NYT “Five Web Predictions For 2010”
SAI “Google is Now A Complete Mobile Company”
TBIResearch “Facebook Wins Again”
Both Sides of the Table “What Makes an Entrepreneur? Cojones”
Entrepreneur “Entrepeneurship: No Experience Necessary”
BostonVC “Why Do VC’s Blog (and Tweet)?”
BusinessWeek “The
Top 10 Small Business Stories for 2009”
The Business Insider “15 Huge Ideas That Flopped This Decade”
WSJ “Peformance of 2009’s VC-Backed IPOS Boosting Investor Optimism”
NYT “The Justice League of Entrepreneurs”
Chris Dixon “What’s the Right Amount of Seed Money to Raise?”
Charlie O: "Five Ways to Generate Momentum In Your Venture or Angel Round”
VentureHype “Startups Creation and Tech Transfer”
As 2010 approaches, a few wishes and thoughts come to
mind:
1) First, I want to thank you, the readers of this blog for all your encouragement, thoughtful comments and words of wisdom throughout the year. I wish you all much success and happiness in 2010 and look forward to our continuing dialogue.
2)
I also want to wish the entrepreneurs and investors
I work with on a daily basis all the best for the coming year. It is truly a
privilege to work with so many enthusiastic and dynamic individuals in a city with such a close-knit start-up community and so many great companies. The New York tech scene is on a huge roll. Let’s
continue to make it happen!
3)
2009 was certainly a tough year and the difficult
economic climate may well persist. The keys for fledgling start-up companies will no doubt be to
stay focused, flexible and ultra-determined. Stick to the basics of “getting
from zero-to-one” at all costs so as to survive and thrive. Surround yourself with high-quality missionaries
who are all about “making it happen” and run like Usain Bolt from everyone
else. In this environment there is literally no time for mercenaries,
negativity, complainers and/or bureaucrats any more. The stakes are simply too
high.
4)
Lastly, as good old Mark Suster says, JFDI and take the plunge!
NYT: “The American Diet: 34 Gigabytes a Day”
PEHUB: “Memo to Congress: “Legal Issues Taxing Carried Interest as
Ordinary Income”
Law: "An Inside View of Wilson Sonsini's Fabled Investment Fund”
Dan Rua: “How to Approach VC’s”
Business Insider: “5 Small Business Marketing Trends for 2010”
Cleantech: “Top 10 2010 Predictions”
SAI: “The Biggest Losers of the Decade”
Washington Post: “Walker Ventures Succumbs to Bad Economy”
Quick Sprout: “Why Entrepreneurs Shouldn’t Write Business Plans”
Business Insider: “What Does An Entrepreneur-in-Residence Do?”
Mark Suster: “What Makes an Entrepreneur – Street Smarts”
Lastly, you've got to see this tremendous Holiday Card from First Round Capital. Fantastic stuff really:
First Round Capital 2009 Holiday Card from First Round Capital on Vimeo.
Redeye VC “Let’s Just Add In a Little Virility”
Chris Dixon “Some Thoughts on SEO”
VentureHype “Building and Backing Startups in a Recession”
Entrepreneur “4 Common Venture Capital Myths”
WSJ “Who Has the Gold to Make the Rule – VC or
Entrepeneur?"
This is part of my ongoing series on University Entrepreneurship.
The annual University Startups Conference put on by NCET was held in Washington DC last week and was well attended by investors and university personnel alike. Through the course of multiple panels and discussions, a good cross-section of venture investors from very reputable firms weighed-in candidly on both what they like to see and what they don’t like to see when they try to spin-out companies from university tech transfer offices. Many colorful stories were exchanged to say the least.
Here are some quick bullets straight from the proverbial horses’ mouth that may be of help.
VC’s like to see:
· Platform technologies
· Great faculty “stars”, great scientists, great science
· Rich entrepreneurial culture and community throughout the university
· A "go-to person" at the tech transfer office with entrepreneurial experience
· A tech transfer office that’s “all about throughput” and getting deals done quickly
· Deal terms that are flexible because "business models change over time"
VC’s do not like to see:
· Slow-moving offices that take too long to get a deal done
· "Mismatches" in terms of respective legal counsel (turn-around time, skill, expertise)
· “Greedy” tech transfer offices with onerous deal terms
· "Big egos" at the tech transfer office that get in the way of deals
· Business plans. VC's prefer to have a short summary and decide for themselves
For Part 22 in this Series, click here
Mark Suster: Both Sides of the Table: "Hiring at a Startup? Know Thy Weaknesses"
Fred Wilson: Musings of a VC in New York: "The Herd Instinct"
Martin Zwilling: Startup Pro: "Bootstrap Your Business to Retain Control"
Charlie O'Donnell: This is Going to be Big: "To Poach or Not to Poach"
Bethany McLean: Vanity Fair: "The Bank Job"
Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed: "The Case for Start-Up Visas"
Vivek Wadhwa: Business Week: "Let's Give Visas to Startup Founders"
CNBC Transcript: “Warren Buffett & Bill Gates – Keeping American Great"
Mark Suster “Deal With Your Elephant in the Room”
Chris Dixon “Pitch Yourself Not Your Idea”
VentureHype “Angels, Is The Entrepreneur Willing to Flip Burgers?”
