Venture Studio (6): Trevor Owens: Entrepreneur, Super-Connector, Community Organizer

This is Episode (6) of Venture Studio

Welcome to this conversation with one of the most dynamic members of New York's tech community, the omnipresent and ubiquitous Trevor Owens who embodied the concept of "student entrepreneur" during his time at NYU. He has recently left school to launch two startups simultaneously. Enjoy.

Below is a short table of contents (with corresponding minutes) of our conversation.

:15          How a finance major @NYU got drawn into tech world? 

3:31       "I was taking every awesome opportunity I could & running with it"

3:39       Heard that Trevor Owens is leaving NYU... why, how, etc.? 

5:12        How his mentors, family, friends reacted to his decision

6:08       Trevor's thoughts on mentorship

7:38       Our discussion on team-building      

8:52       The story and business model of www.insidestartups.org

11:18      The story and business model of the Lean Startup Machine

12:47     Discussion of this Mobile Accelerator Model and his influences       

14:00    Trevor hiring interns. Has lots of projects going on right now    

Click Here: For Episode 7 of Venture Studio w/Jordy Leiser

                  

               

Venture Studio (5): Vinicius Vacanti, CEO of Yipit (Part II)

This is Episode (5) of Venture Studio

Welcome to Part II of this in-depth conversation with the extraordinary Vinny Vacanti, CEO of Yipit. 

In this second part of the conversation we cover topics such as the importance of engaging your fellow entrepreneurs in the tech community, his take on the right way engage with investors, the importance of getting real, honest and at times brutal feedback about your business, and Vinny's description of his team, his business model and what's coming next for Yipit.

Below is a short table of contents (with corresponding minutes) of Part II of our conversation.

:oo         What are the founders doing to engage the NYV tech community?

:54         Who the people are that really end up helping you. 

1:51        The mindset required to be a successful tech entrepreneur 

3:15       How to think about getting to know investors

4:19       Investors as part of the community & "investing in the curve" (!)

6:05      "The most brutal feedback we got.... was the most helpful..."

6:45      "It was like getting punched in the face"

7:05       Their meeting with Eric Paley of Founders Collective

9:05      "Traction is King"... Getting Funded

10:43    "I taught myself all the back-end development, but I am not CTO"

11:27      The Team

12:32     The Business Model

15:06     What is Next for Yipit?

16:50     Vinny's awesome blog:  www.vacanti.me

Click Here: For Episode 6 of Venture Studio w/Trevor Owens

                  

               

Venture Studio (4): Vinicius Vacanti, CEO of Yipit (Part 1)

This is Episode (4) of Venture Studio

Welcome to Part I of this in-depth conversation with the extraordinary Vinny Vacanti, CEO of Yipit. 

Vinny treats us to an immensely insighful and transparent account of his ongoing entrepreneurial odyssey. We cover topics such as his decision to abandon the primrose path of a thriving career in finance,  his sudden leap into the world of startups and the challenges of launching a tech company as a first-time entrepreneur. His insights and learnings, including the account of the fateful decision he and his co-founder made to actually learn how to code themselves are a literal treasure trove for any entrepreneur. 

Below is a short table of contents (with corresponding minutes) of Part I of our conversation.

:20        Harvard freshman in '99, the tech bubble, investment banking

2:20     The "kernel of entrepreneurship" could not be ignored

3:15      Post bubble epiphany at a conference: "That's who I want to be"

4:12     Early Days of Yipit, Summer '07, "no idea what we were doing"

5:22     No safety net, no more primrose path: big realizations!

6:47     The leap of faith: Learning how to Code....

8:00     The reaction of his colleagues/family

9:30     Building the early prototpes of Yipit

11:23     The equivalent of steroids for an entrepreneur

11:50    Becoming a deal-aggregator in NY; Groupon launhces

13:57   The Lightbulb Moment: "just aggregating daily deals!"

15:04   The Big Pivot: Building this version in 3 days... first-to-market

16:30    Finance/Corporate World vs. Startup World: different mentality required

Part II of our conversation with Vinny

                  

               

Venture Studio (3): Mark Loranger of Square 1 Bank

This is Episode (3) of Venture Studio

Get to know Mark Loranger, who runs the Square Roots Program @ Square 1 Bank. Square Roots is completely dedicated to serving the banking needs of promising startups so if you are a tech entrepreneur you'll learn all about what services Mark's program provides for their clients.

In this conversation we explore such topics as:

:43       What the heck is a venture bank?

