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Venture Hacks

• This Week in Venture Capital 10 June, 2010, 8:03 am
  This Week in Venture Capital is awesome. I’ve watched every episode. The show is a mix of startup advice and startup analysis: “Entrepreneur [now VC] Mark Suster and a rotating group of guest experts bring you weekly news and commentary on the top 10 recent venture deals and exits.” Episodes This Week in Venture Capital (TWiVC) is a great way to get to know Mark and his guests without ever meeting them. And if you’re not in the Valley, TWiVC is a wonderful way to get a feel for Valley culture, even though the show is filmed in LA — Silicon Valley is a mindset, not a location. Here’s a recent episode: Video: TWiVC #6 with Jason Calacanis Jump to 33:05 for a solid block of startup advice on: Your deck getting in the wrong hands. @ 33:05 If this is your first time raising angel money… @ 38:13 “VCs—when we fund raise—never ever are raising money. We’re pre-marketing until the round’s closed.” – Mark Suster @ 44:34 And if you see a guy named Farb Nivi on the site, that’s my brother (yes, I go by my last name): Video: TWiVC #8 with Farb Nivi One more thing… Also check out TWiVC’s sister show, This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis. The episode with Joel Spolsky is the best one I’ve seen so far.
• Resiliency 9 June, 2010, 8:03 am
  Michael Wolff on Guess Who: “Windows knocked him off the main stage for 10 years; then the Internet seemed to sideline him; not to mention that serious business people (along with many others) thought he was nutty; then he had problems with the SEC (and not insignificant ones); then he nearly died.” They call this resiliency.
• This fortnight in Twitter 28 May, 2010, 5:41 pm
  Highlights from the @venturehacks Twitter feed. How real-world corruption works http://vh.co/blCKEu. This is awesome. Great negotiation advice. I read every word. Thank you Internet. Clay Christensen’s milkshake theory is my favorite way to think about competition & substitutes: http://vh.co/a2nezA Every time you e-mail prospective investors, include good news (product, traction, team…). It stimulates reciprocity: http://vh.co/9XXzSi “In a nutshell, anything that takes more than 3 sentences to explain to your peers does not work in reality.” – Kutt, http://vh.co/9qHp1C “[Apple's] continuous iterative improvement… is easy to overlook if you’re observing it in real time.” – @gruber, http://vh.co/al0uNF Instead of showing our avatar next to each tweet, I’ve picked images that are related to the tweet. It’s easy to find your most popular tweets on the Your Tweets, Retweeted page on Twitter. For this post, I picked tweets that had 10+ retweets.
• John Doerr: The salesman for nerds 26 May, 2010, 8:03 am
  Here are the latest videos from Venture Hacks TV (the best startup advice you can get while you’re folding the laundry). You can subscribe to VHTV via RSS, email, or Twitter. 1. John Doerr: The salesman for nerds Video: Charlie Rose interviews John Doerr  I’m going to keep my eyes on the videos coming out of TechCrunch Disrupt this week. The best talk on Monday was Charlie Rose’s interview of John Doerr.  I’ve always thought of John Doerr as a salesmen for nerds. And Doerr always looks at the big picture — I remember him talking about how the browser was going to be important again, well before Firefox emerged. 2. Gates convinces Jobs to give him 3 pre-release Macs Video: Pirates of Silicon Valley Watch how Gates manipulates Jobs hatred of IBM to get his way at 6:45. Every entrepreneur should see Pirates of Silicon Valley. This made-for-TV movie from 1999 is amazingly well-done. It’s a dramatization of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak starting Apple; Bill Gates and Paul Allen starting Microsoft; and how Jobs and Gates collided. The script and acting ring true. Wozniak writes that “the personalities were very accurately portrayed.” Steve Jobs actually invited Noah Wyle, the actor who portrays Jobs, to impersonate him at Macworld. And the negotiations are pretty realistic. Watch the clip above and rent the movie if you like it — it’s cheesy but good. 3. This Week in Venture Capital with Jason Calacanis Video: This Week in Venture Capital Episode 6 (Download) This Week in Venture Capital is a combination of startup analysis and startup advice from Jason Calacanis’ burgeoning ThisWeekIn empire. Mark Suster is the host. Jump to 33:05 for a solid block of startup advice on: Your deck getting in the wrong hands @ 33:05. If this is your first time raising angel money… @ 38:13. “VCs—when we fund raise—never ever are raising money. We’re pre-marketing until the round’s closed.” – Mark Suster @ 44:34 If you’re into startup analysis, check out the deal of the week, Stack Overflow, @ 1:00. Jason’s Q&A expertise shines through here. And here’s Mark’s recap of the episode. Subscribe to VHTV via RSS, email, or Twitter. Do so immediately and without hesitation. How else are you going to get startup advice while you do the dishes.
