tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145316782012-01-10T01:30:16.093-05:00Thoughts on novel businesses, inspiring entrepreneurs and venture capitalJeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.comBlogger601100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-40621550767401984672011-05-19T09:33:00.002-04:002011-05-19T09:35:20.274-04:00

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-33293882354202530012011-04-20T11:47:00.003-04:002011-04-20T11:50:27.930-04:00

A recently hired executive at one of my portfolio companies sent me this picture today to explain how he feels on the new job. I told him that, indeed, it can be a pretty crappy experience while one is still feeling his way around in the dark, but eventually he'll get a handle on things...

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-71986090974093719732011-04-15T13:47:00.004-04:002011-04-15T14:32:49.829-04:00

As I approached the TechStars Demo Day event in New York yesterday, the first thing I noticed was my blog title in lights. (Thanks, TechCrunch, for the photo.) The second thing I noticed is that no two "N's" were alike. The sloppy Webster Hall sign stood in sharp contrast to the incredibly well-polished pitches from the 11 startups inside. If the products and business models of those startups are

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-8261004540939250452011-03-23T16:23:00.005-04:002011-04-03T23:03:13.313-04:00

If you have ever owned a fax machine, then surely you received an occasional spam fax from a stock promoter. The typical one or two page stock-pumping fax proclaims the "sure thing" of potential profits from buying some rinky dink stock you've never heard of at the bargain basement price of $1 or $2 per share. "It's definitely going to $5, maybe even $10," so buy now "before it's too late." I

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-37585774287022941602010-09-15T23:33:00.003-04:002010-09-15T23:41:29.317-04:00

I was greeted at home this evening by a violation notice from NYC's Environmental Control Board -- aka the "garbage police." My building was fined $25 because one of my neighbors disposed of paper and cardboard in the trash instead of recycling those materials.Here is the exact hand-written text on the violation notice dated 8:17pm on Aug 31:"I did observe 3 white bags placed out for collection.

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-50218372600704895572010-09-09T15:54:00.005-04:002010-09-09T16:16:56.413-04:00

A few years ago, my Bessemer colleagues Byron Deeter, Philippe Botteri (blog) and David Cowan (blog) led and synthesized a lot of our firm-wide views on what it takes to build a great software as a service (SaaS) business. They have since published several versions of a white paper entitled Bessemer's 10 Laws of Cloud Computing and Saas. Based on the number of press hits, the thankful compliments

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-68963475649147480692010-08-26T21:55:00.005-04:002010-08-26T22:55:02.398-04:00

When I started leading venture capital investments for Bessemer in 2003, I was scared out of my mind. I suspect a lot of young investors feel similarly. It's incredibly frightening to commit millions of dollars of other people's money to a young (typically loss-generating) startup. There's a good chance you'll never see that money again. It's nerve-racking. I learned to think of the concept

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-88985341119796879262010-08-12T11:17:00.003-04:002010-08-12T11:53:36.577-04:00

Ever since the initial iPhone release in 2007, I assumed Apple would eventually extend its consumer device operating system to televisions. Benchmark's Bill Gurley predicted it here and even included a nice living room mockup.To date, Apple has only delivered a mediocre tv attachment called Apple TV. Samsung, on the other hand, has delivered the real thing -- a television set on which you can

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-51286338424999747042010-04-20T13:54:00.003-04:002010-04-20T14:02:03.095-04:00

Along with several of my colleagues, I am particularly attracted to our cloud computing roadmap, and I spend a fair amount of time exploring related ideas and companies. It came as a bit of a surprise to find that the world's greatest cloud service provider was a virtual unknown just a week ago:(Credit to my friends at Parallels for sharing this image with me.)