2:25     What is the Square Roots Program?

3:40     What services do they provide for their clients? 

4:35     What types of companies they work with

6:03     What is their portfolio like?

7:10      Costs, etc... why it's pretty much free, etc.

8:42     Discussion of Startup Genome Project

10:20   Trends Square 1 is seeing in Angel/VC investing

11:40   Convergence of Seed Rounds and Series A in 2010

13:40   How this convergence resembles pro-wrestling!? :)

16:09   Bubble(s) Forming? What's happening in 2011?

16:27    Ron Conway/Yuri Milner/Y combinator           

Click For Venture Studio (4) w/ Vinny Vacanti, CEO of Yipit

                  

               

Primate Makes Daring Escape From Cage, Becomes Entrepreneur: Society Uneasy, Mainstream Press Obscures His True Origins

 

This is a tongue and cheek post that's part of my ongoing Series on Entrepreneurial Culture

We've all seen headlines like these over the years:

Enraged Siberian Tiger Escapes Enclosure after being Taunted

San Francisco Zookeepers Baffled and Say What Happened Was Impossible

Furious Tiger Makes Impossible Leap Over 12 Foot Fence to Chase Down Monkey at Miami Zoo

Relentless Orangutan Manages to Short-Circuit Electric Fence and Escapes

Incensed Japanese Monkeys Somehow Catapult Themselves Over Electric Barrier

In many of these instances, investigators learn afterwards that the animal was either taunted or enraged by someone before unleashing itself from its confines in spectacular fashion. These incidents, though sensational, provide clear evidence of the astonishing feats of which wild animals are capable when they've been pushed to their limits.

What we never see however are headlines like these:

Enraged Steve Jobs Vaults Apple Into Massive Profitability After Being Counted-Out

Maniacal Bezos Stuns Legions of Naysayers as Amazon Soars

Spurned and Resentful Zuckerberg Unleashes his Colossus Upon Humanity (actually- Sorkin got this right)

Steve Balmer in Seeming Roid-Rage Drives Microsoft to New Heights

Murdoch at 80 Still Has Massive Chip on His Shoulder

That's because the mainstream press generally puts out the same "approved narrative" concerning successful entrepreneurs wherein the storylines are variations on the following themes: "talented tech whiz kid with tousled hair changes world", "visionary entrepreneur turned philanthropist with great hair jets into Davos with entourage", " so and so pulled himself up by the bootstraps and is driven because he never wants to be poor again despite being a billionaire".

As I see it, for the most part these storylines reflect an alternate reality. Reality, (ie. company-building), never comes with this glossy sheen.

It's been my observation that very successful entrepreneurs are no different than the caged animals who shatter the zoo-keeper's "impassable" barrier when incensed enough. (If you're skeptical of the animal comparison definitely check out Desmond Morris' The Human Zoo at some point).

From what I've seen, more than anything else, they share this primal impulse to break free of behavioral restraints whether imposed by the corporate arena/working world, by the society/attitudes/belief systems in which they were raised, or by the "way things are done" in certain arenas/disciplines. Their mentality is primarily a roiling cauldron of any or all of the following traits: resentment/subversiveness/anger/mania/vision/piss & vinegar and/or sheer force of will. The "make-the-world-a-better-place" stuff comes later, (if at all).

The reality is that most of these wildly successful entrepreneurs have a real chip on their shoulders and something to prove. It's personal. They often have hard edges to them, have visceral reactions to people and ideas alike, make brutal sacrifices, and often drive themselves and their companies more than anyone around them can possibly imagine. 

For Part 29 in in this Series, click here

Venture Studio (2): Professor Evan Korth of HackNY

This is Episode (2) of Venture Studio

Get to know our guest, a huge figure in NYC's technology ecosystem, Professor Evan Korth. 

In this conversation we discuss HackNY at length, the role of the University in New York's technology ecosystem, some of Evan's student teams (including Diaspora!), NYU's Innovation Fund, and his passion for teaching, mentorship and NYC.

(This excellent piece was released today on TechCrunch about HackNY 2011)

Click for Venture Studio (3) w/ Mark Loranger of Square 1 Bank

                  

               

Venture Studio (1): Shane Snow of Contently.com

This is Episode (1) of Venture Studio

Get to know our first guest, the multi-talented writer, designer, entrepreneur and journalist, Shane Snow, and hear him discuss his new startup, Contently.  We also talk about life in Silicon Alley's tech community, how he was influenced by his time at Columbia's Journalism School, about surfing in Hawaii and more. Enjoy.

