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Build Back Different

Build Back Different

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We’ve mentioned Clubhouse before and attention must be paid: it proved to be a game-changer – big time – the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while. Clubhouse has taken social media into a different direction. While Twitter and even Facebook have been something of town squares, CH is not that: it’s the corner pub or sort of unconference  or coffee klatch, where people can wander in and out of ‘rooms,’ at will, and participate, or simply listen and learn.

Although, CH members, take note: Clubhouse Users’ Raw Audio May Be Exposed to Chinese Partner.

So, what’s next? Well, the Twitter and Facebook knock offs, of course. Considering that both platforms are losing users and revenue (Twitter reports $1.14B net loss for 2020 – and that was before CH hit the zeitgeist in a significant way, and Facebook has been hemorrhaging users in its most valuable markets for some time now, what to speak of the face that Apple Privacy Change May Cost Facebook, Google $25 Billion Over Next 12 Months), they still believe that they will forever hold sway as the Masters of the Universe, so why innovate when you can appropriate? Read More...

Meet the New Club. Not the Same as the Old Club

Meet the New Club. Not the Same as the Old Club

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It isn’t often that a newco launches that fairly quickly captures unicorn-level attention the way that Clubhouse has. The audio-only social network, which has amassed 2M+ users and $100M in funding in just under a year after launch, seems to have raised the bar by lowering the barrier to participation, meaning, that in most rooms, anyone can raise their hand and, in most cases (depending on the moderator), participate in the discussion. It’s still in beta, so it’s currently iPhone only and invitation only: patience.

“If you could plug into a live conversation about a topic, you’re passionate about, on demand, anywhere in the world, and have an opportunity to not only listen to some of the smartest people on the subject, but also participate with them, would you?” asked Brian Solis in Forbes (The Latest Silicon Valley Unicorn, Clubhouse Raises $100 Million And Also Raises Attention To The Importance Of Audio-Based Social Networking). “…it represents an unquenchable thirst for meaningful community and engagement, especially in light of the chaos and devastation that played out in the forms of disinformation, political theater, and divisiveness across other social networks.” Read More...

Investors in the Hot Seat

Investors in the Hot Seat

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Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

We work with and/or coach entrepreneurs all the time, and recently realized that many founders have no idea how the VC model works, meaning how and why VCs deploy funds – and make decisions – the way they do. So we’re going to shift the perspective to help you to better understand the process.

You go to investors because you need capital in order to get your company to the next level. Time to think about VC firms as companies as well, because they are. Some of them are large companies, re have a bigger war chest of funds to deploy, but truth be told, the majority are more akin to SMBs. Where does the money come from for the funds? Family offices, high net worth individuals, strategics (eg companies/corporations aligned with the investment vertical or thesis of the fund) or institutional investors (pension funds, university endowment funds, sovereign wealth funds, etc), and the funds manage their investments. The fund’s investors invest in specific funds for various reasons: the expertise of the team, the fund’s track record, their spidey sense, alignment of focus, etc.

Like the VCs who invest in your company, those LPs expect a return on their investments. If the fund fails to do that, well, they’re going to have a harder time attracting investors themselves when they go to raise their next fund, or to put it into startup terms, their Series A, B, whatever. Read More...

Is It Time to Shoot the Messenger?

Is It Time to Shoot the Messenger?

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Image by Jan Alexander from Pixabay

Calm down, we’re talking about delivering your message via online video. It seems that everyone is doing a videocast these days and given that one has one’s choice of either Facebook Live, LinkedInLive, YouTube, Periscope, DLive, Twitch, et al and out in beta, mmhmm, there is certainly no shortage of platforms. Or people who feel that they need to say something, whether or not they necessarily have something to say.

Careers have been launched via these platforms: look at PewDie Pie, the gamer/comedian who started out by playing videos of games, threw in some comedy and became one of the most viewed channels on YouTube. Or Harry Stebbings, who was a mere 20 years old when he launched his Twenty Minute VC, featuring, yes 20-minute interviews with investors, keeping them short, snappy and getting right to the point. Twenty minutes. That’s all it took. In fact, the now 24-year-old Stebbings recently launched his own micro VC fund (20VC).

“Podcasts are becoming big business — in part because of how well they can attract and keep audiences at a time when so many other media formats are finding it hard to pin down that elusive metric of engagement,” says Techcrunch. Read More...

Inside Investor Baseball: Here’s the Pitch

Inside Investor Baseball: Here’s the Pitch

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Image by Сергей Ремизов from Pixabay

Ok, so you’ve done your pitch deck – revised it ad infinitum, based on the feedback you’ve gotten from everyone you know and his or her fourth cousin twice removed. Now you’ve secured a few investor meetings, via Zoom. Where’s that investor pitch meeting template when you need one?

Brian Cohen spoke at our virtual investor breakfast recently and imparted some pearls of advice to help you with that one, some of which we’ll share with you today, with a few additions of our own, along with points other investor friends and previous Investor breakfast speakers of ours have made in the pas.

First, meetings these days are done via Zoom. Show your face. At least at the outset of the meeting. Not a photo, nyour initials, not your LinkedIn photo, which is no doubt a selfie and doesn’t look all that great anyway – the real you – and the other team members who may also be on the call. Why? Investor(s) want to get to know you and yours, and much is conveyed via your visage and facial expressions. Do you smile? At least occasionally? Investors – and Brian referred primarily to angels – after all, he was Chairman of the New York Angels for a decade before co-founding New York Venture Partner – and has invested in literally hundreds of companies over the years – have to like you. This is a partnership and a potentially a long one, so they want to see you – if only on a video call. For now, at least. Read More...

