The Power of Alternatives

Several years ago, when I was still spending the bulk of my time practicing law, I got some advice from one of my mentors regarding the art of deal negotiation.  At the time, the advice seemed simple.  In retrospect, it has been invaluable.
The advice was this:  Always create alternatives.
As a lawyer trying to bring parties [...]

An Ode by an LP

I’ve been a little lazy in my posting during spring break, but came across this funny take on the Dr. Suess poem “The Lorax”  posted today by Chris Douvos.  While you can read the entire post at SuperLP.com, here is a sampling:
[With apologies to Dr. Seuss]
“Mister!” he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
“I am the Lorax.  I speak [...]

Beware the bridge

Bridge loans, or short term loans that convert into equity, are a common financing vehicles for early stage companies. In my opinion, they are too common, and, if used under the wrong circumstances, have the potential to cause more harm than good.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of situations when bridge loans are not only appropriate, but beneficial.  [...]

Managing your social network

There was a spirited conversation this morning at the Boulder Open Coffee Club about how to manage social networks in this day and age of (over?) connectivity.  It is an interesting challenge for those of us who have stuck our toe into the water on anything from Facebook to Foursquare.  Over the last decade we have [...]

Techstars by the numbers

Since it began in 2007, Techstars has been a great program for early stage entrepreneurs looking for mentorship and seed financing.  This weekend, David Cohen published some data on the companies that have gone through the program, and the results were impressive.  The highlights include:

In three years, about $16.5 million in seed-stage funding has been raised.

27 of 39 [...]

How to Help a First Time CEO

Yesterday, Bijan Salehizadeh of Highland Capital Partners had an interesting post on PE Hub where he offered some friendly advice to first time CEOs.  A large part of the article was dedicated to warning CEOs of the perils of waiting to share bad news with their board of directors.  Bijan asserted that first time CEOs are prone to keeping bad [...]

An Age of Opportunity

Last week, I was lucky enough to have dinner with a few real visionaries in the digital world.  The conversation focused largely around what makes this such an exciting time to be an early stage investor or entrepreneur.  The conclusion was that we are experiencing a unique confluence of historical events. 
The first and most obvious [...]

The Tangled Web of Patent Litigation

Just to add an exclamation point to yesterday’s post about Apple’s patent claim against HTC, I thought I would share the diagram below.  It appeared in today’s New York Times and provides a sampling of the current patent litigation in the world of mobile technology.  A tangled web indeed. 

(Thanks to Miles Gerson for bringing this to my [...]

Apple and the U.S. Patent Mess

The tech world is atwitter today over news that Apple has finally unleashed its army of patent litigators on HTC.  The Apple complaint, filed this morning, claims the infringement of 20 separate patents relating to the iPhone, and appears to be aimed primarily at HTC’s Android devices.
The complaint shouldn’t come as a big surprise – [...]

A touch of Texas comes to Colorado

Last night, I caught the Los Lonely Boys at the Boulder Theater as part of their Acoustic Brotherhood Tour. It was a great show. If you haven’t seen these guys live, and you appreciate good guitar driven acoustic music, then you should make a point of catching them somewhere on this tour (for those on [...]

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