• Angel Boot Camp coming to Cambridge 21 May, 2010, 8:03 am
  My friends in Boston are running Angel Boot Camp (@angelbootcamp) in Cambridge, MA on June 1: “Have you thought about angel investing but weren’t sure whether it was right for you or how to get started? Are you an entrepreneur who wants to learn more about working with angels and how angel investment differs from venture capital? Here’s a chance to learn from the experts. “Why do angel investing? How do you find and evaluate potential investments? What’s the right amount of money to invest? How do you set terms? How do you work with other angels, entrepreneurs and VCs? What are the legal issues?” The speakers, presented in a 4×4 array, look great: If you’re a Boston angel, check out the Boot Camp. Startups are invited too. And when you’re done, join AngelList. Boot Camp: Stay-at-Home Edition Angel Boot Camp is modeled after Y Combinator’s AngelConf. Angels who want to learn more about angel investing should read this excellent essay by Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: How to Be an Angel Investor. And this semi-excellent interview with me and Naval: How to be an angel investor, Part 2. Without angel investing, there would be no VC investing. Fred Wilson writes, “The angel funding mechanism is potentially the single most important funding mechanism in startup land.” I couldn’t agree more.
• Why startups should train their people 18 May, 2010, 3:01 am
  Ben Horowitz: “Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manger can perform. Consider for a moment the possibility of your putting on a series of four lectures for members of your department. Let’s count on three hours preparation for each hour of course time—twelve hours of work in total. Say that you have ten students in your class. Next year they will work a total of about twenty thousand hours for your organization. If your training efforts result in a 1 percent improvement in you subordinates’ performance, you company will gain the equivalent of two hundred hours of work as the result of the expenditure of your twelve hours… “When people interview managers, they often like to ask: have you fired anyone? Or how many people have you fired? Or how would you go about firing someone? These are all fine questions, but often the right question is the one that isn’t asked: When you fired the person, how did you know with certainty that the employee both understood the expectations of the job and were missing them? The best answer is that the manager clearly set expectations when she trained the employee for the job. If you don’t train your people, you establish no basis for performance management. As a result, performance management in your company will be sloppy and inconsistent… “Andy Grove writes, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training.” Read the full post. Ben’s post reminds me of classic Peter Drucker. For examples, see Drucker’s Management by Objectives and other writings by Drucker.
• Venture Hacks TV 17 May, 2010, 11:41 am
  venturehacks.tv is our new blog where we collect the best startup advice on video. We’re starting it off strong with an hour of Q&A with Marc Andreessen from Stanford’s ECorner. You can subscribe to VHTV via RSS, Email, or Twitter. Why VHTV? In the last week or so, we’ve noticed an increase in good startup advice on video. There’s TWiVC, GigaOM TV, SLLConf, TechCrunch TV, Stanford’s ECorner, and lots more. Who has time to watch all this? You don’t. Neither do I. But I do have time to watch some of it while I’m brushing my teeth, folding laundry, and cleaning the toilet. If I watch it and like it, we’ll link to it on venturehacks.tv. Why Tumblr? We’ve been using WordPress since the dawn of time but we’re trying Tumblr for VHTV. First, I just wanted to try Tumblr and see what it’s like. Second, Tumblr themes are badass. Third, topherchris’s blog sucked me into Tumblr. He’s Tumblr’s Editorial Director and general internet jackass. Everyone running a community should watch and learn from topherchris. Update: A nice side effect to publishing on Tumblr is that people are now following us on Tumblr. That’s a new distribution channel for us. Now, please head over to venturehacks.tv and watch pmarca in formal VC Wear:
• This week in Twitter 15 May, 2010, 12:03 pm
  37signals’ This week in Twitter has inspired me to round up this week’s most popular @venturehacks tweets: Entrepreneurship is not an end in and of itself. Serial entrepreneur is an oxymoron. “I start companies because it gives me an opportunity to create teams.” – @englishpaulm, http://vh.co/b0tGgY “Integrity is the safest way to make money… Situational ethics problem is huge (‘everyone else is doing it’)” – Buffet, http://vh.co/9VLhSh What Business is Wall Street In? http://vh.co/b61I7s. Too many aphorisms in this thoughtful post by @mcuban. Just read it. From Zero to a Million Users http://vh.co/aEHIzO. Tons of marketing tactics in this talk by @drewhouston at @dropbox & @asmith at @xobni. Instead of showing our avatar next to each tweet, I’ve picked images that are related to the tweet. And it’s easy to find your most popular tweets on the Your Tweets, Retweeted page on Twitter. For this post, I picked tweets that had 8+ retweets.
• Steve Ballmer from the Microsoft Corporation with an iPad review 14 May, 2010, 8:37 am
  Fred Destin tells me that Venture Hacks is too serious. He tells me that even The New Yorker publishes cartoons beside their articles about mass starvation in North Korea. And so, courtesy 1938 Media, we present: Video: Ballmer reviews iPad
• Naval on GigaOm TV 13 May, 2010, 11:11 am
  GigaOm TV released an interview with our Naval today. It’s pretty damn good: Video: Naval on GigaOm TV The topics aren’t new but I always learn something when I listen to Naval. He discusses the three traits you need to look for in a partner, how important it is to be in Silicon Valley, and lots more.