Tied into an investment

It's hard to get an investor to put money into your company, because it's so hard for the investor to get his money out.

What happens when things go south? Do you put more money in? What if no one wants to buy out your position (common in the US). Consider the following situation. A new investor wants to put in 1 mil into the company. If he buys from you, then he may own $1 mil worth of stock, but none of the money goes to help the company improve their operations. But if he buys it from the company, the money will go into operations and improvements.

Hence, there's no way to get out of an investent. And if you don't pony up more money, then it's seen as a vote of no confidence.

Be Dumb

User interface, simple/stupid.

Make it reasonable and easy to use.

I remember a conversation I had with Owen Thomas. We argued on the concept of having your data on the machine in front of you, or if it could be out there in the aether. My argument was that people don't care WHERE the data resides, just like they don't care HOW most things work. They just want it to work.

Now, I look around, and realize, you have to make things WORK first, and how only matters to those who look under the hood. Drive a car: Steering wheel, break, gas, Drive/Reverse/Park. That's it.

Computers: Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor. Inputs and output. Sometimes a printout.

Get to the core, and make things easy on your users. The easier it is, the fewer things can go wrong. Be dumb for your users, and your life will be easier as well.

Open Source VC?

Can this work? Or would this end up in group think?
Or would we have the same problem of having people degenerate into profanity and outrageous comments?

Don't know, and no one seems to have tried it before.

The most probable result would be a threaded/usenet type of response.
A lot of 'gut reaction' type comments. Which are the ones that matter most for an executive summary/initial b-plan.

Should probably insist that the documents be 5 pages or less, something most people will simply ignore, but it will give folks leave to scream at the writers that the document was too long.

Should give people the option of getting an RSS feed, or an email when a comment has been posted on their company.

This would be an ego thing.

This would also drive lawyers nuts, or more importantly, make it completely clear that everything that was said and put on the site would be open knowledge. Up to and including any responses by the company.

IP issues, etc. won't be covered
No NDA

Warning to all companies, you'll be putting up contact info. And may end up being contacted by some service providers. They might offer to help you raise funds, or be an accountant, or a lawyer. Use them at your own risk.

Would this even be a good idea?

Why I hate regulated deadlines

They're always squishy.

Let's look at HIPPA.
It should have been implemented.
But it's not.
why?
because what Congress can mandate, it can also push back.

Another example: HD TV.
it's being pushed back as well.

Anyone who brings me a b-plan with the statement. "The industry will have to change, since Congress said so" gets knocked a few points for believing that GOVERNMENT will create a favorable environment for a start-up in time for the start-up to survive/succeed.

Look at DHS, it's taken a year to create the infrastructure, just so they'll be able to act like a Dept!

Markets react faster, pay faster, and will be very clear in who they reward and who they ignore.

Self introspection

Do I ever listen to myself?
No.

I ramble, rant, rave, but rarely listen.

Should you listen to me?
No.

Check the title of this blog: I am, have been, and will be wrong.

Listen to me only when I'm less wrong than you are.

When I'm more wrong, ignore what I have to say.
and when I'm completely off base, use this as fodder for ridicule.

Play at the top of your game

Don’t let things distract you when you’ve got to be concentrating.

It can be a tough thing to do. Life has an unfortunate habit of interrupting with life changing events.

Part of delegating authority is to allow your company to withstand the stuff life personally throws at you. This is the key element of putting the company ahead of your ego.

In games, you don’t have to play when you’re distracted. In business, you don’t have that luxury. So focus only on the vital aspects that are necessary, don’t bother quibbling about the color of the carpet, or the ceiling. Or where someone puts their trashcan in their office. It’s hard enough running a company without creating useless issues to distract you.

A wonderful dream

http://www.time.com/time/insidebiz/article/0,9171,1101040712-660965,00.html?cnn=yes
This article goes into the concept of having internal markets determine the strategy/course of a company.
I'm all for this idea.
Actually, let's expand the idea a bit more.
I'm already on the record as saying that you should outsource everything but sales and innovation, so why not get the outsourced partners, suppliers/customers in on the action as well.

Yes, it's dangerous.
No, it probably won't happen over night.

But a "company" that has insight to its future sales? future supply problems? Markets telling you if/when you'll have any hurdles to overcome, and even better, smoothing out your problems, when a supplier starts to produce more in response to the market information he heard about a supply shortage? In the end, the company wins,
The ones who supply you win
And your customers win.

