Archive for August, 2009
Back in July, we hosted a customer development workshop for some Polaris portfolio companies and Dog Patch Labs denizens, lead by Eric Ries and Sean Ellis.
Eric took content from his Lean Startup approach, and Sean from his 12in6 consulting practice, and they created a bangup workshop.
We asked participants to share feedback, and I thought I would share some of what we heard. The group greatly valued the concreteness of the discussion, and the favorite takeaway was “the iteration loop to finding product market fit and the real world example of companies testing product/market fit and pivoting until they find it.” The following two quotes sum up the group’s reactions:
“We gained a lot out of the event. It was really well suited to what we’re working on, and we’ve taken some of the strategies from the talk and put them to practice. Thanks for inviting us, and would love to attend future events.”
“Great workshop! I thought I’ve read all your blog postings but still came away very impressed.”
Thanks to Eric and Sean for a fantastic workshop. Stay tuned for word on other workshops this fall.
Like all the other social web geeks out there, I have been captivated by the notion that the social advertising revolution presents an opportunity to build the web’s next billion dollar business. Yes, I drank the Kool-Aid — whole damn pitcher of it.
But then my bubble would get burst and I would float back to reality when I speak with more level headed web media/advertsing types who would point out that all this buzz for social advertising was spinning out of what actually were meager experimental ad campaigns, and I’d start to feel like my web 1.0 brethren who couldn’t stop proselyting how their petfood.com portfolio company was going to be the next big IPO. I guess it is an occupational hazard that early stage VCs often get wildly excited about their investments — and often are wrong.
However, over the course of the last week, I noticed something. Many of those same damn sober-headed, straight-laced analytical types who typically burst my bubble are coming around to the view that the big brands are deadly serious about social advertising and are starting to allocate very real NON-experimental 2010 ad budget dollars to the category.
When you see both wild-eyed web zealots AND the bubble-bursters believing in something, then you know it is coming…right?
If July and August are any indications, the second half of 2009 is shaping up pretty nicely for the Polaris portfolio, especially considering we are in a recession. (Yes, this post is shameless promotion, but given the events of the last year I am not going to apologize for celebrating good news).
Fresh on the heels of the highly successful LogMeIn IPO in July, today our portfolio company Athenix is announcing that it has agreed to be acquired by Bayer Crop Sciences in a fantastic outcome for all parties.
Congrats to Athenix, and my partner Amir Nashat!
