“The 10,000-pound Phone” refers to the symbolic weight of a phone call you should make but keep putting off. The longer you procrastinate, the more difficult it becomes to actually pick up the phone and make the call. Eventually, the thought of making the call seems so burdensome that the phone seems to weigh 10,000 pounds – too heavy to lift up.
Inevitably, when you finally make the call, you realize the weight was all in your head. No big deal. The same is true of the 10,000-pound email, the 10,000-pound thank-you note and the 10,000-pound workout. The more you put them off, the more (inaccurately) difficult they feel. Once you do them, they become "right-sized" — light and easy.
So it is with blogging. I haven’t posted on the blog since April. I have a million reasons (read: excuses) but no good explanation. One day the thought of blogging felt burdensome and, the more time went one, the more difficult it became to sit down and write.
For the most part, I have spent the last two months completing an investment in Brazil and waiting in line for an iPhone 4 (actually, that “only” took nine hours…).
I feel extremely excited about the investment but, let me tell you, the complexities of investing in Brazil will blow your mind. In fact, assuming I can write about the wildly complex process without causing seizures in myself and readers, I’ll probably blog a series about exactly what it involves. Suffice it to say that the chasm between the idea of a venture investment in Brazil and the complicated reality of executing one is wide and expensive. It involves plenty of lawyers and tax advisors on both sides of the equator…
Ok, so blogging is now back to its correct weight in my head – a few ounces, not 10,00 pounds. Should be easy to get back into it.
In the history of consumer electronics, one would be hard-pressed to find more written about a product, pre-release, than was written about the iPad in the two months prior to April 3, 2010. Strangely, much less has been written about its primary competitor in the e-reader market, the Amazon Kindle.
The Kindle has had a remarkable rise. Before the Kindle, e-readers ranked somewhere between the buggy-whip and dial-up Internet on the list of technologies with a future. A long trail of battered companies had tried and failed to get consumers to ditch paper and read on tablets: remember the Cybook, the eBookMan and the iLiad? Me neither (that’s the point).
Then, in November 2007, Kindle burst onto the scene. The first release sold out in five and half hours and, since then, Amazon has sold over three million Kindles, accounting for 90% of the e-reader market.
Kudos to Amazon for successfully altering consumer behavior after so many had failed but, alas, the Kindle will die as quickly as it sprung to life. In the wonderful state of nature that is the free market, a more effective predator, the iPad, has arisen that will drive the Kindle to extinction…
March 22 in Redwood City, CA at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay
2. Tiago Sommacal posted another good commenton my assertion that Brazilian Internet businesses will generate returns similar to those in the US from 1994-1999.
Recently I attended Campus Party in Sao Paulo and had a great experience. As I tweeted at the time, Campus Party is a rave meets Grateful Dead show meets Star Trek convention meets Dave and Busters. It seemed like the physical manifestation of the entire Web in one place: art, music, technology, games, advertising, pornography, etc. (As an aside, the distinction between the physical and the virtual world, based on the amount of immersive gaming there, is rapidly blurring.)
Many attendees actually camped inside the convention center. The camping area was analogous to one giant techie bedroom, except that instead of rolling out of bed and onto the Net, the techies walked into the exhibition center and interacted in person. Meetings, games, panel discussions and general hanging out took place 16+ hours a day.
As on the web, some of the content Campus Party was fascinating, some of it was useless and some of it was fascinating and useless. Regardless, the event had a festival atmosphere of unbridled creativity. As someone who constantly focuses on Web-based business, I felt rejuvenated – Campus Party reminded me that the Web is a whole more than a new business platform.
Check out the pictures…
Last week I was also supposed to attend SocialMediaWeek in Sao Paulo.In fact, it was a primary reason for my trip to Brazil.Unfortunately, a wicked headcold/sore throat laid me out one night and a massive thunderstorm stopped traffic in Sao Paulo the next night (“stopped traffic" in Sao Paulo means three hours to go three miles ).As an aside, the rain in Sao Paulo has been biblical – at one point they had over 40 straight days with rain.
Apparently SocialMediaWeek, which was sponsored in part by Startupi, went very well.I look forward to catching up on some of the presentations if and when they are posted online.
“In the long run, men only hit what they aim at.”
Henry David Thoreau
A university tech transfer executive recently had a meeting with a member of one of the largest and most successful VC funds.
At the start of the meeting, the VC pulled out a document that mapped in exact detail 1) the entire cleantech space, 2) which cleantech verticals had the highest investment potential and 3) needed technologies within those verticals. The short, efficient meeting focused on whether the university had those technologies.