Click for Venture Studio (2) w/ Evan Korth of HackNY

                  

               

Welcome to Venture Studio

As a new feature to my blog, I'll be posting my one-on-one conversations with entrepreneurs, hackers, founders, vc's, angels and others who comprise New York's vibrant tech ecosystem starting next week. Getting some great guests working on fascinating projects! Our parter organizations below will be helping with identifying guests and getting the word out about the show. Stand by...

For Episode 1 of Venture Studio click here

Co-Hosting Organizations:

           
                                                        The Startup Genome Project

I Am Incubator

This is part of my Series on Entrepreneurial Culture.

The leading dramatis personae of the early-stage tech ecosystem are well established by now in the mainstream collective consciousness. High-tech wunderkind entrepreneurs are of course the most recognizable of the various archetypes, but nowadays once obscure protagonists with strange appellations such as hacker, combinator, seed-stage VC and angel no longer generate quizzical looks and raised eyebrows when others point them out at cocktail parties or gush about them in the mainstream press. The newest hero/villain cast member is of course the so-called “superangel” who one immediately associates with Silicon Valley Olympians such as Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut, Keith Rabois, Chris Sacca, Dave McClure, Mike Maples and others. If the production were an opera, these men would certainly be the tenors and would be seen furiously making out checks by the hundred to web-native entrepreneurs, enjoying great feasts (sometimes replete with petty human dramas) at restaurants like Bin 38, and occasionally hurling lightning bolts at one another in fits of pique, (or thunderous indigestion).

There remains, however, another sort of actor altogether in this early stage landscape of ours. He dwells far from this rarefied air and his profile is yet obscured and shrouded from public view.  In the aforementioned operatic production, he would most certainly play the the phantom.  And what is it that he does? Ensconced in dank subterranean forges these Hephaestus-like practitioners hammer-out out from the mute schist of their environments the vaguest and earliest impressions of ideas and technologies some of which will one day appear as these same companies that superangels will foist with lavish checks. Yet the work of these shadowy figures is so nascent as to sometimes resemble the proverbial cave-art of our most ancient forbears.

I am one such troglodyte.

Another appellation is of course, “Incubator”. Or, as I thought I heard Russell Crowe say to the very Emperor’s face at the center of the gladatorial arena:   

“I Am Incubator”

Among my brethren and sistren in incubation I count the folks working at places like idealab, betaworks, alleycorp, as well as certain current and former university venture lab specialists I hold in high esteem. These modern-day alchemists are constantly mixing, tweaking, stirring and coalescing the incipient ideas, technologies, nascent teams and pre-seed capital that form the raw ingredients of what they hope will become valuable companies one day.

In this mini-series I will be shining a light on the sorts of activities with which we are engaged. I’ll be sharing some lessons learned from my own entrepreneurial life, which, between my solo ventures and work within Columbia University, has led to the incubation of a few dozen companies by now. But I’ll mainly be drawing from conversations I'll be having with some of the real heavyweights in this field who have achieved great things and have some remarkable stories to share.

With this said, I shall now retreat to my lair from whence I shall write my next piece. :)

For Part 27 in in this Series, click here

Angel Profiling (4): The Wild and Wooly (and Expanding) Angel Universe

 This is part of my Series on Angel Investing.

In the first post of this mini-series I pointed out that the landscape of angel investing is quite sprawling and diverse with many constituents. In fact, many are calling 2010 the "Year of the Angel", although this is often uttered ironically by those who believe we are witnessing (and participating in) a seed-stage bubble these days with requisite inflated valuations. During my recent interview with him, Mark Suster made the classic remark that "everyone is an angel today" and it's true. The Venture Hacks Angel List seems to be adding new angel investors by the hour!

So bubble or not, as promised, below is an infographic that illustrates this rapidly expanding and overlapping angel universe in a tongue-and-cheek manner. The entire wild and wooly cast of characters are represented below including the aforementioned "Susterian Mugs", the ubiquitous Friends and Family investors, the two varieties of Maniacs, the Celebs and of course, the so called "Pro-leaguers" or nearly extinct "SuperAngels" (most of whom are now running their own micro-funds).

The full dramatis personae are as follows:

Friends and Family supporting "our own": The largest contingent of all pumping $60B/year into startups

"Mugs" who don't know what the heck they are getting into and don't realize it (me circa 2001)! 

