The Post Money Value

Off the Grid

I'm on the way to the South Pole and I don't think the birds down there have an internet cafe so, I'm off the grid for the next 10 days.

Keep a light on for me.

The Personal Touch - wesabe.com Style

I've arrived in Santiago, Chile. I'm headed out to Antarctica starting on Monday and unless the penguins have set up an Internet cafe, I'll be off the grid until Dec 4th. But a few things to offer you prior to my trip.

My lovely daughter Rachel sent me a website which has an interesting personal touch.  If you go to www.wesabe.com, you will see a talk to the CEO right on the home page.

 Jason Knight and Marc Hedlund have created this service in an attempt take a whole bunch of personal spending data, pull it together and dig up some buying/saving power for the people that participate.

The Talk to Jason page pretty much sums up what Jason has in mind:

"Hi! I’m Jason Knight, the CEO and co-founder of Wesabe. Every afternoon, from 12 to 4 p.m. PST, you can reach me directly at (800) 511-8544. If you have comments about our product, questions about how it works, or just want to chat a bit about what inspired us to create Wesabe, please give me a call. Sure, I could have an intern man the phones, but I can’t think of any job more important at Wesabe right now than talking to our new members and people who are thinking of signing up. So when you call, you’ll be talking to me. I look forward to it!"

 I doubt most web start up companies will ever take this approach. I think it is yet another proof point that the connected world we live in along with the requirements to rise above the noise and be meaningful to the customer both continue to drive innovation like this.  Somebody in some big company someplace decided to slap an 800 number on the side of the box of cookies back in the 80s. Soon, almost every consumer product has some type of 'personal' way for the buyer to contact the company.  This is yet another incarnation.

As for Wesabe itself, this has some interesting opportunities. The FAQ is an informative read with respect to privacy, data usage, etc.  

Save the Date - Process Land Mine Avoidance

Many of you have probably attended boot camps, start up camps, bar camps, etc.  All of these camps, etc, are very very important. As I mentioned countless times (probably), you can't go wrong with guys like Jeff Clavier (and others) giving you good from the trenches, advice.

I've been thinking about what we could do to continue to help the Canadian entrepreneurs. I've teamed up with my fellow members of the Toronto Venture Group (TVG) and we are presenting what I've termed the Process Land Mine Avoidance Breakfast. 

On January 10th, here in Toronto, you can spend a block of time with a VC, a Debt Fund Manager, and a great Start Up focused lawyer where we go through a full package of documents and show you the traps, pitfalls, third rails, etc.

You'll get to keep essentially a full closing book from real transaction which includes:

1. Term Sheet

2. Debt Structure

3. Shareholders Agreement

4. Subscription Agreements

5. And the other standard documents

The speakers will be:

- Me

- Mark McQueen of Wellington Financial LP. Mark has a great blog with his team, here.

- Suzanne Dingwall Williams, an excellent lawyer focused on start ups. She has a great blog here.

The plan is to give you a full package, walk you through stuff, and take lots of questions.

This will be January 10th, in the morning and is part of the TVG breakfast series. You will be able to sign up for this shortly. It's fifty bucks per head to cover the costs of printing materials, food, the venue, etc.  The venue is not that big so you should sign up if you want to come, not waiting until the last minute.

If you want to get on the list to be signed up pretty much now, contact Susan Cudahy at the TVG.  She can be reached via that keyboard: susan.cudahy AT tvg.org 

Please let everybody in the Toronto area know about this. We think this can be super helpful to start up folks.

Founder Pay (or Welcome to Raw Nerve City)

That last founder brain flip post generated a bunch of emails and some comments. Thank you for the email, I've answered them all but I thought some of the general comments were worth expanding on.

The biggie, Founder Pay.

First, I don't believe in working for free.  There is no such thing as working for free. If you tell me you are working for free at your start up, then your start up is worth nothing.   You are working for equity in the firm and that equity has value. 

This brings up a term sheet/founder equity issue.

