The Web and the World of Business

I just love the Stocktwits Macro Weekly. Gregor Macdonald of Abnormal Returns writes it and this week sums up some pretty important points.

This last week the Federal Reserve finally gave in and admitted that the economy wasn't where it was supposed to be: high unemployment, US budget out of control, stimulus that wasn't stimulated without the US Government pumping more money into our economy, creating pretty much an unsustainable loop. That took interest rates on US Treasuries to record lows and the stock market didn't like that either. Too bad you optimist stocktraders - it still amazes me that anyone can think that recovery can happen with so many people out of work. Who is going to spend money if they aren't making any money? Duh!

We're in for a long haul here. Double dip, single dip, whatever. The economy sucks and now the general population is pulling back its spending after realizing that things weren't getting better even as the Fed was blowing sweet smoke our way. If people keep spending less, then how can businesses make money? So they are pulling back also and not investing as much. And the cycle continues.

But what this means for startups is...it's harder than ever to make money. Back in my post, Mark Fletcher at Startup2Startup and the Evolution of Startup Business Strategy, I noted how Mark smartly adjusted his funding and operating plan based on the environment at the time. He noted three stages that he had raised money and built startups in; now I believe we're entering into yet another stage. This is because we're in an economic downturn AND I believe there is a serious bubble forming in internet only startups.

What's a startup to do?

Raising money doesn't seem to be a problem. If you have a star team and a decent idea, you can woo one of the many super angels or micro VCs. They are all operating on the strategy of investing in what I call "exploration" which is to give you enough money to leave your job and then work for a year or less and see if you can get anywhere. Regular angels can also be part of this effort, although I'm sitting on the sidelines (see my bubble post).

However, if you want this to NOT be a 6-12 month sabbatical into the world of entrepreneurship, at the end of which probability says you're gonna be left without a job because you couldn't get your idea developed into a business, you're going to have to do things a little bit differently.

Item 1: The general population is pulling back in spending.

This means either whatever product or service you're making has to be EXPONENTIALLY better than the competition or else you'll never get enough users on board to pay for your service. INCREMENTALLY better might have worked when there was no bubble in internet only startups or in an economically better climate. But now you'll have next to zero chance.

Corollary: Go for revenue from the get-go.

Going for revenue has been talked about extensively, but I still meet entrepreneurs with no notion of monetization. Now that the available pool of consumer cash is shrinking, the fight for their cash is going to be even more fierce.

Item 1a: Businesses sense the consumer pullback and they are pulling back too.

The pullback trickles through businesses to your B2B startup. Internal budgets are tightening up as companies conserve cash as they don't know where the economy is going to go. So building something EXPONENTIALLY better for them is critical too, rather than incremental improvements on what's out there.

Item 2: Competition is ridiculous.

Corollary: Instead, tackle a business that NOBODY ELSE is tackling.

This is a serious problem of the bubble. Competition pops up everywhere. To me, the unsexy is in, as these are the last bastion of untapped areas where the internet can go and disrupt. But still people want to make photo sharing and social networking just a little bit better. Too many people tackle the sexy problems and not enough of the unsexy problems.

The other areas besides unsexy are completely untapped business opportunities. Yes, it's tough to find these. But still, I meet entrepreneurs who have found them. If they can find them, why can't you? No more social networking photo sharing apps please! Nobody said entrepreneurship was easy; it's damn hard to find business opportunities that are completely untapped.

Item 3: Users are bombarded by too many services AND now they have less money to spend. Likewise, for businesses, their budgets are being cut.

Corollary: One year is not enough, two is barely enough, maybe need more time. Startup austerity is IN now more than ever.

Still people are raising for one year. I can't see how anyone in this climate can get to any kind of breakeven in one year. Of course there are always outliers, but most of the ideas I meet won't get there in a year. I have been telling people to plan for two years (remembering there are two levers here, what you raise and what you burn) but with the economy the way it is, I am wondering if even two years is enough. It seems that our super smart folks in the US Government aren't doing the right thing to truly stimulate the economy, and I say that knowing the trying to drive the economy is not an easy thing (and especially cleaning up the mess created by all our nice lobbyists, politicians, and Wall Street greed). It's going to take years for us to get back on track, now that the inertia of consumer confidence is moving downward.

