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On March 8, 2010 Amazon fired me as an Amazon Affiliate because of Colorado HB 10-1193.  I proceeded to have a dozen different conversations (email and live) with several of my state representatives, including one of the co-sponsors of the bill, and each conversation made me more incensed at the abject stupidity and lack of [...]

I talk about human computer interaction (HCI) a lot on this blog.  We’ve invested in a number of companies in our HCI theme, including Oblong, Organic Motion, and EmSense and have a few more that we are working on that hopefully will be announced shortly.  When I think about the areas I’ve been paying the [...]

Tonight, during Lost, I tried to decide just how "willful" Locke-the-smoke-monster was being.  I didn’t reach a conclusion - and doubt I will until the end of the season.  In the mean time, my anonymous lawyer friend known as Sawyer sent me a nice essay on the notion of "willful infringement in the context of [...]

After downloading Skype 4.2, I realized that I could now invite all of my Facebook friends who had Skype accounts to my Skype contact list.  So I did.  Unfortunately the Skype UI for this sucks so I had to go through about 1,000 entries a screen of five at a time unchecking the Facebook friends [...]

I was thinking about how to drive CTR’s up via different mechanisms this morning when this email arrived in my inbox. I remembered talking about high CTR email response rates with Dave McClure and Shervin Pishevar when we were in DC on our Startup Visa trip at the beginning of March.  I’d forgotten about this [...]

I’ll be in Seattle on Tuesday 4/6 for a bunch of meetings and am attending the Seattle Open Coffee Club meeting at 8:30am at Louisa’s on 2379 Eastlake Avenue E in Seattle.  Andy Sack who runs the TechStars Seattle program is hosting and providing the coffee.  We will both be answering any and all questions [...]

I had an amazing day on Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I attended the Bank of America Technology Stars of the Future awards ceremony for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing.  If you’ve been following along on this blog, you know that I’m chairman of NCWIT (the National Center for Women & Information Technology).  [...]Related posts:Call for Applications for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in ComputingLucy Sanders on NCWITOverview of NCWIT

Amy and I love Santa Fe.  We need a long weekend after the past few weeks so we’ve decided to hop in the batmobile and drive as fast as we can down I-25 to Santa Fe.  While I’m there I’m going to do a handful of entrepreneurial events that have been arranged by a variety [...]Related posts:Drink Beer With Me and Support KGNUJack Bauer vs. Santa ClausBusy Week In Boulder

Last night we had the TechStars Boulder selection meeting where we chose the TechStars Boulder finalists.  We’ll be notifying folks shortly.  In the mean time, we’ve opened applications for TechStars Seattle.  Andy Sack, who runs the TechStars Seattle program, has several great blog posts up including How TechStars came to Seattle? and Help me spread [...]Related posts:TechStars Applications Are Now OpenTechStars SeattleTechStars 2008 Applications Are Open

Andrew Hyde has decided to organize another Boulder Startup Week on May 4 - 8, 2010.  Tons of folks are already committed to host events including Trada, Pivotal Labs, Everlater, QuickLeft, TechStars, Napkin Labs, and SurveyGizmo.  The Boulder New Tech Meetup and Ignite Boulder is also happening that week.  It’s free - register now and [...]Related posts:Busy Week In BoulderTechStars: Funding Your StartupWhy to Apply for TechStars Boston 2010 Today

My first company, Feld Technologies, didn’t have contracts. Instead, we had a one page PSA (professional services agreement) that spelled out in English that we charged $X per hour, would do our best, and our invoices were due upon receipt.  We never had a single legal issue with a client, although we had a number [...]Related posts:Gnip v2.0 LaunchesWhich Web Services Should Gnip Integrate Next?Gnip Starts Getting Twitter Data

A few days ago I wrote about the launch of the MIT Entrepreneurship Review.  I neglected however to mention their actual launch party, which is happening on April 7th from 7pm - 10pm at the MIT Media Lab.  The MITER (er- MIT Entrepreneurship Review) party will gather together a bunch of folks in the MIT [...]Related posts:MIT Entrepreneurship ReviewNew West Boulder Launch Party - 4/14/05 - 6pm - Boulder Museum of Contemporary ArtEntrepreneurship in Boulder in 2009

I just read Rework, the new book by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals.  It’s fantastic.  If you are starting a business, or thinking about starting a business, or running a business, or breathing air, this is a book you should read.There are an endless array of "startup books" to choose from.  Most [...]Related posts:Young Jackasses of the Post-New EconomyBook Review - American Sucker - David DenbyMapping Books

On a daily basis, I get an email from someone at a seed-stage startup where their email address does not include their website URL.  For example, I just got an email from joesmith@gmail.com for his company CoolThing.  I wouldn’t have thought of this except for I’m deep in the proofreading of a book that David [...]Related posts:Send Gmail From Any AddressRecommendation: Get A Gmail AccountGmail Steals Users From Hotmail

I’ve been hinting about a new conference that we’ve been working on with Eric Norlin that complements Defrag and Glue.  Eric is about to launch it and the splash page for the Blur Conference is up.  If you are familiar with Defrag and Glue, you know they are built around two of Foundry Group’s themes [...]Related posts:Pitch Me At The Glue ConferenceThe Glue That Binds ThingsThe Glue Agenda Is Getting Awesome

A week ago the MIT Entrepreneurship Review launched.  Today it’s up on MIT’s home page. The MIT Entrepreneurship Review is a new online publication about entrepreneurship that is produced and written by MIT students dedicated to analyzing trends in entrepreneurship at MIT and beyond.  I’ve been involved with some of the folks behind this and [...]Related posts:MIT Entrepreneurship Review Launch PartyNew VC Blog - Nisan Gabbay - Startup ReviewEntrepreneurship in Boulder in 2009

Gist just announced that they have acquired Learn that Name and incorporated it in the Gist iPhone app.  There are a lot of fun connections here for me.  For starters, as many of you know, I’m an investor in Gist.  If you haven’t tried it - or haven’t played with it for a while - [...]Related posts:Gist for iPhone Is AvailableSeth's Summary of Startup WeekendMonday Morning Startup Visa Articles

I love the conferences we help sponsor (Glue and Defrag).  Eric Norlin is a genius at putting together a specialty technology conference.  He gets amazing people to attend, curates the content meticulously, isn’t afraid to try new things every year (and have some not work), and just keeps at it with single minded commitment.  He [...]Related posts:Pitch Me At The Glue ConferenceGlue - Our Sticky ThemeThe Glue That Binds Things

My long time friend Alan Shimel has been blogging up a storm on Network World (if you want to hear any amusing story, ask him about the first time he met me.)  When Alan started writing his column for Network World he asked me for introductions to a bunch of our portfolio companies that were [...]Related posts:Open Source as a Dumping GroupThe Re-Rise of Open SourceOpen Source or Closed Source?

As you may have noticed, I’ve got a new blog design, as do my partners Jason Mendelson, Ryan McIntyre, and Seth Levine.  Every year or so I get bored of my blog design and we go through a nice little upgrade.  Our good friends at Slice of Lime do all the design work and Ross [...]Related posts:Nike Blogger Shoe Design ContestWeb Design MistakesCorporate Web Site As A Blog