August 2006
Welcome Andrew Parker
A few weeks ago we mentioned that we were looking for the right person to replace Charlie, who had left us to take a product management position at Oddcast. Prior to this post, we had informally reached out to a... [Read More]
August 17, 2006 10:27 AM, By Brad Burnham
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Tags: analyst andrew hiring job
Business Development 2.0
It used to be that web companies needed to hire one or more smart networkers and set them loose on all the other web companies in search of deals that bring traffic, users, additional functionality, revenue, and a host of... [Read More]
August 17, 2006 07:17 AM, By Fred Wilson
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Tags: busdev businessdevelopment indeed web20
Scalability
One of the common concerns about IT enabled services generally and web services specifically is that they do not have the potential to scale. When the focus of venture capital was on IT infrastructure, this criticism was often voiced as... [Read More]
August 11, 2006 02:12 PM, By Brad Burnham
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Tags: focus investment scalability
Defensibility
Historically the defensibility of information technology companies has been based on intellectual property – usually patents, sometimes copyrights. From the late 70s until the late 90s many venture backed start ups contributed key components to the information technology infrastructure we... [Read More]
August 10, 2006 02:10 PM, By Brad Burnham
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Tags: defensibility focus investment
Information Technology Leverage
Not all IT enabled services businesses get the same value from their IT investment. We look for companies that have substantial technology leverage. When we make this point in conversation with an entrepreneur, it is usually enough to say “think... [Read More]
August 9, 2006 02:08 PM, By Brad Burnham
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Tags: focus investment it leverage
Potential to change the structure of markets
We invest in IT enabled services that have the potential to change the structure of markets. We see many plans that claim to incrementally improve the efficiency of an existing company or market. Some of these have pretty compelling economics,... [Read More]
August 8, 2006 02:04 PM, By Brad Burnham
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Tags: focus investment market structure
Our Focus
A year ago when we first re-launched our web site as a blog, we did so because we felt that the environment was too volatile for a fixed investment thesis. Instead we suggested that our thesis evolves in a dialogue... [Read More]
August 6, 2006 03:49 AM, By Brad Burnham
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Tags: focus investment services thesis web