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A backwoods, backward week off

July 31, 2006

I just spent a week at a family reunion up in Estes Park at the Lane Guest Ranch.

At the start of the week, I was excited to hear that they had a computer at the main lodge that had internet access. And, I was told - they even had wireless! It’s hard for me to go a week without email, even on vacation (I bet many of you are in the same boat).

There were only about 4 problems with this setup they had. First, the main lodge was a good half mile from where I was actually staying. Second, the wireless was restricted to port 80. That meant no VPN access and relegated me to webmail (good for reading, but not for writing if you ask me). Third, the wireless was super slow and often unreliable. Fourth (and probably the reason for the slowness), they were using DirecWay. Put simply, the sum of my experiences with DirecWay is that it sucks nearly completely. Service was coming and going all the time, with web page requests typically resulting in their “temporary” service interruption message in the clearest of weather. And I’m not bashing a Colorado company (I would never!) - DirecTV is partially based here but the DirecWay division was acquired by Hughes which is now based in D.C. That’s what I call an excellent export.

The result was that I was able to exchange only a few messages. It left me feeling like I was in an information blackout. It was almost like I was on vacation or something. Bizarre. I’ve blogged before about the surprising lack of decent connections in major European cities and even in Silicon Valley.

In any event, I did get 82 spam comments on the blog while I was away. At least the robots are reading the blog.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Boulder’s ClickCaster powering new ColoradoStartups podcast

July 20, 2006

I’d like to announce that ColoradoStartups.com now has a companion podcast. Each week, I’ll summarize the posts from ColoradoStartups.com on the podcast. I’m using Boulder’s own ClickCaster to manage and distribute the podcast. If you want to give it a try, go here (I’ll feature it more prominently some day).

ClickCaster is based here in Boulder. The site (at ClickCaster.com) allows you to easily set up a profile and start podcasting right away. What’s cool is that you’re able to do this directly through the site with no installed software. The site uses Java plugin technology to provide a basic voice recorder and manages the creation, hosting, directory and other aspects for your podcast. I was then able to take a code snippet ClickCaster provided and pop it into the blog at ColoradoStartups.com quite easily.

I recently met with Scott Converse, the founder of ClickCaster. We had a great chat about the company. Scott has a bunch of things going on. For one, ClickCaster is a pretty slick consumer facing site on its own. It’s a really easy way to add a podcast without having to deal with most of the related issues. This is similar in concept to the popular site Odeo. Both sites let you record, play, find, and generally manage podcasts.

What I really liked about Scott was his overall vision for ClickCaster. He’s figuring out how to monetize podcasting. For example, to gain an annual pass to a particular podcast, you may need to pay $10. ClickCaster provides the tools and hosting, and you can provide the content. ClickCaster manages this with a nice revenue sharing system. If you take that to the extreme and imagine major content providers, you start to see how this could turn from a small operation into a very large one. ClickCaster has begun walking down this path by signing a few deals with content providers and have launched a few branded portals already. This is a really clever way to monetize podcasting if you ask me.

Although the service is still a tiny bit rough around the edges, it’s still pretty easy to get going and to use. The only drawback to using something like this is that the recording tools are fairly primitive. You can record audio, but the editing tools are not there. Scott told me that we can expect some improvements in this area in the near future. I for one can’t wait!

Go and check out ClickCaster if you’re curious about podcasts. I think you’ll like what you see.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Will you get OutFoxed?

July 17, 2006

The rumor mill has Stan James as having recently closed an angel financing round of somewhere around $500k for Boulder startup OutFoxed. I wasn’t able to confirm that with Stan over the course of a few days (13 years in Internet time) so don’t count on that (perhaps Stan will comment).

OutFoxed has been alive since December of 2004 ( a few beers on Pearl Street now and then it seems). The company appears to just now be hitting second gear.

OutFoxed exists to let you “use your network of trusted friends to determine what’s good, bad, and dangerous on the internet.” (more here) For example, when you search on google the results can be annotated with reports from your trusted network (not just your friends, but the people they trust as well).

To me, this is a very interesting approach to trust management because it is driven by your social context. What’s good is what trusted people say is good.