In lots of cases (mostly in the seed/very early stages), you will see term sheet clauses that allow for reverse vesting or company buy back of founder shares.  For example:

(It's early on Friday morning so don't yell at me about this simple/easy math example.)

Let's say that we have a seed company and I've agreed to put a million dollars in for half the company. (yeah, greedy, it's simple math, never give up half in real life, etc, etc).  That means the company is worth 2 million bucks with your half worth a million.  Typically, you will see agreements where the VCs insist that the company has the right to buy back your shares, amount reduced pro-rata over time, if you quit or get fired for cause. Cause, by the way, means stealing, getting arrested on a felony charge, etc.  You will see this right reduced over time.  In some cases, it is 24 months others 36 months. It depends on lots of things. 

The reason this is done is the idea/vision/execution is with the founder and if the founder quits, the company's value goes down.  Lots of founders get nuts about this clause and I've struggled with it myself.  In one case, I told a very good friend of mine who came to me for advice on this that, as written, I wouldn't sign it without serious modifications.  The VC in that case wasn't happy with me but it wasn't fair.

 Keep in mind, every situation is different.   Returning to our example above, let's say that the founder has been working on his idea for two years. Slaving away, working at Wal-Mart stocking shelves at night to put food on the table. We agree to a financing.  In my opinion, the founder is entitled/deserves to keep some equity for the work.  How much? That depends.  Let's say that in this case the founder needs my million to finish out the prototype, submit the patent paperwork, etc, etc, but they've gotten this far.  In that case, you say, cool, you've got half the equity. Of that, 75% is not subject to the buy back clause.  Or whatever the number is, point being the founder created value to that point, reward/protect it and reward/protect the future value.

Again, this is just an example but the point of this example is to make clear there is value to the work done and if you get a VC who doesn't recognize the value of your hard work: Run from the room screaming. Oh, and tell all your friends so they will come to me instead.

Second big issue is pay.  I agree 1000% with the email/comments about having the founder work for no pay or 20 bucks only to have the VC fund the company and then bring in professional management at "market salary".

My opinion: Founders set the tone/pace of the company and others join because of the tone/pace, not to change it.

Danger one: VC sends you a person who is trying to impress the VC instead of you. It happens and when you do the interviews with these referrals, pay attention to body language and watch for this. 

Myth one: You have to pay market (or better) to get top talent.  This is nonsense.  People who show up at a start up and want to know about the health club, paid parking, etc, don't belong in a start up. It's about creating value in ownership. I have a number of key data points in the companies I manage that have convinced me I'm right.  I have an incredible women in MusicIP (besides my daughter) that could command 10x the salary she gets but she believes and owns a piece.  At SIRIT, a publicly traded RFID company, the CEO is outstanding, bought tons of the company before he joined and is working 'below market' on the wage scale.  Paolo Boni, CEO of VFMi, is working for less than half of what he was making in his previous life. He believes.  And I can point to many many developers, receptionists, finance people, etc, that all believe.  It is not about "market" when it comes to pay.

[Side note/Story: When I joined Microsoft, I took a pay cut. In the new employee meeting, the game was bragging on how much of a pay cut you took.  I doubt that this conversation is happening today. Microsoft managed for years to keep people believing in the value vs. straight pay. Say what you will about Microsoft, this was a huge accomplishment.]

Important point one: Share the dream.  Stock Options/Restricted Stock is an important, perhaps the most important piece of start up compensation.  I believe that a huge chunk of the company needs to be in the hands of the team creating the value.  People who say, I'm not interested in options, what's the pay, are going to mess up your culture/team.  Hired guns can be consultants, paid for specific tasks and then kicked loose, no problem. But the team needs to have a stake. 

Finally the paycheck itself.  I point you to Jeremy Wright of b5. At 27 years of age, Jeremy is not an experienced CEO and over the last couple of weeks as walked into enough walls, stepped on enough third rails, to prove it. Ah well, youth.  The two reasons while I'll take a bullet for this guy? His passion and total focus on doing the right thing for the business. Jeremy CUT his pay AFTER we had a deal because when he did the budget model, he wanted some additional dollars in place for other things.  When he sold the idea to Mark Evans, Mark didn't have a pay discussion, he had an equity discussion and is now drinking lots of b5 Kool-Aid.

