innonate

Note to iPhone team: let me have 1 unified inbox. You know how...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:54:03 -0500

Note to iPhone team: let me have 1 unified inbox. You know how to do it. See: Mail.app ;-)

Very cool time-lapse of last night’s NY Tech Meetup. Jenny...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:21:57 -0500

Very cool time-lapse of last night’s NY Tech Meetup. Jenny Kortina did this with iTimeLapse.

French Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss Dies at 100

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:07:08 -0500

French Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss Dies at 100:

Claude Levi-Strauss was my intellectual hero. Read all about it here.

A year ago today I was camped out in this historical home, on...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:04:14 -0500

A year ago today I was camped out in this historical home, on the banks of the Ohio river, in southern Clermont County, Ohio, fighting for Barack Obama’s unlikely campaign for President.

Hard to believe it was just a year ago. I still remember the fierce urgency of Now that drove us during those final weeks, days, and hours.

Jelleestone - Money Can’t Buy Me Happiness GET ON IT!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:04:14 -0400

Jelleestone - Money Can’t Buy Me Happiness

GET ON IT!

November NY Tech Meetup

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:43:15 -0400

November NY Tech Meetup:

Here’s the lineup:

5 Min:
MongoDB
Daylife
Solvate
AdMeld
Belgrave Trust

NY Tech Minute:
Neighborhoodr
UrbanInterns
Maggwire
SuperGlued
Klickable

Also, be sure to join everyone at the NY Tech Meetup after-party, where Avi Flombaum of DesignerPages.com and Spencer Fry of CarbonMade.com will be DJing and buying the first 100 people drinks at The Black Door (127 W. 26th St. Betwn 6th & 7th Ave).

Leadership is when you see life as a pentatonic scale. (My dad...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:41:43 -0400

Leadership is when you see life as a pentatonic scale.

(My dad shared this with me and said, “Way cool — especially for anyone who has led a group — musically or otherwise.”)

homescreens: Nate Westheimer’s home screen

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:46:12 -0400

homescreens:

Nate Westheimer’s home screen

Bitter sweet sunset, signaling an end to a very taxing - and...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:00:35 -0400

Bitter sweet sunset, signaling an end to a very taxing - and rewarding - trip.

Fun

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:19:09 -0400

Fun

Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Crushing It Friday! #CrushIt

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:38:36 -0400

Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Crushing It Friday! #CrushIt

I love this City. I love this company.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:24:14 -0400

I love this City. I love this company.

"In 2008, at a tech conference in Chicago, Gary keynoted and called me out in front of hundreds of..."

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:06:00 -0400

“In 2008, at a tech conference in Chicago, Gary keynoted and called me out in front of hundreds of fellow technologists saying, “I know my friend Nate Westheimer is not living his passion right now and it kills me.” He was right. That was when BricaBox was on its last legs, and he was a big part of helping me know it was time to let go and move on — one of the most important career moves of my life.”

- My post “It’s Time to Crush It!” about why you should buy Gary Vaynerchuck’s new book.

Why I Love My Job: My mind is officially blown at least 3 times...

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:53:44 -0400

Why I Love My Job: My mind is officially blown at least 3 times a day.

caterpillarcowboy: mikehudack: “When you take any money at all from a big VC in a seed round, you...

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:26:39 -0400

caterpillarcowboy:

mikehudack:

“When you take any money at all from a big VC in a seed round, you are effectively giving them an option on the next round, even though that option isn’t contractual. And, somewhat counterintuitively, the more well respected the VC is, the stronger the negative signal will be when they don’t follow on.”

—

Chris Dixon (via entrepreneurwisdom)

Yes. This always bothered me. I’d rather raise from a group of great angels (and therefore herd a lot of cats) than run the risk of having a seed VC not lead the next round. And if they do end up leading there are lots of distorted incentives that can cause serious problems for the entrepreneur. Negotiate too hard and you lose your lead and end up sending a really negative message to other prospective investors. Not good.

(via mikehudack)

Thanks for the advice, would love to hear more about it. About to go through this now for the first time. Definitely leaning towards doing a syndicated angel deal than a VC seed round that also requires a board seat and other strings. Pros / Cons?
(via caterpillarcowboy)
Your angels should get a board seat. More specifically, the lead should represent them as a class on the board. I guess this doesn’t always happen. It’s the way it worked for us, and it worked reasonably well. At some point they should expect to give up their seat as they get crammed down by professional venture investors in later rounds.

I think there are many reasons to go with an angel syndicate over a VC in an early seed round. The follow-on issue is only one of them. You also get more diverse advice. You also get friends. No investor is really your friend, but angels are probably as close as any investors get. Most angels invest because they love it, not so much for the returns. VCs are professionals that are fiduciaries for LPs (pension funds, university endowments, etc). They’re more likely to be dicks because sometimes they have to be dicks. You want investors who you can grow with.

There are exceptions to every rule. I think it would be tough to turn down a seed round from USV, for example. But imagine how much it must suck to have Fred put in $500,000 and then refuse to participate in your next round. Everyone out there thinks Fred has one of the best noses around. How do you explain to potential funders that Fred won’t be participating? This is always a problem, but it’s much more pronounced early in a company’s history when concrete metrics are hard to come by and you’re still to a large degree selling vision.

This is great, thank you.

Ditto.

Talk about a busy week.

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:31:47 -0400

caterpillarcowboy:

Meetings with 4 VC firms, 3 Biz-dev meetings, 1 sales meeting. What’s truly important? Making the product better for customers.

May 2005, broadcasting “livestreaming” a Thomas...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:20:56 -0400

May 2005, ~~broadcasting~~ “livestreaming” a Thomas Friedman speech from Brandeis University. Wow. I guess I’ve been doing this web video thing for a while…

Photo from Brandeis University’s Federal Work/Study info page (I did not do work / study, and BTV was not work, it was a club).

mikehudack: john: Listening to Fred Wilson introduce...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:38:37 -0400

mikehudack:

john:

Listening to Fred Wilson introduce restauranteur Danny Meyer, who made me this wonderful meal. Shake Shack milkshakes to follow.

And how was your lunch ;)

I haven’t had lunch yet. I’m sick. And you’re well and eating food introduced to you by Danny Meyer, who was introduced to you by Fred Wilson. You suck.

I feel exactly the same way. Those USV people are assholes for rocking so hard.

AnyClip Usability Testing

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:36:54 -0400

anyclip:

If you can spare 15-20 minutes of your time on Wednesday, October 14th please come by the AnyClip offices in New York to help us test AnyClip and to give us feedback on what we can do better.

Whether you’re an AnyClip user, or you haven’t had the opportunity to play around with our website yet, we want to hear from you.

We’ll have some snacks and refreshments and you’ll get to hang out with the AnyClip Team. You’ll also get an invitation to AnyClip.com if you don’t have one, and 2 extra invites to give out to your friends.

Please fill out this form and we’ll let you know if you’re a match for our testing event!

Date: Wed, Oct 14th

Time: 6:00 - 7:15pm (you can pick your time slot)

Where: 245 W17th Street - 11th Floor (btw 7th / 8th Ave), New York, NY

Questions? Get in touch with Gabi Moore — gabi@anyclip.com

Hope to see you there!

Please swing by if you have an hour to help us. Thanks!

"You log on to AnyClip with a mission, and you leave with passion."

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:31:24 -0400

“You log on to AnyClip with a mission, and you leave with passion.”

- AnyClip: It’s a Winner - Jared Hecht

I love this. Replace AnyClip with the name of your startup and you have your mantra.

(via david-noel)