OutFoxed does this not just with web sites, but with “anything that can be uniquely identified” such as files, processes on your machine, etc. Neat idea, if they get enough user participation and reports. This page gives you a sense of what the vision is.

OutFoxed is currently in a closed-beta. If you want to participate, lookie here.

UPDATE: Outfoxed is now Lijit.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Has it been two whole days?

July 17, 2006

One of the more frequent questions I get on my blog is “wow, are you on vacation or something? you haven’t posted in like 2 whole days!” It reminds me of when I was working on my first startup - if I didn’t answer an email sent at 10pm by 6am the next morning, people figured I had died or at least something terrible had happened to me.

When I started blogging on ColoradoStartups.com, I did a bunch of interviews with CXOs of the most interesting local startups I could find. I was posting every day or two. Sometimes I was blogging about startups that maybe weren’t all that interesting.

Now I’m quite a bit more picky. I try to only do a post when something is genuinely interesting to me. I’m running into more startups now than when I first started blogging, but I’m writing about less of them. I figure, in turn, it might just be more interesting for you that way. The last thing I want to do is bore you, after all. And the last thing you want is to be bored.

So I’m not going to post every day. I’m going to post when I have something relevant and interesting to say. I don’t think I have 365.25 genuinely interesting things to say about Colorado based startups each year. Well, not yet anyway.

One of the things I love about the web is how you can find supporting evidence for any belief you might have. Example: Blog post frequency doesn’t matter anymore. I rest my case and I rest my fingers.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 1 Comment 

We’ll miss you CreekPath….

July 11, 2006

Boulder-based CreekPath Systems announced today that it has been acquired by Opsware (NASDAQ: OPSW). Opsware has said that it will close the Boulder offices of CreekPath and relocate personnel to Redmond. Opsware has also said that it will discontinue sales and support for Creekpath’s Acuity product suite, as it looks to use the CreekPath technology as the basis of a future product offering in the storage automation space.

The acquisition was reportedly completed for just $10M following $55M in past venture financing for CreekPath Systems. As one might expect, the blogosphere simply yawned.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Like PhotoBucket needs more people flocking to it…

July 9, 2006

Flock + Photobucket

Denver-based PhotoBucket (previously covered here and here) is now offering a browser that makes it super easy to integrate photos more closely into your browsing experience. The browser is actually Flock, which is based on Firefox (lots of coverage on TechCrunch). You can view your photos in what’s called a “PhotoStream” at the top of the browser - sites like PhotoBucket and Flickr are supported. Images can easily be copied into the PhotoStream and then dragged and dropped into regular forms.


I just got around to trying it out. Flock also includes a pretty nifty photo-aware blogging tool (which I am using to write this post). It lets me easily drag and drop a photo from my PhotoBucket account into this post. You can see the result below. It’s much easier than the multi-step process that I was using before for things like this.

If you have a PhotoBucket account, I’d recommend that you head over to PhotoBucket and grab Flock. If you work with photos alot, it’s handy.



Blogged with Flock

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

The best of terms…

July 7, 2006

Since my recent post about The “On my terms” sheets, I’ve gotten a few notes from entrepreneurs asking about real term sheets, and which terms should be most important to them.

I’m no expert, so I want to point you to two excellent resources that I’ve used myself in the past.

The first is the simple, straightforward book called Term Sheets and Valuations. You can read it in an hour and it makes a great reference for the future. What I enjoyed most about it was that it was written for both the investor and entrepreneur audience, citing examples of investor favorable, neutral, or entrepreneur favorable terms in all cases.

The second resource is the Term Sheet Series on Brad Feld’s blog. Brad covers the common, obscure, and interesting terms that you might run across and gives you his insight and experience. And he mixes in plenty of F-bombs. ;-)

Some practical advice that I can give you as an entrepreneur is to first fully understand each and every term presented before you open your mouth. That mistake can really be damaging.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

The “On my terms” sheet

July 6, 2006

Sometimes people crack me up.

