Posted by: Nick Leiber on April 29, 2010
A tangible print product is tough, because, unlike a blog post or a piece of software code, you can't just change it on the fly.
This is a post by guest blogger Jeff Bussgang. It is cross-posted on his blog, Seeing Both Sides.
My book, Mastering the VC Game, is officially available today (and 40 pages of excerpts are available for free if you want to preview it), yet I'm kind of grumpy.
I've gotten nice reviews (see AVC, Boston.com and YoungEntrepreneur for a few examples) and TechCrunch, Bloomberg Businessweek and Upromise have done really nice excerpts.
But I confess I'm a bit of a perfectionist (when I'd come home with a 95% on a test, my parents would ask me what happened on those 5% points - I wonder if that has anything to do with it?) and so I find myself mulling about the mistakes I made with it. Tangible print products are tough because, unlike a blog post or a piece of software code, you can't just change it on the fly.
Here are the top three things I've been stewing on:
-I regret that I didn't spend more time discussing the recent phenomenon of super-angels, as covered nicely in a recent VentureWire article. Guys like Chris Sacca, Roger Ehrenberg, Dame McClure and Ron Conway as well as small seed funds like Chris Dixon's Founder's Collective and Mike Maples' Floodgate are worthy of more treatment than I gave them although I do cover First Round and profile their co-founder Howard Morgan. There are pros and cons for entrepreneurs who take money from these groups and I'd like to expand on these in future blog posts.
-I'm sorry to have left out any great cleantech entrepreneurs. With yesterday's announcement of Cape Wind going forward, it's another reminder that the energy sector is brimming with entrepreneurial opportunities and I should have included a few stories about some of the emerging starts there, like EnerNOC, A123 and Silver Spring.
-I'm annoyed that my publisher, Penguin, and Amazon.com are locked in a battle over royalties, resulting in my book not being available on the Kindle. As a result, all new authors are getting punished. The book is available on iPad, Sony e-Reader and the Nook, but I've been getting tons of complaints from folks that they want to download it on their Kindle and can't. What kind of a technology VC writes a book that isn't available on a Kindle? Yeesh.
Those are my top three. I have a few other smaller ones, but I guess that's why they print second editions. Let me know if you spot any more.
Serial entrepreneur Jeff Bussgang is a partner at venture capital firm Flybridge Capital in Boston. Follow him on Twitter @bussgang.
Posted by: John Tozzi on April 26, 2010
Sorry for the sparse posting lately.
Tech startups, missing vowels, get ever stranger names, writes Patrick May of the San Jose Mercury News (h/t Entrepreneurship.org).
Google adds local business listings to streetview, and "augmented reality" (i.e., point your phone down the street to see business listings) could be next, writes TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld.
Anne Fisher at Crain's NY writes about how On Deck Capital evaluates loan applicants based on cash-flow rather than traditional credit standards.
The NY Time's Robb Mandelbaum looks at a recent watchdog report on troubled SBA loans and says concerns may be exaggerated.
Small business owners are telling Fed Board members around the country that weak bank lending is holding them back, Bloomberg's Steve Matthews and Vivien Lou Chen report.
If you missed it, check out our small business coverage in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek here.
Posted by: Nick Leiber on April 21, 2010
How do I produce a 250-page document that is professionally edited, packaged, and distributed, yet communicate the information consistent with the spirit of the blogosphere--open and free?
This is a guest post by Jeff Bussgang. It is cross-posted on his blog, Seeing Both Sides.
When I embarked on writing a book about venture capital and entrepreneurship, I struggled with one question: how do I produce a 250 page document that is professionally edited, packaged and distributed, yet communicate the information consistent with the spirit of the blogosphere--open and free.
Despite the best efforts of many, the publishing industry remains a financially-driven business. Agents, publishers, editors, retailers, and others in the value chain all make a living doing what they do. They don't have the luxury of another job that supports them while they write on the side, like many VCs and entrepreneurs.
So, I decided to take the best compromised approach I could figure out. First, I convinced the publisher (Penguin's business imprint, Portfolio) to allow me to distribute a meaningful chunk of the book for free. The first 40 or so pages of the book can be found at www.jeffbussgang.com and can be downloaded, read, and distributed for free. Go for it.
