Disqus - Latest Comments for manukumar

Re: 50 Years at CMU

Manu Kumar — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 13:24:24 -0000

I was fortunate to start working directly for Dr. Reddy, in his office, as a sophomore in undergrad at Carnegie Mellon. Being close to Dr. Reddy and learning from him has had a profound impact on my academic and professional choices, and my way of thinking and world view. Dr. Reddy is a true visionary and till today I am working on building some of the concepts that he has introduced that were years ahead of their time. It's an honor and a privilege to have Dr. Reddy as my advisor and mentor. I cherish our long-standing relationship.

Thank you Dr. Reddy.

With respect, love, and gratitude,
-Manu

P.S. Here is a blurry image from back when we didn't have cameras on our phones! https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Re: Startup Metamorphosis: The Story of Bugsee

Manu Kumar — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 17:54:44 -0000

Glad to hear it! If it continues to impress you, then please help spread the word to other developers.

Re: Startup Metamorphosis: The Story of Bugsee

Manu Kumar — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 17:30:51 -0000

Would love for you to try it out. I'm sure Alex and Dima would welcome your feedback.

Re: #PeakVC

Manu Kumar — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 12:03:50 -0000

@davidcowan: Agreed!

Re: Being an investor, in four paragraphs

Manu Kumar — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 03:00:19 -0000

@Semil Shah: For K9 I end up partnering with people on a deal by deal basis and that has worked really well. It also allows me to work with lots of people and over time figure out who are the people I enjoy working with the most -- through good times and bad. I also have a couple of go to people for when I need input on tough situations; so all of that is fine.

My frustration here is more around small-talk. I hate small-talk. And in the venture world the typical small talk is:

What's new and exciting with you? Sorry, but I can't tell you that yet.
What's your most recent investment? Probably not announced, and so I again I can't talk about that either.
Let's find a deal to work on together -- probably the line I hate the most. Don't make shit up if you have nothing better to say. Especially so when I've sent the same person a half a dozen things that they've passed on.

Re: Our 2016 Foundry Group Fund and A Little History

Manu Kumar — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 23:10:36 -0000

Absolutely love the discipline and the clarity.

Re: The Seeds Have Changed: An Epilogue

Manu Kumar — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:48:12 -0000

I've written about Convertible Notes at http://k9.vc/ConvNotes

Re: The Seeds Have Changed: An Epilogue

Manu Kumar — Sun, 07 Jun 2015 15:41:58 -0000

IMHO this is just a function of the stage and how early an investor is getting in. The earlier an investor invests in the company better the multiple they can hope to achieve.

I'm guessing that by 'market rates' you're referring to high valuations. I walk away from deals based on valuation all the time. Yes, there will be some deals that will turn out to be good deals, but for me it's more of a matter of principle and discipline.

Founders who are out to maximize valuation are often doing it for ego and I would rather work with founders who are focused changing the world.

Re: Memories of Clifford Nass

Manu Kumar — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:22:05 -0000

Cliff was a wonderful and warm human being, who had an infectious enthusiasm about him. Although I didn't work directly with Cliff, he was always happy to chat and offer his advice and expertise. He was also involved in so many different interesting things that it made it a pleasure to have a conversation with him. Sorry to hear the news of his passing and he will definitely be missed.

Re: May I help you? No thanks, just looking.

Manu Kumar — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 08:15:19 -0000

My first startup SneakerLabs, Inc. did this in 1998. The product was called iServe and we used exactly the same language as you describe. The only difference was that instead of "just looking" our phrase was "just browsing". iServe provided websites with a real-time dashboard, which had a "radar-view" that looked exactly like a radar/sonar. You could partition the website into zones and track how many users are in each zone in real-time. For each user you would be able to track what pages they've been on and how logn they've been there. The site could then have representatives that could proactively approach the user and offer assistance -- exactly as you said: "Hi, may I help you." and on the IM window that popped up was a big button that said "No thanks, just browsing," which would then close the window and also mark that this user doesn't wish to be disturbed. (They could still request help if they wanted too).

We got acquired before completing the full vision, but the goal was to show how much this person has in their shopping cart and establish rules which allowed the company to know who is likely to abandon their shopping cart.

SneakerLabs was bought by Octane Software, the day before Octane was sold to E.piphany in March 2000 (it was a brilliant exit!). The technology was integrated into the E.piphany platform, but I doubt it survived through all the transitions that E.piphany went through.

I authored the patent for this as well: "Apparatus and method for company representatives to monitor and establish live contact with visitors to their website" (US Patent: 6,976,056).

LivePerson is probably the company the comes closest to this concept. Olark is one of the newer ones. But it's still something that hasn't been done really well. Part of the problem is that automated systems built to date just haven't worked well and an effective approach to this requires big ticket items where you can justify the cost of having intelligent humans behind the scenes.

But I agree that the vision hasn't been completely realized yet.

P.S. I'll put up some screenshots for you on TwitPic.

Re: Elad Blog: Angels vs Superangels - What is the difference?

Manu Kumar — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:07:28 -0000

Elad, That's funny because when I was composing the comment above, I actually had included an additional criteria which was the amount of $$s invested. I was going to suggest that Angels invest <$100K per deal and Super-Angels can invest more. However, I took that out after writing it because I didn't want to make the amount of $$s the distinguishing criteria.

By that account we could also use # of investments as a criteria to distinguish between Angels and Super-Angels, but I decided instead to lean towards those people who do it professionally (i.e. that's all they do -- invest in startups), vs. those who do it part-time.

In my mind a Super-Angel is really investing professionally (but using their own $$s), meaning that they will invest the time and the energy it takes to help a startup, take board or advisory roles, and even roll-up their sleeves to help the startups out as and when needed.

