Cerdafied...startups, people & the variety Hour

I need VP of Engineering

I need a VP of engineering as we set out for the next stretch of product deployments. There are like 5 new products so it's a good time for a mountain dew drinking, pizza eating, bags under eyes, hungry, execution-oriented pro.

Must have's:

-Consumer facing web services background
-SW dev process
-Thrives on weekly releases
-People management

We have lots of internal VoIP folks, so VoIP background isn't as critical. Mobile service background may be useful, but also not critical.

If you're jaded about voice services or skeptical about our opportunity to build the the people's directory, fuggettaboutit.

If anyone reading this is interested, call me and leave me a message with your interest and background. No bozos.

Technorati Tags: VP Engineering, Jangl

more fun with video

This is the Supernova 2007 Connected Innovators line up video. Scroll to 94:58 minutes

I was losing my voice that day, so was sounding sexy.

Technorati Tags: Supernova 2007, Jangl

I found my iPhone store...

I'm off to my annual pilgrimage to Puerto Vallarta Saturday. And given I'm on VZW, and given they don't partner with the Mexican wireless carriers anymore, I'm sans (or sin if se hablo) phone services. (My wife finds no problem with this). But I figure it would be good to have a phone, for safety and contact with our house sitter. Right? Oh damn, that means I'm going to have to change carriers, to say...AT&T. Oh, that means I have to go to the AT&T Wireless store. Coincidentally this thing called the iPhone is going onsale Friday. Maybe I'll pick one up.

READ: This is how a man justifies a gadget.

Ok, so I found an AT&T Wireless store that is very tucked in and hidden. I went in there tonight and no campers (although the chooch working there told me there were a couple girls planning to camp -- lucky for him). I'm optimistic that I might be able to, without much pain, drop by there around 9PM tomorrow and get my phone.

So not only am I going to Puerto Vallarta, but I'm going with an iPhone, AND I'm going to be able to use Jangl while I'm there. Odelay pues.

Technorati Tags: iphone, sayulita, a responsible family man

Widgets for widget sake?

There has been a ton of hoopla around widgets this past 18 months or so. There are like, widgets for everything now. Obviously the appeal has been the ability to arm your product with a trojan horse that can breed on the go, growing user bases on the coat tails of other networks. Sounds good, makes sense, but where does it end? Somebody, I say somebody, should take their products to the next level, and think more about integration and user experience, and less about inflating Alexa ratings and making profiles look busy.

If you're a widget maker, you're at the mercy of valuable real estate. You might be front and center, or you might be bottom left. Who knows. Who cares and for how long? I guess what I'm alluding to, is that if this is all you got, this is all you got. Unless you're in the top 5, you better have something else in the arsenal, else you risk being a flash in the pan, or a one-trick pony. Temporary love.

I'm sure any day now there will be a John from Cincinnati widget available. I could see it now, you click it, call a phone number on it, and speak a one-liner, then it repeats in back to you - just like John would. There's an idea.

-MC

Technorati Tags: widgets, john from cincinnati

The Demo Gods

A guy I know is trying to get his consumer mobile idea funded, and he's struggling with an age old issue... He's not far along enough to demo his product. The demo serves two purposes in an early stage pitch:

1. To show you can actually build something
2. To take the VC beyond his imagination, and into your world

If you're not far enough along to make this happen, you should generally get further along before even trying to fund raise. If you need more money pumped in, in order to get further along, maybe there's other places to get it. Banks, venture debt, relatives, old bosses, etc. Of course, there are well known seed investors out there, but they are shy on mobile deals I think. Some firms have partners looking at earlier stage stuff though, like George at CRV and Jason at Shasta for example.

If, and only if those aren't options, then you must build a kick ass simulation. Do it in powerpoint or keynote, or even better get it on one mobile device in this case.

I remember one time, a long time ago, I was setting out to build a VoIP box, which I could never build to prototype prior to funding. There were some software elements however, which we were able to stash on an off the shelf server, and ultimately demo our idea. We were sitting on the patio with a potential investor at the Border's on University Ave. in Palo Alto. We were plugging an off-the-shelf Grandstream box plugged into Border's electricity, and and using T-Mobile's wifi, and ultimately making a VoIP call to the person we were demoing to. The caller ID was supposed to show as if it was coming from Fremont, which it did. I learned later that my tech guy partner faked the demo. (Shame, shame). I don't recommend faking it, but if you have to, be up front about it and do it in the spirit of #2 above.

-MC

Technorati Tags: startups, fund raising, demos

Going to Supernova 2007? Let's talk.

I'm headed over to Supernova 2007 in San Francisco tomorrow night and Thursday, because Jangl was fortunate enough to be named to one of Supernova 2007's Connected Innovators, listed here.

What I find interesting about this roster is how few are really focused on phone stuff. Lots of apps, a few mobility plays, and absolutely none who are really marrying both.

Regardless, the roster looks impressive to me -- and Kevin Werbach and Michael Arrington and team (Jeanne, Kelly, Alex, and many more) have done a stellar job in making this year's show happen.

Like the rest of the Connected Innovators, I'm speaking between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Grand Ballroom, Westin St. Francis. All presenters get five minutes at some point during that period. But I'm talking privately with folks from 3 - 3:30 and then again from 5:30 - 6.

As usual, I'll have news to share on upcoming Jangl stuff, but will be ready to speak my mind, too. Imagine that.