As a founder, set your pay to mirror what the company can afford. It is not about what you need, what you want, what is market, what is fair, etc.  It is about the company. 

Don't work for nothing, don't give away your equity and do the right thing for the company are the three pillars that you should based the discussions around.

Thanks for the email and comments, please keep them coming.

My VC Nightmare - An Entrepreneur Brain Flip

If you ask 100 VCs what their worst nightmare is, I suspect (after loosing money) you will get a bunch of different answers.

Here's mine: The Entrepreneur Brain Flip (EBF)

An EBF happens when a founder wakes up one day and 'flips' into employee mode.  To me, nothing is scarier then a founder saying "It's just a job." 

This can happen for a number of reasons but the signs are pretty clear.

When you are closing a deal and the entrepreneur negotiates for his/her pay like it's a job, that's trouble. 

When I look at our investment in Healthunity, I point with pride to the co-founders (Jay/Prem). They are passionate, work insane hours, take almost no money out of the company rather took additional equity vs. cash.  Total owners and you know it ten seconds after talking to them. These guys don't talk to me about "market" CEO rates or car allowances, etc. They are the owners and do what's right with the business and then own enough of the company that is matters.

This, of course, brings me to my message:

If you don't feel like you are the owner, jezz, don't take the money; don't close the deal.  If you feel the need to fight over severance in your employment agreement and it runs 30 pages, bad start to the game.  If you worry about ' getting fired ' and aren't thinking about the business, who is right for the business, etc, etc, don't close the deal.

Yes, negotiate value, negotiate terms, negotiate the color of the toilet paper but if you brain flip into this is just a job, that's a red alert, stop the train, issue.   There is an interesting post from Gerald Joseph regarding what seed VCs look for in a seed.

No Salary Expense-Very few Startups can successfully bear the burden of salaries; restricted equity adequately diversifies the risks and rewards of a volatile Startup venture

Everyone Paid With Restricted Equity [Vestment, Performance Clauses]-restricted equity is the only currency that should be used by a early stage Startup to reward founders and employees for sustained, quality performance

I am NOT advocating everybody taking a vow of poverty. What I am saying, tho, is there's a specific mindset around what defines a Start Up and a Founder within the VC community. Make sure it is your definition.

Microsoft - Getting Feedback to the Machine (Yours)

Back in June, Jensen Harris of the Office Team posted a blog about the feedback system used by the Office Team. 

Jensen went through the process/steps to essentially make the case that every piece of feedback ( or smiles as they call it) is reviewed.   It is a worth a full read, including the comments.

I've started asking web services types, application providers, etc, why they don't do this. Why not have a direct link from the user to the people creating the product?

The answers (or in my opinion excuses) have been lame but have been excellent in helping me decide to avoid investment problems.

Saying you don't have time is a lame excuse.  People using your stuff are the reason you are doing this and the time you take to listen is a good use of time.  You get lots of opinions, lots feedback and (hopefully) a set of users who believe you are paying attention.

Saying it's impossible to manage all the stuff is a lame excuse.  A free open source MYSQL db with some tags fed by inbound stuff from your application or service is not that hard to build. Head over to Rent-A-Coder and get it built. After you have it, follow Jensen's commentary on process.  And help your local high school, college and/or university by picking up some smart co-op students to help you with this stuff.  Cheap/smart labor is the opening but fresh eyes is even more important.

Saying you have focus group data is a lame excuse.  Yesterday, I had a very very passionate Hubby/Wife team in who are working on a really interesting project.  Hubby, in telling me about the process, darn near pounded the table into the floor by telling me that no coder was allowed near a keyboard until the Focus Groups were done!  I replied (as politely as I could) "So what."  My point was that until you have hundreds, if not thousands, of people pounding away, you won't know. A focus group (or groups in his case) probably will keep you from "gag me with a spoon", ongoing, friction-free feedback is vital for any long term success of any business.  While hubby was in no way claiming focus groups to be the end all, I use this example to press home my point.  I'm still chasing this investment as these two were really smart.