Maniacs Tilting at Windmills who don't know what they're doing, realize it, and don't care

Maniacal Wisemen Tilting at Windmills Although these guys are maniacs, there is a method to their madness. They are trying to fund companies that will make a massive and positive difference in the world and solve important problems and carry their checkbooks with them. Paige Craig is one such dude.

"Weekend Warriors" of varying skills and motivations, (this includes participants in Angel Groups)

Entrepreneurs Giving Back and supporting the younger generation

Celeb Angels Ashton Kutcher, Will.i.am, etc.

VC Angels VC's who do some angel investing on the side

Professional Angels (the pro-leaguers or "super-angels" who more and more are becoming micro-VC's)

What I call "Dark Angels" These characters are not often seen in the light of day. They are elusive, shun the spotlight, and yet appear somehow through various corporate vehicles on the cap tables of many of the top-tier funded companies out there. The further I've descended into the rabbit hole of angel investing the more I run into these figures. It's amazing really as the few I've met are serious bad-asses with deep domain expertise that just like to keep a low profile for whatever reason. The last "dark angel" I met showed up at an evening meeting the CEO had arranged a few weeks ago wearing darkly- tinted glasses and hardly said a word. To me this is the most fascinating category of all.

Some Reflections and Best Wishes for the New Year: Here Comes 2011!

As we officially launch the New Year today, a few thoughts occur to me that bear mentioning:

1) I would first like to thank all the readers of this blog for your kind encouragement, support, comments, valuable time and insights shared over the course of this past year. I wish you all the best for 2011 in both your entrepreneurial pursuits and personally. It has been terrific getting to know and learning from so many of you. Here's to another great year!

2) If you want to receive this blog via email in 2011 to make things easier, just click here. I'll also be sending out invites for readers to receive email updates within the next few days.

3) This year I'm looking forward to continuing my work on the following projects and activities:

• For those of you launching new businesses I'll definitely be continuing my Zero to One Series here.
• I'll continue to develop the crowdsourceable entrepreneur/venture maps which are part of what we're calling the Startup Genome Project. The goal of this project is to provide a powerful and rich resource for any entrepreneur in the world who wants to familiarize himself/herself with their entrepreneurial ecosystem and beyond. 
• I'll also be accelerating the Venture Studio Series with video interviews of the various dramatis personae of our incredible American entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• I'm really looking forward to working together with my newly elected colleague on the NY Tech Meetup Board, Evan Korth, to increase connections between our universities and the tech community here in NYC.
• Psyched to keep putting on great entrepreneurship events (and Happy Hours of course!) with the New York Venture Community.
• Working with the burgeoning entrepreneurial community at Columbia University through our ongoing Entrepreneur-Office-Hours, with Columbia Venture Community, and of course spinning-off excellent faculty spinoffs through my work at Columbia Tech Ventures.

4) Lastly, if you're looking for a dose of inspiration as you kick-off your year, see this video below in which Hans Rosling shows how the quality of life of humans worldwide has evolved/transformed and accelerated over the course of the past two centuries.

It occurred to me that Rosling's story is in many ways the story of entrepreneurship and innovation. We have and will continue to change the world for the better. That's certainly something to shoot for as the New Year arrives.

Angel Profiling (3): So Are Super Angels Extinct?

This post is part of my ongoing Series on Angel Investing. It was also republished on Fortune Finance, where I am an occasional contributor.

As we all know by now, all the major-league superangels have pretty much raised their own small funds of late. Conway’s got SV Angel, Senkut runs Felicis, Maples runs Floodgate, Sacca’s got lowercase capital, McClure of course runs 500 Hats, and Dixon’s one of the crew at Founder Collective. Many of them of course still get called “superangels” by entrepreneurs, VC’s and by the media- and I’m certainly guilty of doing this as well.  Recently, though, two guys I respect a great deal, Jerry Neumann and Mark Suster, have been quite adamant about why doing this is just wrong. Jerry actually took me to task in a very gentlemanly way here and we discussed it again in a recent one-on-one conversation. Mark of course came right out and called the superangel an extinct species when he recently spoke up at Columbia! I think he was only being slightly tongue-and-cheek.

Their main point is that once superangels actually start investing via these small funds, (thereby accepting other people’s money), they are officially VC’s and there are no “if, ands or buts” about it! Mark told me there’s absolutely no nuance to this issue when I asked him this recently.

