This is the last post here. I've moved my blog over to TypePad. To be more accurate, I will continue blogging there as VOX stinks and doesn't allow you to export your previous blog posts. How stupid is this considering that VOX is owned by the same folks as my new blog host, TypePad? Anyway, enough of this place. Find me here now.
If the link doesn't work, try this: http://babblingvc.typepad.com/pjozefak/
Sorry, for any inconvenience!
I just finished reading the book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" and have to say it was unbelievably funny. Sexist beyond belief (from some people's perspective) and very frat boy oriented, but still. Let's call it "Man-Lit" (see "Chick Lit"). This was a book I actually was laughing out loud to when on the plane. My colleague was getting a kick out of this as he was sitting next to me, seeing me break out in laughter (my inner frat boy kept trying to get out). But, this is not meant to be a book review.
The point is that it's unbelievable how this book came to be. Tucker Max (that really is his name) started a website where he basically chronicled all his sexual escapades. The guy is an outright player (admittedly so) and basically ended up having his site help him to find women whom he could bed (plus, along the way getting sued). When you actually read the stories you cringe at some of his experiences. Pretty disgusting some of the things he gets into. Had I known what the book is about, I probably wouldn't have bought it (on second thought, I would have). Yet, I simply saw it at Borders, prominently displayed amongst other bestsellers and was looking for something to read on the plane......the back page synopsis intrigued me. The catch here is that it's basically a book which copies his online stories and pastes them together into one book. No real advertising was done for it.....it simply was funny enough that word of mouth let it spread (plus the title sure is catchy). This at the same time drove traffic to his site, further driving word-of-mouth for the book. Not only once was he on NYT's bestseller list, but twice (the second time without any special PR). What's the point? Well, this reminded me of how "4 Hour Workweek" spread like wildfire. Further, there's a ton of books out there now trying to follow the same path, but only some really work, taking advantage of hard-copy and the Internet to such an extent and fulfilling basic desires of the general public.
What's this mean for the Babbling VC? Well, probably not much! It's basically a reminder of what sells. If you can get an audience based on common themes such as sex (which as a business case we won't fund) or hating your job (which we might), your audience will be huge. Your typical high school or college aged kid is driven be the urge to hook up. The post-college-age employee often hates his or her job. Nail either of these themes and you have a loyal audience, more than happy to tell their friends about you. Both of these camps tend to be bored out of their minds more often than not. How can you take advantage of this? Well, figure out a way to combine age-old desires with new technology and market it. Not that many ideas like this are fund-able for a VC (well HotOrNot is a perfect example of one that would have been) but you sure can be creative about finding a way to market yourself, or a book, a product, etc. And to really stretch it a bit, sites like MySpace or Facebook are intrinsically driving dating (and you can call it social networking as much as you like). Finally, how many sites have thrived as people were sitting in their office, hating their job and surfing the web? If you really think about it, there is so much more which can be done using the net and fulfilling basic needs. I often wonder whether we aren't thinking too hard at times as investors, missing major opportunities sitting in front of our noses. I sure am glad though that I often pick up books like this and get a reality check!
Once again, I'll be there this Wednesday in Hamburg. Turnout has been good in the past, so if you haven't checked it out yet, do so!
Here you can find further details as to time and logistics.
Due to meetings, I will only be there until 10am but I am sure the others will stick around longer than 9-11am.
Well, I guess it was suppossed to be for a good cause..."Lights out Germany". Somehow it didn't guite work out. Did you "catch" it? I didn't!
Everyone was suppossed to turn off their lights tonight between 8 and 8:05pm to send a message to the world about climate change. I don't know about the rest of Germany, but in Hamburg it was quite bright at this time. I guess not as many people happened to see Goolge (or the others pushing for this) at the right time.
It was still cool though to see Google in black. I guess the "reach" of the web has a ways to go though (or most were really all so lazy and didn't bother getting their butts up off the couch).
I'm always a bit hesitant about giving management advice as it's very difficult to argue in one case versus another. Yet at times, I simply see things which bear noting. I'm all for tradition in the sense that I accept Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa,etc. (holidays), Coke associated with the colors red and white (branding), driving in the left lane (UK laws), metric versus imperial (measurement), etc. You get the point by now. Yet, "tradition" should never be used as an argument for business decisions, as in "we've always done it that way", or "it's simply tradition here". If there isn't a business case, there's no justification for it (note, I said business case....and yes, at times there is a business case for "tradition" but not as a primary driver for decisions). If you see management making these arguments, or you see them within your own organization, be afraid. It's not only bad business practice, it's a double-edged sword as it's very difficult to argue against if it's ingrained. At times, you pick your battles. If you see this "battle" coming up in a business, you may be better advised to avoid that business altogether.
