Disqus - Friends of tomhigley

Re: The Difference Between Wordpress and Facebook

DJ — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:22:33 -0000

I see your point, but this strikes me as build vs. buy on a personal level. In aggregate, WordPress, Twitter, Tumblr etc give you similar value to Facebook, but they're still separate entities with separate strategies, priorities etc. So maybe if you add them all together, you get a similar market cap to Facebook.

You can still buy stuff at lots of places too, but that doesn't mean Wal Mart is headed for failure anytime soon.

Re: General Georges Doriot

DJ — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:29:59 -0000

I highly recommend the book "Risk and Reward: Venture Capital and the Making of America's Great Industries" by Tom Rivkin and Jack Doerflinger. It will seem quaint to some because it predates the Internet (published in 1987), but it's a terrific history of venture capital going all the way back to the railroads. Though the term venture capital didn't exist then, a lot of important companies (e.g. Bethlehem Steel) could not have been created without an enormous, organized investment of private capital.

I read it in the early 90s when VC was still a secretive business (no VC bloggers spilling their guts online back then) and it really gave me a lot of insights into the basic economics of how VC works.

Re: General Georges Doriot

DJ — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:30:21 -0000

Relative to 1993? This is practically a confessional. :) Back then a VC was a near mystical figure who could only be reached through connections, and it was incredibly difficult to get much visibility into how they evaluate deals, what sectors they like etc.

Re: Politics…Focus Your Hate on Stupidity!

DJ — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:59:16 -0000

My favorite Friedman book is From Beirut to Jerusalem, also very Mideast focused.

Re: The Lessons of Rev Wright

DJ — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:01:30 -0000

Re: McCain/Hagee compared to Obama/Wright - I look at this through the prism of 20 years ago, when I voted for Bush I over Dukakis. I thought Bush I was fairly moderate and wouldn't be as beholden to the religious right (certainly not as much as Pat Robertson, who beat Bush in Iowa). While I still think Bush I is a moderate, the reality of party politics is that he had satisfy the Christianist base, which lead to real policy changes like banning doctors in government hospitals from even mentioning abortion as an option for women with unwanted pregnancies. That strain of appeasement has carried through to the current administration on issues such as family planning in Africa, government funding of faith-based initiatives and, of course, choosing Supreme Court justices.

IOW, McCain will be forced by politics to implement *policies* favored by the right, not just rhetoric.

OTOH, I really find it hard to believe that Obama will, for example, demand an investigation into whether the government is responsible for AIDS, or give a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Farrakhan.

If people want to focus on Wright and/or Hagee, they should ask whether their association with their respective candidates will have an actual effect on policy, not hand-wavy BS about "judgment." I like McCain, but I think his policies will be dramatically more impacted by his association with the Christian right than Obama's will be by so-called black liberation theology.

Re: How to Get a Job in Venture Capital

DJ — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:40:09 -0000

ISTR a post from Guy Kawaski a while back to the effect that young MBA types should stop trying to get jobs at VC funds and instead work for startups. His main point was that you don't start as a VC, you end as one.

Re: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/10/free-vs-paid.html

DJ — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:16:33 -0000

Obligatory shameless self-promotion for a successful freemium business: http://www.SurveyGizmo.com

I think he's dead wrong about getting credibility via early enterprise sales. Enterprise sales is hellishly difficult and time-consuming in the best case. It's even harder for a startup. But it's a lot easier if the enterprise finds you via Google (they use it too, far more often than trade shows and trade rags) and you can truthfully tell them you have over a XXX free users and YYY paying.

They still have their hoops to jump through, but you'll be jumping from a position of strength rather than desperation.

Re: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/10/free-vs-paid.html

DJ — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:05:51 -0000

I totally agree with Jevon. It's a lot easier to attract resellers and partners if they (and their customers) can use the product first. Knocking on doors is a lot harder, especially in a recession when no one wants to risk new things (and may have already fired the people who would do them :).

Re: Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States

DJ — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:03:27 -0000

because the bitterness and reaction that will then ensue will dwarf any Bush resentment in the past several years.

Nothing could come close. Oh, Obama may lose in four years, but Bush set a new standard for bitterness. Certainly much worse than his father, Jimmy Carter or Lyndon Johnson.

And he did it in spite of having a reset button on public opinion (triggered by 9/11), He went from 90% positive to 70% negative. That's a remarkable achievement.

Re: I am Boulder, Hear Me Roar

DJ — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:03:13 -0000

If your focus is on fundraising, then "look at me" is pretty useful because it reinforces the perception that you're a player and so investors are a little more comfortable taking a risk on you. However, if you're bootstrapped and profitable, or at least past the fundraising stage, it's not nearly as useful. Especially if you're a business services provider that makes money directly from customers, not advertising. Fortunately we're in the latter case. In fact, we've had record revenue each of the last three months even as the economic news gets worse.

