T.A. McCann - entrepreneur, advisor, just interested...

Corum group presentation - trends and predictions for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:28:00 +0000

Today I participated in an annual call with The Corum Group, a Seattle based M&A group focused on trends and opportunities for 2012 across the broad software, internet and mobile spaces. I was part of a panel that included some friends and people I really respect, including;

Dan Shapiro, Google -- Social Domination
Chris Bray, IBM -- The Year Ahead
T.A. McCann, RIM -- Revolution in Mobile
Peter Coffee, Salesforce -- Cloud Strategies
Steve Singh, CEO, Concur -- SaaS in 2012
Reese Jones -- the Berkeley Lab Sage
John Heyman, Actuate Partners -- "Selling for a Billion"

I made the following key points about “revolutions in mobile”

The rise and importance of “group based messaging”

o This is being driven by 3 main factors, the user interaction model of groups versus individuals, the features of D (delivered) and R (read) on the messages creating new “social contracts” and the pricing, as these features are usually included in a data plan vs. extra charges for texting. Some examples of progress in this space include;

§ BBM (with ~50M daily actives and over 100B messages/month) is driving growth and engagement for Blackberry in new segments (young people and international, like Indonesia)
Facebook buys Beluga in Feb 2011– team and foundation of group chat

§ Facebook launces Messenger for Mobile (including many group features and phone calling)

§ Skype buys GroupMe

§ Apple lauches iMessage as part of IOS5, adding the D/R features

§ Blackberry launches “social platform” for developers – blurring the lines between the apps and the conversation

o Predictions

§ more evolved kinds of solutions, interfaces and overlap of services (text, phone, photos, video, gaming…)

§ more acquisitions around companies like Path, Kik or Instagram or others who combine social + groups + communications

§ Windows Phone creates interesting solutions around Skype

Evolutions of “people centric experiences”

o Mobile users are interacting with more people, on more networks with more updates, so they need solutions that can aggregate, prioritize and focus their attention on what’s most relevant, especially in a mobile context.

o Some examples of advances in this space;

§ RIM buys Gist in Feb 2011 to bring these features to native Blackberry and Playbook

§ Windows Mango and dynamic “people” tab

§ Android “ice cream sandwich” People views – see a demo from LeWeb in Paris

§ RIM and Microsoft weaving in Facebook and Twitter messages and personas into the experience

o Predictions

§ Major developments and emphasis on the social graph

§ Native contact managers get more like Gist

§ Push notifications evolve to be smarter to alert you to “what you need to know right now about the people you care about”

The perfect portable computer

o Our mobile devices have become smart data collection devices and this can be especially effective when it comes to health and fitness solutions, where passive data collection, cloud based analytics and a community can create all kinds of value. Solutions around health and fitness which would already include things like Daily Burn, Fitbit, RunKeeper, Strava, Restwise, Jawbone Up…are a foundation for the future of athletic performance, one small aspect of health.

o Predictions:

§ Unique health solutions that combine mobile + cloud + community + analytics will emerge and go more mainstream as well as more specialized for critical health conditions

§ More hardware solutions that augment the phone will emerge (like Square or Up), where the phone acts as the brain, interface and connection to the internet and it is augmented with additional hardware for specific data collection.

Tension between native, web and cloud solutions for developers

o The number of mobile, connected and smart devices will grow dramatically (duh). But, for a developer, there will be lots of fragmentation in Android ecosystem (more devices * more form factors) + lot of tablets and this will drive some to rely more on the cloud and/or HTML5 experiences. However, this is hard and lots of specific choices need to be made. This is made worse when apps could leverage the growing capabilities of the devices (e.g. compass or camera) which is harder via an HTML5 app. So, there will be a proliferation of tools and approaches to deal with all this. One example of recent activity is;

§ Adobe buys Nitobi (makers of PhoneGap)

o Prediction

§ Some players like Red Foundry, RhoMobile and others will be gain real momentum and some will be purchased by major players to get into the mobile dev space

All in all, it is a tremendously exciting time to be working in the mobile space. The full re-broadcast of the event can be found here www.corumgroup.com/webinar-rebroadcasts.aspx?ta

Every journey begins with a few tiny steps

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:57:00 +0000

To create a great and successful company, marking and communicating your progress to yourself, your team and your supporters is critical. Here are a few things that have worked well for me;

- communicate every 2 weeks - this allows you to make meaningful progress, is a good frequency for your supporters to digest and sets you in a rythym towards monthly board meetings