No matter what, austerity in spending whatever you raise is going to be even more important. You need to survive as long as possible, giving yourself the maximum amount of time to try things and to pivot several times if necessary, and along the way praying that the economy is going to come back.

But it's obvious to me that many entrepreneurs are unwilling to go into starvation mode for that long. All I have to say is, good luck to you and let's talk at the end of a year after your raise.

Item 4: More entrepreneurs keep piling into the internet space.

Corollary: Radical idea: Try creating a startup in another space besides the ultra crowded space of internet only startups.

You have strong entrepreneurial desires? Then why try to build a business in an industry where everybody who wants to be an entrepreneur is piling in en masse? I am getting connected to startups in other industries and there are some really interesting things going on out there in the world beyond the internet. In my bubble post, I posted about an emerging space that is hardware plus software plus internet - what other spaces could use your entrepreneurial energy to go and disrupt? Are there any industries that are adjacent to what you learned in school, or where your interests are, or where your previous experiences lie? How about another location where there is growth like another country?

Someone once said to me that in times of economic distress, there were tons of opportunities and investing in these times could yield some amazing results as long as you reserved some capital to do so. These are definitely some interesting times as an angel investor. Like Mark Fletcher, I am doing the smart thing by watching the economy closely and adjusting my investing strategy based on the conditions of the environment at the time. More entrepreneurs could do better by applying this tactic as well.

DISCLOSURE: I am not a direct investor in Stocktwits but rather an indirect one through my investment in betaworks. I love what they do, so go and sign up for Stocktwits newsletters and read everything they send you.

"There's something f%$@#! up about every early stage startup..."

- Andy Weissman, @aweissman, betaworks

About 2 years ago, Andy Weissman over at betaworks made that statement. I thought it was funny at the time, but 2 years later, I have found that statement to be one of the most profound I've heard.

Since then, I've met a constant stream of early stage startups. Every one has something wrong with it; the idea, the founders, the competition, the funding plan, whatever. Sometimes there are multiple things wrong with them. I don't think anybody has come with an idea and team and plan that was perfect. In fact, I think it's impossible.

At early stage there are too many variables. That is why the risk of failure at early stage is so great. You don't have enough of...everything...or anything...to properly pursue a business idea. And then there are the things that are totally out of your control, such as economic or competitive forces. These things will swing every which way and there is nothing you can do about it...and tanking your startups along the way as you look on with frustration and helplessness.

If you fixate on what is wrong with early stage startups, you'll never invest. It's way too easy to find something wrong with one.

Some of those I take as a given. For example, in the internet space there are tons of young founders who have never been at another job in their lives. But the idea is great, and we love their energy and creativity so we bet on them knowing at some point they may need to step down as leader of their businesses...or we'll get into a painful argument with them about why they need to step down and they don't want to. Sometimes we bet on these people simply because they are smart and theoretically smart people will adapt/pivot their way to success better than not-so-smart people, even though they lack real world business experience.

Some of those I know we will have to fix later. Whether we are willing to put in the effort to fix them later is another question; many investors hope that there is someone who gets involved who has the time and desire to watch over things. The need for a new, more seasoned CEO is one of those; perhaps the strategy needs to change, or somebody isn't pulling their weight in their functional area, or can't grow into a more expanded role.

Still, the number of f%$@#! up things any early stage startup has can be a scary thing. It took me a while to understand this and then just live with the fact that there are going to be things really wrong with every startup I meet and then fund. For me, it's become a game of which f%$@#! up things are you willing to put up with, how many are OK with you, and why.

Accepting the fact there are going to be f%$@#! up things about early stage startups is critical; if you can't live with that fact, you probably shouldn't be investing in early stage. It may drive you nuts.

Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Robinson IV of RRE Ventures (twitter: @jdrive). In our conversation, he mentioned something I thought was super important, which was that successful investors also diversify across time, in addition to diversifying their investments.

I thought that this statement was extremely important and something that is commonly not done at all, and dangerous to ignore.

What is Time Diversification?

Time diversification is:

Adjusting your strategy based on what is going on in the economy at the time.
Learning from what worked and what didn't in previous economic cycles, and applying those principles to where we are today.