In any event, I suggest you read Jensen's entry as well as this one by the OneNote Team.   These days, being as close to your customer as possible should be a key factor in your business planning.

Some Creative Help

Creative Commons and Licensing help, that is.  My really smart, takes after her mother smart, daughter has created an excellent post which pulls together some overview information and pointers with respect to Creative Commons Licensing.  It's helpful information if you are an artist, musician, etc, and need to understand this stuff.

The other observation I wanted to make for your start up is this notion of 'give back'.  In the case of MusicIP where Rachel works, the company gathers lots of knowledge about how music licensing works, copyright law, etc. Through the corporate blog, the company gives back to the community by way of blogging about useful information that isn't a direct shill for the MusicIP.  If you are photographer, the information Rachel put up is helpful.

Shel Israel and I talked at length about company blogs.  This is a clear area where blogging can be useful to the company in setting tone and being involved in the community by sharing important knowledge.  It's a good use of company time.

Well done, Rachel.

MusicIP - Adventures in VC Land

Matthew Dunn, CEO of MusicIP, has been rolling along doing the VC presentation thing for a couple of weeks.  Those of you who know this drill, know it can be a bit of a slog.  I've been with him on some of the presentations, others he has flown solo.

So picture the following:

He heads out to VC office A for a presentation.  These guys bring out the uber-geeks. They want to talk about memory leak differences between Firefox and Internet Explorer. When Matthew tries to explain that while he'd be happy to talk about memory leaks, he had been on the Exchange Team.  Ooops.

Off we go into the rat hole of Exchange vs. Notes, Open Source, and carrier pigeon.  All of this while trying to explain why MusicIP is something they should invest in.  It was a long meeting.

Fortunately, he remembers to shake it off, walk around the block, and leave some time between the next meeting.  By the time he gets to VC office B, he's feeling ok.  He goes into the presentation, does some demo, and then fires up the Internet connection to show some of the web based activities/products being released in the coming months.

As he is showing this stuff (live), a Skype chat message pops up on the screen.  It was from a guy at VC office A. 

The message read:

"We love MusicIP, we're going to Term Sheet now!!!"

Not missing a beat, Matthew hits the escape key and says, "Sorry, this has been going on all day. Now, where were we?"

The adventure continues, stay tuned....

My Ed Bradley Story

As you may know, Ed Bradley passed away today.  I met Ed Bradley while I was in the U.S. Air Force.  I was part of a combat communication group which had been deployed to Zaire.  While loading up a C-130 getting ready to fly into what was effectively a war zone at the time, Mr. Bradley came up to us and asked for a ride. 

There was none of this embedded journalist stuff, no handlers (for the most part) just reporters doing the hard work to get the news to people. In the late 70s, it was a different world.

We spent a good deal of time together bouncing around in the back of that plane.  At one point, while listening to the BBC, the president of the US was talking about the "humanitarian aid only" nature of the mission.

Mr. Bradley looked around at the guys with guns then looked at me. I simply said, we like our humanitarian aid to have a bit of 'formality' to it.

He just smiled and made some notes, while I worried about my flying days being seriously cut short.  Mr. Bradley stayed with us for a bit while we set up camp at the airport.  I traded him some tasty "C-Rations" for a CBS news ball cap.

Friendly, insightful, thoughtful, and an amazingly good listener.

The world's loss. Rest in peace, sir.

Quote of the day

"The Democrats didn't clean anybody's clock. The voters did."

Doc Searls here

John Hill and Tablet PC

Good news! John Hill is blogging about the Tablet PC. If you are hardcore about the Tablet PC, you'll want to read his blog.

Bad news! John Hill is only doing partial feeds.

john, john, john..

Punch the Chad!

Fred Wilson's post this morning, simply titled Vote!, is an important reminder that in the United States, today is very important.

"A non vote is a vote for the status quo."

Living outside the country, you certainly get a different perspective and I suspect there are a million blog posts that I could do.  I believe, as does Fred, the more meaningful thing to do was: Vote.