So why does this even matter and who cares? I guess the deeper, "meta-level" importance of what they are saying is that no matter how great/prominent an angel you've been in the past, once you're managing LP money you can no longer 'masquerade' as a touchy-feely angel who is "all about the entrepreneur" in that you have a very strong fiduciary obligation to your investors. Nor should you be "calling-out" traditional VC's publicly as if you are really any different for that matter.

My take on this is that there is actually an important nuance to all this. In several of these funds what has actually happened is that a bunch of angels have joined together and thrown some capital into a fund structure. And sure, yes- it is a fund structure because they want to incentivize the guys who are actually running the operation on a day-to-day basis. But in my view there being a fund structure is not solely determinative of “what they are”- rather, what is determinative is how the investors in these vehicles see each other and their respective roles. In some of these funds the atmosphere is still all about a bunch of friends and fellow angels pooling some of their capital and letting one of their own (usually someone quite prominent) manage the day-to-day operations of what are essentially angel investments. The mentality and the incentives have not really changed too much just because there is a fund structure. So my point is that some of these groups are actually more like an angel groups than a venture capital fund. Most venture funds have some institutional investors (pension funds, university endowments, family offices) as LP’s. In the case of some of these “superangel vehicles”, it’s just a bunch of friends/fellow angels doing their thing without any hierarchies (ie. no MD's, Principals, Associates, etc.). The mentality is often “this is a good vehicle for me to support entrepreneurs, have fun and make some money with my friends”. Unlike a traditional venture fund, no one is making their living off the management fees- in fact- these fees often go into the basic expenses for administrating the “fund”.

I know I’m going to take some heat for this, so let me be clear. What I am saying is that some of these superangel funds may structurally resemble traditional VC funds, but they are something altogether different- and more akin to an angel group. I do believe that such entities merit a separate classification in our minds than traditional VC. I am also expressly not endorsing certain broad-brush critiques of VC motivations I have been hearing all year- in fact I disagree with almost all of them. In my opinion, VC motivations are really tied entirely to the quality and caliber of the people you are dealing with at the various funds.

I therefore declare that reports of the death of the so-called "superangel" have been greatly exaggerated.  In fact I would submit that in Darwinian fashion he has mutated somewhat to adapt to the necessities of an evolving entrepreneurial ecosystem.

For Part 4 of this mini-series, click here.

Mashable Video: Inside Tips from Entrepreneurs and Investors

This is part of my ongoing Series on Entrepreneurial Culture.

Mashable's resident video-journalism bad-ass, Jehangir Irani, recently posted the video piece below in which he asked a number of entrepreneurs and investors various questions about launching, growing and investing in startup companies. He lined-up Katerina Fake of Hunch and Flickr, Alexa von Tobel of LearnVest, Brett Martin of AppFund, Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout of Howaboutwe, Nick Nyhan and Dylan Goelz of Roadify, and myself to discuss these various matters.

The original piece can be found here. 

Enjoy.

The Venture Studio: Conversations

Dave Lerner interviews the entrepreneurs, investors, writers & personalities that comprise New York City's entrepreneurial ecosystem and beyond in one-on-one interviews & discussions

Click below for all videos:

VENTURE STUDIO

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Larger Venues:

Venture Studio: Mark Suster at Columbia University November 11, 2010

     

                  

               

Mark Suster Brings Down the House at Columbia University

Last night I had the pleasure of conducting a wide-ranging interview with Mark Suster at Columbia University's Business School. The event was organized by the Columbia Venture Community and co-hosted by Columbia Tech Ventures and the New York Venture Community, although we had many guests from the Silicon Alley community at large. Mark spoke candidly about his life experience and insights gleaned over the years from being a 2x entrepreneur, mentor, and more recently as a venture investor in front of a packed crowd of entrepreneurship enthusiasts from the student body, faculty, alumni ranks and from the venture capital and angel communities alike. The video, which was shot by Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan, is posted just above. 

It was a special evening, not just for his candor and insights- but also for the fact that Mark ended up staying with us for hours- late into the night, meeting and talking with everyone who wanted to chat with him after his talk had ended. The Columbia community has been abuzz about his appearance since then- and people were was still raving about him today at Steve Blank's talk. Ironically, I had posted my appreciation for people who give so much of themselves to the community just yesterday!