You know it's becoming a small-world when you're pulling out of a parking garage in San Francisco and very nearly run over a VC from a German firm who happened to be jogging by in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even though I do think the headline may have made for some very gossipy journalism along the lines of "German VC's killing each other for deals" or something like that!
Sorry Bart! ;-)
I ran across this phrase when thumbing through an Esquire magazine I found in my hotel room. The article is about TMZ.com, a site which pretty much is everything paparrazi get on film, collected on one site online. Ross McCammon writes about how everyone is now more interesting when they are equally uninteresting. There is a fascination nowadays with seeing celebrities screw up, yet at the end of the day, when you think about it, they are all equally uninteresting. This kind of sums up pretty well most things online: "equally uninteresting" and therefore mesmerizing!
This is some blatant promotion, but I'm seriously impressed by these guys, so they are getting a mention here again. verwandt.de has already reached close to 11 million profiles on their site and have surpassed 900,000 trees in total. If you don't know what they do, check out their site (available in multiple languages). verwandt allows users to create family trees and facilitates all sorts of interaction amongst families. I've been a huge fan of setting up online family trees and we were very quick to invest in verwandt, having seen early on the potential (even though monetization still remains one of the major hurdles). At the same time, we weren't expecting for such rapid uptake. The ability for families to find a site to interact around has really seemed to hit a nerve in Europe as well as the other regions verwandt is already serving.
Yet, at the same time, in addition to hitting a nerve, both Sven and Daniel have executed extremely well. These two founders have shown me that if you focus on the right things and quickly change course as necessary, you can outperform well-funded competiton (hello Geni!) A lot of what these guys have tried didn't work right from the start. So, they quickly re-grouped or killed the idea and focused on the next challenge, at times being extremely creative in their apporach to problems. Speed is of the essence in this space, and Sven and Daniel have shown that they can easily keep up and hopefully soon lead the competition.
Techcrunch has already twice written about them as being "German copycats". (Here's the other post!) Yet, what they've also written is how quickly verwandt is catching up to Geni. This is all about execution and who cares if you're simply smart enough to find an underserved market and take advantage of it! Even though the tone of the post on Techcrunch is quite negative, when you read through the lines, you can sense that they know a US company is being shown how it's done!
I found this article quite interesting (great read on the plane after watching 3 movies and bugging my eyes out!) It goes into some detail about what all the guys originally involved with PayPal are now doing and shows a bit how the Valley (from my perspective here in Europe) ticks. It truly goes to show that it's NOT just about the technology. I keep reminding European entrepreneurs of this. Who you know simply plays such an important role and creating a strong network of experienced and well connected advisors and partners is essential. There are plenty of geeks who can create a great app. Those who have a great app and good connections will always out-execute you though. And yes, you will hire or work together with the one asshole here and there. Yet, if you surround yourself with the best and then filter out the chaffe, it's much better than the other way around. You need to build this "bench" of acquaintances, partners and employees if looking to do the entrepreneurial thing long-term.
We're finally seeing such mafia-like networks (and I mean this positively) appear in Europe. The Samwers have built up a nice little group around themselves as have the Skype guys. Even in Hamburg we're slowly seeing groups appear here and there. There are specific VC's who belong to these cliques and you can clearly see that they are bouncing ideas and investments back and forth amongst themselves. The Valley has this down to an art form. Now we simply need to continue figuring it out in Europe!
Not only do international police forces foil crime. The local police in Slovakia are doing their part in fighting worldwide terror! OK, so it's no big deal. The rest of the world doesn't give a crap. But come on! It's Slovakia, my "source" country (is that a word yet? If not, I call dibs on it!). It's a small country. We are proud to see positive press, no matter what!
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) -- Police in Slovakia and Hungary arrested three people and seized 2.2 pounds of an unspecified but "dangerous" radioactive material the suspects were trying to sell for $1 million, Slovak authorities said Wednesday.
Check out the rest here!
