Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Early Stage Venture Capital


The term venture capital reminds me of the go go 90s. Detractors kept giving credit to Alan Greenspan and what not, but Bill Clinton was the one steering the ship. His leadership was key to the new horizons you started seeing.

Venture capitalists do it for money. But the very idea reminds me of micro credit. Venture capital is micro credit for the rich. You have no collateral, just the intangibles like maybe an idea, or a basic product, a basic team.

I have looked at some goliath companies like say Microsoft or Dell and wondered why they don't cash out some at their peak and then put that money into venture capital. The ego gets in the way. They think they are going to keep churning out new stuff.

Venture capital is going to India and China. There is hope.

Self interest is a good thing. That Adam Smith invisible hand thing is a point. A lot of people driven by self-interest end up doing public good. The market works great most of the time.

And this thing about going public. Sam Walton one day just showed up at Wall Street. He walked into a firm and asked the receptionist who he should talk to. He wanted to take his company public. He was deep in debt at the time. She lead him to this lone guy from Arkansas who was at the firm.



For every rock star status band, there is one in every town hoping to be one. Hugely successful companies come only a few in a generation. It is hard to figure out which. But then there are numbers involved. Progress can be measured.

On the other hand, money is not enough motivation. Groupthink can set in. Ego can come into play. But if you are a painter, you will paint, no matter what. If you are an entrepreneur, you will jump into the river, no matter what. You will do it. You will seek and find your groove.

In The News

Earlier is Better for Venture Capital BusinessWeek Provenance said that it expects to make 20 to 40 investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000 per company during the course of the fund. ..... 2006 is shaping up as a very active year for early-stage companies to receive venture capital funding. .... 74 startup and seed companies raised money from venture investors during the second quarter of this year, up from 54 last year. ..... entrepreneurs are willing to get out of their comfort zones and start new projects, and VCs are willing to back great talent ..... Sequeira ... 90% of his investments are in early-stage companies. .... the cost of doing business has decreased significantly. .... funds typically run in 10-year cycles. VCs want to get in on the bottom level, because by the sixth or seventh year a company will have grown to the point where it will be acquired or go public. ..... Right now is the start of a new cycle of funding .... This is a very good time if you are an entrepreneur looking for seed or early seed money
Making India a hub of venture capital CNET News.com, CA Chadha, who left Goldman Sachs in 2000 to form WestBridge ..... an unprecedented explosion of wealth in South Asia. ..... Venture capital investment in India surged 400 percent, to $3.6 billion, during the first half of 2006, compared with the same period last year ..... China outpaced India with $5 billion .... 124 transactions. ..... At least seven U.S. venture firms are raising funds specifically to invest in India. ...... India will emerge as "one of the core venture capital investing hubs in the world." ...... Rupert Murdoch's eVentures India .... Google angel investor Ram Shriram ...... the high quality of the entrepreneurs and the amazing pace of the market ...... a networking group, the U.S.-India Venture Capital Association .... Out of WestBridge's current portfolio of 25 companies, three are in the wireless domain, four are in consumer Internet and three in biotech. ...... Sequoia hopes to combine its experience in helping to turn start-ups into technology powerhouses such as Apple Computer, Oracle and Cisco Systems with WestBridge's knowledge of local market conditions in India.......
Venture capital investing in China doubles in Q2 2006 from Q2 2005 AltAssets 'Information technology remains the beneficiary of the majority of investment activity in China, as it does in the US and Europe, but it is also interesting to see pockets of activity in business and consumer services, healthcare, and even in alternative energy occurring in China.'
India, the Venture Capital & Private Equity Landscape American Venture Magazine, CA Aided by a growing domestic market and a projected 8-plus percent GDP growth rate, India’s stock markets are booming like never before making them one of the highest performing in the world.....
India hot on US venture capital radar Zee News, India over 44 US-based VCs have either raised or are in process of raising between 40 and 400 million dollars for early-stage investments in Indian companies over the next 4-5 years. ..... take the total funds to about 4.4 billion dollars. This amount is equivalent to investment worth 22 billion dollars in the us or Europe on purchasing power parity basis ...... traditionally favourite sectors like IT, BPO, telecom and internet
BusinessWeek.com, 8/3/06, "Before You Accept VC Funding…" Venture capital can be the best thing that ever happened to your company or your worst nightmare. ..... a term sheet—a document that details the amount the VCs want to invest, their conditions and requirements, legal rights, financial terms, and the controls they are seeking. ...... negotiating terms ...... No matter how sure you are that you're asking for enough, make sure more money is available if you need it. The odds are you will. ....... Do you get along? Are they a group of people you would want to deal with on a frequent basis for the next three to five years? ....... you are going to be branded by the VC you choose ..... Ask the VCs these tough questions and check their answers with others .... the VCs have as many warts as you do. ..... Some of the conditions may not seem significant now, but could come back to haunt you later. ...... used-car dealer tactics ....... the highest valuation may not be the best deal. ..... the longer the VCs wait, the more willing you become to accept their onerous terms. The best way to accelerate timetables is to create competition with other firms or via other funding options. ..... The key is to know what you're getting into and have reasonable expectations.
BusinessWeek.com, 8/1/06, "15 Things You Need to Score VC Funding" instead of soliciting venture capital for your new startup, you're better off buying a lottery ticket. You'll save time, money, and spare yourself a lot of heartache. But when you've reached the stage in your business where you have a product that customers love, a business model that works, and a strong management team, everything changes. ...... Their due-diligence process often takes months and is extremely rigorous. Most companies don't make it through. To prepare, you should look at your company the way they will. ......
BusinessWeek.com, 7/17/06, "Venture Capital: The Good, Bad, and Ugly" There often comes a time in the life of a startup when the founder must decide if it's better to own a small piece of a big pie. ..... there are many strings attached to this money—it's practically like getting married. ..... there are many strings attached to this money—it's practically like getting married. ...... It's always about who you know. ..... How can you tell if the VP of sales is more adept at selling himself than your product? ....... Good venture capitalists will support you when things get tough. ..... Venture capitalists are in it just for the money. Most are not out to do good for the world. ..... In their world, the need to create high shareholder returns always triumphs over personal relationships. ....... You could find yourself reporting to a new CEO, or be ousted from the company you founded. ..... They will have the right to sue you for all you own if you forgot to give them any bad news..... differences in opinion usually emerge and personal interests often come into play. It can be a full-time job for a CEO to manage VCs...... Disagreements about strategy often arise between the entrepreneur who is on a mission to change the world, and the venture capitalist who can do no wrong. Like entrepreneurs, VCs aren't created equal and they often know less than the entrepreneur about the product, customer needs, and market opportunity. ....... Your choice is to finance your startup yourself and stay small, or take the risk and raise venture capital. Just be aware that in this marriage, there is no divorce.