If you can't listen to the entire 2 hours of the talk itself, I highly recommend you go to the following sections of his talk:

Minute 33: What he's looking for in an entrepreneur. "Someone who can go right up to the line"... "Something you can't teach people"

Minute 37:27: "Life in a startup is a lot of fighting"

Minute 40: Co-founders and Compensation

Minute 42: On Mentorship and Mentorship Programs  

Minute 49: On the NY and LA entrepreneurial ecosystems

Minute 50: The Importance of "Patron" Companies

Minute 56: Super-Angels: "They don't exist, it's an extinct species" .... "It's Bull#*%!!"

Minute 57: New Class of Early-Stage VC's 

Minute 59: The Signaling Problem: "Complete and Utter Bull$%@"

Minute 59: VC's of all types

Minute 1:06 The Importance of Learning from Other Entrepreneurs

Minute 1:13 Awesome Q & A Begins!! 

Hope you enjoy!

(Suster prior to "bringing down the house" at Columbia University)

Remembering Dersu Uzala, Siberian Entrepreneur- Community Organizer

This is part of my Series on Entrepreneurial Culture.

As another epic (and frenetic!) week of awesome Silicon Alley entrepreneurship events draws to a close,  many of the thoughts and emotions I experienced last year around this time bubbled to the surface once more. Amazingly, the community energy, sense of togetherness and momentum here NYC is just getting better and better somehow. Just tonight at Columbia for example- we're actually hosting Mark Suster in front of a sold-out, standing-room-only crowd, and tomorrow morning none other than Steve Blank!  Here are examples of two very experienced and talented guys with a national presence who are constantly giving back, cultivating and educating the entrepreneurial communty. And here they are in NYC- joining us and enlivening our atmosphere. Anyway, I'm re-posting some of these thoughts once more, as I'm sure only a handful of early loyalists to these scribblings of mine actually saw it when I originally posted it last year:

It occurred to me recently that when you find yourself around folks that take great care to cultivate the particular ecosystem in which they dwell, the environment is always uplifting and enriching.  A recent venture event I attended of this kind brought to mind that great character, Dersu Uzala, who Kurosawa immortalized in one of my favorite films of the same name.  So as to set the stage for my main point, I’ll recall now one of the early scenes from memory, so forgive me if I omit some details.

On a freezing cold night in the Siberian forest a group of Russian soldiers are suddenly joined by a mysterious Nanai tribesman as they sit warming themselves around a fire. He seems ancient and does not greet them as they sit in stunned silence watching him as he slowly lights his pipe. After some minutes he breaks the charged silence and strikes up a conversation with them. It turns out that this is the beginning of their remarkable adventure with this nomadic tiger hunter who serves as their guide through the wilderness. The men soon learn that wherever he goes he is looking out not just for himself, but for those around him and who might come after him. Twice he saves the lives of Captain Arseniev and his men by virtue of his great experience and wisdom and in one scene they watch with fascination as he leaves some food behind in a remote shelter for anyone that might stumble there after their departure.

The Russian soldiers never forget Dersu. If you’re able to rent the film from NetFlix, I doubt that you will forget him either.  Let me know what you think.

We who make our livings in the world of start-ups also dwell in our own precious ecosystem comprised of entrepreneurs, investors, advisors, inventors and technologists. It seems to me that how we tend to it and how we treat each other along the way will be the ultimate measure of how much we can achieve.

Crowd-Sourceable Map of World's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

This is part of my various Series on Venture Capital, Angel Investing and Entrepreneurial Culture.

As described in this recent post, this mapping project evolved from that late night a few months ago when I decided to first map-out the Silicon Alley early-stage investor ecosystem. I wanted to provide a resource for entrepreneurs wherein they would be able to actually see the entire venture ecosystem in one glance. Due to much encouragement and postive feedback, I eventually created maps for Boston and then for Silicon Valley. This was of course not enough. I wanted these maps to be interactive and eventually, crowdsourceable. That's when I reached out to my good buddy Shane Snow. As I've mentioned here before, he is a super-talented entrepreneur, hacker, designer and journalist extraordinaire who can basically do anything.

Well, after quite a bit of effort, I'm happy to say that today we're releasing the next iteration of all this. We've now created a crowdsourceable global map of what we hope will one day be the entire world's entrepreneurial ecosystem:

Click here for the global map.

(Or, you can click on the global map icon on the right-hand side of my blog's homepage to enter the map environment. You will find instructions for using the map there- it's very straightforward.)

So as this is the first pass we've made, we're really asking for your help in adding investors to the map, in correcting mistakes we've made (which are no doubt many) and the like. You will see tabs above the map for adding investors and adding firms respectively. The map is meant to be crowdsourced and will only be as good as the effort put into it, so please weigh in!