1)
NY Times “Lessons From the War Over Skype”
2)
WSJ “Ron Conway Changes His Tune About the Big Apple”
3)
SAI “How to Bootstrap Your Way to Billions”
4)
Chris Dixon “How to select your angel investors”
5)
Scott Anthony “Why Great Innovators Spend Less Than Good Ones”
1) Fred Wilson “Swinging For The Fences”
2) WSJ “Twitter Founders: From Stupid Idea to Possible IPO”
3) VentureBeat “10 Lessons In Bootstrapping a Company”
4) Beyond VC “The Googlization of IT”
5) Entrepreneur “9 Vital Statistics for Tracking Site Traffic”
6) Redeye VC “VC – “Back to the Future?”
Many of us who have the distinct pleasure to live and work in New York’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and/or Silicon Alley have no inkling of the staggering role its local academic institutions play in the realm of innovation, licensing, and start-up formation. I can tell you that until approximately six years ago I had no idea of the sheer scale of it all. It is certainly true that the majority of this output is in the realm of health sciences/biotech, but much is being done to stimulate entrepreneurship from engineering, computer science departments, the undergraduate ranks and the business schools. (More on this in subsequent posts).
Just look at these hard numbers:
Annual Research Funds: $1872 million
Annual Inventions: 643
Annual New Licenses and Options: 193
Total Active Revenue Generating Agreements: 566
Annual Gross Licensing Revenue: $509 million
Annual Number of Start-up Companies: 20
Number of Start-up Companies to Date: 188
Source: New York Academic Consortium (NYAC)
For Part Twenty in in this Series, click here
This is part of my Series on University Entrepreneurship.
Those of you in the Columbia community may want to take advantage of the Entrepreneur Office Hours I am hosting with my colleague Andres Soto at Columbia Tech Ventures' (CTV's) Venture Lab. This is the announcement that was sent out a few days ago:
Thinking seriously about a start-up or wondering if an entrepreneurial path is right for you? Come to our Entrepreneur Office Hours!
Columbia Technology Ventures invites you to our popular Entrepreneur Office Hours, open to all faculty, students and staff, including Columbia graduate students and post-docs. Entrepreneur Office Hours offers you the opportunity to tap the advice and guidance of our Venture Lab team, comprised of experienced entrepreneurs-in-residence, angel investors, and seasoned mentors .
We are here to help you brainstorm, provide guidance and perspective as you consider the following issues:
· To launch or not to launch
· How to develop and protect intellectual property
· How to finance your company
· Understanding the technology transfer process
· Understanding the market you are entering
· What resources are available to you
Entrepreneur Office Hours are offered by on a rolling basis, by appointment. To schedule an appointment, email Andres Soto: andres.soto at columbia dot edu
ABOUT COLUMBIA TECHNOLOGY VENTURES – Columbia Technology Ventures is the technology transfer office of Columbia University. With Columbia inventors and entrepreneurs, we partner with industry and investors to develop new technologies, products, and services, for the benefit of society. We also serve as a resource for the Columbia community on matters relating to entrepreneurship, intellectual property, and technology commercialization. For more information, please visit our website at www.techventures.columbia.edu
For Part Nineteen in this Series, click here
1) WSJ “This Year’s
Top 10 Largest Venture Funding Deals”
2) SAI “Google & Twitter Sign Search Deal”
3) NYT “Microsoft’s Bing to Integrate Twitter & Facebook”
4) VentureBeat “Are You Creating Or Stealing Customers?”
5) Nate Westheimer “Thesis Driven Startups & Innovating”
This is part of my Series on Venture Capital.
In that we were speaking of "negative" or "anti-portfolios" in this earlier post, just have a look at Bessemer Venture Partners' vaunted list below and the sometimes hilarious explanations they give for having passed on the opportunity. They've been in business since 1911 and obviously have the sort of self-confidence, sense of humor and terrific track-record to put some of these mammoth misses up on their own site. How many VC's would advertise the fact that they turned down the likes of Google, FedEx, Ebay, PayPal, Apple, Cisco and others of this ilk? ( Of course, just have a gander at their top 50 exits and you'll see why they feel as if they can).
My favorite line is the pass they took on PayPal: "Rookie team, regulatory nightmare, and, 4 years later a $1.5billion acquisition by Ebay."
