Obama’s Inspiration… and Regulation?

After watching Obama’s speech this week, I found particular parts quite compelling.  Among others, I found his perspective on entrepreneurs to be spot on, and quite exciting.  Fred Wilson found the same part of Obama’s speech particularly encouraging, and he highlighted the line below in a recent post to his blog, A VC:

 

“At the same time, the rest of us can’t afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit. That drive is what has always fueled our prosperity, and it is what will ultimately get these banks lending and our economy moving once more.”

 

Entrepreneurs are very encouraged by Obama’s open support, and I’m assuming that his policy will substantiate his rhetoric.  Thus far, we have seen an increase in government grants for seed stage start ups, and small businesses.  Let’s hope that the infusion of cash that the larger, failing companies are receiving, is mirrored, at least in spirit, if not financially in the start up sector.  Many of the companies receiving bail outs are old institutions in the US that employ many people, and preserving their existence seems vital to the short term stability of our economy.  On the other hand, stimulating entrepreneurs is a solution to growing new businesses, employing people in sustainable industries, and kick starting our ever slowing economy.

 

A report in VentureBeat today claims that the Obama administration is increasing standards on financial reporting for venture funds.  I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing; being clear about the health of your organization provides insight for your limited partners, investors, shareholders, and the like helps everyone manage expectation, and prevent widespread losses.  Although I’m for this sort of regulation, I don’t particularly care for the increase in taxation on VC and PE shops’ carry.  While I clearly understand that increasing this form of taxation provides a significant revenue stream to the government, VC and PE funds are investing money to generate a capital gain, quite literally, and I think this form of investment merits eligibility for the capital gains tax.  Moreover, many of my colleagues and friends invest many hours, and their own money, in their funds.  While they can make substantial gains, they often lose money on investments.  This risk should be recognized by the tax imposed on such gains.  

 

I’m still developing my thoughts on this topic, and am using this post as a starting point.  It certainly isn’t a simple, clear cut decision, but I think it warrants further research and discussion for sure.

Learning AdWords

I recently took and passed the Google AdWords Certified Professionals Exam.  It is great training for my first day at Clickable this Monday.  Clickable makes search advertising simple, instant, and profitable.  Be sure to check us out in TechCrunch earlier this month.

 

For all the entrepreneurs, business developers, bloggers, and whomever else can use the Internet to help your businesses (i.e., all of you), I would recommend learning as much as you can from Google’s AdWords Learning Center.  Perhaps it’s not worth your time to take and pass the test, but it’s certainly worthwhile to learn more about how one of, if not the most, successful Internet company makes its money, distributes ads across its search and content networks, and how you can quickly generate significant ROI.

Working effectively, and quickly

As I work to build and launch products, my intention is to make my partners’ work as streamlined as possible. Rather than speaking multiple times, passing several documents back and forth, and running through multiple iterations, I keep communication as direct, and smooth, as possible. That said, I think there are a few valuable takeaways from my recent work that will help us interact with our business partners and start-up teams in the future:

 

1. Do your homework – understand the market, what you want, how you want it, and what the team is capable of implementing.

 

2. Come prepared – make the lives of your teammates as simple as possible with concise communication. When in doubt, clarify further.

 

3. Organize the responsibilities – know who is doing what, and make it clear in one place, for all parties involved. Assign one person to each task, and of course, make sure this person is the best person for the job. Make sure timelines are achievable and consistent.

 

4. Speak candidly – ask questions openly, clarify to the best of your ability, and consult someone who will know if you’re unsure.

 

There are more takeaways, and as I think of them, I will update this post. I hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend.

Wise Advice

Fred Wilson’s blog, “A VC”, is one of the venture capital and entrepreneurship blogs I enjoy most.  His recent post outlines how living in the public, blogging in particular, can be fruitful when one follows a few simple rules.  I’ve been interested in starting JeffFernandez.com for quite some time now, and I think the guidelines Fred provides are particularly helpful:

 

“1. Keep your family out of it until they want to be in it

2. Be nice.

3. Demand that others are nice back.

4. Encourage the community to police the comments.  Early on Jackson was my “bouncer” and now Kid Mercury has assumed that role.

5. Take the nasty comments lightly and use humor to defuse them

6. Do not delete comments unless they are hateful to others, porn, or spam

7. Ignore the trolls even though it kills you

8. Be careful with photos.  The greatest lesson I got was when I posted a photo of me on vacation looking smug.  Bad move that I learned a lot from.

9. Give more than you take

10. Enjoy yourself.  Talking, discussing, and debating is fun.  Keep it that way.”

 

These make a lot of sense, and moving forward, I’m going to do my very best to follow them.

Can’t we all just get along?

Sitting here in a crowded Murray Hill diner, I can’t help but wonder why people in this city lack consideration for others.  Along with being rude, inhabitants of this tiny island appear downright mean, like modern day misanthropes.  Eating my eggs benedict and sipping my coffee aside, I was quite uncomfortable.  One couple spoke too loudly, another degraded the waiter, and a group of young women clucked away.  Oddly enough, I found the self absorption and lack of perception standard for our species, but there was one behavior they all had in common that felt out of the ordinary – when you make eye contact, they look smug, disinterested, or terrified.  Why are people are mean mugging each other in a random diner in Murray Hill?  I thought about this for about twenty minutes as I watched three couples and the group of girls.  As a new couple joined the mix, sat in the booth in front of me, and scanned the area with an anxious look, it became very clear.  We have no space; people are obsessed with preserving their physical integrity to survive.  As people entered and left, they looked 360 degrees around their bodies to be sure they were safe in their new environments.  We are surviving ever changing environments that are out of your control, and we have very few retreats.  Humans are animals, and when confronted with what feels like threatening circumstances, they react with hostility.  City dwellers beware, apply this dynamic from the diner to your homes, your offices, your hang outs, the streets, and we’ve got what feels like a war to protect ourselves.  Common decency?  Compassion for one another?  Being attentive to the needs of people around you?  Day-to-day niceties?  None of these more advanced cognitive processes can occur until we’ve increased our perception of our likelihood of survival.  If we want to make our city better, we need to find some space, feel more confidence in our physical integrity, and do it quickly.