Future releases will go beyond venture, angel, corporate investors and accelerators. We will be trying to comprehensively cover as many facets of the entrepreneurial ecosystem as possible in an easy to use manner- all in one place.

Thanks in advance for your help!

For the next post in this Series click here.

Angel Profiling (2): Global Directory of Blogging Angels

 
This is part of my ongoing Series on Angel Investing.

As promised in my last post I am compiling a list of Angel Investors who blog. Obviously this initial list is incomplete and has inaccuracies, so please help out by making suggestions and corrections. 

You will note that not all of these blogs are about angel investing per se, as in many cases the blogs address the personal interests of the investors themselves which is consistent with our continuing exercise in Angel Profiling!

Click on this hyperlink to subscribe to my Global Directory of Blogging Angels.

PRO-LEAGUERS

Jeff Clavier (investor)

Chris Sacca (ex-googler, founder of lowercase capital)

Dave McClure (entrepreneur, 500 Hats)

Jason Calacanis (entrepreneur, ceo Mahalo, poker player)

Keith Rabois (entrepreneur, executive)

Chris Dixon (entrepreneur, co-founder Hunch, Founder's Collective)

Paul Kedrosky (investor, writer)

CELEBRITY ANGELS

Tim Ferriss    (author of 4 Hour Work Week)

Kevin Rose  (founder of Digg)

Will.i.am (musician, blackeyed peas)

Ashton Kutcher (actor)

ANGELS OF ALL KINDS

Max Levchin (entrepreneur, ceo Slide)

Bill Lee (entrepreneur, founder Remarq)

Naval Ravikant (entrepreneur, epinions, venturehacks)

Kevin Fox (entrepreneur)

Seth Goldstein (entrepreneur)

Auren Hoffman  (entrepreneur, ceo Rapleaf)

Joshua Schachter (entrepreneur, founder Delicious)

Gabriel Weinberg (entrepreneur)

Shervin Pishevar (entrepreneur)

Jeremie Berribie (entrepreneur)

Brock Blake (founder Funding Universe)

 Kimbal Musk  (entrepreneur, founder Me.dium)

Mitch Kapor (entrepreneur)

Howard Lindzon (entrepreneur, founder Stocktwits)

Joi Ito  (entrepreneur, founder, Creative Commons)

Alexander Muse (entrepreneur)

David Rose  (founder AngelSoft, NY Angels)

Esther Dyson (ED Venture Holdings)

Dave Lerner  (entrepreneur, Columbia Venture Lab)

David Tisch   (NY Tech Stars)

Roger Ehrenberg   (IA Ventures)

Gary Vaynerchuk  (entrepreneur, WineLibrary TV)

Pat Matthews  (entrepreneur, founder of webmail.us)

Micah Rosenbloom (entrepreneur, co-founder Brontes, Founder's Collective)

Caterina Fake (entrepreneur, Flickr, Hunch)

J. Basil Peters (angel investor)

Michael Parekh (investor)

Travis Kalanick (entrepreneur)

Stephen Gill (entrepreneur)

Eric Paley (entrepreneur, Founder's Collective)

Roy Rodenstein (entrepreneur, founder Going)

Jeff Miller (entrepreneur, founder Punchfork)

David Shen (product guy, former Yahoo)

Kip McClanahan (entrepreneur, TippingPoint, 3Com)

Dave Nakayama (former Yahoo)

Will Herman (entrepreneur, Innoveda, Viewlogic Systems) 

Bill Boebel (entrepreneur, webmail.us, Rackspace)

Marco Messina (entrepreneur)

JS Cournoyer (entrepreneur)

VC's WHO DO ANGEL INVESTING

Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures)

Mark Suster (GRP Partners)

Brad Feld (The Foundry Group)

Roger Ehrenberg (IA Ventures)

John Frankel (FF Asset Management)

For Part 3 of this mini-series, click here.

Angel Profiling (1): A Moveable Feast of Mugs, Maniacs and Masters of the Game

        

  

 
 
This is part of my ongoing Series on Angel Investing.

Mark Suster, one of the best VC bloggers out there, recently put out his own five-part series on Angel Investing. As usual, (despite running a big VC fund, Launchpad L.A., hosting This Week in Venture Capital and being a family man), this latest series of his was totally comprehensive and got to the very heart of the subject.  As one who has been an angel since 2001 and an author of my own much more primitive series on the subject, I devoured Mark's efforts and had much the same experience as Howard Lindzon- who likened reading these posts to being on a roller-coaster ride!   