- send your updates on Sunday afternoon - gives you an opportunity to finish out the week, have some time to put your thoughts down and will give your supporters a chance to read and comment before their busy week starts

- develop a specific format - I like to use the following;

Important info - this includes items about your industry, competition, key press mentions, upcoming events... likely a max of 10 items, but provides a good context for people less familiar with your area
Did - what you accomplished over the last 2 weeks. could be broken down to specific areas like product, team, investors... depending on how much you have going on
Doing - what is planned for the next 2 weeks
Need help - make this as specific as possible. In the event that your supporters are really busy, they can scan to this section and take action on your behalf. If you need help making a decision and need to provide context or back-up info, do that in an attachment or link to online doc

I have been using www.thinkfuse.com to accomplish this and it works really well for teams as well. If you want to get into the private beta of this awesome product, use the code "FriendOfTA".

You will find that over time, that you can get lots of engagement and action from your supporters using this format and therefore make faster progress.

9 strategies to maximize the value of mentor meetings

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 17:24:00 +0000

I have been spending a bunch of time with the teams at Techstars Seattle. It is exciting to see all the progress as we approach demo day on Nov 3, where all the teams show off their companies and plans for world domination.

Here are a few things that I have tried and/or learned from the entrepreneurs that can make most of these mentor meetings;

Start every meeting with;

what you want to focus on - usually no more than 3 things
only give me background which is material to the topics to be discussed

For each topic area;

Brief summary of the situation (e.g. we are finalizing our term sheet, have 4 angels interested, have talked to 4 mentors and 2 attorneys about issue X)
What decision are you trying to make? (e.g. should we give a greater warrant coverage for people who put money in before Demo day or not?)
What have other people have said? (Jonathan said "yes", Bob said "no" and we are looking for your input)
Listen and respond with "that's useful, we will take that into consideration" or "can you explain more..." - you should not feel pressure to make a decision then or agree/disagree or even argue the point. Take the input and move on to the next topic.

At the end of the meeting,

verbally summarize what you heard/learned (helps you both think you made good progress)
ask for more input if you need it - "based on what we have discussed, it would be great to get more input on topic X, is there someone else you think we should talk to and can you make the intro"
include these discussions in your ongoing status reports to your mentors, advisors... All the teams that I am working with are using http://www.thinkfuse.com/ with great success

Rinse and repeat with the next mentor, advisor, investor...the faster you can move through this, the more input you will get.

Focused questions will get you specific answers.

BTW if you are an angel investor or VC reading this and want to come to demo day, sign up here.

Making great creative work takes lots of time...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:09:00 +0000

The quick startup - done with a mind map

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:46:00 +0000

We are well into the Techstars Seattle season and I have been spending lots of time with many of the teams. As part of our discussions, we have been talking about how to simplify the pitches as well as capture all the different ideas and put them into context. One good way I have used to do this is with a mind map. I use Mindjet Mindmanager, but you could use others. Here is a template that I have developed that focuses on what I believe are the core elements of any startup - Customer, Value Proposition, Feature Set and Business model. In a perfect world, each of these concepts relates to each other in a cohesive story. For example, if your value is saving someone time, are you charing them more for features that save more time, are you communicating that your features save them more time than the competition, does your customer have a way to quantify time saved, is it meaningful and are you thinking the features you choose by how much time they might save the end user...you get the picture.

Here is the simplified, expanded version of the mind map.

and the MindJet template you can use. Do more (companies) faster! (thx Brad Feld).

The Future of Work

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:21:00 +0000

Recently, with the help of Mike Folden, I recorded this video on the "Future of Work" in an attempt to capture many of the things we have learned over the last few years both building Gist and interacting with many of the key thought leaders in the space.

Another key leader (and maybe the master) is Jason Fried from 37 Signals, who recently did this interview. More good concepts, with a little more focus on "how" you can work better.

These are a few opinions, what do you think? What am I missing and where am I off-base? Part of the "new workstyle" is continuous learning and I am just getting started.

A more efficient toolset (part 1 of n)

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:45:00 +0000

I really like software tools that make me more efficient. Over the last few months I have really come to love and rely on Text Expander and Mind manager.

Text Expander helps me quickly insert text blocks, mostly into emails. I have a few scripts that I use all the time that save me a ton of typing and ensure I include the right stuff every time. For example, when someone wants to meet with me, I type "ttungle" (my Text Expander label for this action using a calendar service called Tungle that I love) and get the following automatically inserted.