Visitors


31 August14:53Tele2 France SA, France
1 September12:31Helsinki Televisio Ltd., Helsinki, Finland


2 September13:56National Internet Backbone, India
2 September16:33Bredbandsbolaget AB, Sweden
4 September00:40Australian Catholic University, Australia
20.6 September06:03SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany
21.6 September07:33SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany



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Thursday, August 24, 2006

Google Audio, Google Office


Google Audio

There is Google Video, but no audio equivalent. I am surprised. Should not audio have come first? I wrote to the Google Video people earlier to that effect. I had been bugging them about making pay per view possible. They have said it will be done, they just can't say when.

I hit reply to their last email to me and brought up Google Audio as an idea! Don't click on it just yet. Because http://audio.google.com does not exist for now.



Google Word Processing

Google now offers word processing and spreadsheets online. I learned about the word processing just now. As in, they just now went public. I knew they had bought Writely. Now I got my free account with them.



The best part is it is like having your own free, private virtual office. You can invite people to collaborate. That was one thing I was missing with Blogger. If you could have a private blog with many members, that would be like a private office. But that is not an option.

And many of the virtual offices available online, mostly for rent, are designed to upload your Word documents. Then what's the point?

In The News

VCs see opportunity in blogosphere

BusinessWeek

The Best Product Design of 2006
Dark Days at Dell
Apple's iPod Season Looms
Keeping BlackBerry Juiced
Ford on Ford
Tata Takes a Swig of Vitaminwater
Online Video: Tasty Takeover Targets?
More Banks Turn to Private Equity Funds
The Chip Industry's Comeback Kid
Japan's Samurai Entrepreneurs
Eurozone Creating Jobs Faster Than U.S.
Jack's Mixed Bag
Haute Hybrid
A Quantum Leap for Cell Phones
A Crusade to Connect Children
Green: The Next Big Thing
The Chip Industry's Comeback Kid
India's Banks Are Big on Microfinance
Asia's Young Entrepreneurs
How to Fix Ford

CNet News

Sony battery woes hit Apple
YouTube could be
a steal at $1 billion

AOL to sell digital movie downloads
Microsoft moves closer to new browser release
A divide over the future of hard drives
Has iPod's hit parade stalled?
Can German engineering fix Wikipedia?
Amazon servers, starting at 10 cents an hour
Internet search gets Web 2.0 style

Visitors


Page views yesterday1
2.3 August14:52Cisco Systems, Inc., United States
3.3 August15:24ProXad, France
6.4 August01:36Hong Kong S.A.R. (infolink.hk)
7.4 August17:22Dow Jones International, United States
14 August15:13Cornell University, Ithaca, United States
21.15 August15:00Verizon Online, Reston, United States
22.19 August03:37National Internet Backbone, India
23.19 August08:55Satyam Infoway Limited, India


19 August14:33Cotas Ltd., Bolivia
21 August01:29Dattelkabel Internet, Czech Republic
22 August14:41The McGraw-Hill Companies, United States


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Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Next Search Engine


It might as well be Google itself, but there sure is a lot of room for search. The amount of data available online is just going to keep growing like crazy. Five of the six billion people are not yet online. And as they come online, companies are going to work to make it easier and easier for people to create data online, text, audio, video and more. So you are looking at more and more stuff, in more and more languages, in more and more formats, text, audio,video. And there is the perennial demand: the quality of search. Can you find what you are looking for? How precise is the result? How user friendly is the search experience?