Second, I decided to donate a meaningful portion of whatever meager earnings I receive from the book (after digging into the business, I was kind of shocked how little money is left for the author after agents, editors, publishers and retailers all get their cut of your $20-$25 hardcover!) to Endeavor, a terrific nonprofit that promotes global entrepreneurship. Endeavor was founded by Linda Rottenberg, an amazing entrepreneur in her own right, who has built a global network that promotes and supports entrepreneurship.
Third, Penguin has been kind enough to agree to allow me to give many hundreds of copies of the books away to universities, incubators, and other forums where it might be useful to entrepreneurs. I keep thinking about any way possible to reduce the friction between an entrepreneur and a successful business and incubators and business plans and shared office space are all terrific vehicles.
So that's my game plan. Not perfect, but the best I could figure out given the constraints. Let me know what you think--or if there are other angles I should be thinking of. The book is widely available next week, so I still have time.
Serial entrepreneur Jeff Bussgang is a partner at venture capital firm Flybridge Capital in Boston. Follow him on Twitter @bussgang.
Posted by: Nick Leiber on April 20, 2010
Nearly two million businesses in the U.S. promote themselves by using free listing pages on Google. Today the search giant is wrapping its old listing tool, Local Business Center, into its existing directory, Google Places, to streamline the experience for the person searching and the business owner managing the business' online presence. The biggest change (first piloted in Feb.) is business owners in select cities can now pay $25 a month to draw more attention to their listing.
From Google's blog post today:
We launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners.
Google is also introducing several new free features for business owners:
Service areas: If you travel to serve customers, you can now show which geographic areas you serve. And if you run a business without a storefront or office location, you can now make your address private.
[...]
Business photo shoots: In addition to uploading their own photos, businesses in select cities can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which we'll use to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages. We've been experimenting with this over the past few months, and now have created a site for businesses to learn more and express their interest in participating.
Customized QR codes: From the dashboard page of Google Places, businesses in the U.S. can download a QR code that’s unique to their business, directly from their dashboard page. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business.
Favorite Places: We're doing a second round of our Favorite Places program, and are mailing window decals to 50,000 businesses around the U.S. These decals include a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to directly view the mobile Place Page for the business to learn more about their great offerings.
TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld explains the implications for others gunning for the local business directory space in his post earlier today.
Posted by: John Tozzi on April 13, 2010
Maryland today became the first state to legally create a new corporate form known as a "benefit corporation" that will let social entrepreneurs codify their missions in their corporate charters.
The law is modeled on proposals by B-Lab, a Berwyn, Pa.-nonprofit that certifies socially responsible companies. The law lets entrepreneurs commit their for-profit ventures to a specific public good, and requires them to report on contributions to that goal and submit to auditing of their impact. Having official "benefit corporation" status allows entrepreneurs to consider stakeholders like employees, communities, or the environment in business decisions. Under existing corporate law, company directors can face lawsuits if considering outside stakeholders is seen to damage the financial interest of shareholders.
We wrote nearly a year ago on the difficulty social entrepreneurs have fitting their hybrid missions of making money and doing good into existing corporate forms. The tangled arrangements they get into (nonprofits controlling for-profits, etc.) can be costly to set up and limit their ability to raise money from outside investors. Adopting the "benefit corporation" form signals that our economic institutions -- in this case the laws that govern corporations -- are catching up with the growing interest in the social enterprise sector. (This was one of two big ideas on my radar this year.) "If you care about accelerating the development of this emerging marketplace, the first step is providing the legal infrastructure," Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the co-founders of B-Lab, told me last week.
He says the new legal designation could unlock new capital for social ventures from investors who want to park their money in mission-driven companies. "I think it’s becoming increasingly not only acceptable but sought after by mainstream investors," Gilbert says.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the bill today, along with other bills at the end of Maryland's legislative session. The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Jamie Raskin, passed Maryland's Senate unanimously and passed the House by a vote of 135-5.
A similar proposal is pending in Vermont. California lawmakers are considering related legislation to allow "flexible purpose corporations" that would let companies protect their social missions, without the affirmative requirements that the "benefit corporation" law puts in place.