I know your time is very important, so in an effort to make scheduling easier and more efficient, here is my free/busy info http://tungle.me/tamccann if you want to suggest some times that work well for you. I am also copying my assistant, Teresa so she can confirm and work out any details. I look forward to connecting with you soon and if you need any more of my contact info, it's on my Gist Public Profile http://gist.com/tamccann, you should consider getting one as well.

Or, when I do my internal status reports, I type "tstatus" and get;

Status:
Important info:
Kudos:
Did:
Doing:
Need help:

I have about 10 of these "text expansions" that I use all the time. Other people on my team use Text Expander as well including Greg Meyer, our awesome Customer Experience Manager. He and I are now sharing our scripts which makes us both even more efficient. Here is how we do it;

Take a snippet that allows you to set a date 3 days in the future. Paste it into TextExpander and name it with a memorable name. Then you can add a character code such as r-3days (for me, this means reply + 3days)

Can you please respond to this emall by %@+3D%A (%m/%d) and confirm that you received this message?

Give entire folder of snippets:

File > Save a copy of folder

Give all snippets:

Set Text Expander to back up to Dropbox, then share this file (attached)

Import Snippets:

File > Add Group from File

_____________________________(next)------->

We all have lots of ideas and organizing them quickly and then being able to combine, move, organize... is critical. The best tool I have found is Mindmanger. I can quickly create "Mindmaps" of everything from product ideas, to new company concepts to list of influencers in a space...all in a way that I can easily edit, evolve as my thinking evolves, share and use to communicate with others. They have tons of templates on their site like the one below.

I hope these tools work well for you and I would be very interested in others that will help me (and others) be more productive!

building a big idea = lots of very small updates

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 22:54:00 +0000

At Gist, we have a team of just north of 20 very productive people, investors and advisors. We run an Agile development shop and try to apply Agile to everything we do. A fundamental value/activity of Agile is the lowly "status report". Status reports are critical to keep everyone going in generally the same direction, remain efficient and to get early understanding when things are going sideways. We have developed a bit of a process that includes;

status reports every other day (M, W, F) - sent to the team via email before 10am
the reports follow the form (persona status (Red, Yellow, Green - so we all know if you need help or are going to screw anyone else up), kudos (nice to recognize good work from someone), what I did, what I am doing, where I need help)
we do a "stand-up" every other day - :20 whole team meeting to check in and discuss key issues that affect key milestones, not to solve the issue, just to let the team know it exists.

I believe so much in this process and have been lucky to be advising a Seattle TechStars company trying to make this process even better, www.thinkfuse.com. Here's a Scoble video where Brandon explains a bit more about what they are doing. We were early beta users of ThinkFuse and hope to fully replace our ad-hoc approach to status reports with ThinkFuse soon.

In addition to running Gist, I advise alot of startups and entrepreneurs. My advice always includes getting into the habit of bi-weekly status reports which include the same format (did, doing, need help) with generally a bit more detail on the key areas of the business (users, product, partners...). Writing these makes you acknowledge all the good stuff you accomplished and set the stage/priority of what you need to do next as well as train your investors/advisors to help you in specific ways. Over time, these status reports become a "board package" but keeping all your supporters (team, investors, advisors...) on the same page with very regular, standardized status reports can really accelerate your ideas and success.

RIP - Rosemary - August 23, 2010

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:55:00 +0000

MacMail is pretty damn good....and makes me more productive

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:34:00 +0000

I have used almost every mail client there is. At Gist, we are a Gmail Apps shop, and I use and like the Gmail interface, especially now that we have Gist integrated with our Gadget. That said, I also using MacMail again as it gives me 2 key features, a) offline support and b) full use of the delete key for mail which lets me triage mail much quicker. There are tons of other little features like quick add to calendar and contacts from email, but the offline/delete make it very useful.

I have also just started using Text Expander to insert blocks that I use alot, which makes it faster still to process lots of mail from different directions.