Investing the right way for where you are today in an economic cycle and doing it across multiple economic cycles. The second part of this statement is hard for those investors who have not been doing this long enough to experience multiple cycles.

Why Time Diversification?

The main danger of not time diversifying is if you go out the gate strongly and put a sizeable percentage of your funds in a short amount of time, you may end up getting caught by the negative aspects of a given part of an economic cycle.

Anyone knows that predicting what will happen in the economy is near impossible. Famous economists' track records on predictions are pretty dismal. So the only thing you can do is to spread out your investments across time and try to ride whatever upside is going on today while mitigating risks of the downsides that appear along the way.

But if you put out all your money in a short amount of time, you could end up investing at a time when there is a downturn right around the corner which could crater your current investments and leave you with little cash to recover. Think about all those investors who raised funds in 1999 or 2000 and put money into companies who had stratospheric valuations, only to see them disappear as the dotcom bust wiped out all that value in late 2000.

Or you may miss an upturn by investing in yesterday's downturn driven investment strategy.

So ideally, your strategy will be affected by time diversification. For example, prior to the 2008 economic downturn, we were investing in startups who were building for users primarily and on the assumption that if you get users, you'll eventually find a way to monetize. This strategy began to kill startups as we entered the downturn because:

1. Startups needed a longer time to generate revenue, and needed to survive a longer time to do so.

2. Startups' burn rate was too high and they ran through money before they could get revenue or raise the next round. Many entrepreneurs were unwilling to give up their lifestyle and lower burn and thus died accordingly.

3. Prior to the downturn, startups could go raise their next round on little revenue but decent traction and great, quality product. As we entered into the downturn, investors became instantly conservative and if you didn't have traction AND revenue after the seed round, your chances of getting funding dropped to zero.

Thus many of us changed our strategy and started looking for startups who could survive and gain early revenue to survive long enough to create a sustainable business model. This ended the popularity of consumer internet startups focused on interesting user activity and caused a rise investing in B2B startups, and those consumer internet startups who could build an early business model based on making money off users.

As economic conditions change, we should examine where the economy is at that time and what the conditions tell us about how we invest, and what we should invest in. Timing it is near impossible, so we hope that adjusting our strategy over time, taking our lumps if we don't act fast enough, riding the upturns when they come can help us keep our returns in the positive.

Why Do People Ignore or Don't Time Diversify?

Some reasons why people ignore time diversification, or don't do it:

1. Naviete - Simple lack of knowledge that this is important can mean that someone didn't think about time diversification. Or they may have learned about it in school but wasn't aware of its importance, and thus forgot about it. Or didn't know how to integrate it into their strategy.

2. Lack of real world experience - Humans learn best through experiencing things first hand. Many people simply haven't been through enough economic cycles to know what to do depending on where they are in one. That's why talking to guys like Jim Robinson IV is so valuable because they've been in it since before the dotcom boom.

3. Irrational exuberance - Especially in periods of upturns, it can seem that you can do no wrong. Think about between 1995-2000; investors in the early part of that period made tons of money and, as Jim puts it, we all looked like geniuses no matter what we did. Or it could be a period of investment flurry, like what I believe is happening now where lots of internet startups are being funded left and right; you feel like you have to get in or else miss out. So during periods like these you may experience irrational exuberance and thus invest fast to try to get at as many deals as possible because you don't want to miss out. The problem is that you ignore the fact that your funds are also dwindling fast.

4. Conversatism kills - Venture investing in particular is a risk taker's game; you really have to be out there investing constantly in upturns and downturns (which is partly the reason for this post). If you're a conservative risk taker (yes I think such a person exists!) and you wait until you're "sure" that you're in an upturn, OR you get in a downturn and pullback after the downturn begins, you're always going to be investing at the peaks and pulling out in the valleys.

5. Economic cycles can be very long - In fact, long enough that an entire generation may no nothing but incredible growth and prosperity. This was experienced in the period between 1982 and 2000 where the S&P 500 rose from about 100 to an intraday high of 1552.87 in 2000. Those growing up in a period knowing only growth have not experienced downturns and thus we can get fooled that value of our investments will always rise.

What to Do?

Some thoughts on what to do:

1. Pace your investments. Don't get caught up in having to invest in every deal that comes along. It may seem that every deal is super hot and can't lose, but experience tells me that everything looks hot but the probability of success is very low.

