My NDA Policy ~ I have decided to starting signing them!
July 3, 2008
You would be surprised how many call me looking for advice (i.e. free advice that I am happy to provide), but first ask me if I would sign an NDA before they share their idea with me. I have refused to sign NDAs for a number of reasons in the past (well covered in this blog). Of course I have mentioned before why keeping your idea secret creates a real incentive for someone to steal it, but assuming you MUST keep your idea secret and you still want my advice I am now willing to sign a mutual NDA. Basically I agree to:
- Review your NDA prior to our conversation (I need at least 12 hours to review prior to our meeting); term must not exceed 36 months.
- Execute, in duplicate, the NDA.
- Forward your NDA to our office manager who will a) copy your NDA and file in our contract system and b) send a copy to our lawyer who will also keep the NDA on file.
In exchange for entering into an NDA with you and/or your company I am charging what I call my NDA fee to offset the handling costs I will incur over the next 1-3 years of handling the contract you have requested I enter into. Currently the fee is $1,000 per NDA. Of course, I prefer that we skip the NDA entirely thus saving you the $1,000 and me the headache of dealing with ‘yet another contract’ with someone I have likely never met and won’t meet again.
Houston Startup Happy Hour
July 2, 2008
Ready to network with Houston’s growing network of entrepreneurs? Check out their latest startup happy hour.
When: Thursday, July 3rd 6-9PM
Where: The Tasting Room @ River Oaks
2409 W. Alabama 7213.526.2242
Click here for more info. The July Houston Startup Happy Hour features a live presentation of SnapStream’s latest release of their TV search software. SnapStream’s consumer product was showcased by Bill Gates in his keynote at the Windows XP Launch in 2001 and since then it’s received lots of industry awards and recognition, including PC Magazine Editor’s Choice. Snapstream’s newest product, SnapStream Enterprise, allows organizations to record and search within thousands of hours of TV recordings. It’s used by 1) presidential campaigns, 2) city/state/federal governments, 3) TV shows (like E!’s The Soup), 4) K-12 schools and universities, and many more. Come meet the founders and see a demo of their TV search software in action at Thursday’s Houston Startup Happy Hour!
Austin Ventures buying Entrepreneur!
July 1, 2008
According to PaidContent, “Austin Ventures and Another PE Firm Buying Entrepreneur Media“. The story came out in April, but I missed it completely. The company generated more than $60MM in revenue last year and the deal is reportedly under $200MM. Rafat explains,
The company was founded as a newsletter in 1973 and launched as Entrepreneur magazine in 1977. It also has a biggish online presence and operates book publishing unit Entrepreneur Press. Entrepreneur.com was launched in 1996, and has been popular and very profitable, a big part of the appeal to the buyers, our sources say.
Worst VC year since 1978!
June 28, 2008
According to the Matt Richtel, in the second quarter of this year not a single venture backed company has gone public. This hasn’t happened since 1978. Matt explains,
Some other venture capitalists say the industry is struggling to find its direction and has never fully recovered from the dot-com bust. That may come as little surprise to the well-heeled individuals and institutions that give their money to venture capitalists seeking big returns. Some of these investors have criticized venture capitalists for failing to provide substantial returns on a broad basis since 2000. Public offerings serve a critical role for venture capitalists by giving them a way to sell, at huge profits, stakes in the start-up companies they invest in and build. So the offering drought is being taken very seriously by the venture capital industry. The National Venture Capital Association, an industry group, said it planned to discuss the issue on Tuesday in a media blitz on television news outlets.
But Paul Kedrosky, an investor and the author of Infectious Greed, a venture capital-centric blog, said that there were deeper, more systemic problems for venture capitalists in addition to the cyclical challenges. He said part of the problem was that the industry was backing companies that lack widespread investor appeal, like YouTube clones and dating and social networking sites. “There is nothing that the industry is producing that investors want,” Mr. Kedrosky said. “The stuff they’re investing in is idiosyncratic — it’s fun and appealing to them but Wall Street doesn’t care.” “The Valley is operating in its own little world, and the capital markets don’t care about the things that are getting the Valley excited.”