To get faster still, I am just reviewing keyboard shortcuts. Apple has built into Mail many shortcuts for common commands, look in the menus of the Mail application or see the menu shortcuts below. To do an action, press the keys indicated below. Keep in mind the list is pretty long and it will be quite hard to remember them all. (Hint: Print out this page and keep it handy next time you are working in Mail)

Working with the Mail application
Create new compose window: Command-N
Get new mail: Command-Shift-N
Open new viewer window: Command-Option-N
Open Activity Viewer: Command-0 (zero)
Open Page Setup dialog: Command-Shift-P
Add senders to Address Book: Command-Y
Apply rules to selection:Command-Option-L
Use selection for Find: Command-E
Find text in a single message body: Command-F
Find previous: Command-Shift-G
Find next: Command-G
Copy entire text of a message: Select the message title in the message list and press Command-C
Minimize window: Command-M
Display a pop-up menu with commands for creating, sending, and retrieving mail: Press and hold the Mail icon in the Dock
Switch between different display settings in the toolbar: Hold down the Command key and click the toolbar button in the upper-right corner

Working with mailboxes
Open In mailbox: Command-1
Open Out mailbox: Command-2
Open Drafts mailbox: Command-3
Open Sent mailbox: Command-4
Open Trash mailbox:Command-5
Open Junk mailbox: Command-6
Show/hide mailboxes: Command-Shift-M
Select the search field:Command-Option-F
Erase junk mail: Command-Option-J
Move to the last mailbox you moved or copied a message to: Command-Option-T
Display a pop-up menu that lets you quickly perform several actions on the item you click: Control-click a message or mailbox

Sending messages
Add Bcc header: Command-Option-B
Add Reply-To header: Command-Option-R
Show/hide long headers: Command-Shift-H
Attach file to message:Command-Shift-A
Append selected messages to a new message: Command-Option-I
Paste as quotation: Command-Shift-V
Increase quote level: Command-’ (single quote)
Decrease quote level: Command-Option-’ (single quote)
Save as draft: Command-S
Send message: Command-Shift-D
Redirect message: Command-Shift-E
Forward message: Command-Shift-F
Prevent the next message from being automatically selected (and marked as read): Hold down the Option key when deleting a message

Receiving messages
Select all highlighted messages: Command-Shift-K
Mark as junk mail: Command-Shift-J
Mark as flagged/unflagged: Command-Shift-L
Mark as read/unread: Command-Shift-U
Reply with iChat:Command-Shift-I
Reply to sender:Command-R
Reply to all: Command-Shift-R
Bounce to sender: Command-Shift-B
Show/hide deleted messages: Command-L
Show raw source/original content: Command-Option-U
Compact/empty deleted messages: Command-K
Show plain text alternative: Command-Option-P
Show previous alternative (in multipart message): Command-[
Show next alternative (in multipart message): Command-]
Jump to selected text in message: Command-J
Copy message to a different mailbox: Hold down the Option key when dragging a message to a different mailbox.

Working with fonts, formatting, and spelling
Show Font panel: Command-T
Convert message to rich/plain text: Command-Shift-T
Make font larger:Command-+ (plus)
Make font smaller: Command– (minus)
Show Colors panel:Command-Shift-C
Align left: Command-{
Align center: Command-|
Align right: Command-}
Check spelling of email message: Command-: (colon)
Flag misspelling of selected word: Command-; (semi-colon)
Copy style:Command-Option-C
Paste style: Command-Option-V
Collapse the thread containing the selected message (when organized by thread): Left Arrow key
Expand the currently selected thread (when organized by thread): Right Arrow key
Move to next message in thread: Down Arrow key
Move to previous message in thread:Up Arrow key

_____________________________

What other apps/extensions do you use that can make me even faster at processing, responding to, automating... my MacMail experience?

Great friends...

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:36:00 +0000

I am fortunate to have great friends and family. I experienced so much of this over the long weekend. First, we had a wonderful Korean dinner party, hosted by Rich and Susie. This was an auction item and included a smorgasboard of fine dishes prepared from local sources. My favorite was the Northwest Tofu with red pepper, ginger sauce and the Hendricks Scottish Gin.

Then on Sunday, the McCann family traveled to Mt Rainier to remember our parents and dogs who've passed in the last few years. We went to our favorite spots where their ashes are spread and did our annual hand feeding of the birds and sledding at Paradise. It is nice to have a family that shares similar values and customs.

Finally, on Memorial Day, my brother Rob and Mark Wessel staged an awesome "Battle of the Network Stars" complete with teams, ribbons, trophies and great costumes. It was a huge amount of effort and creativity and ultimately tons of fun.

My friend Roger made a video of some of the action.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamccann/sets/72157624054462317/

And we had a great collection of friends who came out and ran, jumped, crab-walked, threw... for their favorite network. I am lucky to have these people in my life!

Tim Ferris is one smart guy...