This one's pretty good too: "Whatever the reason, we would like to honor these companies -- our "anti-portfolio" -- whose phenomenal success inspires us in our ongoing endeavors to build growing businesses. Or, to put it another way: if we had invested in any of these companies, we might not still be working."
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A123 Systems |
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Apollo Computer |
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Apple Computer |
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Check Point |
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eBay |
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Federal Express |
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Google |
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Ikanos |
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Intel |
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Intuit |
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Lotus and Compaq |
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Paypal |
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StrataCom |
1) Chris Dixon “What Carries You Up Will Also Bring You Down”
2) Mark Peter Davis “Evolve Your Financial Model”
3) Entrepreneur “10 World Changing Green Trends”
4) John Addison “Al Gore Prioritizes Energy Innovation”
(click on photo for the video of this scene)
This is part of my Series' on Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Culture.
Over the years it’s been real privilege for me to mentor friends and acquaintances of mine who at one point or another in their careers have decided to make the leap into the start-up game. I happened to have had the particular advantage of starting early and so carry with me the proverbial scars on my back and psychic black-and-blue marks so reminiscent of the trade. It’s these same lumps that I always hope to help first-time entrepreneurs avoid.
Perhaps the most valuable counsel I can ever give to someone occurs right around the time they begin to raise capital to fund their company. This may well be the most vulnerable point of all in the life-cycle of a start-up for many reasons. One wrong move can literally mean the difference between success and a world of pain. Here’s truly where lack of experience, even in the smartest of people, can mean sheer disaster. I’ll start with the most important rule of all:
You need to know who you are dealing with.
Through no fault of their own, first time entrepreneurs fresh out of school, an academic lab or who have worked for years at big companies generally have no concept of the cast of characters that populate the early-stage ecosystem. If you have just emerged from this sort of cocoon, you no longer enjoy the invisible “protection” your old position or firm’s name provided and hardly realize how vulnerable you are. Essentially, you’ve arrived at a sort of Masked Ball, eyes wide shut, with no concept of who is around you.
Inevitably you will run into certain masked characters that may appear in any number of guises. Their firm might have the words “Capital” or “Ventures” in it, or they may say that they are part of a “group of investors”, and they will talk about the many startup companies they have “worked with”. Certainly they will discuss how much they would like to help you with your funding needs. But beware…
You may be in the midst of being initiated into the shadowy world of the “broker-dealer”, the “investment banker”, the “middle-man”. At some point you may well discover that he has no money to invest in your company whatsoever. Instead, he will want to “help you” raise capital for a fee, taking a percentage of the money raised for himself and perhaps a retainer and warrants to boot. It’s perfectly legal and I will say that there are indeed some reputable people operating in this business. But these are few and far between.
Jason Calcanis and Fred Wilson have recently published some posts, (here and here), describing yet another masked character on the scene- namely, the type of angel group that charges extremely hefty fees, (thousands of dollars), to entrepreneurs who wish to pitch them. This is definitely a character to avoid. Another type that needs to be vetted carefully is the one who tells you he's got a bunch of shell companies on the bulletin board stock exchanges and that with a flourish of his cape he can take your company public with a reverse merger. Warning bells should go off immediately.
The bottom line is that although there are some notable exceptions, most of these masked characters generally do not have your best interest in mind and I have both witnessed and been told of dozens of situations where unwitting entrepreneurs have been victimized by them. My advice is simple. If you are trying to raise capital for your start-up, ask around first, do your homework and talk to half a dozen or more entrepreneurs with funded startups about their experiences. Also, try to find a good mentor while you’re at it. In every community there are reputable angel investors, legitimate angel groups and of course a handful of early-stage venture firms that have money to invest if they like what they see.
1) Bo Peabody (WPost)
“Twitter.org?”
2) John Tozzi “Smart Grid Will Spur Energy Entrepreneurship”
3) The Deal “Angel Investors Fly to Quality”
4) Scott Anthony
“What Baseball Can Teach Us About Innovation”
5) Reuters “Angel
Investor Makes A Mint”
This is part of my Series on University Entrepreneurship.
Above I’ve posted a graphic showing some of the many products that have been developed in whole or in part from the intellectual property emerging from Columbia University’s many labs. Almost all of these represent IP licensed directly to industry by my colleagues at Tech Ventures, Columbia’s Technology Transfer Office. One can see everything here from life-improving and sustaining drugs to BluRay technology to the technology behind the Iphone’s screens. With an average of 50 industry licenses, 100 sponsored research agreements, and 12+ spinoffs per year coming from Columbia alone, one can see that university tech transfer across the country has had an enormous benefit to society. The original vision behind the Bayh-Dole Act is definitely working.
For Part Eighteen in this Series, click here
1)
Silicon Alley Insider "Working Hard is Overrated"
2) VentureHype "Ready to Become an Angel Investor?"