If You're Stupid, Don't Buy My Damn Product

All software is "As Is", everybody gets that.  Lawyers, unfortunately, have made this point harder to get across. We have the so-call break the shrink-wrap licenses, the click here and you acknowledge licenses, etc.

What the world really needs is some straight talkin, no bull, call it like I see, expectation setting when it comes to software.

Meet Dr. Carlo C. Brizzolara, MD.  The good Doctor has been practicing medicine since the 70s and programming computers since the 80s.

His bio says he is currently practicing emergency medicine in Southern California.  Doc Brizzolara has a product called Virtual Patient Records.

Marcus Welby, MD?  Well maybe, maybe not.

Checkout the opening entry on the home page of the product:

"Notices: I don't need profit to validate my products, but, there is a fee to own these products.

Use of these products is intended for experienced, advanced endusers with knowledge of the platforms hosting VPR systems, and personal awareness that unique software requires the ability of the enduser to learn about new approaches to solving problems. This product is NOT designed for beginners nor to help one learn to use computers NOR for those who think they know how software should be designed.

Purchase and Use of the registered version should only occur AFTER accomplishing download and installation of the Demo, running all modules of the demo, creating test patient records on the platforms that you intend to use for patient visits, performing all expected functions for the patient visits, exchange of records (Sync between PDA and PC platforms, move records from Module to Module on the PC-Desktop versions), developing your own backup plan and system for your patients' records, practice using the multiple input interfaces within VPR systems, and seeking your only support from the Topic Index on this website and the Virtual Patient Records Help manual accessed from within the program.

Therefore, DO NOT purchase this product if you expect enduser support or expect a refund if you are dissatisfied. All sales are final.  Product support including wishlists and bug reporting are vital to product evolution and will be taken seriously.  CCB MD"

My favorite part is the bitch slapping of people who think the know how software should be designed. Yeah, you!  That last paragraph about no end user support and the vital product support can be a bit confusing, but what the heck, right?

Finally a guy who just says it.  Look at the damn demo, get your phreakin act together on backups, etc, download and read the damn manual and THEN buy the software. 

I can just see Techcrunch evaluating this software followed up closely by Dr. Brizzolara promptly sewing Mike's fingers to Marshall's butt.  As Hugh Macleod would say, "Rock On"

Memo to Barnes and Noble: Turn off the servers, its over.

If you'd like to have fun when on the Microsoft Campus (or any Microsoft office) try to work the word Google into as many sentences as possible. Things like, yeah I googled that place, awesome reviews or I googled up the traffic before coming here and with the google earth pictures and googling you, I'm ready for our partnership meeting.  If you are wearing an Ipod and presenting your partnership ideas on a Mac using Open Office, yer all set. 

Now, this relates to the Amazon/Barnes and Noble competition, stay with me.

As long time readers (all three of you) know, I spend lots of time wandering stores, malls, etc, to try and watch what normal people do. Today, I was at the Barnes and Noble located in Redwood City, California.  Here is a summary of a live conversation at the cashier:

Customer: "I'm looking for this book." [describes it, thinks the author is, etc]

BN Clerk: "Hmmm, let me look it up." [click, keyboard smack, etc]

BN Clerk: (sigh)

Customer: "Well it came out last year, if that helps"

BN Clerk: "Look, here's what you should do. Go to Amazon, find it, bring back the ISBN number and then I can help you."

As the sports announcers say: That's gotta hurt.

Dealing with RSS vs. Coming to the Site

Overtime, "everybody" will use an RSS Reader or so the theory goes. Page views will become a thing of the past and number of subscribers will be all the rage with 'ads' becoming a tricky business. Again, so the theory goes.

People deal with it by doing snippets and forcing the reader to the web site.  Still others get ads slipped into the feed. 

We'll see how all this shakes out but in the meantime, Uber-Geek Wil Wheaton has a creative post reminding us RSS Reader Phreaks to drop by his place from time to time.

"Hey, all you RSS-subscribin', not-coming-to-the-blog readin' folks! Yeah, I'm talkin' at you!