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:02:00 +0000

I've watched and given lots of presentations, but I had to share this one specifically because it is really good. Tim Ferris, author or "4-hour work week" does everything right in this presentation. Here is what I really like;

- great headline that is easily remembered, shared and tweeted - "How to Create a Global Phenomenon for Less Than $10,000"
- makes the video and the presentation available for sharing and future useFerriss - Le Web 2

- gives real data about his experience with actions and conversion metrics from his site and others that we can all take away and use
- gives some love to our friend @Scobleizer and outlines the impact that key influencers can have vs. "traditional" PR (I totally agree) with real numbers
- gives examples of new tools that might help others, e.g. www.crazyegg.com and www.slinkset.com - which is also very good
- shares anecdotes about how he has extended his experience to other sites including the Daily Burn

Tight, data driven, real information that we can all learn from. Thanks Tim!

What I should have said about raising money...

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:53:00 +0000

On Saturday, I was given an opportunity to speak to a room full of entrepreneurs at the Startup Day, put on by Marcelo Calbucci and the crew at Seattle 2.0. My topic was "raising money from angels and VCs". I think my presentation was flat and mis-targeted, so here are some of the things I should have said.

Update: Here is a link to the video from the event.

Relationships matter and take lots of time to develop;

introduce yourself early (now) to as many funding sources as possible, before you have a great idea
develop relationships with successful entrepreneurs (sold companies in the space) as they could be advisors, investors or connectors - use sites like Linkedin to leverage and grow your network and connections, you will need it later and can never really be big enough
offer your connections or services to potential funders - if you work at a big company (e.g. Microsoft or Amazon), offer to make introductions for their existing investments to key people, groups, programs, events, brown-bags. If you know key bloggers (which you should), offer to help, it is a really good way to build credibility all the way around
if you are a social media person, promote what they are doing. You need to begin a dialog and offering to help is a good first step. If you are not yet a social media person, you need to become one anyway to promote your ideas and picking relevant investments and promoting them, commenting on them is good early content and will begin to establish yourself in a space as a thought leader
understand what they are investing in now and why (what stage, what space, what vision...)
read and comment on their blog posts
retweet their posts on twitter, when relevant
suggest other relevant investments that they should/could make in the space you care about
share relevant articles/links/event - "Brad, I know you care about X and I thought you would think this is relevant..."
promote their ideas into relevant circles. if you care about the same stuff, which will increase your likelihood of a good match 10x, you should be discussing and debating the solutions of the future
understand their personal backgrounds - you will be making a 3-5 year commitment with these people, so you may as well understand how much you are going to like to hang out and if you share a similar "world view"
go to the same conferences, like www.defrag.com to meet other companies, funders...in your space
use products like www.gist.com (shameless plug) to do all this more efficiently
read blogs from Brad Feld (Foundry), Fred Wilson (Union Square)

At this point, you have asked them for nothing, done alot to help their companies, established that you are a smart, well-connected person who knows other people who care about future solutions in a particular space. All, before you ever talk directly about any one idea. I guarantee that you will learn alot as well about trends, companies and their strategies.

In choosing between raising money from angels and VCs, here are some things to consider;

if your idea is good, well articulated and with a high likelihood of success, the time to raise angel and VC money should be the same and it may actually be faster to raise VC money
Raising money will take 6-9 months from the time you start to the time you have $ in the bank. Starting way before you need money, but start very softly with steps from above.
if you choose angel - work hard to get 1 large lead (~25% of the total round) before you engage all the others. Until you have a good line on at least 3 of these people, don't even start the process
angel groups can be good (e.g. Keiretsu Forum) but look for a sponsor who is in the group, who should be a lead angel investor and develop that relationship first.
big ideas play into spaces with big competitors, so you may need VC to be able to react and/or create enough momentum to compete
simple rule of thumb - if you need <1m>
make your company plans "stage appropriate" - most Series A VC rounds are between $3-5M, so craft your plans to match this amount. $3 gets you A, B, C and $5M gets you A, B, C, D and E or the same timeframe (~18 months). Be firm on your stated "what you need", but flexible in these ranges
try and set you plans to achieve strong results in 18 months, at which point you will either need more capital or will be cash flow positive
the easiest way to raise money is to have a good business so focus on customers and better yet, paying customers. If you can't actually get paying customers, line up as many real people (potential customers) who say they would pay for your solution if it actually worked like you say it will in PPT
Focus on real customer vs. the overall market size. Know them by name and try and quantify what they will pay. Better yet, get a PO or some other commitment in hand that indicates a real willingness to pay