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-24341472916000658022010-04-07T22:31:00.013-04:002010-04-08T10:14:08.165-04:00

About five years ago, I focused on building highly valuable businesses on the back of user-generated content. I led my first related investment in 2005. It was in a San Francisco-based startup called Yelp. Over the following 18 months, I led three other Bessemer investments based on the same fundamental roadmap: Wikia, OLX and LinkedIn.One nice thing about the roadmap approach to investing is

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-56725320328884034302009-07-15T22:02:00.003-04:002009-07-15T22:11:19.308-04:00

Just a few years ago, the industry-leading incumbent in the Internet local search category was IAC's CitySearch.com. It had an apparently unassailable position in local search with no meaningful competition.Well, times have changed. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome gave a speech earlier this afternoon during which he mentioned a number of leading Internet companies such as Google, Twitter,

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-67556507649576944912009-01-04T22:09:00.002-05:002009-01-04T22:20:23.578-05:00

Over the last few months, I added three new blogs to my reading list, and they're all related to venture capital and entrepreneurship.  Some are not new, but they're new to me, and I think they're all worthy of a regular reading.  Let's hope the respective authors each do a better job posting fresh content than I have been doing.Jeremy Stoppelman, a founder and the CEO of Yelp, is offering up a

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-38926611108068133532008-11-04T21:26:00.002-05:002008-11-04T22:08:24.856-05:00

It's not often that the venerable New York Times publishes a glowing piece on one of my portfolio companies. This is a welcome bit of good cheer amidst the backdrop of a generally gloomy economy.  When I invested in the young company founded by Jeremy S. and Russ S. back in 2005, Yelp had attracted about 100,000 San Franciscans to its site.  Today, with more than 15,000,000 monthly visitors, it

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-14696344903428688252008-11-02T14:31:00.005-05:002008-11-02T15:01:58.469-05:00

I admit that I'm a frequent reader of Valleywag, a low-brow blog full of silicon valley gossip.  It's often pretty funny, and I know many of the people referenced in the stories, which only adds to the entertainment value.Last week, however, the blog ran an entry containing a fabricated story.  The entry was meant to embarrass Jimmy Wales, an entrepreneur we backed two years ago.  If there is

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-20282893321092476882008-10-01T21:49:00.002-04:002008-10-01T22:01:08.617-04:00

I got nervous today when I heard one of my consumer internet portfolio companies had posted a political advertisement on YouTube. It seemed obvious to me that any consumer company is likely to alienate half of its customer base by making a political statement. No matter how well-executed the ad, it is guaranteed to hurt business as much as it helps.It appears that I may have jumped too quickly to

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-74657580708682521232008-09-29T17:40:00.003-04:002008-09-29T17:42:10.456-04:00

Doesn't this new version of the dollar bill do a perfect job capturing the essence of the Treasury Department's current state of mind?

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-61463943505898611152008-09-18T19:43:00.002-04:002008-09-18T20:40:16.571-04:00

I got a first-hand sense of how badly Goldman Sachs felt the pressure of the crumbling financial markets this morning.   At the start of a private company's board meeting I was attending, a director received a call on his cell phone.  One member of the board had not yet arrived, so the director answered the call in case it was the missing attendee.  He dispatched with the caller after about a

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-14733860684165928062007-10-22T15:40:00.001-04:002007-10-23T07:23:32.403-04:00

For several months now, I have been privately telling anyone willing to listen that search advertising, though incredibly effective, is over rated. At first glance, it would appear that advertising to someone in context of his search activity is an utter utopia for marketers. What better time to advertise a DVD player, for example, than when a consumer types "DVD player" into Google's search box.

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-87705312944861990662007-05-10T16:41:00.000-04:002007-05-10T16:54:36.170-04:00

I always like to know what smart, tech types include in their daily reading. Yesterday, I learned that a very successful entrepreneur (and good friend of mine) named Chris Dixon put up a web site with links to a few dozen of his favorite blogs and websites, and this afternoon I finally got around to studying the list. I have been particularly curious to know what Chris reads because he always

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-83116720309559602222007-03-29T17:53:00.000-04:002007-03-29T18:27:32.456-04:00

With the astounding growth of auction-based pay-per-click (PPC) advertising led by Google and Yahoo over the past several years, there is a great deal of discussion about click fraud. I think most people are completely missing the point. Those who are complaining about the issue really have nothing to complain about. Bizarrely, those who are getting screwed haven’t even uttered a peep.Click fraud