2. Be disciplined in the amount of money you invest in each company. Do not get over-exuberant and start making bigger bets in the beginning. Look at the total amount of money you have and make it stretch across many years. Pick an investment size that allows you to do this. I made this mistake in the first years of my investing. Originally I thought that I should do $50K investments. That drifted upwards quickly as I got caught up in the excitement of being involved in deals to $100K. But now, I am down to $25K chunks in an attempt to still be involved but not run out of funds. Just think back to the number of investments I could have made if I had stuck with $50K, or even $25K, if I had not done $100K chunks. For each $100K startup, I could have invested more broadly into two $50K or four $25K investments. Another danger of going out with too high investment sizes is that you may pick a lot of losers, or get caught in an economic downturn. Then recouping your investment gets harder.

3. Be a student of economic history and do not ignore it. The first big downturn I lived through was when the first Bush invaded Iraq. It was a tough time but it didn't hit me too hard as I had a job. The second period was the dotcom boom-bust. That was much more severe; having been at Yahoo, I saw our stock climb to amazing heights in 2000, only to watch them drop to amazing lows by the end of the year. There was a time when we all thought naively that the run up in internet stocks would never end. We even snickered at those who left Yahoo in 1999 or 2000 and cashed out at "such a low stock price" of 150. Now who had the last laugh? There is nothing better than first hand experience of such events and looking at the dumbass thinking we had back then. Lacking that, all I can say is that you should read a lot, talk to a lot of people, and take lessons from those who have lived through these times. I would also caution you to really watch out for books which were written for a given period. I remember reading about real estate investing and how buying houses was a great, no-loss wealth building strategy. Well, now look at where we are with that. Examples abound everywhere; be careful what you read and add it to your knowledge base.

4. Invest when times seem bleak - It is scary to be putting money out in times of economic downturns. However, these are times when bargains can be found. You also don't want to miss the next run-up in the markets by waiting too long.

5. Resist the temptation to be over-exuberant - It is tempting to try to chase all the hot deals going on at any time. However, in the last 4 years of investing, I have never seen a time where there WEREN'T hot deals around. I doubt that will change anytime in the future, so be disciplined and keep to your strategy.

6. Track valuations from the marketplace. - Keep track of them and watch out when the valuations start climbing. It is a signal that something is going on. It is not necessarily a bubble forming, but it could be. Most likely the competition for the deals has become fiercer as more money has become available in the marketplace for investment into startups. I would develop a limit to the valuation you are willing to stomach, no matter what the deal is and stick to it. Be flexible to violate the rule if you find something that you really like because you may want to get involved for reasons other than the valuation being too high.

What am I doing? Tracking the economy closely. Seeing what the government is doing, or not doing, or doing a crap job of. Keeping my ear out on what's happening with valuations. Talking to venture investors and angels who are out there investing actively. I meet regularly with my financial planner and listen to what he is seeing out in the marketplace. I also talk to the entrepreneurs and see who is geting funded and why, as well as those that didn't get funded. And then who got bought, or just went IPO, and how/why. It's an immense amount of information but all of it is interrelated and affects what I am doing now, how I do it, and what I will do in the future.

OK I admit it. I'm reposting and expanding upon a comment I left on Paul Kedrosky's blog post The Coming Super-Seed Crash. But whenever I write a lot, it just seems like such a shame to leave it hidden in somebody else's post, somewhere else on the web...

Paul talked about how there was going to be a crash of super seed funds. I'm not sure I agree with that. There simply aren't enough of them to characterize some sort of bubble. I think the issue is more about what they're investing in, which at the moment is mostly internet startups.

To recap my comment, which was in response to Chris Sacca's comment, and also to continue this post and to add to my thinking:

...But somehow, perhaps this discussion shouldn't be about the super seed funds. To me, they are employing the correct strategy in the climate of (mostly) internet startups that they are investing in, which is there are too damn many of them and how does one pick the right one(s)?

I think all these point to a big internet startup bubble forming, in which angels whose limited resources will get them caught in a bad place where the majority will find it hard to even make their money back. The super seed funds will do well and be profitable because they can bet widely. A sizeable portion of their portfolios will either die or reach small biz status, but they will find their Google(s) to win back all they've bet and then some.