That VC’s behavior contrasts with that of many other VCs, including me, who too often react to entrepreneurs and their ideas rather than proactively seeking specific innovations.
Of course, most investors use both reactive and proactive styles and all of us are open to an entrepreneur with a great idea that completely surprises us. In general, however, VCs that approach the market with a detailed roadmap of specific needs in specific verticals have an advantage over VCs that approach the market with a generalist bent.
For one thing, if you know exactly what innovation you want, you can generally find it (or have someone develop it). You also save time and money: you can give entrepreneurs “yes” or “no” answers quickly, network within targeted communities, attend only relevant events and focus on specific information sources (thus avoiding information overload).
Perhaps most importantly, a specific area of focus enables a deep domain expertise, a prerequisite for successful investing in the long term.
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures wrote on a similar topic: “Thematic” investing, identifying big themes and going after them, versus “Thesis-Driven” investing, picking a specific area of focus and sticking to it.
He opines that both styles can succeed but smaller firms should use the latter. I agree and would add that Thesis-Driven investing (deep, disciplined focus on a specific vertical) enables Proactive investing (affirmative search for/discovery of specific innovations in that vertical).
I have taken a look in the mirror on these issues and realize that I need to take my own advice and have more discipline in Thesis-driven, proactive investing.
CNBC did a fascinating interview with Steve Case and Jerry Levin on Monday. I was working at AOL when we announced our $162 billion acquisition of Time Warner in January of 2000 (contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not a merger). At the time, it was the largest corporate transaction in history.
Although the deal came to symbolize the foolishness of the dotcom bubble, Case and Levin thought it made sense from a “big picture” point of view: AOL was the Internet for most people and Time Warner was the king of content. In practice, however, and for a hundred different reasons, the combination was impossible to execute. Timing didn’t help: the deal was announced two months before the Nasdaq crashed and the stock prices of both companies collapsed.
Two things from the interview jumped out for me: Levin’s willingness to take personal responsibility for what many consider to be the worst deal of the two decades and Steve Case’s comparison of venture capital to the entertainment business.
Levin showed strength and leadership in not blaming others for Time Warner’s stupid decision to be acquired by AOL. Such leadership is hard to find among people responsible for, e.g., the current financial crisis: regulators, politicians, financiers and… us, the average debt-soaked American. Most search long and hard for reasons the junk debt (oops, I mean “sub-prime” debt) crisis was not their fault.
I suspect that Levin now feels the benefits that we all feel when we face the truth and accept and make amends for our mistakes: having cleaned his side of the street, he can move forward with peace of mind.
Case compared venture capital investing in web-based businesses to the film business: studios play the role of venture capitalists and throw money at projects that, in the vast majority of cases, fail. The few hits (hopefully) make up for the many that fail. We already knew this but I like the analogy. His comments come around minute 18 of the interview if you want to fast forward.
P.S. Thanks to Alltop news — a useful news aggregation site — I would have missed the interview if they hadn’t mentioned it.
A few weeks ago my PC died and, for the first time since 1994, I purchased a Mac. Although it felt risky to go with a Mac, given that the majority of my colleagues still use PCs, I just couldn’t take Windows anymore. My primary complaint? After starting or restarting my laptop, it took eight minutes for my laptop to boot up. Of course, the amount of third-party programs slowed the boot up time but so what? I will always have lots of programs on my computer.
Time is the most valuable resource in life today. “Time is money” but is also family, health and overall sanity. There is never enough of it and I can’t tolerate products that waste it, which Windows does. Assuming an average of 1 restart per day: 8 minutes per day x 365 days = 2920 minutes = 48 hours / 8 hours per workday = six workdays per year waiting for a computer to load!
In fairness to Microsoft, they do some great things – I use Excel almost everyday and am frequently reminded of it’s power and effectiveness. I find myself trending, however, towards any product that saves time – that usually means any product that is “simplified”.
A Mac is simple. The iPhone is simple. iTunes is simple. I use them all everyday.
Who else has mastered the art of speed and simplicity? Google, for one. Do you remember Alta Vista, Lycos, Hot Bot, Web Crawler, Infoseek, etc.? Google demolished them, along with Yahoo and Explorer. Google provided better results but I also think it had a lot to do with simplicity: while everyone else was loading their home page with links and ads, Google had white space and a search bar.
I would argue that Facebook has also won with simplicity – it is cleaner and less cluttered than MySpace.
Speed and simplicity. Any product that saves time, relative to competitors, will gain momentum; any product that costs time will lose. A simple user interface will win over cluttered one.
It seems obvious but it’s amazing how few companies seem to appreciate it.
The article mentions my morning routine of running on the beach followed by a quick swim but there is a third critical piece: finishing with an aqua de coco! Bring a few reals so after the run/swim you can buy a chilled coconut from a kiosk next to the beach. The vendor splits the top of the coconut and gives you a straw to drink the milk — completely refreshing.
No matter how business goes the rest of the day, you will be in a good mindset.
Some of my close friends often repeat the mantra to practice “restraint of pen and tongue”. In other words, think through whether you really need to send that flaming email or verbalize that stinging barb that’s on the tip of your tongue. If you are convinced that you really do need to write/say it, I would recommend a second consideration: take a moment to honestly consider your motivations: are they to improve the situation, or are they to make yourself feel better at someone else’s expense?
In the age of email and text, as well as blogs and their comments, this restraint becomes even more difficult (it’s only some typing and a mouse-click away). Especially with regard to email and text, a bad temporary moment – when you are feeling tired, anxious, frustrated – can lead to an act that worsens things and makes them considerably less temporary.
Last week I sent an email that I really regret. I sent it while I was rushing to get out of my car and into a meeting, after I had spent the previous fifteen minutes holding a kangaroo court of anxious, caffeinated discussion in my head. Did the email represent where my head was at that moment? Sure. Did it represent an accurate, integrated view of how I felt about the situation? Not at all. But the email went out and the damage was done.
Fourteen years ago something similar happened – I spent some time in my head stewing about how I felt a family member was behaving, phoned him and promptly opened a family rift that stayed open for a decade.
I thought I had learned my lesson 14 years ago but this week I had to re-learn the importance of restraint of pen and tongue (and Blackberry).
I read some blog posts and comment trails this morning that indicates that perhaps many of us are in the same boat.
I came across the post below on PEHub, a great site for info on private equity and vc. Denise Pamieri of Pinnacle Group addresses the post to job seekers but I think applies to anyone, especially if they work in any type of business development/sales role.
” 1. Get Organized & Set Clear Goals
Every evening, before I end my day, I create a written detailed plan. The plan has blocks of time set aside for calls to people I know already, calls to prospective clients and candidates, responding to email & voicemail, addressing incoming inquiries, research, reading and planning. Creating this detailed plan takes about 30-45 minutes at the end of each day and I can’t imagine leaving work without setting my detailed plan for the next day.
By the way, I mean detailed – as in names, phone numbers, assembling any notes that will help me manage my calls. I prioritize my plan and, for phone calls, I sort the list by time zone and by subject. There is no sense calling someone on the West Coast at 7am – they’re not in and that means voice mail. I want to catch my prospects when they’re most receptive and when they’re available. I also want to talk to as many people as I can about a similar topic. That means, I might plan to call four healthcare VCs in a row and then four candidates with VC healthcare experience right afterward before I move on to calls on mezzanine players. I start with a list of at least 40 calls for each day I’m in the office so I can move quickly down my organized list if the person I’m looking for isn’t in, or can’t talk.
2. Work the Plan
Having a plan is important, working the plan is essential. I set time for each part of my plan (calls, in person meetings, emails, planning). When I’m on the road, those have only three parts – eg meetings and returning emails/calls and notes/planning. During each block of time, I work that part of my plan. For example, when I am scheduled to make calls – no matter what, I sit down at my desk and start making calls. I don’t spend time check my email, I don’t get sidetracked reading industry blogs or surfing the web or gabbing with my co-workers. Nothing is more important than making the calls. I use calls as the most important piece to start with each day because most of us are phone phobic and would rather email or noodle around on the internet. Jump in and get it done. Some days, I set my plan to start with a “warm” call – someone I know will take my call and get me jump started on positive vibes. Then, I just keep moving down my list from call to call or task to task, until I’ve completed my plan for the day.
3. Minimize Distractions and Plan Breaks
When I was in law school, I had the cleanest bathroom because I wanted to do anything but study and everything else interested me. Frequently I work from a hotel room when I’m on the road or from home, so I know how easy it is to get distracted and how much discipline it takes to stay focused. I learned that doing the hardest thing first each day was the best way to get traction. Now, no matter where I’m working, I start with a cup of tea on my desk and I do not leave my desk until I’ve made 10 calls. No refills, bathroom breaks, web surfing. I get to business and get my first 10 calls done. Then I have a break – check my email and voicemail messages, get some more tea, etc. And, I limit my break to 15 minutes – then back on the phone for 10 more calls. That way, by lunch time, I’m well along to getting all my calls done and have the afternoon for returning calls, sending emails, researching and planning for the next day.
4. Reward Yourself
I once ate an entire 1lb bag of Oreos in a single day. For those of you who know I’m a health food nut, that seems impossible. But, I was avoiding a brief I needed to write for an important case. So I rewarded myself with 2 Oreos every time I finished one section of the document. It was a small token, but I wouldn’t eat the cookies until I achieved that goal. By halfway through the bag, it might have been the sugar buzz that helped me finish the brief, who knows! Find what works for you, break your daily plan into manageable pieces and then when you’ve reached that goal (10 calls, 15 emails, whatever) go for a run, watch American Idol you taped last night, whatever works, then get back in the saddle and get through your plan.
5. Anticipate Rejection and Use it to Assess Your Skills
I make lots of calls each day where I learn that the firm isn’t yet ready to engage a recruiter, or they’ve decided to recruit on their own, or they’ve engaged another recruiter. It’s ok. While I’d rather that every call or meeting turned into a new search assignment, I’m realistic and I don’t take rejection personally. But, I do ask for candid feedback from each person I interact with about how I can improve what I’m doing. I’m also realistic that not everyone is comfortable giving candid feedback, so each day I compile a list of things I’ve learned, guessed are a problem or I may need to mull over to improve my success. At the end of the week, I review it to see any commonalities, places I can improve or ways to alter what I’m looking for. I ask myself a 3 part question at the end of each week and I write out the answers: What did I do well this week? (Hint: do more of that next week!) What could I have done better this week? What did I waste time on? Find a way to NOT do that next week when you’re making your plan.
Likewise, you should be undertaking a regular review of your skills (including your personality, interests and values), how they fit for each firm you are approaching and whether you should be broadening the type of opportunities (or industries) where your skills could apply. This process of refining your understanding of how you “fit” or if you don’t is critical to your success. There are lots of skills assessment tools on the web or in books, make sure you’re regularly setting aside time to think about how you can use what you know in a different industry or position.
6. Try Something Different
The saying goes “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Has your job search looked the same for the whole time you’ve been doing it? You send resumes by email. You check job boards & apply to jobs. You email recruiters to ask if there’s anything new. Are you going to new networking events? Are you doing volunteer work? Are you reading the trade rags and then making calls to people about the deals they’ve done? Are you teaching something or writing about it? Diversify your skills, your network and revive your passion about something so it can rub off on your job search. Don’t be like Sisyphus rolling the same stone up the same hill day after day, it robs you of your enthusiasm which is critical to your success.
7. Take Care of Yourself
Get dressed (don’t do your job search in your pajamas!), exercise every day, make time to be with friends who make you laugh, breathe some sense of meaning into this process for yourself. Revamp your finances so you don’t have to be breathless with your back up against the wall. When you’re really burned out, take a break. Give yourself a vacation from your job search. Regroup and rethink what else you could be doing as your career. For nearly 20 years I have asked almost everyone I meet what they would do with themselves if money was no object. It gives tremendous insight into what you should be doing. Ponder that question and really discover whether there’s a way to be doing that (or at least a little of it) while you’re looking for your next job. It will help you to feel some sense of purpose and meaning and you might discover that money is not what’s keeping you from doing what you really want to do.
8. See the Big Picture to Stay Positive
I’ve learned to take the pressure off myself by not viewing any call or meeting as critical to my success. That doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re each important. It means that I keep them each in perspective. I look at every call, every meeting as an opportunity to build a relationship. I know that, in the long run, my success will come from being my best self with every person I talk to or meet. I think of every person I meet as being either a candidate, or a client, or one becoming the other, or someone who knows one or the other and as (and this is the most important piece) 15 interesting minutes of my day. In most every call or meeting I have each day, I find a way to connect with the other person on a meaningful level other than “what they can do for me”. I try to find a way to laugh, to empathize, to feel as though I am being of service to that person in that moment. I know that, in the end, it will all work out. My meaningful goal and its reward are those feelings of connection. Let this job search help you connect with your authentic self and with the people you’re meeting. Most jobs are filled with people who connect with each other and that can’t be bought at any price.
Denise Palmieri is the Director of Client Relations for Pinnacle Group International, an executive recruiting firm specializing in recruiting investment professionals for the private equity and alternative investment community. ”