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-91185735008842306972007-03-25T21:32:00.001-04:002007-03-25T21:38:55.358-04:00

Anyone thinking about starting or joining a consumer Internet startup should be able to answer the following question, and if the answer is "d) none of the above," then I'd suggest looking for a new job.So, here's the question: does your company attract users with any of these things?an inherently viral ideasearch engine optimized content that grows naturally with usagethe ability to spend money

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-22741135832610845302007-02-27T21:59:00.000-05:002007-02-27T22:25:12.067-05:00

As an investor in Yelp, I was delighted to discover this blog post by Peggy Wynne Borgman, the owner of Saratoga Spa. In it, she admits to ranting about the dark side of user generated content for months before recently changing her tune and "falling in love" with Yelp.Initially, I wondered: why the sudden change of heart? Had a savvy business person at Yelp managed to bribe Peggy into becoming a

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1165813925798493442006-12-13T19:36:00.000-05:002006-12-13T19:36:46.536-05:00

Several months ago, I confessed to being a Scan Artist. I bought a fantastic, speedy desktop scanner from Fujitsu and converted almost every paper record in my home office into a PDF file. I don't keep hard copies of anything anymore.There are many virtues to a paper-free life. For those of us living in small Manhattan apartments, the space saved by eliminating paper files was enough, by itself

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1162672319995519512006-11-04T14:31:00.000-05:002006-11-06T21:44:41.103-05:00

Changing gears -- smoothly and at the right time -- is something that the best venture capitalists do extremely well. By changing gears, I mean shifting from one investment theme to another.After building expertise in big box retail investing, for example, it's no easy feat to abandon that knowledge to pursue something totally different like communications investing. Yet that is precisely what

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1159324464472893902006-09-26T22:23:00.000-04:002006-09-26T22:34:24.486-04:00

Several months ago, I wrote my initial "shorts and longs" blog entry covering a few things I'd bet against (shorts) and a few things I like (longs). Here's a new entry in the longs column: the US economy relative to the rest of the world. There has been a lot of talk about the US losing its leadership position to China and/or India over the next few decades. I think it's going to take a lot

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1153261306228463232006-07-18T18:21:00.000-04:002006-07-18T18:37:39.686-04:00

Howard Dean is often credited with being among the first to tap the power of the Internet to further the goals of a political campaign. It didn't end well for Mr. Dean, and I'm not even sure he deserves all the credit he gets for injecting the Internet into politics. I am convinced, however, that he was on to a big idea.Since the 2004 Presidential race, there has been very little discussion in

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1151020586391590762006-06-22T19:51:00.000-04:002006-06-22T19:56:26.420-04:00

It's not uncommon to see company promotional materials in the form of t-shirts, mugs and pens.This is my first sighting of a new form of logoware: an imitation diamond-studded belt buckle. Perhaps the start of a new trend?

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1148487501903896322006-05-24T12:16:00.000-04:002006-06-22T20:02:48.876-04:00

I don't have any scientific evidence to back up a full-fledged assertion, but I have always suspected that a key success factor behind the simple text ads that comprise search marketing is their subtleness. They look just like natural search results, and I don't think most consumers actually understand the difference.I run Google ads on my blog, and last month I received this note from Google:

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1147748010510357222006-05-15T22:40:00.000-04:002006-05-15T22:53:30.526-04:00

Until today, I didn't fully appreciate how aggressive Google had become with its desire to own datacenters around the world. Of course I have heard countless stories of the massive server farms Google operates. One rumor even suggested Google built a meaningful single digit percentage of all PCs last year.Still, I was stunned to learn from a young New York based startup about its recent run-in

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1147100262156892442006-05-08T10:39:00.000-04:002006-05-08T11:06:57.013-04:00

Some people have such great phone voices that it's hard not to want to talk to them. A multi-hundred million industry emerged based on that observation. Marketers persuaded consumers to call 1-900 lines (often, though not always, for sex chat) and relied on their operators' ability to give good phone to keep consumers engaged as the bills ran up at the tune of $5 per minute.Excellent reporters

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1144364092189422732006-04-06T12:52:00.001-04:002006-04-06T18:54:52.203-04:00

MIT Technology Review's Simon Garfinkel has announced he, too, is a Scan Artist. He has good taste in scanners. Welcome to the club, Simon.

