This is a summary of VC blog posts (wk 8 2010) based on my list of active VC bloggers - see here or http://www.google.com/reader/shared/richarddjordan (any recommendations for addition welcomed).
Sunday 21st February 2010
Brad Feld gave over a post to a friend of his in the legal world, on the topic of software patents. He later wrote about his thoughts in Vivek Wadha’s TechCrunch post on the topic of women in tech, in a post titled “things women entrepreneurs can learn from Indian entrepreneurs”.
David Hornik defended TED against the elitism label.
Mark Suster talks about his investment thesis that advertising wants to be measured, and where this leads him in terms of investments. Hard to disagree with that.
In a post on a topic close to my heart, Fred Wilson pointed us to his slides for his upcoming presentation to the Future of Web Apps conference, “The Ten Golden Principles For Successful Web Apps”.
Monday 22nd February 2010
Roger Ehrenberg over at Information Arbitrage asks whether or not Derivatives are the real problem. He follows advice to CTO/Founders not to let the BizGuy/Founder screw everything up.
Naval from VentureHacks believes, as to I, that the iPad is an important step forwards, and talks about why.
Seth Levine popped in on the debate around charging companies to pitch.
Charlie O’Donnell highlighted job openings in First Round Capital’s portfolio companies and followed up with this week in NYC innovation.
Brad Feld passed on a suggestion from one of his commenters, about escalating patent fees as a solution to the mess of problems surrounding software patents. He also posted a reminder to entrepreneurs to show not tell when pitching VCs.
Fred Wilson’s MBA Monday this week focused on the types of corporate entity entrepreneurs have in front of them as options for starting a business.
Tuesday 23rd February 2010
David Cowan posted another in his series on TED talks.
Fred Wilson opines on audio advertising and how it’s likely to be as big online as it has been off, once the model gets worked out.
Brad Feld continued his “Letters to my Dad” blogging with a post titled “When I decided not to become a doctor”.
Mark Suster continued being able to prompt me to feel like I have to comment with another great article, this time about channel building. My thoughts here.
Seth Levine outlined the upcoming VCIR conference.
Charlie O’Donnell rounded off the day with an anecdote about a turndown. I usually enjoy Charlie’s writing but I have to say if I’d been turned down by a VC in this manner I’d have felt it more than a little patronized and been pissed off. That being said I don’t know the rest of the story and the turn-down-ee might have been a complete muppet oblivious to the points Charlie raises.
Wednesday 24th February 2010
Fred Wilson opened the day (the advantages of an East Coast schedule in the world of VC blogging) with a teaser about Extension.fm then only 50 invites - yeah I didn’t get one, d’oh!
Brad Feld wrote on the very promising news about the Kerry/Lugar bill which followers of the startup visa movement will be happy about. Next stop - doing something about Software Patents! He then posted about the recent WSJ writeup of his portfolio company PogoPlug.
Thursday 25th February 2010
Fred Wilson followed up on Brad’s note with some thoughts on software patents.
Fred Destin - a personal favourite who blogs occasionally - introduced us to what he calls Venture Capital 2.1.
Brad Feld shared with us a Twitter Widget for those who wish to express support for the Startup Visa movement.
Larry Cheng talks through the sources of money for VC firms, for entrepreneurs who may not know this already. Nice summary.
Mark Suster links to one of my favourite movies scenes of all time for anyone interested in any form of sales ABC: Always Be Selling. (Any entrepreneur should have seen Glengarry Glen Ross and Boiler Room IMHO.) His point being that time is the enemy of deals.
Jeff Bussgang sort of defends anecdotal selling - mother-in-law market research.
Friday 26th February 2010
Fred Wilson talks leverages the Facebook patent as an opportunity to talk software patents. He is substantially calmer than Jason Calcanis’ recent commentary on the topic for those who listened to this week’s “This Week In Startups” podcast. However he’s not a fan.
Charlie O’Donnell gives us a rundown of the latest on the FRC key hire wire - a must read if you’re looking for startup jobs. His second post of the day was on “Sleeper agents of Innovation” within big companies.
Brad Feld linked to a CNBC interview of Dick Lugar talking Startup Visas. http://bit.ly/9Dsc5K
Naval from VentureHacks engaged in some naked self-promotion - and why not? It’s Business Week!
Saturday 27th February 2010
We close out with Fred Wilson talking about Entrepreneurship and Social Change.
Chris Dixon challenges the East Coast / West coast binary view and points out that we just need to make more places like Silicon Valley, period. Now we can all get behind the idea of no VC Tupacs or Biggie-smalls… probably. Roger Ehrenberg took issue with Chris and wrote his own opinion on the topic.
Brad Feld discovered what many of us have been saying for a while - real people don’t care about browsers - most don’t even know what one is even though they probably use on every day!
Religion rounds off the week - and two posts I had to comment on. The first was Larry Cheng stretching to make some biblical quotes and sermon notes fit the world of busines. It’s always a painful process to watch and IMHO adds little value, when people do that. Not a fan.
Secondly, Mark Suster talks about the religious side-taking in the debate around nature vs. nurture in entrepreneurialism. Vivek Wadha’s TechCrunch post (which was just the worst kind of pseudo-science article we see nowadays) sparked his ire. So, let me settle it - it’s 80% nature, now can we move on? Have a nice week.
For last week see “The week in VC Blogs: week 7 2010”
