Healy Jones | 
08 6th, 2008| 
Very funny, although not germane to the general topic of this blog…
Items that shouldn’t be cross-sold with casket bouquets… <– that’s a link! Sorry if people were confused.
Aug
5
This is the quote Anand Rajaram, one of the co-founders of Pixily, used when being interviewed by Mass High Tech for their weekly journal. Christopher Calnan, the staff writer at Mass High Tech wanted to know how Cloud Computing was impacting hardware infrastructure for his article Cloud computing bursting on the corporate scene.
I think this quote captures the essence of what cloud computing is doing to hardware costs. I strongly believe cloud computing should be part of every entrepreneur’s technology strategy. Let me start by summarizing how open source has become part of a startup’s strategy before making a case for cloud computing.
Aug
5
One of my partners at Atlas Venture, Jeff Andrews, has been a very active clean energy investor. Jeff has been working closely with the New England Clean Energy Council to promote the New England region as a hub of cleantech innovation. Recently the Massachusetts legislature passed a pretty compehensive set of legislation that may really push the state in the direction of being a leader in green energy adoption and innovation. Congrats to Jeff and all the other people who worked so hard with the state’s politicians to get these bills passed. Many Boston area venture capitalists were involved in this, and it’s great that they could all come together to promote this legislation.
Aug
4
A basic understanding of how venture capitalists make money can help you as you prepare to raise venture funding for your startup. In my short career as a venture capitalist I have yet to realize a return from any of my investments (although I also have no donuts yet either, which is good… knock on wood…) You will want to position your startup as a company that can be one of the 10% to 30% that return real capital for the venture firm. Here are a couple of good posts that may help you understand how your VC intends to make money: Read the rest of this entry »
Aug
1
The Olympics are almost upon us, and I’m sure there are about to be a ton of cliched articles and blog posts about how the Olympic Athletes can teach venture capitalists and startup CEOs lessons about achieving big/taking risks/going for gold, etc. But, there is another highly motivating athletic contest going on right now - and it’s a lot cooler than the Olympics. I’m talking about the X Games, and in particular the Skateboarding Big Air Challenge. This skating event starts with a 70 jump, and gets hairy from there… The key lesson I took away from this event was that you’re more likely to push yourself when you surround yourself with peers who are doing the same (my other takeaway was that these guys are are totally nuts). Most of the startup CEOs and founders I know who are pushing the boundries of innovation aren’t operating in a vacuum. Instead, they spend lots of time with other founders and collectively push themselves. While I’m sure some of them could do it alone, why would you? Being a CEO of a startup is lonely enough; find peers who can keep you going strong.
I doubt any of the X Games contestants would pull the caliber of tricks they do if it weren’t for the fact that they are constantly spending time with each other. Seeing the other skaters’ tricks leads them to think of new moves to invent. They also know how hard each of the other skaters worked to develop their skills, and thus know how much effort they need to bring to the table to prepare for and compete in these events. When one of the top skaters, Danny Way, took several hard falls but kept coming back for more he inspired the others to go for broke. The eventual winner, Bob Burnquist, pulled an amazing trick (an ollie 180 into an Indy 360 - landed backwards!) to win. When asked afterwards how he had the guts to try such an insane landing, he said “Every time Danny slammed, it was like, how can someone slam that many times and get back up? I skate with him all the time and I have seen him go down and he’s got this mind that is unparalleled, and I get inspired by it.” Here is a video of the medal winning runs, and also Danny Way’s insane falls (keep in mind these guys are jumping a 70 foot gap. *the video has been loading a bit slowly; it’s worth the wait*):