This isn’t good news…
Weekly Booty Call: Microsoft and Yahoo are back at it!
June 24, 2008
At least according to TechCrunch. My thoughts? Get a room…
Microsoft hints, ‘fire Yang, and we might buy you’
June 23, 2008
Henry Blodget has a story from Bloomberg that Microsoft may be hinting about a new bid if Yahoo’s management team is changed. Read more from Silicon Ally Insider, “Microsoft to Yahoo Shareholders: Fire Jerry and We Might Bid Again“.
VCs, an endangered species. . .
June 20, 2008
Remember back in 2000/2001 when the bubble burst? The fallout is finally hitting the venture capital industry. Scott Ticer’s comment on the post about the study from the University of Dallas got me thinking, “What is really going on the VC industry?” The answer wasn’t hard to find. Yesterday Russell Garland wrote a story in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Incredible Shrinking Venture-Capital Industry” where he suggests that the downsizing of the venture industry is still very much alive. Earlier this year I wrote about the departure of more and more VC professionals in a post titled, “Venture Capital’s Brain Drain“, of course my thoughts were anecdotal, but Russell’s piece seems to confirm my thesis.
According to the research unit of Dow Jones there are 30% fewer venture capital firms today than there were in 2000. Out of the total 884 venture capital firms, more than 224 (27%) didn’t make a single investment in 2007. Russell suggest that it is very likely that many of these won’t exist in the coming years (i.e. if you don’t invest you will die). Mark Heesen, the president of the National Venture Capital Association, explains “We are finally seeing what in our view is the beginning of the impact of the bubble. Venture funds typically have a life of at least a decade and firms can soldier on long after they have run out of capital to back new companies.” Even more troubling is the statistic that 55% of venture firms who did make investments in 2007 only completed 3 or fewer investments. 29% of venture firms only made one investment.
Staubach to be swallowed by Jones Lang LaSalle
June 16, 2008
Dallas-based Staubach Company is being purchased by Jones Lang LaSalle. The Staubach Company will become the brokerage arm for JLL in the U.S. Roger Staubach will serve as Executive Chairman of the Americas Brokerage, Greg O’Brien will be CEO and John Gates will be President. The deal should be finalized by early July.
Austin based CreditCards.com IPO Pulled
June 3, 2008
According to the Austin American Statesman, CreditCards.com pulled their IPO for a second time in a year. From the paper:
Austin-based CreditCards.com on Monday filed to withdraw its registration for an initial public offering. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it decided to withdraw its plans “due to current market conditions.”
CreditCards.com had planned their original IPO in 2007, but pulled it in November. The company had registered to sell 10.7 million shares priced at $13 to $15 each. Assuming a $14 per share price, CreditCards.com was seeking to raise roughly $108 million. It had planned to use a portion of the IPO proceeds to wipe out $79 million in debt. Austin Ventures owns around 65% of the company with the remainder owned by American Capital and other insiders.
Dallas Search Startup Viewzi Gets Press!
May 27, 2008
This evening Viewzi was profiled on Channel 11 News. Great press (I will post YouTube link when it gets uploaded). Here is my previous coverage:
Profy, ReadWriteWeb and The Inquisitr are talking about Viewzi’s beta launch. Profy giving the visual search engine high praise by suggesting, “Viewzi May Finally Have Won Me Over to Visual Search“. I have spent a little time playing with the search engine and it looks very sexy. I wrote about the company back in March when I compared it to SearchMe:
Local entrepreneur Brandon Cotter’s newest startup, Viewzi, has been in the works for more than a year and is currently in private alpha. I caught up with Brandon and the Viewzi team at Barcamp/SXSW and he explained that Viewzi should be released in public beta in April. Brandon and I go way back (I was returning $15MM to investors when my account came up $100,000 short; he loaned me the $100,000 on a handshake until I could re-capitalize my startup).
