Archive | April, 2004

Has the individual investor learned a lesson?

Apr 26, 2004
in Investing/Markets, Open Source

There have been a number of IPO fillings recently, but the one that intrigues me most is the filing by Lindows. As many of you have read, Lindows/Linspire just filed an S-1 to raise $57 million in an IPO. WR Hambrecht is the lead underwriter and will utilize its dutch auction methodology to raise money [...]

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Founder transition

Apr 22, 2004
in Entrepreneurship

There are a number of good posts about founder transition in light of the recent changes at Friendster and Plaxo. If you are an entrepreneur, I suggest reading Ross Mayfield’s words of wisdom on this topic. What makes it so interesting is that Ross is a founder, was replaced at a prior company, and is [...]

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What aisle/what shelf?

Apr 20, 2004
in Entrepreneurship

I met with an entrepreneur this week who had a fantastic background and great technology. However, it was a technology in search of a problem to solve. Why? Because he could not readily answer some fundamental questions like what problem are you solving, who is the buyer of the product, and what is the amount [...]

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Great business model

Apr 16, 2004
in Entrepreneurship

OK, so times have been tough in the IT market over the last couple of years. Luckily, it is starting to get better. For those of you who understand that selling IT software to enterprises is not easy, I thought you would enjoy this email from one of my portfolio companies regarding differentiation and “secret [...]

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Linux on the desktop (Continued)

Apr 13, 2004
in Open Source

I have written about linux on the desktop in the past (here and here). Today, my partners and I installed the latest version of Xandros 2.0, and I have to admit we were blown away. It installed in about 10-15 minutes with a couple clicks of the mouse, and we had a full working version [...]

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Software co-op/software reuse

Apr 12, 2004
in Open Source

Lee Gomes from the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting piece (sorry, not a free site) in his Portals Column about Project Avalanche which is essentially a software co-op for businesses to share their applications and code. Current members include Jostens, BestBuy, and Cargill. According to Lee, the Avalanche Project was started because the founders [...]

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Merrill Lynch launches nanotech index

Apr 9, 2004
in Investing/Markets

It was just a matter of time before an investment bank launched a nanotech index. During the bubble years we had an index for everything ranging from Internet ad-related companies to Internet commerce companies. Now we have a nanotech index. Is this a sign of another bubble? Well, it is true that nanotech is overhyped [...]

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Thoughts on the Microsoft settlement with Sun

Apr 7, 2004
in Open Source

If you are wondering about why Microsoft settled with Sun, I suggest reading David Kirkpatrick’s excellent piece on the deal. In the article, David surmises that the power of the open source movement is really the driver behind the deal. Open source’s influence is far greater than its current market share in software might suggest. [...]

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The Street Does Not Forgive

The Street Does Not Forgive

Apr 1, 2004
in Investing/Markets

I was with a banker today talking about the influx of new IPO filings and the end result of our discussion was the following: 1. Filing does not mean anything, the companies may never go public 2. Performance is key-revenue visibility is of utmost importance because the street does not forgive Case in point-if you [...]

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