June 26, 2005
Allen Morgan’s Blog in Time Magazine’s 50 Coolest Websites
Time Magazine published a list of 50 Coolest Websites for 2005. Recognizing the growing importance of blogs, they broke out blogs as a separate segment within that list (50 Coolest Websites 2005: Blogs).
My Mayfield colleague Allen Morgan’s Blog was listed as the coolest blog/website for entrepreneurs:
Allen Morgan, managing director at Mayfield—a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California—backer of Beatnik, PlanetOut, Tribe and Pluck —guides entrepreneurs on how to pitch ideas and get financing. The recent “10 Commandments” series on how to handle those critical meetings with VCs is a must-read.
I agree with Time’s endorsement — Allen’s 10 commandments series is great. I also agree with Dave Panos, CEO of Pluck, who commented to Allen, “I am particularly impressed that you pulled off such a feat with a mean-time-between posts of five weeks.” It shows that focus and quality can matter more than freshness even in the blogosphere; at least this true for media critics.
Allen was actually an inspiration for me to start blogging, right around the time he convinced me to join Mayfield. I imagined that I would have lots of content about insights from an Entrepreneur in Residence, kind of like an entrepreneurial undercover agent sharing how things really happen on the other side of the funding table. When I later brainstormed with Allen about how to achieve both substance and discretion in such a blog, Allen summarized along the following lines: “As long as you don’t specifically identify any of the companies, entrepreneurs, or Mayfield partners, and you only say good things about Mayfield, you should feel free to blog about anything you like!”
Posted by barney on June 26, 2005 at 8:49 pm | No Comments
June 6, 2005
Searching for VC Investments: Multiple strategic dimensions
Bill Burnham has a post on “Deal Flow Is Dead, Long Live Thesis Driven Investing. He argues that the amount of VC money chasing companies today means that the traditional strategy of relying on deal flow is no longer successful except for the few firms with the very highest reputation or a lock on local markets. He summarizes the old strategy with an analogy:
It’s as if Venture Capitalists were Grizzly Bears: Just stake out a good position in the middle of the best salmon run, watch the fish go by, and occasionally swat the best looking fish out of the air. In this model VCs are cast as true renaissance men, capable of doing a communications equipment deal one day and an alternative energy deal the next. They have no need to be experts in specific industries but instead pass judgment on the quality and pedigree of start-up teams with the belief that their connections and experience can help get any company off the ground.
I agree with his observation that successful VCs will not be able to simply rely on broad deal flow but will have to be more focused, thesis driven, and proactive. However, I think this evolution it not so much a shift from one approach (deal flow) to another (investment thesis) as it is an increase in the amount of work VC’s have to do. The discussion actually points at a framework for investment strategy.
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