A VC

Some Thoughts On Email After Dealing With 500 Emails

I just spent four hours going through my inbox and taking it from 500 emails to zero. These were old unanswered emails, not spam (which I delete regularly in the ordinary course of business).

My email routine, now that I am solidly on gmail and loving it, is to quickly check off and delete all spam in my inbox at least once and ideally twice or three times a day.

Then I scan my inbox for emails from my top priorities; wife, family, partners, colleagues, portfolio, etc. I try to get to all of those at least once a day and ideally twice or three times a day. Gmail knows who these people are and I can't for the life of me understand why they don't build a tool to source up all of those emails automatically. Please build that feature google.

I let the rest build up in my inbox and try to get to it on the weekends. That's how I get to 500 unread emails and that's why I spent my sunday mornings in my inbox.

So for those of you who email me from time to time, here are some suggestions:

1) Be patient. I do try to respond to all legitimate non-spam email and do a pretty good job at it.

2) I am not perfect. Sometimes in my haste to delete spam, I delete a few legit emails. If you have not heard back from me in over a week, please resend your email.

3) Short and sweet gets a faster response than long winded.

4) I like to have conversations via email. If you send me an email looking for a meeting, expect a few questions back from me first.

5) Just because my reply is short does not mean I have no interest. It simply means I've got 500 emails to get through.

6) I've largely given up on responding to anything other than urgent emails and disqus comments on my blackberry. I do scan a lot of email on my blackberry.

7) I still would like a send and delete button from gmail. Send and archive is so awesome but I do a lot of send and delete too.

8) Gmail is life changing. Thank you google.

That's it for now.

Comments (View) | Posted November 29, 2009 in Venture Capital and Technology

A Lot Can Happen In Five Years

There's a saying I heard recently from someone in the tech business that goes something like this:

Things take longer in the short run but they happen faster in the long run

I am sure I've bastardized the quote but the point is important. Nothing happens as fast as you'd like but if you have a longer term horizon, it is amazing what you can accomplish.

I was reminded of this today when I saw the news of our portfolio company Indeed's five year anniversary.

Indeed.com launched five years ago. I have no idea how many job searches or visitors it had that day, but I can assure you it wasn't many. Five years later, they are the leader in the jobs industry online. Check out these stats:

• The #1 employment website in the US by job search unique visitors and page views (comScore Media Metrix, Oct 2009).

• Websites in 19 countries and 10 languages.

• 24 million unique visitors and one billion job searches per month worldwide.

• The leading pay-for-performance recruitment advertising network.

• The source of thousands of success stories from job seekers andrecruitment advertisers.

• A leading data provider, including Job Analytics, job trends, industry trends, job market competition, and salaries.

Comments (View) | Posted November 28, 2009 in Venture Capital and Technology

Looking For An Expert In SEO/SEM/Online Direct Marketing

Our portfolio company Targetspot is looking for an experienced online direct marketer to "own" and manage their self serve advertising business.

This is a fun job for the right person because it is an opportunity to run and grow a small business inside a bigger business. If you are an "entrepreneur" looking for a chance to show what you can do, this job is probably a good fit for you.

Targetspot's self service ad business is growing nicely and we want to invest and grow it using classic online direct marketing channels and measurement systems.

The right candidate will have significant experience in:

• Knowledge of Google Analytics and ability to test results on campaign landing pages.
• Experience in SEO, SEM or both (either as an affiliate, or as part of an e-commerce site).
• Internet media buying.
• Online direct marketing.
• Webmaster experience.

The job description is here and if you are interested, please email targetspotjobs@gmail.com with "Self Service" in the subject.

Comments (View) | Posted November 27, 2009 in Listings , Venture Capital and Technology

Some Things To Be Thankful For This Year

1) The economic meltdown/panic of 2008 is largely over. The economy is still weak but markets are functioning and buyers are buying and sellers are selling.

2) The FCC has submitted a proposal for rulemaking on net neutrality.

3) Android looks to be a winner and will give the iPhone a much needed competitor to keep Apple honest.

4) Bing is showing some signs of life and may give Google a much needed competitor to keep them honest (this one may be wishful thinking).

5) Venture Capital investing is bouncing back:

6) The NY Metro venture investing market is bouncing back even more sharply:

7) Programs like Y Combinator, Techstars, Seedcamp, etc are expanding all over the country and now the world, turning out newly minted entrepreneurs by the thousands.

8) A secondary market for founder stock, employee stock, and angel and early stage investor's shares is emerging, offering the possibility of a third way to get liquid on startup investments.

9) The NASDAQ's Internet Index is up 128% over the past year suggesting that wall street loves the internet sector again. Can a vibrant Internet IPO market be far away?

10) It's thanksgiving day, a day to forget all of this stuff and spend it cooking, eating, watching football, and hanging with good friends and family. That's what I plan to do and I hope all of you do too.

Note: The charts on venture investing in this post come from the PWC Money Tree survey for Q3 2009.

Comments (View) | Posted November 26, 2009 in Venture Capital and Technology

Presentations vs Discussions

We've been doing our Union Square Sessions events for almost as long as our firm has been around. We pick a topic, like Hacking Eduction, that interests us and we invite about forty people to sit around a big open table and talk about the issue for four to five hours. There are no presentations. We have amazing discussions at these events.

A presentation is like a TV show. It's a lean back experience. A discussion is like an online chat room. It is a lean forward experience. They are not the same thing and in many cases they work against each other.

This is particularly instructive when it comes to board meetings as I learned last week. We did our annual Return Path Board annual planning session last week. It is a grueling day. Roughly eight hours of review and planning discussions, both operational and strategic. In prior years, we'd work through a deck of well over 100 slides during the day.

Not last week. As Matt Blumberg, Return Path's CEO, explains in this post, we went without slides for the whole day. The Company did prepare a lengthy package that everyone reviewed prior to the meeting. But once we were in the room, the projector was off and the conversation was on. Matt managed the clock and made sure we got through the agenda. Everything else was impromptu.

It was a huge success as Matt explains:

We thought that the best way to foster two-way dialog in the meeting was to change the paradigm away from a presentation -- the whole concept of "management presenting to the Board" was what we were trying to change, not just what was on the wall.  The result was fantastic.  We had a very long meeting, but one where everyone -- management and Board alike -- was highly engaged.  No blackberries or iPhones.  Not too many yawns or walkabouts.  It was literally the best Board meeting we've had in almost 10 years of existence, out of probably 75 or 80 total.

"Changing the paradigm away from a presentation" is the point of this post. Presentations are important. I do a lot of them and post all of them on this blog in advance. I am not saying they don't have a role. But if you want to foster real engagement and real discussion, they are not helpful and in fact I think they are hurtful.

Comments (View) | Posted November 25, 2009 in Venture Capital and Technology