Observations and More Lessons Learned from the New Normal

Observations and More Lessons Learned from the New Normal

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It’s odd how companies have always had rules to which they had strictly adhered, but the lockdowns and behavioral changes brought several other necessary changes and issues to light, and always important for founders to observe and find that white space in the landscape that need that needs to be filled.  In terms of the current work landscape, for example, employees are not only working from home, but presently, sometimes from a home that might be thousands of miles away from the office. Suddenly, we can not only work remotely: it has been more or less mandatory for months and considering that 500K+ residents have already permanently left NYC, that trend may well continue.  No worries: we’ve proven that we can work for a NYC-based company, even if we’re in, say, Ohio. Zoom is the new normal and the stock price, yes, zoomed.

Not surprisingly, tracking devices on employees’ computers are also becoming the new normal.  Just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean your boss isn’t watching you, Vox reported. In fact, “Software that monitors remote employees is seeing a sales boom.” Speaking of Zoom, “The videoconferencing software, for example, used to allow hosts on its paid service to turn on something called “attention tracking.” This feature let them see if meeting attendees navigated away from the app for longer than 30 seconds during a meeting, which served as a good indication that they were looking at something else. It couldn’t see what they were looking at instead, and it could only be activated when the host was in screen-sharing mode… the company disabled the feature after widespread outcry, which demonstrates how much people dislike features like these and why employers should exercise discretion if and when they use them.” Read More...

Ripping the Mask Off Online Networking

Ripping the Mask Off Online Networking

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Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

‘The New Normal,’ ‘Zoom me,’ ‘let’s do a screen share.’ There’s no doubt that the patois – and much of our behavior – has changed in the last several months, but some things don’t, such as the importance of ‘getting out there’ and networking and staying connected.

There’s no excuse not to. You may be sitting at home, but let’s be honest: you have the world at your fingertips, so instead of wasting even more time on TikTok (and head’s up: Apple Caught China-Owned TikTok Spying on Millions of iPhone Users) or posting yet again to the gram or checking out what everyone else is doing, one of the most invigorating activities in which you can engage is meeting new people. Here are a few suggestions for doing that:

  1. Events these days are taking place virtually. Find the ones that appeal to you and participate. Ok, so you’re having a bad hair day. Most of the world has been having a bad hair three months, so don a cap, post your photo instead, and even post simply your name or initial, if you must. But remember: the web – and video conferencing – is visual. Fine to retreat behind a little black box, but at some point – especially during introductions – remember that the importance of networking is to literally show your face.
  2. Find online networking groups in your areas of interest. While in some events, you can participate in the chat only and are more or less a fly on the wall, there are those in which the attendees are actively engaged with each other and the host, en masse, or in breakout rooms. Good way to meet new people, and since people from all over the country and all over the world have the ability to participate, these are opportunities you might not have ordinarily gotten. Ever.
  3. Behave yourself. Play nice with the other kids/attendees. Participate, but refrain from using this as an opportunity to get up on a soap box or your high horse. People are participating because they want to reach out, not be shut out or shouted down.
  4. If you’re participating because you have a particular need – looking for work, employees, investors, whatever  – don’t start with that or use your agenda to monopolize the conversation. Find out who everyone is first. Participants usually also post their emails or LinkedIn information in the chat – which you can save. Establish a relationship first, and continue the conversations later – or via email or phone call or LinkedIn chat or a separate video chat. Just because it’s a video conference doesn’t mean you need to get in everyone’s faces.
  5. Participate in online activities, too. Trust us, there’s something for everyone out there – chess, yoga, cooking, karaoke, even cocktail hours. You name it, you can find it. Good time to develop an interest or pursue one that you’ve been putting off – and you never know who you meet that way. As for the cocktail hours: you may be holed up in your apartment, but no reason why you should have to imbibe alone.
  6. Good ice breaker rather than the usual, ‘who are you and what do you do?’ Try, ‘so where in the world are you at the moment?’ Many people are away from their usual home base. Always interesting to know where they’ve gone off to and how that has altered their lives. It’s a much more interesting way to connect in this age of the New Normal.
  7. LinkedIn. You may have a ton of connections, some of whom you know and some of whom you decided to connect with out of the blue for whatever reason and for whatever reason, they accepted. Good time to check in with some of those connections. Say hello. See how they’re doing and what they’re doing. Not everyone updates their profile all the time, so you never know what might have changed. Drop them a note. Or look for people/former coworkers with whom you might have lost touch. You might even want to look at some of your connections’ second degrees and perhaps introduce yourself to them. You at least know someone in common: that second degree may also have common interests or be able to help you push the envelope forward a bit – or vice versa.

We are admittedly a compulsive networker, as we enjoy meeting new people and you just never know whom you might encounter just by showing up, even if it means moving just a bit out of your comfort zone. It can be energizing. It can be thought-provoking. It may help you to look at something you’ve been thinking about/stressing over with a new perspective. If you’re working on something/need something in particular, it might even help you to move the needle forward. Read More...

Going Viral in the Age of the New Normal

Going Viral in the Age of the New Normal

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Dipping a bit deeply into C-19 points up, given that we’re some sixty-odd days into lockdown, but we do have our reasons – and a point to make.

For 50+ years, the CDC has postulated a theory – based on no science or studies – that if a pandemic hit, a lockdown could eradicate the virus. Read More...