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1144364068358639272006-04-06T12:52:00.000-04:002006-04-06T18:54:28.423-04:00

MIT Technology Review's Simon Garfinkel has announced he, too, is a Scan Artist. He has good taste in scanners. Welcome to the club, Simon.

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1142702230970159812006-03-18T11:39:00.000-05:002006-03-18T12:17:10.993-05:00

Rupert Murdoch, the man behind News Corporation, has been both praised and ridiculed in the press for propelling his media empire onto the Internet with the acquisition of MySpace. Newsweek called it "Murdoch's New Groove" and the Techdirt headline mockingly shouted "All Hail Lord Murdoch of the Internet" as if to say he just discovered the Internet, and he's already declared himself

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1142268905066471422006-03-13T11:32:00.000-05:002006-03-13T16:46:36.830-05:00

I use Yahoo every day. It is my Firefox homepage and accounts for more of my web traffic than does any other site on the Internet. I'm clearly not alone. According to this Alexa chart, Yahoo serves almost 3x as many pages as Google.Seven years ago, I invested the time to customize a My Yahoo page and have incrementally added quite a bit to it since then. It has become my primary RSS aggregator

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1141880257447105092006-03-08T23:02:00.000-05:002006-03-09T12:50:24.113-05:00

In this blog, I have focused on topics related to areas I think are ripe with innovation and, therefore, present fertile ground for venture investing. And I have rambled on about miscellaneous gadgets, technologies and anecdotes that have captured my imagination (or at least my attention). I deliberately shied away from referring to my Bessemer investments to prevent this from becoming a

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1138843782499761222006-02-01T20:16:00.000-05:002006-02-01T20:29:42.513-05:00

In one of my blog postings from last September (here), I celebrated the arrival of a fabulous new Fujitsu desktop scanner. My colleague James Cham just pointed out that it took Infoworld an extra five months to make the same observation here.Though meaningless in the scheme of things, it feels good to scoop the tech press.

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1137553762465087102006-01-17T21:44:00.000-05:002006-01-17T22:09:59.756-05:00

In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof's editorial outlines the race between China and India to become the world's leading power by the year 2100. He highlights India's demographic advantages (more working-age people) and financial system (China's banks are a mess). And he praises China's impressive infrastructure (India has third-rate roads and ports). In the end, he places his bet on China

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1137447691459186312006-01-16T16:08:00.000-05:002006-01-16T17:11:18.380-05:00

At last month's Digital Livingroom conference in San Mateo, my co-panelists (Tim Bajarin, Julie Ask, and Mike Langberg) and I were charged with outlining a "roadmap for the future" of the digital livingroom. I shared my views on these six ideas (three longs, three shorts) and asked the audience for its opinion on each. For what it's worth, they tended to disagree with me, but here are the calls

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1137285442378341562006-01-14T19:21:00.000-05:002006-01-14T22:05:33.850-05:00

Many of my Bessemer colleagues went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. I had attended it in each of the last several years but decided to skip this one. I was slightly disappointed with the small number of new things I saw in 2005 relative to 2004, so I decided to make it an every-other-year event.Little did I know, my trip to the Museum of Modern Art last week

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1133278490643162422005-11-29T10:14:00.000-05:002005-11-29T10:34:50.670-05:00

Fabrice Grinda is a new blogger that I plan to watch closely. I have known Fabrice for about 10 years, and he's a very unusual entrepreneur in that he readily admits he lacks "the creativity to come up with brilliant new ideas." He appreciates that ideas are cheap, and execution is what really counts. Fortunately for Fabrice, he has executed well on a few occasions.Most recently, he founded and

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1132039859643886732005-11-15T02:18:00.000-05:002005-11-15T02:30:59.676-05:00

Several folks have asked me why I have deleted so many user-posted comments from various blog entries. I wish there were an exciting or scandalous reason I could blog about, but the explanation is disappointing: link spam (aka blog spam).When I set up my Blogger account, I erred in selecting the setting that allows for anonymous comments. I wanted to encourage anyone to disagree (even violently)