There's a bunch of sidebar content here that I change infrequently, but adds a bit of, uh, value to your, uh, experience.

Rather then make you go through the arduous task of leaving your aggregator or Live Journal or whatever, here's some of what you're missing:"

It is a funny post, well done, as is most of Wil's material.

[note: I used the term 'uber-geek' vs. the Wesley Crusher of Star Trek fame label because Will post STNG exploits are every bit as interesting and meaningful.]

[Bonus note: Wil has written a book called Just a Geek. (the link isn't an affiliate link, reverse disclosure).  On his web site, he has a link to it on Amazon with his affiliate id in it. Who says VCs are the only ones who double dip. :-) ]

StartUp Camp Day One Notes

I'm here at the Computer History Museum as a participant in StartUp Camp, a production by David Berlind and Doug Gold.

Here are a couple of notes worth mentioning.

Jeff Clavier did his usual good job talking about the VC process/Angels, etc, along with me as back up for some commentary.

Note on Jeff: He claims to have stopped writing and reading blogs so if you wanted to make fun of him, his clothes, french accent or Dogster, now would be a good time to do it.

The excitement about starting companies is strong. The notion of what it costs continues to be less today than before so why do I need you. Charles River's announcement about the quick start program had some buzz around it although I did mention that I didn't believe Charles River was going to be installing a drive through window at their offices.

Women! I have business cards from 5 women doing start ups! Excellent! There's hope for this testosterone world we live in.

As I type this "Speed Geeking" is going on. You think VCs ask tough questions? Take a room full of start up people and move them table to table having them beat up other start up people. Watching this process, you can get a good sense of who knows their collective stuff, who is almost immune from getting rattled and who probably need a bit more cooking.

I'll have a round up of more information shortly but I have to head into another session where I'm going to use that immortal phrase: Dilution is the Solution.

If I'm not back shortly, send help.

IE7 - Kids don't try this at home

It seems that even with all that hard work to get Internet Explorer 7 out the door, more than a few people don't think it is ready for prime time.

Consider the University of Texas at Arlington.   On November 1st,  according to a number of folks chatting about this in newsgroups (remember them?), the help desk sent an email out to the campus with the words IE7 is NOT recommended in the subject line.  That email urged folks to decline the automatic update for IE7 because of compatibility issues with campus applications.

Bummer.

Normally, this isn't out of the main stream. Large corporations/schools typically hold off on mass upgrades of products until the IT department gets a chance to shake, rattle -n- roll the upgrade to ensure nothing gets broken during the process.

What is notable here is that there are enough browser based applications, enough "mission critical"  browser applications that organizations are treating the browser as something akin to an OS upgrade.

While I'm not ready to jump on the Steve Gillmor "Office is dead" bandwagon, this certainly is an interesting, shall we say, data point.

Disclosing your Disclosures

It seems we are currently in a phase where the issue of disclosure is popping up all over the blog-o-land.  First it was the pay for posting sites and it hit the high watermark with Michael Arrington pinging off the walls about his latest bout with inbound rock throwing. This link is funny but the photo is hilarious.

So, I thought, gee, why not toss a little link love to one each Kevin C. Tofel. In a recent blog post about Slingmedia bringing out a player for the Mac, he mentions a great deal on a sling box over at Amazon.  His link is followed by this: (Affiliate Link).

No muss, no fuss, no big deal, just an inline note that it's an affiliate link. Sort of like the "special advertising section" disclaimer in newspapers.

Well done, Kevin.

Attention Bloggers - You are now official

Do you remember the first time you caught a URL at the end of a TV commercial? The first time a politician stumbled over the words "visit my website?"

Right. It's moments like that which give things a certain sense of mainstream normal whatever.

Blogging has arrived.

Last night on the TV show Boston Legal, a prosecuting attorney during the summation to the jury said pretty much the following:

"In this country, if you're opposed to the death penalty, you can write your congressmen, protest, start a blog......."

I'm fascinated by this because when Boston Legal and the Soaps start to inject the word blog into dialog, its 'normal' and mainstream.

