On My Mind…

I’ve been extremely busy lately so haven’t had a lot of time to blog (maybe when I retire).  But here are a few things I’m thinking about.  Let me know what you think about as it relates to these topics – I’m always looking for smart people to exchange ideas with and potentially collaborate with.  Here they are:

• Data – Its what I love in business.  It is the source of sound decision making.  It requires careful and measured interpretation.  I’ve been a creator, analyzer, designer and distributor of massive data plays.  Its one of the key things in most all of my startup visions right now.  I’m thinking a lot about metrics and visualizations.  I’m looking for a few engineers to work on a project or two on this topic.  I’ve got a few great people already lined up so join the fun if you are interested in data, analytics and startups.

• Productivity - With all the focus on social streams, what happens to productivity?  I’m increasingly using web/mobile productivity apps – and I’m working on a cool one too.  How do we help people get the real world things done better – the classic effective and efficient positioning?  And how do you make it more engaging?  Can you make a calendar app more utilitarian and engaging at the same time?  penny for your thoughts.

• Distribution – Its funny how you get reminded about seemingly obvious facts.  I am now reminded, that in the startup world distribution is everything.  Bad products with great distribution can make a bigger dent than great products with no distribution (but the truly ground breaking stuff tends to find its way to the top – e.g. Google).  Whats interesting now is Social Distribution (e.g. leveraging your social graph to plant seeds).  It’s one additional lever we all now have (remember, your Graph is not just about your twitter network – its also classmates, former colleagues, family members, etc).  This also reminds me we are all wise to focus on building businesses where we inherantly have distribution relationships.  Seems obvious I know, but sometimes you just get so caught up in building amazing products you lose sight of the business model.

• Marketing – Thinking it is time for another ‘transformation’ in the role of marketing.  It has to be about data (this drove my success at IBM).  It has to be about ROI and headlights.  There are some cool companies out there right now that are bring the SaaS model to marketing (e.g. Marketo, etc) – I see big opportunities here (everything from marketing BPO, automation and intelligence).  My big question is as follows:  Who is going to own the data firehose in the enterprise – who is going to make sense of it all?”.  Is marketing up to the challenge or will IT or R&D end up with the charge?

• Healthcare - Thinking about when will be a good time to be an software entrepreneur in this space.  My career started in Pharma & Healthcare, so I’m always wondering when I should be looking back into that category.  I think the time is nearing.  I’m watching this with an eye toward 2011/12.  I’d love to be a part of this once the incentives and ecosystem are better structured.

That’s all for now.  What are you thinking about?

It’s your EQUITY – manage it wisely…

As a founder equity tends to be one of the most cherished assets at your startup.  For many of us, it is ONE of the drivers of entrepreneurship – to own our businesses and have a shot at real wealth creation (wealth is different than rich – you can get rich in corporate America).  I’ve now been involved in a healthy volume of equity related startup equations (~10), I’ve participated in some and passed on others (I’m passing more these days).  My perspective is not from a VC funding perspective – but from the very early stage (pre-funded and angel funded) – the phase that matters most to founders because it can cause so many problems at times when you don’t need to be slowed down (IMHO).  So here are a few things I’ve seen:

• One startup not start up because the founder was foolish about distribution (he thought his idea was worth literally 99% – LMAO).
• One startup shutter the doors because the primary founder did not want to get diluted (he had Hollywood ego syndrome).
• One founder miss talent opportunities due to unwillingness to distribute real equity (he complained how hard he has worked to get to this point).
• A few situations where messy cap tables make further investment or acquisition non-issues (it costs to much to deal with all the BS).
• A few situations where original founders ‘moved on’ but owned way too much equity to making the startups tough to fund and tough to attract more top talent (VCs would recap anyway, so do it now and save a headache)
• A few entrepreneurs understand that the earlier the deal the riskier the deal for investors and talent alike so they are generous with equity.
• A few situations where the equity was managed very well.

And now I’m on the founders side of a few deals and am applying everything I’ve learned to ensure we all do it right.  I’ve been lucky to have great legal counsel. 

