DISQUS

Some days I feel like that too.

I love that. I hope it's real.

Wait, I thought Wolverine was from Canada or something.

Rob, once again some solid points. One of the biggest temptations I've had since joining the early stage venture business is becoming very quick to make a judgment, in all aspects of my life. I have to make snap decisions based on very little info everyday for my job that I'm finding that this is rubbing off in the rest of my life. I don't even know if I read menus at restaurants anymore, I just pick something. I don't want to become a judgmental jerk, but I see how this job makes it really easy to become one.

Ben,
Great list of tips for successful VC meetings. You've linked to one of my VC pitch tips, but there are a few other ones on my blog too - http://www.startable.com/category/vc-tips/
Awesome blog; you can pitch me anytime!
Healy

Pretty sure there is a weekly "show" on QVC about knives. Not sure they have the same level of craftsmanship, but it they are authentic "Rambo" or Lord of the Rings quality knives who are we to complain??

This was a very well thought out piece. Thanks for sharing it.

Craig, very good points. The “Company” idea is pretty key when founders are positioning their startup to the potential investors. VCs aren’t excited about the services component, except as it relates to the new product. I’m not sure you have to create two entities, assuming you are just shutting down the consulting business to focus on the new “product” business.

While it is fine to highlight the startups founders previous consulting work, a founder shouldn’t position that previous consulting work as the revenue cornerstone for the new “product based” business. Don’t dwell on the prior consulting work – talk about the big vision for the product.

It might not even be worth mentioning the previous consulting revenue unless you have an incredible growth trajectory. Investors can easily be turned off by a company that shows flat topline revenue for the past couple of years (even if that revenue kept your family fed and helped you develop the product!)

FB's still not a bad way to cheaply acquire users to other sites, but the application market is not maturing as people hoped. I've seen great user acquisition success with FB groups and highly target advertising using the FB platform (although my own effort fell flat on its face.)

My big question is how the iPhone application world will evolve... any thoughts? (I know you have to support RIM given your location, but still you must have an opinion.)

This is really interesting; thanks for the post.

Matt,
The blog post was actually by me, Healy Jones, not Prasad.
Thanks,
Healy

Thanks for noticing Scott!

Great post, interesting to hear both sides of the events roiling the market right now.

Someone at my wife's company forwarded a news article she had gotten from google alerts about how a major client of the company was evaluating a competitor's product.... she sent the article to the entire executive team. It caused quite a stir, until one of the VPs noticed it was an article from 2001. Really funny.

Thanks for the props Scott!