It can also help you with future planning, if a customer doesn't really believe they'll process another big order from you, they could bid down the sales numbers. Uncertainty is the bane of business. Many owners will tell you they'll pay a premium for stability. It helps planning and long term profits.

But requires the trust of the players involved, because competitors will get the information as well. The only way to take advantage is to have a company that can react fast enough to the information available. Faster than your competition, even though they have the same information as you. Fundamentally, use the fact that this in an imperfect market, information will filter out through actions of buying/selling and react accordingly, before your competitors do.

But why won't you sign my NDA?

Question keeps coming up, and the answer is 'because'.

Long answer: I invest in early stage companies; there are a lot of them. If I sign an NDA early in the investigation process, then there comes a whole host of liabilities, without much likelihood of success.

Funds looking at late stage/mezzanine financing can sign NDA's, because the universe of potential investments is smaller, and the companies they are looking at are big enough to generally do well after financing. It's not uncommon for me to put money into a company, and see that money vanish because of market conditions.

Larger companies have enough weight to withstand some market fluctuations. Smaller companies can just die off, or go into hibernation. Either way, I’m then bound by a contract to not do anything that could help a potential investee, or entrepreneur. It’s not a good situation to be in, so I’ll avoid the problems by not signing an NDA.

Why we do things

"We do THIS because it gets us the greatest benefit, for the amount of resources, in a better way than anything else we can come up with."


This seems to be the underwritten business motto for every business I've ever seen. From retail to restaurants, drug dealers and educators.

At the core, it makes sense. If there was another way to get better benefits with fewer costs, why wouldn't you do it? Costs is an all inclusive figure, switching costs, financial costs, emotional, physical, social, etc.

Benefits is more than financial gain.
I need to get a more succinct way to say the above.


Greatest Benefits for Least Cost.


This almost works, But it's a bastardization of the concept. Similar to how "Only the Strong Survive" is a warping of Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest"

People, as a whole, are not collectively stupid. Figure something that's easier/faster/better and the information will filter through the population.


It's just getting the word out there quickly that's the problem.
A lot of companies die before their ideas can spread far enough.

Cyberpunk coming true?

War without flags

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/view.html?pg=4?tw=wn_tophead_7

Having been a geek in the late 80's, playing paper-dice Role playing games, a favorite genra was Cyberpunk. Influenced by authors William Gibson, Greg Bear, and the article's writer Bruce Sterling; movies like Bladerunner and Running man. This was the future-dark vision of the world.

Multi-national corporations taking over and running things with private armies of soldiers. Governments acting as little more than shells for the corporations, and technology becoming the new magic.

In somethings the writers got it right. Cyberspace was coined by Gibson. We don't have data-plugs in our bodies yet, but we can carry around gigabytes of information easily. Monofilament isn't available around the corner, but everyone can connect onto the net.

One of the off shoot themes in most of the Cyberpunk genre was the middle east being turned to glass. Or at least, being used as a battle ground where armies could fight, without disturbing too many civilians. After all, civilians were the source of profit, and no multinational would want to sacrifice profits.

Are we racing down to an era of money again? Company men, no longer being a wink at the CIA. We probably are.

As long as there is a profit involved, people will be around.

Public Flogging

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/05/technology/05apprentice.html
The gong show for Bplans.

I wonder how people would react.

Then again, given Simon's success on Idol, people might not mind being told the bad news.

Granted, it would need someone with a lot of self confidence, and delusion. Why? because most VC's know we make a bunch of mistakes. Being able to plow forward, despite our mistakes is the only thing we can do.

Look at Bessemer Venture's "anti-portfolio", everyone will have their war stories of what they could have invested. For every one of those a VC said no to, 100's of other bad ideas were also thrown out.

Fold

Rounders is a lousy movie on poker.
However there was one line which keeps with me. "When you can't win, fold the hand."

Entrepreneurs have been touted as the guys who won't give up. In truth, they're actually the ones who will give up faster on a no-win situation. They'll move on to the next issue faster than most other folks.

You don't have to solve/resolve every problem out there to succeed. Just the important ones.

Outsource everything

Reading this article on Micro-Multinationals reminded me of something core.


You can and should outsource EVERYTHING except sales and innovation.

Finance, development, HR, operations, etc. Become a virtual company if/when it's possible.

Keep sales, because that's your link to your customers. No Customers = No Company

Keep innovation, otherwise your company is just a copy-cat, and will evaporate in time.

Everyone else, everything else, should be outsourced.