M&A/IPO = Broken ROI Model for VCs?
Last week I was at the WNY Venture Association seminar on “Angel Investing in Western New York.” Not the sexiest market, in particular not for web technology. But some interesting tidbits came out of it — Ron Schreiber (Softbank Capital; Ingram-Micro co-founder) put some interesting nuggets out there. For VC firms, the 10-year annual return (avg) has been: * 33%, June 2008 * 26%, January 2009 * 14%, June 2009 So why the huge discrepancy within a 1-year timeframe? Because the high returns of the late 90’s bubble drop-off the 10-year returns once 1999 kicked in. The biggest take-away was him saying that if you’re go

Guest Post on TechCrunch: Twitter And Facebook Turn Everyone Into An Affiliate Marketer
You can read it, here. Enjoy! http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/15/twitter-facebook-amazon-affiliate-marketing/ Related posts:My Guest Post on Shoemoney: Gaming Google AdWords I did a guest post over on Shoemoney’s blog yesterday — ̶

FourSquare API Ideas
I haven’t looked at the API, but I see crazy potential of apps being built on-top of FourSquare. The one thing I REALLY WANT [and have for years], is, when I go to a restaurant.. I want to see what everyone that’s ever been there rates as the best dishes; then what my friends rate as the best dishes; then what I’ve had there in the past [I was at a Thai place the other day, where I've been a lot, but there's 100 menu items, literally. I have no clue that last dish I had, which was AMAZING]. I detailed this idea out awhile ago — I think someone could make it happen with FourSquare:

Evaluating Startup Ideas
Someone just asked me, I responded with the following in less than 2 minutes [possibly 1 minute]. What would you tell someone that asked how to evaluate his/her startup ideas? Evaluating ideas — talk to people; tell them your idea; what problem does it solve. Great if it solves a problem you personally have — because then you know a need exists [if you didn't find a solution already in all your research]. Start small and ugly. Don’t go into debt — 1 in 100 ideas that are executed actually become something. [I made that number up, but it's close enough -- don't gamble everything you have; the idea is to get other people involved so you have less risk... if o

Best Live Concert I’ve Ever Been To: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
This is saying a lot. If you know me, you know I likely have attended, on average, 2 concerts per month for the last 12 years of my life. Thus, nearly 300 concerts — that doesn’t really consider the nearly 50 acts that I see at various concert festivals (SXSW). I’ve seen the new face of rock ‘n roll, and I was sober. This band lit up The Independent in San Francisco, CA, which is close to their homebase of Los Angeles. I have described it as “happy hippie rock ‘n roll”. I love these songs- Home Come In Please