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| Sep 29, 2008 in Entrepreneurship, Startups, Web/Tech |  1 |
Just read over on Feld Thoughts about the AWS Startup Challenge. If you are building a web app utilizing Amazon Web Services you should check this out. The grand prize includes $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS service credits, and a potential investment offer from Amazon. The application is short and straightforward. Deadline for entry is October 3.
| Sep 26, 2008 in Quotes | 1 |
"You can do a lot of damage on Wall Street with a pen and a piece of paper."
Warren Buffett
"What Buffett has done is provide the government a roadmap to how to invest in struggling banks."
Aaron Task paraphrasing Larry White
"If I were Bush, McCain, or Obama (all three of them ideally) I'd send Paulson and Bernake to their cubicile and tell them to do the numbers and come back with the return projections before voting on this."
This is a special triple quote of the week but we are experiencing special times.
What Buffett did with his Goldman investment was get a 10% yield on preferred stock with 100% warrant coverage to buy common stock at an 8% discount on the stock price the day before the deal closed with some corporate oversight. Sounds like a good structure to me and one our government should follow going forward on any bailout.
What Fred is suggesting in his post are two things that any venture capitalist does in practice. Before doing the deal running the numbers establishing an expected value to determine if the deal should be done and if so tranche the payments.
Combine these together and I think you have we have a winner. Do you?
| Sep 25, 2008 in Business | 17 |
I have written from time to time about the differing taxes plans of Senator McCain and Senator Obama which often leads to comments from the Obama faithful deriding the credibility of The Wall Street Journal and other such things. Well another interesting little table appeared in the Journal yesterday.
Interesting, because using information from an analysis by Deloitte it shows that unless you make over $400,000 your taxes are not going up under either candidates proposals. The only folks that full a lot of pain in the Obama plan are those making over a $1,000,000 annually. If you like you can download a pdf of the full Deloitte report here.
As an entrepreneurial kid of guy of more interest to me is capital gains tax treatment. A year ago I made the statement that I would not vote for anyone that wanted to raise capital gains tax. Perhaps I am not alone as Mr. Obama has changed is position of wanting to raise capital gains tax from 15% to 28%. He currently states that he would raise capital gains and dividend rates to 20% for families earning more than $250,000 ($200,000 for singles), and eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-ups and small businesses to encourage innovation. As an undecided centrist I can live with that.
More broadly, given the current state of economic turmoil I have to halfway agree with Marc Cuban. Talk of tax cuts for anyone is no longer economically viable. But increasing taxes on the uber rich is another story. Taxing the heck out of that dude from Goldman that wants a USG bailout and personally makes about $70,000,000 a year. Now that's interesting. Populist or not, taxing ordinary income above, say $10,000,000 annually, at an 80% tax rate might be a way to reel in excessive corporate executive compensation and provide the fortunate more reason to give back to society voluntarily.
| Sep 24, 2008 in Entrepreneurship | 5 |
Don Brown of Divvs was voted best presentation at the first Startup Gauntlet. Great time was had by a
brave pack or early stage entrepreneurs looking to perfect their investor presentations. We are doing this again next month.
Update: After reading this post this morning I decided that it deserved much more prose. The above was created using the iPhone TypePad app which is not great for creating new articles.
Startup Gauntlet was a great little event that I think helped move all the participating entrepreneurs along. The title of the post was taken from the certificate Don won for having the best presentation. Truth be told, his presentation was darn good, along with those given by several other entrepreneurs. To give you some idea of the high quality, Stephen Fleming (who has funded a few things in his day), made the comment to me that he thought several of the companies were ready for their first round of funding. I agree.
With that said, the quality was uneven. A few forgot their pitches entirely or only made it about a third of the way through their presentations. That's OK. The purpose of Startup Gauntlet is to help entrepreneurs practice, refine, and get better so that when they get out their in the real world, in front of real investors they can succeed. And the most magical thing is that the participating entrepreneurs starting learning from each other. Seeing what others were doing so that they can understand where they need to go. Providing feedback to each other (and to the Dungeonmasters).
Photos courtesy of Mike Schinkel.
| Sep 21, 2008 in Sports | 2 |
Tonight the New York Yankees will play their final game in 85 year old Yankee Stadium before moving across the street to the "New" Yankee Stadium.
