I just returned from a week in DC where I attended the NVCA annual meeting and thought I’d exercise Ground Rule #3 and share a bittersweet moment.  I spent a number of years traveling all over the world for Intel and routinely flew 200,000+ miles on United alone.  The “upside” to all this flying was qualifying for 1K status in their United  Mileage Plus  program and being able to wait in short lines (relatively speaking) and upgrade to business class or first class 99% of the time year in and year out.  I left Intel in ‘05 and basically stopped traveling “cold turkey”.  In fact, it was such a drastic change to my routine that some nice VP at United called me to see if everything was okay later that year.  I explained that I had decided to take some time off but would be back at it soon enough - so they extended my status.  I didn’t think anymore about it until this past week when I boarded my “usual” United flight to return to LAX.

I had printed my boarding pass prior to arriving at LAX so I didn’t have to wait in any line to check-in (but still spent an hour in security), but I had run out of time in DC and was unable to print my boarding pass for the return flight so I had to check-in at the airport.  I spent about 40 minutes in the “regular” United line and then another 30 minutes getting through security and was not happy about it.  Additionally, I was in boarding group 4 and was, therefore, one of the last to board the flight to L.A.  I was seriously beginning to get annoyed at this point having waited for so long.  To make matters worse, I then realized that I had a double digit seat as well…and that any chance of there being any remaining overhead bin space was quickly disappearing.

I finally boarded the plane and found my way to my seat only to find that I was literally in the very last row of the plane in a chair that only reclined an inch or so before it hit the galley wall.  So, needless to say, by the time I finally found some space for my bag and sat down I was more than upset (having been “spoiled” by 1K for so many years).  And that’s when it dawned on me - I wasn’t 1K anymore!  How could this be?  I wasn’t 1K…or Premier Executive…or even Premier.  This could only mean that I no longer qualified for any special United treatment.  All of this, of course, led me to the seemingly sudden realization that I hadn’t been flying enough to qualify!  In fact, I hadn’t been flying much at all.  So, I sat in my seat… reclined it the full 1.25 inches… looked up at my 26D seat number… breathed a very deep sigh of relief… and simply smiled.  Until next time, safe travels.

I’ve had a couple of realizations over the past few weeks that culminated in a conversation with my father during the Easter weekend and I think are worth posting on here.

My first realization is that, unlike in the Bay Area / Silicon Valley, most folks in Orange County still don’t know what a venture capitalist is. From a macroeconomic perspective, Orange County is predominately real estate oriented with tourism (think Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, the beaches, etc.) and action sports apparel (think Quiksilver, Oakley, etc.) following close behind… so I suppose it is somewhat understandable. This belief hasn’t been quite as strong with respect to folks in L.A., but I still have to analogize to being a “producer for start-up tech companies” to see true understanding in many of their faces. For those of you that don’t know what a venture capitalist actually is, you can simply click here rather than suffer through my more verbose explanation. For locals that like “comps”, a venture capitalist is similar to a commercial real estate developer. Now that I’ve addressed my first realization, I’d like to turn to my second.

My second realization is that (even among folks that actually know what a venture capitalist is) most don’t know what a venture capitalist actually does. This realization is the result of the frequency of questions I’ve been asked by family, friends, and others over the past couple of years as to what it is a VC actually does on a daily basis. While my short answers have been along the lines of: “it depends on the day… no two days are the same”, etc., I get the feeling my answers were insufficient to satisfy their curiosity so I’ll try to explain here for the masses by way of example. First, let me preface my explanation with a little context. I’ve been a VC for two years and have yet to encounter two identical work-days in terms of my time allocation. Other VCs may feel differently, but I’m only sharing my own sentiments on the matter so feel free to ask others or Ask the VC (full disclosure: I’m a VC blogger for Ask the VC but have not responded to any questions yet). To put things further into perspective, my thoughts here are those of a Managing Director who has raised his own fund (along with co-founder and partner, Sharon Stevenson), made investments, and has been co-managing the fund for two years now. I’ll start by listing my schedule from yesterday and then explain a bit more at the end.

5:45am – 7:00am: Wake up and swim;

7:00am – 8:00am: Breakfast with family while reading the paper;

8:00am – 9:30am: Read several on-line publications… respond to emails… and shower, etc;

9:30am – 10:00am: Drive to office while checking voice-mails;

10:00am – 11:00am: Meet with CEO of start-up to discuss his idea/company;

11:00am – 12:00pm: Speak with CEO of start-up regarding off-shore manufacturing in China;

12:00pm – 1:00pm: Lunch with an entrepreneur looking for his next gig;

1:00pm – 2:00pm: Email and respond to voice-mails;

2:00pm – 3:00pm: Speak with attorney regarding fund matters;

3:00pm – 4:00pm: Coffee with a fellow VC to discuss a deal;

4:00pm – 5:00pm: Drive home while speaking with the CEO of one of my portfolio companies;

5:00pm – 6:30pm: Family time with wife and son;

6:30pm – 7:15pm: Speak with the COO of one of my portfolio companies;

7:15pm – 8:00pm: Dinner with family;

8:00pm – 9:00pm: Email and respond to voice-mails;

9:00pm – 11:00pm: Read and retire for the day.

I generally begin every day with either a swim or a run (when not on the road) to clear my head and “bake in” some quality family time either at the beginning and/or end of the day, but my schedule for the remainder of any given work-day can arguably be broken down into two primary and interdependent activities: “deal making” and “fund administration matters”. I occasionally work through weekends but also will take a random week day off to spend time with family or run errands so my schedule is very fluid to say the least. I’m also trying to post to this blog once a week but find it a challenge to do so. In fact, it is often said that the biggest challenge VCs face is how to allocate their time (the only scarce commodity for most VCs) given the dynamic work environment in which they operate. So, since time is wasting, I need to go…

I was at a board meeting the other day and one of my fellow VCs remarked that “conference season” was upon us. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to the remark but for the fact that it caused an audible, collective sigh from the room. I’m still not sure whether it was a sigh of relief, anguish, exasperation, or some other expression of feelings but I thought I’d poke my head up out of the deal flow to see just what VC-related conferences were imminent and post on them here. Near term (and off the top of my head), the “local” events I will either be attending or would be attending if I was in town are as follows: LAVA’s Investment Conference (April 11th), OCTANe’s Entrepreneur Forum (April 13th), OCVG’s Online Games: GAME ON! (April 17th), AlwaysOn’s OnHollywood (May 1st-3rd), SNS’ Future In Review (May 22nd-25th), and OCTANe’s Semiconductor & Communications Forum (June 5th). Until next time, I’m sure I’ll see you around the conferences.