I was first introduced to Gary Snoman last year and appreciate the folks at Blueprint Ventures adding him to my much anticipated holiday greetings. I think they tried to release this year’s version last week but it appears that the traffic was too much? Anyway, here’s the link to the ‘coming soon’ page. Last year’s below. Also check out this one from Labrador Ventures (via Andy Sack).
Month: December 2007
The best burrito in Seattle
No doubt is from Malena’s Taco Shop in the Queen Anne neighborhood. The place is small, quick, and really good. We lived in Queen Anne when we first came to Seattle and enjoyed the giant burritos from here often. Word of warning – one is enough to feed two..or you need to be really hungry as I was earlier. I made a trip over there today for an adobado burrito because I woke up with it on the mind. I am now very, very full.
Optimism and cynicism – starting a company is hard
Ok, so this video is old news by now but as someone who experienced one bubble in the past (anyone remember 98-01?), I find this a bit entertaining.
Building a company is hard. Getting venture funds may oscillate between impossible and ridiculously easy depending on the availability of said funds, but building a company is always hard.
The margins may be populated with soon to be killed off stupid company ideas funded by newly fashioned VCs but I love the innovation and optimism of all of this. I also love the Bay Area and its regional siblings but if you spend some time there or live there, get on a plane soon. Go to somewhere like St. Louis or Houston. Tell someone there about your "idea." See what kind of reaction you get.
A good friend told me a long time ago (thanks Greg Nicholson) something that sticks with me to this day. If you think you’ve got a business idea, what is it about it that would make someone take a dollar out of their pocket and give it to you for it. Not an investor…but a real customer…and ad revenue doesn’t (really) count.
The power of a great product demo
Thanks Michael for bringing this to my attention. This is a great video of a Boeing 707 doing a barrel roll over Lake Washington here in Seattle many years ago with narration by pilot "Tex" Johnson. It’s important to have a compelling demo and I believe this hits the mark. Just sellin’ airplanes sir…
Finally got my Xobni beta invite
Thanks to the folks at Xobni for including me! I loaded it tonight and will let you know what I think as I start using it.
A great time on Kiawah Island, SC last weekend
We made our annual pilgrimage to Charleston, SC last week for the Kiawah Island Half-Marathon. Marel and I have yet to make marathons our thing, but believe being able to run 13.1 miles several times a year will force us to stay in pretty good shape.
We always enjoy this trip and getting together with friends and family in the Southeast. It was difficult to leave Charleston on Sunday when it was sunny and 75 degrees for Seattle’s cloudy and 34.
Kiawah Island does a great job with this race including an ample supply of beer at the finish line. We also got to enjoy a few great meals in Charleston including Hank’s and Magnolia’s.
Oh…and if the guy on the 6am out of Seattle to Atlanta that refused to switch seats so my wife and I could sit together with our little one is reading this – thanks again.
A few SaaS facts
In my travels the past weeks, I spent about 36 hours in Las Vegas at the Gartner Integration Summit. I sat through a great SaaS presentation by Gartner analyst Ben Pring and wanted to share a few of my notes:
- SaaS-based
revenue growth = 22.1% CAGR thru 2011 - The first
wave of SaaS adoption was end-users, not IT - Next wave
will need an end-user AND IT message - The era of
the ship it on a CD, load it on a server enterprise software is over - ~65% of
Siebel licenses never in production before Oracle acquisition - ~55% of
Peoplesoft/Vantive licenses never in production before Oracle acquisition - 18% average
server utilization rate in the enterprise (Yikes!) - $1:$10
software to services ratio was good for the supply side(vendors) but not the
demand side (customers) - Large
enterprise software companies (Oracle, SAP) high gross margins are under threat
from upstart, pure plays (Salesforce.com) - Gartner believes SaaS is primarily a software
delivery and management approach that exists in an established market, such as
CRM or ERP
The last point is perhaps the most interesting when looking at software as a service in the enterprise. Salesforce didn’t have better features than Siebel, the just made it easier for end-users to access and use it.
I also sat through a great presentation on enterprise mashups by Anthony Bradley. Here’s some audio of his preso.
Light posting
Apologies for light posting lately. Have been doing a bit of traveling and working to get a few things done before the annual holiday "quiet period."
Venture Vice 