How to talk to a VC at an event ...?

I do sometimes wonder how one should talk with a VC when one bumps into them at an event.  I was out last night at a bash for the start-up community.  I bumped into a smart young VC who only recently joined one of the bigger firms.  I think I ended up talking the poor guy’s ear off.

Here’s how it ran:  We’d both arrived early, not many people there yet.  I noticed a guy I recognized, name badge rang a bell, but couldn’t place him.  So, after a brief “hi” I said as much.  He reminded me there’d been a workshop a couple of weeks back where a couple of VCs talked to a dozen or so startup CEOs with tips and feedback on pitch decks.  I asked him to remind me what company he was with, and he named a VC firm.  Ah… yes he was one of the VCs there wasn’t he.

Start-up Visas

“While fast-growing companies have long been the main source of new jobs and innovation, this country makes it outrageously difficult for immigrants to launch new companies here. This doesn’t make any sense. After all, Google, Pfizer, Intel, Yahoo, DuPont, eBay and Procter & Gamble are all former start-ups founded by immigrants. Where would this country be today without their world-changing innovations?

Immigrants have not only founded big, well-known companies. Foreign-born residents made up just 12.5% of the U.S. population in 2008. But nearly 40% of technology company founders and 52% of founders of companies in Silicon Valley.

Yet we don’t seem to care. We send recent, foreign-born university science and engineering graduates back to their own countries after their student visas expire—unless these creative sorts are willing to spend some of the most entrepreneurial years of their lives working in a big company under an H-1B visa after they finish their studies.”

Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld: Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy - WSJ.com

(via fred-wilson)

How I use social media in 6 points

Just posted on Facebook to explain to my family & friends why they see so many tweets on Facebook right now.  I’ve been using social media tools since long before the term was coined.  I suppose that’s obvious - I was using the web from it’s first days in the early nineties, as a Physics undergrad, and evolved with it from there.

How I use social media today:

Memes I hate: "I don't live to work, I work to live, man"

I read this post on TechCrunch where a London VC calls out EU start-up teams for not working as hard as their Silicon Valley counterparts.  There is certainly a case to be made here - I have often commented to friends on the same issue.  One obvious counterpoint is that I see European startups paying WAY WAY less for talent than Silicon Valley alternatives, even when London is such an expensive city to live in.  But the beef I have is with all the snarky comments to the effect of “I don’t live to work, I work to live”.

It’s a phrase I used to hear a lot as a hiring manager for a big US multinational back in the late nineties.  Primarily from young guys, straight out of college.

Why do so many entrepreneurs have VC issues?

My Monday morning begins with catching up on a bunch of VC blogs and other start-up-related feeds.  I think there’s a wealth of knowledge being communicated daily to entrepreneurs, but many won’t touch it for some reason.

First on my reader today was Fred Destin asking why entrepreneurs hate VCs.  It’s something that annoys me when I talk with fellow entrepreneurs - this anti-VC thread, almost as though we’re all supposed to join in venting about how bad they are.  I’ve been told I have VC Stockholm syndrome when I suggest that perhaps it’s worth working a little towards accommodating the VC occasionally isn’t a bad thing.  Maybe that’s true.  Maybe it’s just that I have tried to put time and effort into understanding what VCs need out of me and my company in order to mutually align goals and increase my chances of success in building a billion dollar company and changing the world.  Maybe both.

Ads & Twitter (and Disqus) - reposting some comments

I recently commented on one of my favourite VC blogs - Both Sides Of The Table

As an aside, this is the first time I’ve done this.  I am usually a lurker.  But I like Disqus - the idea that if I comment it’s not lost in the ether, it’s easy for me to keep track of.  Now my comments are a conversation, and part of my constant process of learning.

23 & me, James Bond, Christopher Walken and a View To A Kill

In the Bond movie A View To A Kill Christopher Walken plays the psychotic product of a genetics experiment designed to produce a race of superhumans, with a penchant for airships and a plan to destroy Silicon Valley with the aim of profiting handsomely.

I guess it’s not surprising then, when I see the blimp belonging to “23 and me” a company that aims to decode your genome for you or something similar, hovering over Mountain View, I cannot help but feel a little bit creeped out by it.  It’s just all a little too View To A Kill for my liking.  I keep expecting Grace Jones to parachute past me.

Of course part of this may be that there’s only room for one Bond Villain in this town, and with my hideous facial disfiguration, that’s my role.