15:57:19 -0000

i might argue that getting the board to read the materials is second hardest, right behind getting the materials out 3 days ahead

Re: AngelList Accreditation Report

Shurtleff — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:52:32 -0000

Would be great if the accreditation system can learn that if you have been verified a few times you don't have to re-verify so often

Re: A Passing Note - The Gong Show

Shurtleff — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 11:37:35 -0000

i was surprised too. another strategy from the VC side is to pass. with the comment "if you would like specific feedback happy to provide", this way you don't spend time crafting it, the Entrepreneur can request (presumably because they want to learn). The answer still can be 'we have opportunities right now that are a better match for our criteria' particularly true for those of us that constrain our investment pace by design.

Re: Being Pampered

Shurtleff — Fri, 13 Sep 2013 14:39:55 -0000

Fred two thoughts
1: raised by depression era parents, it was deeply engrained in our family that regardless of circumstance, you carried your own stuff, something about being willing to do anything is good for you.

2: on the investing side, there is almost NOTHING more off-putting then having an entrepreneur pass and email introduction off to their assistant to set up a meeting pretty much kills the deal from the get go. in a small firm we manage our calendars and aren't very excited about our $ being used to manage someone else's...

Re: GTTFP

Shurtleff — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:19:07 -0000

thanks you took me back to the early days at DEC where fubar was part of everyday conversation, another fine 5 letter simplifier along with it's cousin foo bar which also apparently has MIT roots https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Re: Finishing

Shurtleff — Wed, 29 May 2013 01:07:30 -0000

Fred it would be great if you took on the meme "school is stupid, start a company", poster provided by Peter Theil's 20 under 20 program. This meme is a huge disservice to students who don't have the perspective to understand that very very few of them are going to succeed or even learn that much for that matter pursuing their dreams as opposed to completing their education. Most schools don't support re-entering and finishing (something that should also be encouraged for all sorts of reasons), thus stepping out is not choosing a path where you can converge again later. Stepping out is making a HUGE bet, one in which i know a number of middle age folks who wish they had never taken.

Re: Lost your phone? Chances are someone is picking through your personal information

Shurtleff — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:06:37 -0000

John, one data point for you. I lost my iphone hiking last summer, it was locked. I left a note on the trailhead board. A backpacker saw my note as they headed out, found the phone on day 1, carried it for 5 days, note was still on the board when they returned. They called me when they returned. Score one for Seattle

Re: Report: Valuations double for early-stage startup companies

Shurtleff — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 23:11:48 -0000

Geographic variation is likely to be quite high too, Valley valuations are frequently 1.5x what we see elsewhere.

Re: Wow: Test pilots trace 787 and Boeing logo across the sky, from Seattle to Iowa

Shurtleff — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:25:49 -0000

Todd new Geekwire tag line?, "we give up our sleep for your morning entertainment"

Re: Just in time for SOPA: Clever ‘Grassroutes’ service automates Congressional contacts

Shurtleff — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:24:46 -0000

Very Nice contribution, although Murray's website has been down all morning... go figure

Re: Book: Everything Is Obvious*

Shurtleff — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:25:53 -0000

let me know what you think, a bit wordy at times, but the basic thesis is interesting and i often think their are some interesting connections to the start up world.

Re: Book: Everything Is Obvious*

Shurtleff — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:02:30 -0000

Brad, don't know if you ever got a chance to read Deep Survival. add it to your list. Premise when the sh... really hits the fan, brains work differently (and that isn't always a good thing).
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-...

Re: Rep. Jay Inslee announces bid for governor: Plans to funnel state money to startups

Shurtleff — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:39:51 -0000

I don't have a position on the governors race, I certainly do on geographically target startup investing it is Dumb with a capital D. Pension funds are for paying for pensions. Targeting/manipulating their investment thesis or geography is likely to insure only that the pension ends up with less money then it might have if allowed to follow an unencumbered investment plan.

Re: CC’ing Will Get Your Friends Speared

Shurtleff — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:07:55 -0000

suggest adding a hint on bcc's by starting the email with a salutation like:

To Family (bcc)
or
To Sailing Buddies (bcc)

Re: Financing Options: Friends and Family

Shurtleff — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:47:47 -0000

As a number of folks have mentioned, F & F financing comes with an extra emotional tax. There is the associated bonus when a deal works. Having started in the venture business with F & F funded investments alongside my own cash and labor one of the most rewarding days of my life was taking my dad to a roadshow of a company 'we' had invested in.

An important item not mentioned is to do a really deep analysis on how much funding is going to be needed to fuel the first stage. If an idea is not going to work don't drag it out and dig the family obligation hole deeper.

thx for the post, I have passed this advice along numerous times and having it documented with discussion is hugely valuable.

Re: AT&T “Freeloading” on ISP Pipes

Shurtleff — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:35:10 -0000

you my friend, are an ATT product managers worst nightmare : ) which is ironic in that Mary was always the product manager