Remember also that my viewpoint is that of an angel investor whose spent the last 4 years investing in consumer internet, and then the economic crash hit, at which time I started switching to internet B2B startups, and now I'm very much souring on internet only startups (I'll explain "only" in a moment). I don't have the resources of a super angel and certainly not that of a super seed fund. I must deploy my limited resources much more carefully since I'm aiming for cash return in addition to investing for entertainment value. So to be more careful, I must choose wisely.

But choosing wisely among the plethora of internet startups who want users to check-in, share, chat, social network, connect, real time blah blah blah - it's all becoming a blur to me. I can't tell what's really going to become big or not. And I'm not sure all those customers surfing the internet can either.

So with respect to internet only startups, I'm starting to sit on the sidelines. Occasionally some gems will pop up and I will try my best to get in those rounds; these are startups who:

...have almost no competitors
...are making money from the very beginning
...are making something so powerful/unique/cool relative to what's out there
...are disrupting some old business that everyone else has missed

Sound familiar? Old style VC looked for these businesses and bet big on them because of these attributes and more. But most of the internet startups I see today are just rehashes of the same old. That's OK - given the intense variability of the startup world, I've seen stuff that I never thought would work go big, and stuff that had the best laid plans and apparent opportunity go down the tubes. Still, it's not something I want to dabble in any more like I did so I'm sitting on the sidelines unless something comes along which really satisfies metrics like those above.

I do have a new emerging thesis though. Remember I said "internet ONLY startups"? I believe there is something unique and emerging in the hardware plus software plus internet space. Once I get my thoughts more ordered on that topic I will post on that for sure.

Just recently, the concept of social proof as a reason for investing has come up again. It first came up when I was giving the Angellist guys some feedback on their referral system. In their emails, there is a prominent section dedicated to social proof and details the other usually-prominent investors and advisors who are investing and have endorsed the startup. But I complained back that in my experience, social proof can be a dangerous reason to invest in a startup, as much as it can lend support to an idea.

Here are some reasons why social proof can be a great thing:

1. Presumably, if a smart investor has committed funds to a venture, then he has researched it and think it is something he can make money with, or else why would he toss away his funds on something that won't?

2. Previously mentioned smart investor might be someone who has more experience than you, so you rely on someone else's expertise to help you decide. Or it may be an area where you may have no experience in, but you want someone who does have experience to endorse it.

3. If a lot of smart people invest in something, then the additive effect of a lot of smart people agreeing can lend support to a particular venture.

Now here are some reasons why I hate social proof:

1. Investors like to invest with others that they like. So they tend to travel in packs and herds (ie. think "herd mentality"). Thus you may have a lot of smart investors, who hang with other smart investors normally, who just invite their friends into a venture. The only thing is, sometimes these smart investor friends just trust their other investor friends to bring them worthwhile ventures and they may not have thought through exactly how good or not good a venture is. Given this, it may mean that item 3 in the positive aspects of social proof is an illusion because the group of smart investors endorsing it may actually all be following one or two of them.

2. There are a lot of guys out there who are angel investing that are more rich than you or me. To them, $50K or even hundreds of thousands of dollars are mere blips in their wealth; it's like if I pull out a $20 bill and give it to you and not really care if I get it back. When your mindset is driven by the fact that you can give out large amounts of money and not have it affect your lifestyle in the slightest, it can really alter your decision process on how you pick startups, and how rigorous you may be. It can very well mean that you're just happy getting involved in some really cool thing and want to have bragging rights, more so than being really focused on monetary return. It can also mean that there is huge entertainment value realized from being involved, and that they just want to be a part of something cool. How do reasons like that match with your strategy of investing?

3. Following on 2, this can apply to venture funds even more so. They have tons of cash to deploy and are perfectly willing to take on risky ventures since it's their core business. A fund does not have to have positive outcomes in many of its startups in order to have a sizeable turn for the fund itself. So they can and will take chances on ventures that could be hugely risky across a wide set of measures and be OK if it dies. But where will we be if the investment fails...?