Lately, some of the companies I’ve been advising have been receiving “term sheets” from angel investors who are looking to take an active role in their company. These term sheets turn out to not be term sheets at all - they are contracts. And they yell loudly “I, the investor, win on all terms and on all counts.” These documents are not well intentioned and seem to be meant to play on the entrepreneur’s inexperience and desperation for money. I’ve seen some lately that provide terms (which I will attempt to de-obfuscate) such as:

The rip chord: “I will invest my own time and money, but if I can raise money on your behalf then I don’t really have to invest money myself. Oh, and I don’t really have to invest my time either.” Purpose: To take a big part of your company and see if it goes anywhere without necessarily having to commit any time or money.

The “it’s not my fault” clause: “I am the CEO and I can make any decision. However, I’m not really technically the CEO and you agree to hold me harmless for the decisions that I make, even if I run your company into the ground.”

The equal founder clause: “I am equal to all the founders. I have equal capitalization, and I can never have less equity than any other founder at any time in the future. This is true because you must assume that I am a God-like CEO who really can sell your company for millions in six months (like I promise to you but don’t write down anywhere) and even though I had nothing to do with your progress to this point, the idea, or the team you’ve assembled.”

The “I pay no taxes” clause - “You will cover the taxes on my capital gains which you are too naive to realize potentially makes me much more than an “equal founder” that I previously forced you to agree to.

What cracks me up is that this is never going to work. This “investor” has a strategy of finding companies with solid products but lacking in experience or the ability to go to market. He probably does have to ability to deliver some capital through his connections. But any entrepreneur who will ever make it in this world will surely consult his more experienced advisors. So the only remaining candidates for this ploy are stupid entrepreneurs with bad (or no) advisors, right?

A note to Entrepreneurs - Get good advisors in various disciplines who have verifiably done things that impress you. Your best advisors cover all of your weaknesses. Then use them before you make any major moves. Doing this one thing can save you a great deal of agony.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

id345 is keeping it real

July 6, 2006

Our buddies over at id345 must have been bored one night. That’s how long it took them to rip out the RealWorldSpotting.com mashup to track the movements of the cast of MTV’s “The Real World - Denver“. You can sign up for email or SMS alerts to be kept up to date with real time spottings of the cast. You can even text your own spottings to a special number which will update the site.

I’ve only met Danny (of id345) a few times but he’s clearly a guy that gets it. I want to take a second and talk about the business model presented by RealWorldSpotting.com. Take a look at the site for a second. Where are the ads that support the site? Where is the premium subscription service offering? Heck, the site is only half functional.

At first glance, a business model is nowhere to be found. One reason is that Danny and the id345 crew are smart enough to realize that ads and crap like that just don’t pay the bills unless you’re a top site. When you look at RealWorldSpotting, your impression is that it was done purely for fun. It wants nothing in return from you. It’s so half baked that it was clearly done by some kid at 4 in the morning (which appears to have been the case). It has the cool factor, and you wonder who did it and why.

The point is that people are talking about it (here too, and literally, here). You see, id345 can use something simple like this to create some mindshare that they are among the fastest, smartest, and brightest web geeks in Colorado. I’m not a big real world fan or user of the site, but it has worked on me. I bet it’s worked on you too, to some degree. id345 can shout at you from downtown Denver or can advertise in the yellow pages, but they won’t stand out in this lack of attention economy. Before you’ll ever work with or recommend them, you first have to have a reason to remember them, so they keep giving you reasons. Now you’ll think of them.

Hopefully by now you are asking yourself “So what is id345’s business model?” Well, they build web stuff, and they like to do it for a piece of the upside. They call it “idea consulting.” They’ll work with you if you have an idea (who doesn’t?) but need a business model, lack development talent or can’t afford to bring it in house.

Danny told me today that “It’s not necessarily just development that we offer. If someone comes to us with just the core of an idea, we can brainstorm and help solidify the concept. We can even help put a team together around their business.”

The only criticism that I can offer id345 on this is that they don’t make this clear on ther web properties. For example, RealWorldSpotting.com doesn’t lead you to the main id345 web site. And nothing on the id345 web site lets you know what sort of opportunities they’re open to exploring. You have to know Danny (or one of the id345 crew) personally to know that this is the case.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |