Most Popular
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You speak at a lot of events. What advice do you find yourself giving to entrepreneurs most often?
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Answer the questions: Why me? Why now? Why this? Entrepreneurs get bolloxed up in a billion other things, when those are the questions investors are asking themselves as they listen to the pitch.
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Are mobile tech startups here to stay, or are they just a fad?
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Mobile a fad? You must be mad. (Oh, that rhymes.) No, mobile isn’t a fad. Mobile is like wireless networks, or horseless carriages: It’s what we call something that will soon be the new normal, by referring to what has gone before.
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You’ve invested in over 50 companies. Are there any features that many had in common? What initially attracted you to them?
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Passionate founders who seemed a little unhinged. I"m a sucker for that every time. After that, a market where we could bust up an incumbent, turning a $10-billion market into a $1-billion one.
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What do you think of the new "super angel" investor trend?
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I’m on record as saying it’s a bubble. So, I agree with me. Having said that, the idea of professionalizing/democratizing angel investing is overdue, and super-angel investors are a disruptive force in consumer technologies in terms of their impact on traditional, institutional VCs. Will they change clean tech, bio tech, etc., too? No, but the idea of simplifying things, making them more entrepreneur-friendly, etc., will carry over.
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You have big followings on your blog and on Twitter. Have your social media properties helped you get exposure to new, cool companies, or do you simply use them to share insights on the industry?
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Both. They are both fantastic ways of getting access to interesting people and companies I can invest in. I often write about companies I wish I could find, and almost inevitably someone will steer me to such a company, or even create one. It also lets me share my ideas and views with a critical audience, which makes me smarter, and hopefully doesn’t drag down everyone else at same time.
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Do startups really need to be in the valley to be successful?
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Of course not, but it helps. The reality is that the Valley is full of experienced people, from entrepreneurs to services providers, who make it so much easier to get the job of creating a company done. At the same time, many M&A exits are friends selling to friends, so having someone to sell to makes exits much easier. At the same time, there are clusters elsewhere, like Boulder, that are doing wonderfully. The trick is to get over the idea of selling Region/CIty X as cheaper. No-one buys cheap. They buy exits.
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