I have been toiling off and on for the last 6 months or so to launch The Dog Patch Lab — a mixture of some great people, a cool loft space at Pier 38, and some fun mixers/events, all designed to foster the flow of people, ideas and opportunities in the early stage web.
We’re expecting to be hosting some fun stuff over the next few months, so stay tuned. In the meantime, go check out the Dog Patch Blog.
Categories: venture capital
The Economist has a good piece which puts the all the recent angst over the “death of the blogosphere” in context.
As with many other areas of innovation, the pioneers tend to claim a special claim to play in the sandbox they helped create. But when the sandcastles they build are successful and attract lots of others to come play too, their special little box loses the exclusivity and novelty it once held, and is no longer special. Actually, a pretty common social dynamic.
So while the embrace of blogging by the mainstream should generally be seen as an indication of the success of blogging and blogging companies, it is not so surprising that this success is found disillusioning to many blog pioneers.
Categories: venture capital
Here in the studio atMTVN for brainfood. Loving the view onto Times Square!
Categories: venture capital
I am in NYC spending the day with MTV’s leadership group at an event called “Brain Food.” The idea is that a handful of folks from around the digital business join the MTV folks for a series of discussions about where the digital landscape is heading. It looks like a pretty neat day of conversations – any of you who know me know I love the idea of pulling an interesting group of people together to consume brain food!
Some of the other folks participating include Jae Goodman (CAA), Roger Lee (Battery), Lance Maerov (WPP), Michael Montgomery (Montgomery & Co.) Ari Popov (Google), Randall Rothenberg (IAB), Mike Shields (MediaWeek) and Greg Smith (Ogilvy).
Although I am just in off the redeye and so a bit groggy, with another Starbucks tank-up, I am sure it will be a great day.
Categories: venture capital
I am a big proponent of launching a consumer web service, live in the wild, as soon as possible and then learning from how people actually use it. It is all too easy to get mired in product strategy and to try to get the product “just right” before putting it out there. But time and time again I see the best laid product plans totally dashed by what consumers actually do with it. There is no replacement for real live customer feedback; and because of this, you are always better off getting your product out in the wild early, and saving as much of your capital as possible for work that is informed by what actually works and doesn’t work.
Two of my portfolio companies are seeing this pan out in a big way. One launched several months ago and over the course of the last 8 weeks has seen emerge what we now see is the winning path to market. Another is just in the very early days of being live, and sure enough is learning lots of things that we never would have predicted standing in front of a whiteboard.
Categories: venture capital
Please excuse the vulgarity, but my sage friend Avram miller has a great idea: a social network for people you DONT like. Think of the fun you could have with that!
I am still chuckling. Although “two thirds done” (is 60) Avram has still got game!
Categories: venture capital