Once you have chosen to raise money;

focus on the sales process, this is a numbers game with relationship strength and your skills being the key things to increase the odds
it takes a ton of time (50-90% of the CEOs time) for 6-9 months.
work in groups of 20 with a focused horizon (~3 months) to separate the likely from unlikely.
if you have done your homework and understood the landscape (while you were building your plans), you should know the 20 likely firms/people, based on stage, size, history...now is your time for engagement. Hit them hard with a big push of info and momentum.
Once you have made the first pass (email intro), first meetings and seen the traction, then you can move on to the next 20 with an updated pitch
focus on warm introductions only. If you do not have a direct connection, you have not done your homework and built your network. Ask other CEOs, service providers...to help you find the right connections
set the timescale - send bi-weekly updates to everyone of your prospects who has not said "NO" yet. Show progress, achievements both internal and external, talk about what you need to succeed (team, marketing, sales, product dev...) all the things that their investment will enable
"we would like to see more traction" is a likely NO, likely move on
"we would like to see more traction"- ask for the specifics on what this means. "does this mean you need to see XX customers, or YY product improvement or ZZ partnership signed..." and then determine if you can achieve in your time window
keep showing progress to date on all different aspects. Investors love to see a team that can set a plan and execute on time and on budget
collect your responses and "gang up" your answers in the next update, investors can wait a few days
send your updates on Sunday afternoon to time your them for partner meetings (which usually happen on Monday)
the better the VC, the better the feedback. Take it and use it to your advantage
focus on the hard problems with your plan (we all have them) and how you want to solve them and where you need help (we all need it)
with regard to market size - focus on the successful companies and exits vs. bullshit from some analyst firm. Include small, medium and large company comps (focus on medium, publicly traded as you can gain tons of market data from there). For example, Salesforce.com has 1.3M paying subscribers, will make $1B in revenue this year and has a $5B market cap, that is the kind of business we are trying to create (assuming you were going to sell something to salespeople like we are doing at Gist)

Don't worry about;

NDAs - good investors will not sign these anyway and they have no real interest in "stealing your ideas". In fact, the best possible investors have tons of knowledge about other players in the space, will have likely looked at investing in all your competitors, know what the big players are doing, know the hard problems...and they got all this information because they didn't sign the other guys NDA either. You want these investors!
Patents - while it is a good idea to get some things on file early and use time to your advantage, don't spend too much time talking about this during a VC pitch. If they care, they will ask. We used http://www.olympicpatentworks.com/ and got great value.
Terms - if you are lucky enough to get a term sheet, it will outline all these items. You cannot control it, so don't worry about it. Your job is to create value! Value on your side of the table will drive the terms in your favor. Brad Feld and other VCs have written extensively about their philosophy on terms and term sheets.
VCs wanting to replace founders - if you are doing the right things, they will love you and make sure you have lots of equity to keep pushing the business ahead. If you suck or the business sucks, you should all be looking for someone to make the equity more valuable. Most VCs want the founder to lead the thing all the way, it is a better story.
The exit - if you create a great business, the exit will take care of itself. That said, if you have done a good job understanding your market and large competitors, you should be able to explain a likely exit with historical acquisitions. This is more of a commentary on the space, trajectory and pace of innovation than the exit itself.

Certainly more than I could fit into 15 minutes. Game changing ideas will likely need capital, expertise and people and great angels and VCs (Foundry and Vulcan) can provide that. Let me know if you need an intro. I have included the deck I presented and I am happy to try and answer any additional questions or make other introductions to people in my network. Good luck.

Funding your ideas (angel or VC) - thoughts and ideas

View more presentations from tamccann.

Flight of the Conchords rock the Paramount

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:31:00 +0000

I was lucky to see FOTC last night at the Paramount in Seattle. They were great! Funny, energetic, original, authentic... just rockin'. Here is the playlist, which I was fortunate to get;

Go see them if you have a chance. http://www.flightoftheconchords.com/tour/tour.php

The best tools to save me time... GTD

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:48:00 +0000

I was at a leading law firm this morning talking about Gist and other tools we are using to make use more efficient at gathering and/or processing information. I started this list;

All the time;
www.gist.com – gives me all the email messages, tweets, news, blogs… about the people and companies I care about (automatically)
www.tweetdeck.com – my twitter reader
www.activewords.com – to save time doing repeat tasks, especially responding to email
reader.google.com – my RSS reader
tamccann.blogspot.com (blogspot) – my personal blog
blog.gist.com (wordpress) – corporate blog
www.getanagram.com - quickly grab signature files and create Outlook contacts

Sometimes or passively;
www.disqus.com – tracks my blog comments across multiple sites and blogs
www.gravatar.com – allows me to manage my profile photo in many places
www.evri.com (new entrant, I also worked on this worked on this at Vulcan) – I have created “collections” for key topics and competitors
www.clearcontext.com – outlook add-in that organizes email into projects
www.friendfeed.com – tracks posts and stuff from my friends across lots of different sites and services
www.tripit.com – makes my travel more efficient and somewhat social (I can see when my friends are in town or I am near them)

I am sure there are lots of other tools listed on sites like www.lifehacker.com, but what tools are you using that you really like. Leave me a good comment and I can hook you up with a www.gist.com beta account.

Keynote speech - Lessons learned #2

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:32:00 +0000

Thanks to the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce for having me keynote the 2009 Eastside Business Awards.

I have provided a copy of my slides here.T.a. McCann_ East Side Business Awards Keynote

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Technology Business & Law entrepreneurship bellevue chamber of

I also made reference to a few other key people;

www.stoweboyd.com - the master of "flow" and the man responsible for the "juggling with technology" anecdote

www.chrisjordan.com - extremely cool artist, always looking at the world in a new way

Congrats to all the winners!

A VC

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:57:00 +0000

I found this good quote today from Fred Wilson:

My first piece of advice is to share the news as soon as you have it. There is never a good reason to have information about your business that your board and major investors would want to know and not share it. You could argue that it's time consuming to communicate with investors and that it's more efficient to wait for the regular board meetings to do that. But whatever you gain in efficiency with that approach, you lose in trust and confidence building with an important group of stakeholders in the business. It's not worth it. There are efficient ways to communicate with the board and major investors. A quick email will normally do the trick.A VC, Apr 2009

I have had very good luck with my investors by communicating good and bad news frequently. The key is to do it consistently, which I try to do every 2 weeks and in a format where you can keep the good and the bad in balance.

A VC

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:26:00 +0000

I found this fascinating quote today:

I got a Kindle just over a week ago. It has changed the way I think about reading. I have a couple dozen books on it and I go back and forth between them in a way that I have never done with books. I am in the process of reading about six books in parallel and I love the way the Kindle allows me to read what I am in the mood for at that moment in time. This is what I am currently reading on my Kindle:A VC, Mar 2009

You should read the whole article.

The interesting thing about this post to me, is that Fred is reading 6 books at the same time. I find this super multi-tasking is a big trend of highly connected people and that they can have 5 converstaions, 4 companies, 10 friends, 5 apps... all going at the same time and the Kindle finally lets this happen with books in a very portable way.

NWEN presentation - 0-25mph for startups

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:36:00 +0000

Early this morning, I presented at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network breakfast . NWEN (www.nwen.org) helps people start companies by giving them tools, connecting them with service providers and making connections to other people, advisors... and I love that. This was a chance for me to summarize my thoughts and experiences (to date) and connect with other entrepreneurs. I always learn something when I do these kinds of events, both about what I have done right/wrong in the past and how I can be better in the future.

Here is a link to the PPT that I presented, a continual work in progress.

I also met a bunch of really interesting people working on cool ideas. Thanks to Jared and Peter for setting up the event and to everyone who asked me such good questions after the talk. I look forward to the future discussions and coffee meetings.

If you have questions or follow-ups you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or send plain old email (tam@gist.com) and I will do what I can to help.

is twitter the new inbox

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:52:00 +0000

I have been using Twitter alot lately. I find it helpful to broadcast my message to a large group of "followers" as well as keep tabs on my friends and what is on their minds. But, Outlook and email are by far my primary means of communication.

I have also been getting more Facebook messages lately, which I hate. I usually reply with "send me an email instead" so I can factor in my reponse with all my other stuff I need to do.

Yesterday, I met Cameron Reilly for the first time. He runs www.thepodcastnetwork.com and came in to interview me abot Gist (www.gist.com). He told me he has stopped using email as he has over 600 unread messages in his inbox. He now uses Twitter to communicte with his close friends using "DMs" or direct messages. This is really interesting to me.

Is it that only his close friends are on twitter, therefore he only gets "important" messages? Is it the blend of broadcast and direct messages which is appealing?

Last night, I also got some DMs from my friends Kathy Gill, who is a very Web 2.0 person. She also chose to send me messages on Twitter instead of email. In her case, I think my tweets sparked a memory that she wanted to get back to me, which caused the action.