And that should make all those blogging types who were blogging before blogging was cool, feel pretty good.

Off to California for Start Up Camp. If you are there, please say hello.

Windows Live Writer has NOT Been Assimilated

Most people, I assume, know that Windows Live Writer (Microsoft's great blog authoring tool) was not home grown rather part of an acquisition.  I can prove those folks have not had the implants and are not part of the Borg that is Redmond.

In my last post I used the term Bullshitake to try and be funny about the BS word.

Exhibit one, Windows Live Writer Spell Check:

 

Yeah, that's right, they get it.

Exhibit two, Outlook's (Office since they share):

Hang in there guys! Pretend it's Logan's Run, don't go to carrousel, avoid the Sandman.

MusicIP - Funding Fun #1

Matt and I have been out doing our thing with the VC community as we get rolling on the funding for MusicIP.

Here are some interesting observations:

Some people just won't get it.

I think one sign of a great/passionate CEO is they get genuinely offended when somebody doesn't get it.  The reality, of course, is that some folks, for focus reasons, space, knowledge, comfort zone, etc, simply won't be there.  We've had lots of meetings and on two occasions we've simply walked into a wall of no get it. 

Consider this snip:

VC - Yeah, but all this music downloading is just a fad and nobody actually spends anytime searching for music, they just listen to the radio station and that's it.  I don't own one of the silly things and I can't really think of many people that do.

US - Uh, here are some numbers with respect to digital music sales, MP3 player sales and dollars/CPM for search. We think calling it a fad might be a bit of a reach.

VC - Maybe but there is no money in music, it's all being stolen and nobody actually cares.

US - Uhhh, How 'bout those Raptors this year, eh?

The key lesson here is: It happens. I've been on both sides of the table and the point that's the same is my firm belief: being nice/polite/professional is the only way to go.  The important other lesson is schedule at least 30 minutes between meetings so you can walk around the block and shake off the not so good meeting; it's just part of the game.

We're excited.

I haven't see Fred Wilson's cliche of the week recently but the words "We're super excited" have to make the cut one of these days. Dorky. Unfortunately, it was me who said it. I realized after the third time, I sounded like an idiot.  Like, duh, of course we're super excited about the opportunity.  You were thinking maybe:

"Hi, here's one I'm trapped in and thinking I can dump on you."

My point/lesson is find the right words to get the 'we're excited'  message across. 

Focus vs. Sucking up.

In four different meetings, my colleagues offered up different ideas on what the MusicIP technology could do.  In each case it might be a good idea.  Typically start up folks go all suck up on the VC (whoa, dude, you rock, we'll do it with your money) or focus (we know it could be a great ice pick but we're laser like focused on our left nostril nose picker application).

My suggestion is simply to be polite, say thanks, and take it for it is; a data point.  If it is a break through idea, okay, great, but generally, in my opinion, polite/stay the course will work.

I've fallen but I can't get up.

Don't bullshitake. Yeah, I know I said previously you are selling and much of selling is bullshitake but I'm referring to questions you can't answer.  The CEO knows the numbers generally. But I expect the finance person to know the company's Days Outstanding on the payables/receivable. Bonus if the CEO knows, no points off if he/she says, the finance person will give you a direct/accurate answer, I don't want to speculate, and 10 points off if you wing a number or stutter though a nonsense answer.  If you don't know, get the answer to the person.  If you don't know and you should have known, bad, fix, rinse and repeat.

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

"So how's it work?"  When that question is asked 3 seconds after the first slide goes up: Rat Hole Red Alert.  The danger is answering the question what time is it with how to build a watch.  Be careful not to get sucked into situations where you are going to be rate holed into a conversation that doesn't get your message out, takes you way way off topic, and eats up the valuable time.  It requires a fair amount of practice and discipline.

I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.

If you are relying on an Internet connection, make sure you have an EVDO/Edge card with you or cache it all up on your presentation machine. There will be no Internet connection, ignore what they say. Trust me on this one.

Just a few notes from the road.  More later.