This morning Kara Swisher wrote a posted about a new visual search engine called SearchMe. She reported that Sequoia Capital (the key investor in Google and Yahoo) invested $31MM in the Mountain View-based company. She describes the search engine as a mash-up of Google with Apple’s iTunes 3D interface. According to Kara, Google is working on a similar project in its labs. In my view (and Kara’s) SearchMe looks like a complete iTunes rip=off.
Of course, both are pre-beta so I have only seen private demos of each, but they are surprisingly similar in their ‘view’ of search. To honest, and I am biased, I think Viewzi’s model of engagement with users is more intriguing. Viewzi attempts to allow ‘makers’ to create their own ‘views’ of a particular search term. To start there is a ‘view development kit’ and in the future their will be an online wizard to allow anyone to create a custom view. There is real power in this sort of community engagement: think wikipedia + google + iphone = Viewzi.
For those of you interested in a great product, coupled with great people and a great value (i.e. pre-money valuation) I recommend talking to Brandon about Viewzi.
Failure isn’t a bad thing. . .
May 20, 2008
interesting video:
[via]
Yahoo boon for Icahn and Pickins!
May 20, 2008
When Microsoft pulled its offer for Yahoo off of the table everyone assumed YHOO would tank. It did slide to the low $20s, but recovered quickly. We assumed YHOO would close lower than $22, but when it recovered to the $24-25 range I was confused. Very quickly it became apparent that other forces were at work. Specifically Carl Icahn and (now we know) his friends.
Most everyone has heard that Carl Icahn bought 59 million shares of YHOO at $25, but what you may not have heard is that Carl called a few of his friends and suggested they do the same. The first ‘friend’ to publicly announce that he took Carl’s advice was T. Boone Pickens who admits to purchasing 10 million shares of YHOO. Carl’s bet (regardless of whether or not it works) has already earned him (assuming he sold today) more than $120 million (you will note based on the URL of the link that when Henry first wrote the piece he estimated that Carl was only up $60 million, but when he finally published the piece it was up $120 million - note to Henry change your permalinks). T. Boone Pickens has gained a modest $25 million. Nice work guys.
Microsoft’s Startup Team
May 14, 2008
Did you know that Microsoft has something called the Strategic & Emerging Business Team? According to Christopher Griffin, they focused on supporting the startup and venture investment ecosystem, especially high-potential companies working with our various technologies. They are structured similarly to a VC fund but typically invest via resources/relationships rather than with straight cash. You can get more info at Microsoft Startup Zone. In any event, Christopher contacted me about a post I wrote titled, “Raising Venture Capital in Dallas?” where I discussed the difference between west coast startups and Dallas startups. The next time he is in the area we are going to get together and I’ll keep you posted on our conversations.
Icahn to do Microsoft’s Dirty Work?
May 13, 2008
Carl Icahn thinks, ‘Jerry Yang is an idiot CEO’ and he may launch a proxy fight to take him out. According to David Faber, Icahn has built a significant position in Yahoo (50 million shares) and is building a ’short slate’ of board members (targeting 3 or 4 directors). Icahn played the same game with Oracle and BEA and I suspect he might be able to put the Microsoft deal back together once he was in control. Of course we will know by Thursday since that is the deadline…
Oil doesn’t equal happiness. . .
May 10, 2008
I just ran across John Boyd’s blog (John gave me a $40MM term sheet when he was with TL Ventures) and he wrote an interesting post titled, “To be a country with large oil reserves…be careful what you wish for.“ He asks why the countries with the largest oil reserves aren’t the happiest. . .
| Country | Reserves |
Production |
Reserve life |
|---|---|---|---|
| (109bbl) | (106bbl/d) | (years) | |
| Saudi Arabia | 260 | 8.8 | 81 |
| Canada | 179 | 2.7 | 182 |
| Iraq | 115 | 3.7 | 101 |
| Iran | 105 | 3.9 | 74 |
| Kuwait | 99 | 2.5 | 108 |
| United Arab Emirates | 97 | 2.5 | 107 |
| Venezuela | 80 | 2.4 | 91 |
| Russia | 60 | 9.5 | 17 |
| Libya | 41.5 | 1.8 | 63 |
| Nigeria | 36.2 | 2.3 | 43 |
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