Google's handicap for now is it only knows text. And even text it does not do as well as we might want, even though it does it better than anyone else.

When you search for something you want the most relevant webpages and sites to show up first. And you want to be able to search within sites. How to rank pages? Google started out by saying the more sites that link to your site, the more valuable it is. Well, maybe, but not if many of them are link farms. But that was a great way to start. That still has to be the basic formula. But then each site has to be given a weight of its own based on many different criteria.



The language challenge is a big one, as is the format challenge. Can a search engine "read" audio and video like it reads words? Can a search engine search content regardless of what language or format it might be in, and then present the same in the language of the end user's choosing? You are talking real time translation. That right there is a huge challenge. Major work will have to be done in speech software to make this possible.

The formula that a website's worth is how many other websites link to it is basically good. But the formula has to get more sophisticated than that. Not all links are equal. And each site should have a weight based on a few different things. So one link from a really good site should count for more than many links from so so sites. And the search engine should be able to count the page hits for each site in real time. The activity level of a site should be a major factor of how important a site is. As important as links.

And there is this real time thing. Say if I put out a new website or just a new page to an existing site, how long before the search engine finds it? Can it be an hour? A minute? Less? It should be less than a second. The reverse should also be true. If a site or a page is taken down, the search engine should know.

Language, content format, speech, website weightage based on links and page hits. These are some of the things that come to mind. This is enough homework for now.

Google might or might not deliver. There is plenty of room for others, especially for bold upstarts.

Eric Schmidt interview (39mins MP3)



Kosmix: Desi Pride
Email, Search, News
Memo To Bill Gates

On The Web

Search engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google UK
AltaVista
MSN Search
Google
A9.com Home Page
Dogpile Web Search Home Page
Homepage HotBot Web Search
Web Site Search Engine, Free and Pro Versions - FreeFind.com
Yahoo!
Ask.com Search Engine - Better Web Search
MetaCrawler Web Search Home Page - MetaCrawler
Yahoo! Search - Web Search
Vivisimo Clustering Engine
Yahooligans
Search Engine Watch
altavista.digital.com/
Google
My Excite
AllTheWeb
WebCrawler Web Search Home Page
Google Scholar
Ixquick
Ask.com Search Engine - Better Web Search
Lycos
Scirus
KartOO visual meta search engine
Go
Environment Web Directory
go2: The #1 Yellow Pages on your mobile phone
ProFusion - The Original Meta-Search Engine
KidsClick! Web Search
Lucene Search Engine
Clusty the Clustering Engine
Google Blog Search
Gigablast
Netscape Search
PsychCrawler
WebSideStory Site Search and Web Content Management Applications
Ask for Kids
Creative Commons Search
Chemical Search Engine
Mamma Metasearch - The Mother of All Search Engines
Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google Australia
What is search engine? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia ...
Scrub The Web Search Engine
Find | Creative Commons
Kids' Tools for Searching the Internet
Search Engines
Search Engine Colossus
Search Engine Guide
Submit Express - Search Engine Placement, Optimization, SEO Marketing
CNN.com
W3 Search Engines XML
AudioFind.com - multimedia internet search
Clipart Searcher - find free clip art, photos, and animations
InFoPeople: Best Search Tools Chart
Search the RFC Index
SplatSearch.com: We do all the searching for you.
Arabic Search Engine: Directory of arabic and islamic sites
SEO Book
Beaucoup! 2000+ Search Engines, Indices and Directories
Koders - Source Code Search Engine
Main - TSEP - The Search Engine Project - A search engine for your ...
Fast Search
isoHunt - World's largest BitTorrent search engine
WiseNut
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Search Engines
Search Engine Lowdown
Bittorrent
mnoGoSearch - Internet search engine software
Blog Search Engine
Fluid Dynamics Search Engine
LookSmart Vertical Search
Search Engines :: Mozilla Add-ons :: Add Features to Mozilla Software
Search Engine Features Chart
Search Engine Showdown
Internet Search Engines
bruceclay.com - Search Engine Relationship Chart®
MathSearch -- search a collection of mathematical Web material
Search Engine Submission, Website Optimization and Free ...
FindLaw LawCrawler - Law, Lawyer, Lawyers. Attorney, Attorneys
AllSearchEngines.com
MIDI Search Engine: Let MIDI Explorer find your files
Debian GNU/Linux -- Search
Entrez cross-database search
InFind
SearchEngineWatch Forums -- Discussions About Search Engine ...
A Helpful Guide to Search Engines, Top Page
MSDS-Search
Blinkx
Rocketinfo - Search Result
Searching Stanford
Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need
Search Engine Decoder | Relationship Chart
Lyrics Search Engine
Web site search facilities - OHCHR
RootsWeb: Database Index
Ananzi Search Engine
Search Engine Roundtable
The Cybercafe Search Engine, July 17, 2006


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