Prior to the posting of his recent series, I always got a kick out of Mark's various off-the-cuff comments about Angel Investing in which he referred to it as a "Mug's Game". I knew from first-hand experience what he was talking about but it wasn't until he authored his series that he elaborated on this general opinion. Anyway, he lays out five major pre-requisites for becoming a great angel investor. Without the following, Mark is essentially saying- you are either sh*t-out-of-luck or a plain Mug. (yes, this is meant to be tongue-and-cheek).... Here they are:

• Access to the best dealflow... (being at the "right poker table")
• Possessing the requisite domain knowledge
• Having strong relationships with VC's
• Possessing deep pockets (so you can follow-on and avoid being crushed)
• Having access to the eventual buyers of these companies

He is no doubt correct, though I pointed out to him that one also needs to account for a wide swath of angels who are involved for different reasons. He agreed and elaborated on this towards the end of this post.

Anyway, his series and our exchange inspired me to provide you with a fuller picture of the angel community. Therefore, in this mini-series of my own I intend to elaborate on the subject of angel investing and to give fledgling angels and others interested in this space the opportunity to learn more about who we are, (it's extremely varied and diverse!), how you become an angel, and what the general options are in this landscape.

So let's commence some Angel Profiling, shall we?

 To begin, cast your eye over the photos above that headline this post and in the upper levels you will see the faces of some of the "pro-level guys" as I call them. Many of these guys all have the qualities and attributes that Mark laid out in his series, which, for reference purposes, we'll call the "Susterian qualities". I'm talking about Ron Conway, Aydin Senkut, Mike Maples, Jason Calacanis, Jeff Clavier, Chris Sacca and others. Just in the last few days some of these elite "super-angels" have been accused by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington of holding secret gatherings in order to collude and drive deal terms in the Valley. Dave McClure denied it here, but Ron Conway, who was not at the dinner, unleashed on some of his fellow elites with this email TechCrunch recently got ahold of. The press is calling this fascinating episode: AngelGate!

But who are the people in the photos on the bottom row below? No doubt, here are the "Mugs" that Mark refers to... I, for example, am the guy getting his ass kicked in the bottom right-hand photo and the people "cramming me down" are some venture capitalists joined by some angry co-investors on a British deal circa 2001 when I first got started.

(yes- any first-time readers- (and Mom perhaps)- I am kidding...)

The reality is that angels come in all sizes and shapes and with varying motivations and goals. There is actually massive diversity in our ranks. Are there some Mugs among us? Sure there are. I was one myself when I got started no doubt. Are there some maniacs out there as well? Damn right there are! But there's a whole swath of angels in the middle, many of whom have a good idea of what they are doing and why they are doing it and, though not in the pro-leagues- are "in control of themselves" so to speak.  Here are some News Flashes for you that the mainstream press hardly ever takes note of:

• Not all angels live in Silicon Valley!
• Not all angels are interested in consumer internet companies!
• There are vibrant angel communities in NYC, Boston and in other cities around the US!
• Angels account for 90% of all start-up funding in the US!
• Angels put up $20 Billion a year into approximately 50,000 startups!*
• Friends & Family put up an estimated $60 Billion a year into startups!*
• There are an estimated 225,00 angels in the United States*
• There are currently ~300 active angel groups in the United States*

            *Source: Angel Capital Association

Furthermore, Angels have all kinds of reasons and motivations for investing. You can pretty much categorize us as follows:

• Friends and Family supporting "our own"
• "Mugs" who don't know what the heck they are getting into and don't realize it (me circa 2001)!
  
• Maniacs Tilting at Windmills (who don't know what they're doing, realize it, and don't care)
  
• "Weekend Warriors" of varying skills and motivations, (this includes participants in Angel Groups)
  
• Entrepreneurs Giving Back and supporting the younger generation
  
• Celeb Angels (Ashton Kutcher, Will.i.am, etc.)
  
• VC Angels (VC's who do some angel investing on the side)
  
• Professional Angels (the pro-leaguers I have mentioned above)

In the coming mini-series I am going to round-out this fascinating landscape with various posts which will include but are not limited to a map of the overlapping and concentric circles of the angel landscape, a list of angels who blog, and a description of the ones I call the "Dark Angels". Stay tuned!

For Part 2 of this mini-series, click here.

Entrepreneurs Can Change the World

I was really inspired by these videos about entrepreneurs & entrepreneurship. Check them out: