Now a site to help you plan your next career move

Interesting NYC based startup called Path101. These guys promote the concept of 'career discovery' as opposed to just being a job site. I think Careerbuilder, Monster and HotJobs all claim to help you plan your next career move, but they are nothing more than a collection of job listings. I'm not saying they're not important (in fact they play an important role acting as a bulletin board of sorts), just that they don't close the loop on job hunting. Path101 claims to be doing just that.

One punchline that stood out as I browsed through their slides was 'what do other people like you do?'. Neat. Just what people want. That's the reason why Facebook, MySpace and the gazillions of other social networking sites generate tons of user traffic - its because people (at least the new generation netizens) are always on the lookout for folks like themselves, and want to know what those people do!

Evil + Genius = Apple?

Wired's latest issue has a whole series of articles on Apple, Steve Jobs and the gamut of products prefixed with 'i'. The write ups talk about how Apple has violated every rule in the Silicon Valley play book and yet won the game (or rather, hence won the game). While the articles make for really good reading, they seem to miss the point.

The Wired guys mistake creativity and genius for arrogance and pomposity. Steve Jobs is arrogant, yells at his employees and sues kids who blog about Apple. So he must be a genius. Hmmm.

Here's my take ... Steve Jobs is a genius. He's probably the most creative guy alive. He's the CEO of two companies at the same time. He revived a dying company in the late 90's and got its products into everyone's hands. And not just any products, but products with sex appeal. Now that's genius.

The fact that Apple hasn't followed the 'don't be evil' mantra that so many startups are living by these days, has nothing to do with the fact that they are a super creative bunch. Its the quality of the product in the end that matters. As an end-user shelling out $600 for an iPhone and $400 for an iPod all I care about is that the product works as expected and looks cool. I don't give a rats ass who the CEO of the company is, what shirts and jeans he wears, whether he yells at his employees or whether he keeps all products behind closed doors before launching them. Sure, as a geek I'd like know what the Apple guys are up to next. But I'm also an end-user. And I dig gadgets. Cool, sexy gadgets. I love my iPhone and MacBook Pro.

Creativity and management don't get along. Saying that 'management style X breeds creativity' is a bunch of crap. It just doesn't make sense. Give credit where credit is due. And don't attribute it to anything else.

Search engine, Ads, online apps, VC

again, a long pause since my last post. either I haven't found anything interesting online to post, or I haven't been reading as much. ok, I admit it. I haven't been reading as much :-)

came across this article on businessweek. it talks about Google being seen as a the newest VC on the block. i've think i've mentioned this before but it was good to see it mentioned in businessweek.

its not hard to see that with a huge bank balance, Google would make for a good VC. the fact is that as per the businessweek article Google invests to the tune of $500k or less in promising startups. why then would a bunch of smart engineers with a brilliant idea agree to go with Google versus one of the big boys on Sand Hill? IMO, its the same mantra VCs use "We invest in the TEAM, not the PRODUCT". young companies today have a choice (aaah, doesn't that word just sound right?). the choice to be funded by a VC for huge sums of money, probably give up almost all of their company with it, and possibly not be acquired or go IPO. or be funded by Google, get acquired into the "best company to work for", work with the smartest geeks on the planet, all this while still working on the cool product they invented before they got acquired.

which would you choose?

web trends map

check out what the folks at Information Architects have done:




imagine if every VC had such a map on their desktops? visual representation of trends, not just on the web, but else where. maybe even overlay this with real time data like revenue, growth rate, etc? colors could represent 'hot' and 'not' ideas and companies?

this is good work. thanks iA!

steps to raise venture capital

'ten step' lists are always cool. they make daunting tasks seem doable. burnham's beat has captured a nice list of steps on how to raise money from a vc.

if any one has a similar list, please let me know, i'd like to link it off here.

it's not all fun

yeah it's been a while since i've posted. no excuses. i've been lazy, and postponed writing something meaningful in a while.

so about the title, i was at the Elevator Pitch Roundtable organized by VCTaskforce (I started as a volunteer there about a month back), and it was good to see things from both sides, i.e. both from an entrepreneur's and a VC's perspective. i've met with VCs in the past, presented to them, and fielded questions. sure i had my opinions ("how could they not like MY idea!", "they have no clue about the killer app i'm building", etc), but watching these VCs sit thru 9 one-minute presentations and offer critiques, i got a glimpse of what it must be like to be in their shoes. they probably go thru 3 times as many proposals every day. not an easy job. not when your competitor VC closed a deal 5 years ago with this internet company that's just gone IPO.

i thought to myself ... "it's not all fun". but hey, would it be worth the effort if it was :-)

so you wanna be a vc?

i should have posted these a while ago, but hey ... better late than never. i'm sure most of you have already read guy kawasaki's vcat (venture capital aptitude test). follow that up with will price's response to the test.

also read about kauffman fellow praveen sahay's how to on becoming a venture capitalist. granted there's a lot of obvious and generic points listed there, but its worth a read.

of course, search the web for anything related to becoming a vc, and you're sure to land on seth levine's how to. i know his 'step one' isn't very encouraging, but i guess that's the point - succeeding when there's no one cheering you on, or boosting your morale. "yeah you can do it" and "c'mon give it your best shot, and you'll make it!" ... that stuff is for college kids. this is vc land. and step one according to seth is "assume you will not be able to land a job as a venture capitalist"

gary rivlin has a write up on the same topic, but with a lot more real world examples.