Would love to hone in on these classifications, as I believe they need clarification. The press certainly hasn't helped with the confusion here since they go based on what sounds sexier.

Perhaps we should author a set of Wikipedia pages! :)

Re: Elad Blog: Angels vs Superangels - What is the difference?

Manu Kumar — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:26:51 -0000

Great post Elad. Wondering what your take is on the term Micro-VC (or uVC)?

I've been breaking it down a little differently, but this is just the criteria I made up and may not be what is widely accepted:

Angel: Someone who invests their own money, and does it part-time.
Super-Angel: Someone who still invests their own money, but does it full-time.
uVC: Someone who invests other people's money, but at the seed/Series A level.

The reason I make this distinction is that the moment you have outside LPs, you become a fiduciary. Additionally, a lot of these funds (including K9) are still structured the same way as VC funds are, but just with a lot less capital (which IMHO is a good thing).

Thoughts?

Re: A Simulation of Angel Investing, Part 2

Manu Kumar — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:33:34 -0000

Interesting analysis. I didn't look through the details, but your takeaway was similar to what I came up with with a less rigorous analysis. My number was that you need to have between 16-18 companies in the portfolio for it to start making sense.

Re: How I Did It: Alden Mills of Perfect Fitness

Manu Kumar — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:52:41 -0000

Go Alden! So pumped up to see this feature on Inc! Also pleased to hear that SneakerLabs had a small part in the making of a future entrepreneur!

Re: Books For Entrepreneurs

Manu Kumar — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:16:45 -0000

A few recommendations that are at the top of my list are:

The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar
Outrageous Optimism: Wisdom for the Entrepreneurial Journey by Jack Roseman and Steve Czetli
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

Re: When do I need to incorporate a company?

Manu Kumar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:11:52 -0000

Yokum, thanks for another great post! EAU (Excellent as Usual) as one of my favorite customers used to say! :)

You provided a great overview of the reasons to incorporate from a legal point of view, I wanted to chime in with some more subtle, but hopefully useful comments:

I maintain that the best time to incorporate is 'yesterday' -- or as soon as you are 100% sure that you want to give this idea/company a real shot. To me incorporation is a 'show of commitment'. It sets a date and time in stone for the inception of the company, and, it starts the clock running. This has several advantages:
1) If you are going to be bringing on co-founders or employees, the fact that the company has already been incorporated, and is official, can have an impact on how the equity split gets portioned out.
2) Incorporating starts the clock on the corporate history -- which can often be useful when dealing with customers. For example, when asked, 'How long have you been in business?' you can confidently point to your date of incorporation as the 'start of business.'
3) The same also applies when having valuation discussions with VCs. If the company hasn't even been incorporated yet, then they are likely to try and push you more on valuation. I'm sure several folks will disagree with this, but I am confident this happens -- even if it happens subconsciously.
4) Likewise, the date of incorporation often plays a role in what portion of the founders' stock is already vested at the time of a venture financing.
5) Incorporating forces you to start maintaining the books (or so I hope!) and also forces you to learn all the administrative details it takes to run a company. While this isn't something that directly adds value to the company, it is something that needs to be done. The sooner you learn this, the better it is. Doing this from the beginning and keeping things clean will be something you appreciate when you get into due diligence.

There are of course some disadvantages to incorporating as well:
1) Cost -- even though most law firms will defer some of the legal costs involved, incorporating through a law firm is still an expensive process (deferring is not the same as not charging!)
2) Administrative overhead -- once you incorporate, you are expected to comply with federal and state regulations. So you have to file taxes for the entity every year (Federal Taxes, DE Franchise Tax, California Tax ($800 minimum if I remember right)).

Tip: If you are thinking of incorporating and it's close to November/December already -- WAIT till January! That way you don't have to file all this paperwork for just a month or two of existence! And you'll have a full year ahead of you to find an accountant/tax person to help for tax time.

But all in all, I say, incorporate as soon as you are sure you want to give this a real shot. Stop hedging, and just do it! :)

Re: The Venture Capital Math Problem

Manu Kumar — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:39:39 -0000

@fredwilson: You are absolutely right. In fact, we had a similar discussion on one of your previous posts as well. Here is the link to my comment on that post: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/200...

The problem with VC is partly a result of LPs desire to scale the returns they saw in the venture asset class when it was small. But, as I say in my post on the K9 Ventures blog (The Venture Boutique post at http://www.k9ventures.com/2... ):

"The other form of scaling in venture capital is that of the size of the venture funds. Limited partners invest in venture since it is supposed to be a high-return investment. Lets assume that Shylock Ventures is capable of producing a 20% IRR on a $100M fund. Those returns do not (and cannot) scale with the size of the fund! If Shylock Ventures were now to raise a $500M fund or a $1B fund, it probably will not be able to maintain its IRR."

Your post does a great analysis of the fundamental problem with the asset class. The amount of $$s invested in venture capital need to decrease, or, the number of high value exits need to increase dramatically -- or better yet, some combination of both. What the media and the pundits describe as a crisis in venture capital fundraising right now, in my view, is exactly the correction that is needed. Venture needs to return to its roots.

Thanks for bringing this up to the forefront of the discussion.

Re: Venture Capital - Thoughts On The Asset Class

Manu Kumar — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:15:30 -0000

@fredwilson: You wrote: "VC has not proven that it can scale as an asset class since the mid 90s."

I would add that before the 90's VC was too young and had too little dollars committed to it to make it scale. So effectively, VC has never really scaled. In fact, I argue that it never should be scaled to be that big. At the right size, VC can produce great returns; but those returns do not scale linearly by cranking the knob on the amount of capital deployed in the asset class.

IMHO, Venture Capital should be a boutique industry (see the blog post at http://www.k9ventures.com/2....

Would love to hear your opinion in a future blog post.