3)
WSJ "Where Twitter Ranks in Venture Funding History"
4)
VentureBeat "Green Investing Bounces Back From Recession"
5) Larry Cheng "Who is the Venture Capitalist's Customer?"
This is part of my Series on University Entrepreneurship.
In the coming weeks I’ll be discussing the popular Entrepreneur Office Hours Program we launched at Columbia University’s Venture Lab some months ago. The program is open to anyone in the Columbia community and is scheduled on a rolling basis by appointment.
In the meantime, for all you fledgling entrepreneurs out there in universities around the country and overseas, I thought I’d begin to post some inspirational information on some of the successful exits Columbia’s portfolio companies have enjoyed over the years. Here are a few examples below.
Aton Pharma (Acquired by Merck for $150 million; NYSE: MRK)
The company is developing cancer drug targets based on research from R. Breslow of Chemistry and Sloan Kettering technology. Lead candidate is in Phase I/II clinical trials. The company was acquired by Merck for $150 million on February 2004.
CallStreet is the leading provider of corrected and formatted transcripts of management conference calls to the investment community. Hundreds of leading firms rely on CallStreet for the most accurate, highest quality content available. The company was acquired by FactSet in May 2004.
Corixa is a biotechnology company involved in the identification of novel genes. The company develops immunotherapeutics that treat and prevent autoimmune diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases by understanding and directing the immune system. Corixa was acquired by GSK for $300 million on May 2005.
CoTherix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on licensing, developing, and commercializing therapeutic products for the potential treatment of cardiovascular diseases. CoTherix went public at the NASDAQ for $30 million in October 2005 and was purchased for $420 million by Actelion in November, 2006.
EOS is a medical device company focused on the design and development of a noninvasive, point-of-care instrument to assist in the early diagnosis of melanoma. EOS went public at the NASDAQ for $20 million in October 2005.
Memory Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company, is focused on developing innovative drugs for the treatment of debilitating central nervous system disorders, many of which exhibit significant impairment of memory and other cognitive function. The company went public at the NASDAQ for $35 million on April 2004 and was acquired by Roche in 2008.
http://www.healthpoint.com/divisions/surgical/
Mycrocept develops, markets, and distributes a variety of innovative pharmaceutical infection control systems, its flagship product being an antibacterial surgical hand scrub to the hospital market. The company was acquired by Healthpoint for an undisclosed amount in October 2005.
Nephros (AMEX: NEP)
Nephros was founded in 1997 by Columbia University health professionals, scientists, and engineers to improve the quality of life for the end stage renal disease patient, while addressing the critical needs of the care provider. The company went public at the AMEX for $12.6 million in September 2005.
https://www.affymetrix.com/corporate/parallele.affx
ParAllele Bioscience is now part of Affymetrix. Not only does ParAllele bring innovative assay technologies to the Affymetrix technology portfolio, but working with their talented team of scientists, Affymetrix can continue to build on the underlying molecular inversion probe technology while expanding the applications capability of the GeneChip® platform. The company was acquired by Affymetrix for $120 million in October 2005.
Pharmacopeia is a biopharmaceutical company developing small-molecule therapeutics to meet the needs of large patient populations suffering from significant unmet medical needs. Pharmacopeia's programs leverage the company's immunobiology expertise and are focused on diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and psoriasis. The company was purchased by Ligand Pharmaceuticals in 2008.
Progenics is a biopharmaceutical company focusing on the development and commercialization of innovative therapeutic products to treat the unmet medical needs of patients with debilitating conditions and life-threatening diseases. Their principal programs are directed toward symptom management and supportive care, human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, infection, and cancer. The company has four product candidates in clinical development and several others in preclinical development.
Renovis was a science-driven, biopharmaceutical company that sought to discover, develop, and commercialize therapeutics for major medical needs in the areas of neurological and inflammatory diseases. The company went public at the NASDAQ for $66 million in February 2004.
Sentigen Biosciences, a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Sentigen Holding, has developed a proprietary drug discovery platform that has the potential to change the paradigm of modern-day pharmaceutical discovery and development. The company was acquired by Invitrogen for $26 million in September 2006.
SGX Pharmaceuticals is focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative cancer therapeutics. Its mission is to provide patients with life-changing therapies through the dedication, innovation, and excellence of its employees. The company went public at the NASDAQ for $24 million in February 2006 and was subsequently bought by Ely Lilly & Co. in 2008.
Based on technology from Dr. Angela Christiano's lab in Dermatology, Skinetics focuses on hair loss and growth. The company was acquired by Sirna for $2 million in December 2004, and was subsequently acquired by Merck.
http://www.emc.com/products/software/smarts/smarts_family/index.jsp
System Management ARTS is a leading developer of software to automate management of complex networked systems and identify network problems in real time. The company was acquired by EMC for $260 million in December 2004.
For Part Seventeen in in this Series, click here