4. If you follow someone’s investment, you really have to be wary of WHY THEY ARE INVESTING. I have encountered the case where I saw a prominent venture fund individual put his money into a startup. The entrepreneur touted that fact and it did seem to lend some credence to the venture. However, when I talked to the prominent venture fund individual about the investment, I found that he invested mostly because he knew the guy personally and wanted to support him so he invested mainly because of that...and also because that item 2 above enabled him to invest a seemingly large part of the small round and he was OK with that. Do you want to co-invest alongside someone who is in reality just supporting someone he is close to and not really thinking as deeply as he should about the business and the opportunity?

5. By the way, it can often seem like because there are smart investors in a round, that when the startup needs help they will jump in to lend a hand. However, I have also found that this is not necessarily true. Many smart investors are very busy people. They may have many companies in their portfolio. Their time is very tight and they may not have time to help in depth with all their startups. They may be forced to focus on only those that are the winners and everyone else doesn’t get much attention. Or worse, if a venture starts going downhill, I’ve also seen them just be left to die; after all, if this one dies, these guys still have many others who can benefit a lot more from their help versus trying to spend your time rescuing those who will die and for little return on their time investment. It is ruthless, but true; sacrificing the losers will mean that focus on the winners will mean they will make back their money and then some. However, if you haven’t invested in every startup that a smart investor has invested in, you may end up investing in a lot of losers and that sucks!

So while it may seem social proof can be beneficial, and in many cases it can be, it is also very bad to invest blindly using only social proof. My advice would be to do your own homework into those startups you want to invest in, and don’t just follow the herd. The herd you’re a part of may turn out to be a herd of wild, strong mustangs led by a dominant horse who can lead you to safety and success....or your herd could suddenly transform itself into a herd of lemmings about to follow the leader right off a cliff.

Today, I hopped on the Metro North to New Haven and met the summer startups in Yale's summer incubator program which is put on by the Yale Entrepreneurship Institute (YEI).

YEI's mission is to help students create successful new businesses from the ideas that students originate themselves and those that are part of Yale's University research. Applicants are vigorously screened and those who enter the program work on their ventures for an intensive ten weeks. During those ten weeks, industry mentors talk about and teach them entrepreneurship. This is actually not a class but a full time job, so those entering the program receive a stipend for the ten weeks they are in the program. You can see this year's teams, as well as previous years' teams, on their website.

They asked me to talk about advisors (and mentors) since I do that as part of my work with David Shen Ventures, LLC. Here is my presentation:

It was great visiting Yale and being part of the program (the last time I was there was back in 1982!). I was very happy to get home, however, because apparently a tornado touched down in Bridgeport RIGHT ON THE TRAIN TRACKS AND ON TOP OF THE TRAIN BEFORE MINE and caused us to delay. YIKES...

Very excited for Goodrec/Mob.ly, who got acquired by Groupon just recently.

We celebrated last Thursday at Bruno's, a bar in the Mission:

The upstairs party room can complete with two brass poles. I kept wondering if some exotic dancers were going to show up:

Everyone looked happy, and after a few drinks were even happier:

Congratulations again to the Goodrec/Mob.ly team!

(originally titled, "Forcing Incubator Companies to Get Paying Customers"...changed the title because it bugged me that it was unclear --DS)

I had the pleasure of helping out at the Stanford d.school's Launchpad class this last quarter. It was a graduate level class which was the first incubator class offered by the design school (a.k.a. d.school) whereas the "b school" (business school) and the "e school" (engineering school) both already had entrepreneurship classes involving creating new businesses.

The class was taught by Perry Klebahn, a classmate of mine from when I was in the product design master's program way back when, and Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal, an early stage venture fund. They interviewed about 60 applicants and accepted 12 into the class. The goal of this class was to teach entrepreneurship from the design school's perspective, and their major objective was to sign up paying customers by the end of the class in 10 weeks. Those that did were reported to get an instant A in the class!

Those entering the class mostly started from nothing. So imagine the pressure to develop an idea into a business model and a product that was good enough for customers to want to pay for in as little as 10 weeks!

Certainly Ycombinator drives its companies pretty hard over the 10 weeks or so during the time they are in the program. Every other incubator program does similarly to its crop of startups.

But they have a slightly different goal than what the Stanford Launchpad class had. There was no requirement that their startups develop a product AND get paying customers; the only objective was only to launch, and hopefully convincingly enough to raise a round of cash to keep going. There was no emphasis on racing to a proven business model in the allotted time.

