I am a big fan of high-tech companies. People that know me (and my co-investors) know that I like companies that are “changing the world” or “creating new industries” through technology innovation. And they know that I believe that research universities spawn great technologies and deserve public support. Universities do a terrific and efficient job of educating students, organizing research …
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Blog
Severance Oh No!
Many entrepreneurs, when they take outside money into their company, want to protect themselves. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
The investors putting the first money into the deal also want some protection, especially when the founders own a vast majority of the overall stock and probably have a majority of the board seats.
One of the items …
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AoA Results why are they so good?
In my previous post, I noted that the AoA had a great year in 2010. (http://blog.drosenassoc.com/?p=61 or the full release http://drosenassoc.com/AoA%20results%202-23-11.pdf)
Typically, most angel groups or VCs see about 25-40% of their deals die in the first 4 years. (This is called the J curve, since the portfolio value goes negative for the first 3-5 years and gets …
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The changing nature of communication
In my lifetime, I have witnessed the transformation of communication. When my grandparents were born, electronic communication meant telegrams. A couple of generations earlier, sending a letter from new York to san Francisco required writing a letter, getting it on a ship, and having it sail around South America, taking months. In rapid succession, we deployed railroads, telephones, highways/cars, airlines, …
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Seattle Alliance of Angels has a terrific 2010
The Seattle Alliance of Angels had a wonderful 2010. To quote the headline: Alliance of Angels Invests Record-high $10.3 Million in 2010; Group hits new milestone with investment in 33 Northwest-based startups; surpasses previous investment record by more than $1 million.
I was quoted:
“Once again, our angels have set a new standard for investing in innovative, young companies,” said …
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Gadhafi has it right!
Moammar Gadhafi announced at his press conference that the youth in Libya had been using drugs. He is completely right! Their drug of choice is freedom. And the second is hope. And the third is community/networks. We welcome you to the 21st Century. May freedom spread everyone.…
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Apple: You’ve Got to be Kidding
I hope that you all have been following the tiff that has developed between Apple and its app vendors and publishers (see e.g. http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229200215). Nothing like taking wonderful successes like the iPhone and iPad and then let unbridled greed kill an ecosystem. This is exactly the kind of corporate behavior that has killed so many nascent new markets and …
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Technology & Revolution
I admire Thomas Friedman’s intellect. In today’s NYT, he wrote a particularly insightful analysis about the events in Egypt and the Middle East, called China, Twitter and 20-Year-Olds vs. the Pyramids (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/opinion/06friedman.html). Like in many of the revolutions that swept Eastern Europe, there is clearly a link between modern communication technologies that were spawned by the Internet and …
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My Favorite Smart Phone Business Apps
(A press request)
First, it is impossible for me to separate my business and personal apps very well. Since the smart phone (currently an iPhone and iPad in my case) is an ideal vehicle to integrate personal and business, the apps tend to get used in multiple ways. My top 5 are:
- Kindle. The Amazon kindle app on the iPad
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Success! What happens now?
I am often asked: “my company has achieved its initial goal of getting to $1M in revenue and being cash flow positive. What now?”
In order to grow to be a $10M revenue company, we need to scale up sales and marketing, add new product lines, etc. We therefore need to raise $5M in the business and will need to …
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