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1131918301010347922005-11-13T16:07:00.000-05:002005-11-13T16:45:01.056-05:00

KDDI was once a distant also-ran in the Japanese wireless telephone market. It still trails leader NTT DoCoMo, but the gap is narrowing quickly because KDDI has been taking bold steps. I wish Cingular, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile would take notice, but I fear they have been too busy consolidating power to worry about anything else.To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, KDDI operates the only

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1130352641851313812005-10-26T14:49:00.000-04:002005-10-26T14:50:41.856-04:00

I guess I'm a little tired (and admittedly envious) of all the hype and adulation that surround Google. Clearly the company is doing a lot of things right. How else can you explain its unstoppable revenue and earnings growth?However, I'd still bet against some of Google's choices. One strategy I disagree with is Google's often-cited policy that its engineers can devote up to 20% of their work

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1128917182666174882005-10-10T17:57:00.000-04:002005-10-10T17:44:02.280-04:00

Consumers are bizarre. Surprising. Unpredictable. But most importantly, there are about six billion of them. About 600 million are on the internet, and 1.8 billion have cell phones.With a group that large, you can find just about everything. In fact, you can find thousands of anything.Well, imagine I told you that a college-bound kid put up a web page with a giant grid on it. Let's say he

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1128659379431553712005-10-07T00:09:00.000-04:002005-10-07T00:31:39.603-04:00

Sometimes bubbles go "pop!" Remember April 2000? But they often deflate slowly like a tire with a small leak. If you listen carefully, you can hear a hissing sound.Well, I am delighted finally to see some evidence of hissing. No, I'm not referring to the rapidly inflating Web 2.0 bubble (see David Cowan's comments on this week's Web 2.0 Conference here). I'm referring to the bubble that just

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1127752691695852842005-09-26T12:38:00.000-04:002005-09-26T12:40:09.896-04:00

Once in a while, I stumble across something that "just speaks to me." The chart on page 21 of Morgan Stanley's latest Internet Trends research report is a great example.Source: Morgan Stanley

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1126480600409319782005-09-12T10:00:00.000-04:002005-09-12T10:44:01.463-04:00

I'm addicted to Web 2.0. My two favorite elements of most Web 2.0 businesses are 1) their syndication platforms and 2) their social networking connections.The latter attribute, however, is becoming a problem.Friendster was among the first social networks, and it was a social network for social networking's sake. It didn't have any real functionality. I think that's part of the reason it atrophied

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1126478889108729882005-09-11T18:37:00.000-04:002005-09-13T18:35:21.360-04:00

I used to be one of those people with file cabinets full of “documents” and “records” at home. But I have always harbored a few ounces of doubt as to whether I should actually be keeping all these files. Would I ever need to consult an old brokerage statement or credit card bill? More concerning was that I definitely wanted to keep some of the files, like old tax returns, but if anything

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1126447204110702772005-09-11T09:26:00.000-04:002005-09-11T10:00:04.120-04:00

It's already a couple of months old, but a friend of mine recently pointed me to Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford's 2005 graduation ceremony. I have read many stories about the early days of Apple Computer in Steve's garage, but I didn't know much about his pre-Apple days. There are a couple of interesting anecdotes in his speech about his brief (and aborted) college life.The closing

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1125670940669084952005-09-02T10:15:00.000-04:002005-09-02T10:22:20.676-04:00

Web 2.0 is a really good name for the proliferating set of open consumer web services taking the internet by storm. One of the better descriptions of the phenomenon can be found here.The "2.0" part of the name is quite fitting. Like most ".0" releases, it only sort of works.I added Bloglet to my blog last week to allow readers to subscribe via email. I have posted a few entries since, but not a

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1125458509622297052005-09-01T23:45:00.000-04:002005-09-01T23:50:12.866-04:00

