BlackBerry Partners Fund - More Information

I had a great chat with Kevin at crackberry.com and did a Podcast with blackberry.com's Simon Sage.

The podcast link is here.

One Snippet I want to call out:

“Personally, I’m hopeful that some developers are going to take a giant step backwards, get in a nice easy chair, put their feet up and say ‘Okay, let’s pretend that we’ve got a blank sheet of paper, and let’s pretend that the device is going to have unlimited bandwidth, unlimited memory, and an amazing, functional keyboard, and be a functional device that people will just love and carry with them everywhere. Armed with that metaphor, what can you do in that world that you can’t do today?’

I make that comment because I’m fine with people coming in the door and bringing yet another location-based service, and yet another better way to do Facebook, and a better new social media “press-this-button-and-all-your-friends-will-know-where-you-are”, and all that other kind of stuff. That’s fine, we can look at those. What I’m really looking for is someone taking a step back and saying ‘Okay, before the internet, eBay was impossible.’ … You have all this infrastructure in there, you have all this high-speed, so now that you have that in place, tell me what you can do now that you couldn’t do before and really blue-sky it. … The real thing to do is, ‘Okay, what can I do that is coming?’"

Special note: Apologies to Matt Murphy of the iFund.  I called you Mike in the podcast. Sleep deprived, sorry.

Kevin's Crackberry Interview is located here. 

One Snippet from Kevin's post that I want to make sure everybody remember:

"#3 - Sweet Spot: I asked Rick what their sweet spot in terms of investment size is. His response was that they are stage agnostic... they'll fund everything from napkins to IPOs (though IPOs are a pain in the butt!). The sweet spot is in that $2 Million to $5 Million range, but that doesn't mean they won't look at smaller investments. As Rick put it, 3 guys with $100,000 to $150,000 in funding can do some serious damage, so those smaller investments are still something they would fund if they believe an opportunity is there. "

Comments

[Tom Whitaker]

Rick,

we met about TXT Circle. I've been trying to get a hold of you (from a different email address). We should talk about the next project I'm doing. I could use the help and I think its right up your alley.

Hit me back if you can.

Thanks

Tom

[Martin Edic]

Your first quote sounds like what I imagine took place at Apple when they started thinking about iPhone. Don't limit things, don't think conventionally about what a phone looks like (they have to have buttons!), think about your project in a larger, unlimited context.
I think one important point made here is that web 2.0 is turning in on itself and merely creating iterative improvements on existing capabilities. You can't build a business on an iterative improvement.
For example, look at the various attempts to build a better search engine. Google will always win because they have the best technology to improve upon- until something entirely different comes along, v.1 of the next search technology.
A leap.

[Ken W]

I must say it is pretty damn tough for me to sit back and think about what was before the time of the internet. I am continuously surrounded by it. But can you imagine asking a 25 year old developer to think of a time before the web? This is a very interesting challenge...

[Alex G]

Very true. The difference between now and 2000 is that the net now has critical mass. A lot of what was "too early" then is booming up right now, like macro social networking. Still, careful not to launch the next big thing too early ahead of it's time. For our project, the technological and "technocultural" time horizon is 2010. Right now we're knee deep in alpha technologies that we consider candidates for Web *ahum* 3.0... cliche yes, but we're looking through that window and getting a glimpse of how everything changes from 2010-2020. The future looks so promising we expect most of what's on the web etc is going to get wiped out in the next 5 years and we're building an entire business around what's coming up.

The trick is not to hurry to market, but be patient and get the timing right so we're standing tall right in the middle when 2.0 crumbles and the dust settles... after all, people always demand better, but first they need to become blazé and bored with what's there already, which is what I refer to as the "technocultural" trends.