I am sure that mainstream media will be reporting on the most famous moments at Yankee Stadium. Gehrig's "Luckest main alive" speech, Larsen's perfect game, too many Reggie Jackson heroics to mention, and "The Greatest Game Ever Played", the 1958 NFL championship game between the New York Football Giants and the Baltimore Colts.
Yankee Stadium is one of my favorite sports venues. Walking into the place one cannot help feeling a sense of reverence. Truth be told I am a bit of a Yankees fan. I spent quite a few days and nights there during my time in metro New York between 1990 and 1992. Here are my top personal memories.
The beautiful summer afternoon when Bo Jackson broke his bat over his knee in 1990 after, I believe, striking out for the third time. I was sitting in the box of Rick Balter, who later was sent to prison for having a contract taken out on an individual that owed him some money.
The evening in June in of 1991 when the Yankees were playing the A's. I was in the Mobil box. Jose Canseco had been seen either earlier that day or the day before leaving Madonna's apartment. When he came on deck he had an exchange of words with a fan who was ejected. Shortly thereafter when he took his position in right field someone from the bleachers tossed an inflatable doll onto the field. Canseco ignored it and it was removed by security. Only in NYC.
Seeing the Braves play the Yankees in the 1999 World Series. I forget if it was game 3 or 4 (the Yankees won both). What I do remember is that Danny and Stephen Baldwin were in the box next to us and played a very spirited game of mound ball with Nikki Nickerson and me.
And oh yeah, on more than one occasion Yankees fans throwing D batteries at Boston fans that were foolish enough to cheer the Sox.
Like many Cathedrals, Yankee Stadium can be a bit cold and dark. But I have great memories there. And I am going to miss her. Not many more important places in all of sport.
| Sep 19, 2008 in Quotes | 0 |
"The thing I like to see is three personality types at the beginning of a company. A director of engineering to build a demoable product. A CTO who can expound on a vision. And someone who is focused on building the company, selling the vision of the company, and marketing the company."
George does a pretty good job of defining a "good team" for an early stage technology startup. He made this statement in a panel entitled "20 Questions for VCs" at TechCrunch50 which I stumbled upon prepping for Meet the VC. You can watch the entire panel below. Lots of the same issues on the West coast as the East coast is my key takeaway.
Update: I threw out the video because the autoplay feature is annoying. You can view the video here.
| Sep 18, 2008 in Fun | 0 |
From the same mad scientists at EepyBird that created the Diet Coke and Mentos extravanganza.
With a tip of the hat to @keithmcgreggor. One of these days FoG is going to get semi-serious again.
| Sep 17, 2008 in Angels, Entrepreneurship | 1 |
The Atlanta Technology Angels are sponsoring a "Power of Angel Investing" seminar next Tuesday from 12 - 5. The topic of this seminar is "Doing the Deal: Term Sheet Workshop." The seminar is going to cover term sheet deal terms and feature a panel including Jeff Leavitt, Melanie Leeth, and Clark Gilder.
I intend to be there and Knox Massey has been kind enough to offer up a few seats for aspiring entrepreneurs who are marching down the road toward raising an angel round. If you are interested in attending please contact me directly and we will make something happen as room allows.
Update: The Session is Now Full.
| Sep 16, 2008 in ATDC, Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital | 5 |
ATDC is gearing up for its first Meet the VC session this week. Alan Taetle of Noro-Moseley Partners is going to be the featured venture capitalist.
I’ve known Alan for quite some time and have plenty of questions for him, but since this program was launched based on the chatter that was taking place on FoG, I would also like to know what you would ask him.
Submit your questions in comments, and I will select some of the best ones to ask Alan. If you happen to like a question that’s already been mentioned, you can second it or refine it by commenting as well.
| Sep 12, 2008 in Quotes | 0 |
"The key issue is will the global war on terror ultimately achieve the objective."
Bacevich has a unique background. He is a Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. He is also a West Point graduate who served in the Army during Vietnam and and former Lieutenant Colonel with experience in the Persian Gulf.
He made the above statement In an interview by Terry Gross on Fresh Air, the award winning NPR show, yesterday. It is a fascinating discussion well worth the 40 minute listen. You can do so here. Bacevich believes that United States foreign policy should be at the center of the debate in the presidential election. His rational discourse is refreshing. Bacevich lays out a fairly compelling argument that the US should adopt a containment strategy like that used in the war on communism to fight terrorism. He may be right.
Listen to the interview and decide for yourself.
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