When it comes to consumer products, the adage "keep it simple, stupid" cannot be over-emphasized.Take the television remote control, for example. Today's models have dozens of buttons, but the vast majority of people use no more than the same five buttons which debuted on the original models 20 years ago: power, volume up/down, and channel up/down. There is a 2% portion of the population that

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1125274331452334832005-08-30T14:50:00.000-04:002005-08-30T14:53:05.163-04:00

Recently, I met a young company called EasyRoommate that epitomizes the truly global nature of business today.EasyRoommate is headquartered in New York City and all of its employees are in a single office just off Union Square. Everyone speaks English, but rarely as a first language. The Italian woman who operates www.EasyStanza.it sits next to a Spanish woman responsible for www.EasyPiso.es who

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1125273011474033392005-08-28T19:39:00.000-04:002005-08-28T19:50:11.480-04:00

In preparation for some competition with the combined Sprint-Nextel, according to Yahoo News, Verizon is expected to announced a price drop on its EVDO service from $80 to $60 per month.Ten years ago I didn't have a cell phone. Today, it accounts for more than half of my calls. With EVDO's "near-broadband" wireless service at just $60/month, I'll have unlimited internet access and international

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1124950024519655082005-08-25T01:54:00.000-04:002005-08-25T02:09:33.326-04:00

I have never been able to verify its authenticity, but my favorite Dell tech support interaction goes something like this (circa 1990):Customer: I just set up my new PC, but the foot pedal is not working.Tech support: The foot pedal?Customer: Yeah, I keep stepping on it, but the computer won't turn on.Tech support: Sir, the on/off switch is the orange button located in the middle of the front of

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1124680713190249272005-08-21T22:53:00.000-04:002005-08-21T23:38:48.973-04:00

Here are three more things I'm very bullish about:Networked CE (consumer electronics) -- I anticipate a day in the not-so-distant future when every CE device -- TVs, stereo components, and even clock radios -- will have a built-in network interface. I do not think this means we will see new CE brands (though Sonos may prove me wrong) as I think the brands we already know and trust (Sony, Samsung,

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1124059698951228162005-08-14T18:37:00.000-04:002005-08-14T19:53:23.603-04:00

I have decided to start peppering my blog with occasional "shorts" and "longs" as defined in the stock market sense. For those less familiar with equity trading, to "go long" means to buy something (typically shares of stock) -- essentially betting that it will go up in value. A short sale is just the opposite: the sale of something you don't own -- a bet that it will go down in value allowing

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1122938251524142622005-08-01T17:56:00.000-04:002005-08-02T17:34:37.093-04:00

Prior to the internet, the only businesses built around donated products were thrift shops. For decades, generous people have donated goods (mostly clothing and furniture) to community storefronts where the products can be purchased by consumers. To my knowledge, the thrift shops collect money mostly to ensure they are self-sustaining, and less fortunate consumers get great deals on other

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1122359201657559762005-07-26T01:48:00.000-04:002005-07-26T02:26:41.663-04:00

Last week, Bill Gates was quoted in several publications including this one lamenting the fact that more American kids are not studying computer science. He claims to be concerned that Microsoft will run out of graduates to recruit into its coding ranks.Information Week's Mitch Wagner thinks Gates has himself to blame. Wagner thinks today's kids see the writing on the wall. He cites reports that

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1121987901661988582005-07-21T19:03:00.000-04:002005-07-22T12:39:22.570-04:00

ROI-positive online ads are showing up everywhere (even on my blog!). Google epitomizes the robust online advertising sector with its 100% growth rate and billion+ dollars of quarterly revenue, but the impact stretches well beyond Google. I have been impressed by literally dozens of private companies that are building strong businesses in performance-oriented online direct marketing. There are

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14531678.post-1121649122267762302005-07-18T08:00:00.000-04:002005-07-18T09:47:47.780-04:00

Yahoo acquired Geocities for a few billion dollars around the height of the personal homepage craze in 1999. But I managed to skip the internet's first "diary" phenomenon altogether. True, I was partially dissuaded by the hassle of learning enough html syntax to make a decent looking personal web site, but the main reason I never created one was that I didn't think anyone would ever visit it. So

Jeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059215947606354026noreply@blogger.com4