I am not sure how this is trending, but since I am a messaging guy (email, IM, Twitter, FB, SMS...) I think this is something to watch.

register your mobile for do-not-call

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:08:00 +0000

Just a reminder --

REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public today
REMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies tomorrow and you will start to receive sale calls.

.... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
888-382-1222.
It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.. It takes about 20 seconds.
or go to www.donotcall.gov

in memory of a good friend - Butch

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:40:00 +0000

My brothers dog, Butch, died this week and I will really miss him. He was a great friend.

From my sister-in-law, Julie;

Butch came to us… wandering on the streets of Chicago during a cold winter weekend. We made a half-hearted attempt to find the owner by posting a sign. We took the sign down after Rob found rope burns around the little puppy’s neck, and declared that the owner didn’t deserve to have him back.

“Boulder Boy” loved hiking with us and climbing up on boulders, jumping from rock to rock. He liked to camp and run in snow. He was tentative near water, but he loved running along a beach. Butch wouldn’t really fetch a ball, but he would chase a flying tomato! He tiptoed through wet grass and preferred to stay on the sidewalk during rainy days. Catlike, Butch’s favorite pastime was napping in the sun, or in a little spot he’d made under the laurel or the tree by the back door.

He didn’t like men who wore hats that hid their faces, and really didn’t like the mailman approaching our house each day. But Butch was harmless, really… except for the one innocent squirrel that he caught just a few months ago. Or maybe it was already a dead squirrel that fell from a tree right on Butch’s head while Butch happened to be yawning? We’re not sure.

Butch invented the bit brigade. Often, when we fed him, he’d take 2 or 3 bits to a piece of carpet (one bit at a time) and sniff, study, dance around or even bark at the bits before he deemed them fit to eat. He’d eat the bits on the carpet slowly and then go back to his bowl to finish his meal. His favorite treats were biscuits and butter from grandma. Butch was so clean, he rarely needed a bath. His fur was sooo soft. He smelled like honey.

In the end, Butch likely had a brain tumor. We’re thankful that he didn’t suffer very long. He was a loyal, loving, fun dog. We will really, really miss our Butchie.

All I need to do is listen to Buzz Bruggerman

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Every time I see my friend Buzz Bruggerman, he tells me about some productivity tool that I had either never heard of or forgotten to try. Today I was watching him being interviewed on Fast Company TV by Robert Scoble and he showed off MindJet. This mind-mapping software works for both Mac and PC and helps you capture complex relationships between content and ideas. For me, who has lots of projects going on at any one time and who has many areas of focus for each project, the process of mind-mapping is freeing and productive. While I was watching the video, I downloaded and installed the software and within 20 minutes I had 3 different maps going; a marketing strategy for the new company, a product roadmap, potential VCs for next round of funding... It was really helpful to get all these ideas down. Thanks again Buzz!

Twitter is over capacity

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:18:00 +0000

I have been using Twitter a lot lately and really liking it. However, they have lots of problems with the site being down all the time. Today was no exception. We got the following errors on 2 separate pages.

I decided to have some fun and created a t-shirt to honor this occasion. We used the "whale" image on the front and used the standard "follow" image on the back.

You should come and buy one here and I will donate the $2.00/shirt proceeds to www.artwithheart.org.

Just for fun as if I don't have lots of better things to be working on...

Active Words and getting things dones

noreply@blogger.com (T.A. McCann) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:25:00 +0000

I like to be as efficient as the next guy and so I keep my eye out for tools that can make me more productive and/or save me time. Recently, my friend Buzz Bruggeman introduced me to his product, Active Words. Simply put, this product lets you assign a word ( an activeword) for anything you can type/mouse on your PC. I have been most impressed with the “substitute text” feature and the scripting. For example, I invite lots of people to use my new product, Minebox. When I want to invite them, I simply type “mbwelcome” anywhere and Activewords;

Opens a new Outlook email message
Adds a specific subject line that I have pre-defined
Adds the specific text in the body that I pre-defined

Then, I just add the email address and away we go. This process alone saves me 5-20 minutes/week depending on how many people I am inviting. I also make sure the invite text and subjects are identical which helps me in filing and staying on top of the users progress. I plan to use the same process for following up with Alpha users and dealing with other repetitive tasks.

Buzz has lots of other things set up for himself, like “fly” which automatically opens a browser and goes to Expedia or “bank” which would open my on-line banking…the product is very flexible and could easily be adapted to work you many types of tasks, saving you minutes every time. I highly recommend giving it a try.