Unfortunately (or not?), my time is already pretty slammed, but I'll always stick around for one more drink! Jangl me to arrange a time.

Technorati Tags: supernova2007, supernova

viral rationale?

Every web-based consumer company seems to make a bet on product virality these days. They often times confuse this with “network effect” or “word of mouth” attributes. The famous viral story of Hotmail claimed it’s stake on the hyperlink embedded into emails sent by Hotmail users. If I received an email with a Hotmail link, I might have linked to it and become a Hotmail user too. I didn’t catch the Hotmail cold because you sneezed on me. I didn’t become a Hotmail user just by way of receiving your email, necessarily. This was closer to digital word of mouth, than it was to being viral. I suppose viral equaled digital word of mouth back then. Although Hotmail became a viral poster child, it’s not really viral according to today’s standards.
So how do you rationalize virality when raising money for a startup idea?
I think lots of companies go in and say "here's our cool product, we can acquire 50 million users in a year, and we aren't going to do any marketing because we're viral". Well perhaps not so cavalier, but you know what I mean. The ol' "we engineered virality" line can be a tough pill to swallow. Any good VC needs to rationalize how the hell you might get users virally and without any marketing - no matter how much you believe it. So you need to have a financial model prepared, complete with assumptions and believable growth.
The model can't call for all 50 million users however. There's got to be a sweet spot. Something that's plausible. Reason being, you're being judged more on your thinking and approach to the model, than perhaps the actual numbers themselves. The better fitted funds for you will see the upside, and weigh their bets accordingly.

Technorati Tags: funding, viral marketing, startups

the close of B

OK, this story is arguably not as interesting as was our series A slugfest. Here's why... (Flashing back to June of 2006).

We met with some great firms, but we hadn't yet answered enough questions to slam dunk a deal. So we were looking for believers. Some of the folks we pitched to, such as Bob @ Benchmark and Kevin @ Accel were interested, and thought we were onto something. They weren't quite sure how big it would be yet though. As I've said, we were in a pilot with Match.com, offering a private label service, so ideally these guys would wait 90 days into the trial to place their bets. We knew we didn't want to spend all summer fund raising though. Anytime you have a real long fund raise, it's difficult to create momentum for a close. You tend to have micro rallies, but there is this notion of a half life of a deal, from the perspective of the venture guys. It gets stale. This is kind of why I always tell entrepreneurs to machine gun their push out to funding.

So I recalled that I had met this dude at the Dow Jones Wireless Ventures event the prior month. Check it out... I was sitting in the salon A or whatever it was, waiting for my turn to present. There was another guy presenting ahead of me. This guy was sitting next to me; I recognized him from somewhere. Ah, got it. He's the guy from the new Showtime Show called Sleeper Cell (not really...he just looks like him). Here's the guy from Sleeper Cell:

File that for a sec.

So I pulled up iTunes to look up Sleeper Cell. I leaned over to the guy next to me and said, "Hey man, is this you?"

He laughed. That's when I met Christian Borcher from Cardinal Venture Capital. Here's what he looks like:

Funny eh?

Ok, so we exchanged cards, and he extended an invite to meet when we're ready to fund raise. I took him up on that. Ben, Pradeep and I went and pitched Christian as well as former Benchmark guy Chris Hadsell.

Chris didn't resemble any of the Sleeper Cell gang, so I knew I was safe.

The two guys collectively really embraced our story, and had recent mobile deals as well as look at the other new voice deals, so they had their heads around the space. They also weren't afraid of the direct-to-consumer business. I knew inside the one meeting that I could work with these guys.

Within a couple weeks the term sheet was on the table and we all came together. All in, series B took us a month to close. That's much sweeter than, um....8 months. I was able to go on my annual family vacation to Mexico, and enjoy it. For the first time in years, I had that feeling you got as a kid on the day after school got out for summer.

Technorati Tags: cardinal venture capital, funding, jangl, startups

The Police in Oakland

....I thought this day would never come. Aside from Andy's rough chops, it was a great show. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure everyone I know socially in the Bay Area, was there. Everywhere I went i saw someone I knew. The phone was blowing up the entire time. Lots of wer u @? txts.

Technorati Tags: the police

"This is some of the best branding I've ever seen I think."

continuing the short segment on Jangl's series B funding in mid '06....

We went in and met with Bob Kagle at Benchmark. We'd seen Bob at series A, but there wasn't enough proof we were on the right track - so we hoped for another shot. Bob has a way of making you feel comfortable when you come around. I've said it before, I always get a good feeling when I go into Benchmark. I've yet to have success there, but I like the place. The receptionist once made me an energy drink of some kind even...

Bob was very embracing of our progress, and even got excited about our brand look/feel. We had recently changed our name from Buzzage too, so that was all fresh on us. That was all nice to hear from a guy that had done so many companies over the years.

Anyway, it came down to Bob getting warm on the deal, but wanting to hang out a while and see what direction the pilot takes. That's a fair reaction - wait and see. Of course, we would have loved to wait and see too, but we had to get the show on the road. Bob was holding, and we were spreading the wings out a bit. Whenever a VC wants to wait and see about anything, the entrepreneur tends to ask himself "Gee, is this the venture business or a bank?" Of course that's easily said to oneself. The other side of the coin is that the VC has huge deal flow, always looking at good companies, always having to separate the ones that matter and the ones that don't. The good ones always recognize sometimes they miss out too. It is after all a numbers game right?

Technorati Tags: benchmark, bob kagle, funding, jangl