UPDATED: Busy Building [Social] Solutions

UPDATE:  Still super busy and not finding time to blog.  I’m starting a new project with a really cool company call HubKap (see below).  Some good progress from a few of my friends companies below (most of which I’m an advisor for), but more to come on that soon.

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It has been while since I last posted. I’ve been super busy working on my startup, The Graph.  Things are evolving amazingly well right now.  I am really grateful to all of you out there in my network(s) who are helping – its outstanding to have so many positive supporters right now.  The opportunity is timely!  More to come very soon on this front…

I’ve also been helping a few startups as well.  Check them out:

HubKap – not much to say now other than a really great productivity and connectivity tool for people struggling to manage their calendars (and those of others)  If you’d like to join our alpha or beta program drop me a line.

SocialGuides.com – the best of what’s next in location aware services – helping people discover the people and content that make places interesting. And oh yeah – its a Cloud company.  Led by a great young entrepreneur [SD].  More on that one soon…

Weall.tv – social media content distribution company. media based social/mobile syndication (twitter, facebook, iPhone, Android, etc) and community platform (plug into media sites). Led by great proven entrepreneur I met at TC50 [Venezuela].  IF you are (or know) a media brand that wants to be a first of a kind multi media twitterati, contact me.

Marketforce1.com – business intelligence and web analytics (SaaS) for sales and marketing. Great team backed by some sharp angels. [SF]  IF you are (or know) a B2B marketer that wants a better lead/BI  system, contact me.

Southern California Tech Central - helping my friend Tony K dial up his great new product concept.  A lot more great stuff to come from this.  Check it out if you are a tech blogger in Southern California [LA].

So, I’ve been busy.  And will only get busier.  But it wont be long before I’m blogging much more.  In the meantime, check out some of the companies and tell me what you think.

Startup Delta Force…

I’ve been mulling over a new series* of posts that I’ve been wanting to create for sometime.  Lately I find myself now very crisply focusing on the issue of STRATEGY.  I love strategy – not in the McKinsey sort of way (all though I have tons of respect for those guys), but in a real-time iterative way.  To me, strategy is the art/science of analysis, decision-making and leadership.  Now that I’ve been through several startup cycles I’m of the opinion that strategy – meaning the decisions that are considered, how they are analyzed and how they are implemented – is a huge success/failure driver.

The first thing I’ve been thinking about I call the Startup Delta Force.  Given the current state of the economy and technology sectors, I’ve been thinking about the basic premise of ‘getting started’ and the associated Delta Force that is naturally working against you.  That spurred me to create this simple visual (I like KISS):

(sidenote:  I love The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam)

So, lets talk about the StartupDelta Force.

From a competitive perspective (e.g. all the other folks out there that will try to enter the same market) the barriers have been dropping over the last few years.

• Customer Acquisition – social media, SEO, SEM, etc

Learning to Duck from @micah

Note:  this is a comment I made on a great post by Micah at Learn to Duck.  His post talks about various aspects of tech ‘community’.  Go read the original post as well.  His blog is one of my favorites.

Micah,

AWESOME post. I live/work in Southern California and have had very similar observations as the scene here has exploded over the last 18 months. I remind people that there is a difference between a scene, a community and an ecosystem. It’s important to understand where you want to dig in (me, I’m an ecosystem kinda guy – I like startups, universities, investors and industry). One thing I always give our community ‘leaders’ credit for is creating the places for everyone to meet – I wouldn’t know any of my current collaborators were it not for the flood of events in 2008. I encourage people to remember it takes all types to make it work. And oh yeah, there is that thing called work. So, I say if you want to be apart of something excellent (and sustainable) get to work – start a company, mentor a company, invest in a company, partner with a startup – do something to foster the ecosystem. I’m actively doing what I can with my friends (we are starting a founders group to help early stage companies grow) and am looking forward to reaching out to a few other organizations that are helping foster early stage ecosystems in other locations. At the end of the day its hard work doing this startup thing no matter where you live – so lets all do what we can to help each other succeed because success breeds success (cheesy but true). Thanks for sharing your experience. You’ve inspired me to go work on a post I’ve had in my head for months.

Originally posted as a comment by gammill on Learn To Duck using Disqus.