I find this very compelling in this day of economic crises, and as an angel investor trying to find great companies to fund.

Too many startups come into being with no concept of a business model; they aim to get users and drive towards that and hope that a business model falls into their lap along the way. The problem with this approach is that, at early stage, you don't have enough runway to try a few things and see what can work. You are extremely time constrained given your bank account and you have to race to making revenue as soon as possible.

Granted, this could have worked pre-economic crisis. Many startups were raising their second rounds on the promise of a business model and a strong user base. Sadly, those days are gone; without revenue, it would be extremely hard to get another round today. Investors just think that either you and/or your idea have failed.

As an early stage angel investor, I invest in the riskiest time in a startup's life. After having seen a lot of my companies trying to employ the "race for users" model and then failing to raise more money, or not raising enough initially, I really like the fact that someone is forcing startups to find customers who will pay for their product or service. This at least proves that there is some validity to whatever business model they are pursuing and increases their survivability with incoming revenue.

How would this be implemented with an incubator program? I think there is one big hiccup which I have not completely solved, or more accurately, is solved only in the context of university setting. This is the reward for being successful in the task of finding paying customers.

For a class of students, their reward is only at the end of class when they successfully find paying customers: they get their A.

For an incubator program which typically invests a small sum of money for a small piece of the company, a big portion of the reward has already been given. How would we incent them to go for a lofty goal of finding paying customers if they already have their reward in hand?

Some ideas:

1. You give them the initial money and let them run. Then you commit to investing a second chunk only in your startups who find paying customers after the time period.

2. You could set loose the entrepreneur teams without funding for 10 weeks and then only fund those at the end who find paying customers. In many ways this parallels what happened in the Launchpad class with students.

3. You could give them their initial money and then only allow those who find paying customers to present to investors at the end. Those who failed are cut loose and left to fend for themselves.

Are there other ideas?

I would love to see some of the incubator programs incorporate this into their graduation criteria. I think it would strengthen the quality of the exiting startups immensely.

Here's the WorkerExpress team in their offices in SF.

The building had some classic features in it, like this swank elevator complete with metal gate and art deco trimmings:

Looking forward to seeing WorkerExpress take on construction worker sourcing online!

Well, those of you who've known me for a while know that I've been working on a "how-to, everything you need to know about" online display advertising book for publishers.

In case this is news for you, I have found that many startups I work with want to make advertising as a key part of their revenue plan. However, most of the people I meet are people who have never worked with advertising at all, but only have encountered it as a snippet of HTML that you put on your site from an ad network. But shortly, to their chagrin, they wonder why only a few dollars pop into their account every month!

I found myself giving the same speech to them and after about the second time I realized that this was dumb; I should just put the speech into a book and then they could just read that and ask me for the finer points.

However, writing a straight how-to book seemed very uninteresting. So I thought I would make my book half about my experiences at Yahoo with online display advertising, and then the other half would be a straight how-to in case the reader just wanted to get to the point and skip the stories. But I did want to include them because I use them as support for what I advise.

It's been over two years of writing with many thanks to Stephanie Zhong (Green blogger, Fabulously Green, @ThinkSideways) who sat with me every week and listened to me ramble about my Yahoo days and the advertising industry and put it all down in Scrivener, probably the best damn writing software out there.

I've been not writing somewhat due to a new arrival in my family, but now having engaged a night nanny, my brain is somewhat back to functioning and I'm back to writing. Currently, I am a little before half way done in the first version of the book, taking all the notes I've compiled and writing/editing them to narrative. With any luck I'll be done with a first draft sometime this year, but hopefully not too much longer.

It's been a great experience so far - writing long form doesn't come naturally to me. It took me years to get used to writing in blog post length but getting heads down to write an entire book has been challenging!

In any case, I'll let you know when my book makes it out. I hope to learn a lot by self-publishing (seems like I'm heading down this road, versus going with a formal publisher) and self-promotion of it when it comes out. I hope to take advantage of e-formats judiciously, although I am still a big fan of paper - what can I say, I'm old skool...!

To those who have contributed and helped, thanks a million! To those of you who will read it, I hope you'll all get something out of it, as much as I'm getting out of writing it!