As it happens, a lot of our customers are in Silicon Valley, but the vast majority (as in over 90%) are in the rest of the world and most don't know or care about Web 2.0

Re: The Lost World

DJ — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:11:57 -0000

As a mostly skier and sometime snowboarder, I must add the snowboarding on powder is the absolute best. But if you happen to be skiing that day, then snowboarders suck because they scrape way more powder off the mountain per run than do skiers.

Re: A Thank You To Wufoo

DJ — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:32:52 -0000

Aw, man! We (SurveyGizmo) tried to send you one but couldn't find a mailing address. Seriously. Ditto David at TechStars.

Re: It Doesnt Take Much

DJ — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:59:28 -0000

It's like anything else. The way to get into "the scene" is just to keep showing up. Not just events, but reaching out to people and meeting for coffee or lunch. Yeah, Brad is an important hub here, but in my 10 years in Boulder he's probably introduced me to less than a dozen people (and I've met hundreds). OTOH I have made a habit of reaching out to companies he mentions in his blog if I see some relevance.

A couple years ago I volunteered for Naturally Boulder Day and was amazed at how little crossover there is between the tech and natural products cliques. I recommend doing something like that for anyone. You probably won't find a CTO there, but you'll meet interesting people with a very different perspective on business (I mean, when's the last time you had to figure out how to source quality tea from S. America?).

Re: We Dont Need to be Noisy to Create Noise

DJ — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:20:12 -0000

I feel like an old-timer. While it's nice to see some of the recent activity, can I just point out that the cool community stuff has been going on since before a lot of you guys were here? Colorado Internet Keiretsu thrived in its day (late 90's early oughts) then died off. I have no doubt the same thing will happen with some of the things going on now.

I'm not knocking what's going on now - I love it - but these things have an arc and stuff emerges and dies all the time, kind of like startups. Before there was a Fuser, there was a Blue Mountain. Before there was Rally, there was Service Metrics. Before any of those guys there was StorageTek. And so on.

And how many of you guys know anybody from the Naturally Boulder crowd? There's a whole wide world out there literally outside your doorstep.

Personally, I don't care about the Orlando vs. Boulder thing. But as a marketer trends like that can be (not necessarily will be) gold. Look what the concept of "Silicon Alley" did for Jason Calacanis.

Re: New Zealand South Island Vacation

DJ — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:20:35 -0000

Did you make it down to Queenstown? That place is awesome in February. Biggest difference from Colorado is the lack of cars on the roads, and not many power lines. You really feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (and a request for help)

DJ — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:58:39 -0000

Dude, you're killing me with the monkey survey! Try SurveyGizmo. I'm a partner in it and all three partners were at your Boulder speech. :)

Re: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (and a request for help)

DJ — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:49:01 -0000

We did. I did. No harm, no foul. Mostly I was just busting your balls. :)

SurveyMonkey is fine for basic stuff, but if you care about things like branding (i.e. matching your design template), advanced logic, reporting, good customer service, data integration, APIs ad infinitum ad nauseum, it's less than ideal.

Re: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (and a request for help)

DJ — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:49:56 -0000

Re: The efficiency is staggering…

DJ — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:29:10 -0000

At least he's not British. They elongate words. Then he'd say something like "I've gotta go to the loo to take a Jimmy Riddle."

Re: The efficiency is staggering…

DJ — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:38:34 -0000

LOL good point. You know those accents are fake, right? When no Americans are around they talk like Elmer Fudd.

Re: A VC: The Double Opt-In Introduction

DJ — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:08:01 -0000

+1 for that. I'm careful to manage expectations of the person I'm making the intro for.

Re: Why We Need An Independent Invention Defense

DJ — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:32:12 -0000

The idea of a "clean room design" has been around a long time. In fact, one of those probably powers the BIOS on your computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Software and business methods should not IMO be patentable. Even Google has not patented all of their algorithm, preferring to go the trade secret route. This is probably the most valuable code in human history.

Re: We need an independent invention defense to minimize the damage of aggressive patent trolls

DJ — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:36:04 -0000

Vic, if I never heard of your idea and built something on my own that then succeeds in the market where you failed, it is YOU who benefit because at least now you have something to talk about at cocktail parties. Be careful, though - the ladies don't like it when you brag.

I have some friends who made a lot of money off trolling. They may even be the people who bought your patents. Even they know they're exploiting a loophole (which is why they typically only go after large companies).

Re: 25 Dates.

DJ — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:09:37 -0000

I think it's a good idea and that, further, you could 4-5 dates at SXSW alone.

Re: Software patents are the problem not the answer

DJ — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:31:18 -0000

LOL "racist VCs." Ever heard of Doerr's partner Vinod Khosla? And are you aware that there are other, non-racist VCs? And are you aware there are a lot of startup companies that don't use VC at all and nevertheless have to deal with nonsense patent claims?