After the 1st round of the NCAA basketball tournament was all said and done, turns out I was “toasted in Tampa”.  I went 0 for 4 in the games played there.  I guess I better just stick with my day-job and “pick” start-ups instead — at least I have some control over their outcomes.  Enjoy the rest of March madness.

I thought I’d share a couple thoughts with you this Friday. First, I spent a lot of time with VCs prior to becoming one myself and two “pearls of wisdom” seem to constantly come to the forefront in this industry. The first maxim is “don’t be greedy”. Venerable VCs will tell you that any time you get greedy bad things happen. The second maxim is “don’t be stupid”. This latter advice is easier said than done, to be sure, but a fair amount of this industry is predicated upon old fashion common sense. My second thought this Friday afternoon is about a different common sense — Common Sense the band. They are one of my favorite bands and, it just so happens, Rob Barnett has a nice post about them (and me) that you can check out here. While you’re visiting My Damn Channel, make sure to vote for them for this year’s YouTube awards by visiting The Night Feed and following the instructions. Until next time, exercise and listen to Common Sense.

I returned to the office this week after spending most of last week in Colorado for a conference and, much to my dismay, found myself essentially underwater on the communications front.  Despite the fact that I brought my trusty “crackberry” and also diligently dealt with my voicemail (thanks to SimulScribe), I returned to the office to 317 unanswered emails in my inbox, 89 emails in my Outlook Junk mail folder, 37 emails in my outsourced spam filter, and 18 voicemails.  The issue isn’t just these number per se; it’s the fact that these numbers will simply be added to their corresponding lists of emails/vmails to respond to and be dealt with chronologically, for the most part.  So you sent me an email or left me a vmail, please be patient — I will eventually get back to you.

I recently had a thought about how much flying can be like working in a start-up so I thought I’d write a quick post on it.  I spent last week in Beaver Creek, CO at the 25th annual VC in the Rockies conference.  The conference was good but I’m happy to be back.  It was really hard seeing all that new snow while being unable to hit the slopes.  Oh well, I guess there is always next year…

Anyway, on to the purpose of this post.  While flying from Eagle/Vail to Denver, we experienced significant turbulence — enough so that several passengers had to utilize the air sickness bags and the pilot received a thunderous round of applause when we safely landed at Denver.  While most passengers seemed to be focused on not getting sick or saying prayers, all I could think about was how the experience reminded me of investing in a start-up.  Start-ups inevitably go through “rough” periods and those that ultimately succeed are able to reach “escape velocity” despite the hardships and such “escapes” (a.k.a. exits) are usually preceded by signs of a “final approach”.  Needless to say, hearing (or experiencing) the indication of final approach can cause an overwhelming sense of relief (and, if done correctly, joy).  Keep on flyin’.