Disqus - Latest Comments for fnazeeri

Re: 'Tis The Season To Change The CEO

fnazeeri — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:32:23 -0000

Des, I think we're both saying the same thing, you probably more eloquently. Bringing aboard strong supporting talent is always a good thing and there is probably a correlation between founder CEOs who don't bring on strong #2s and those that get replaced.

Re: Words of widsom from my youth

fnazeeri — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:44:54 -0000

I think #4 makes a lot of sense at small companies (which is what I knew when I was 21 or 22 and wrote this) but when you're leading a larger organization, it starts to reverse...

Re: Writing down and sharing your life story

fnazeeri — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:33:11 -0000

Two thoughts:

(1) Have you heard of StoryCorps?

(2) There's a business in there somewhere. I had this idea of consumer digital preservation a while ago. I bought a domain name a couple of years ago off a domain squatter (iCapsule.com) thinking I would go build a "digital time capsule" that would allow a customer to store digital media for a generation and then deliver it to a kid or friend. In my own experience, we have about 10K digital photos per year of my son who is 3.5 and it's a challenge to figure out how to store it. It's not like an old photo album you can throw in the closet!

It turns out storing data for 30 years is non-trivial. A lot of people are thinking about this and most methods today are expensive. I think it would be cool to write some software that similar to the SETI Screensaver that allowed participants to donate unused hard drive space to a network that preserved digital assets. Think of how much unused HD space there is in the world? It's only going to grow. Anyway....back to work...

Re: Beware of the complicated deal (part II)

fnazeeri — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:13:52 -0000

When I read this I was reminded by Fred's post "A lesson from Morty." in that you need more than an "it's standard" argument to pull this off. I've always argued the same for standard terms but I'd love to see the real cost in hours or dollars to back up the argument.

BTW, great negotiating move with the CEO in question (assuming she's reading! ;-)

Re: The Ideal First Round Term Sheet

fnazeeri — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:38:19 -0000

Shows you what I know... ;-)

Re: The Ideal First Round Term Sheet

fnazeeri — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:43:29 -0000

It's true Chris is a serial entrepreneur but he's turned in his entrepreneur shoes and traded them for an investor hat. I think his term sheet is fair and good but wanted to be careful with the representation you made.

Re: Free Thoughts

fnazeeri — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:44:26 -0000

Is "free" really the right descriptor? It seems like "subsidized" is a better description because if something of value is delivered truly free that means it cannot last. For example, the premium accounts at Blinksale are subsidizing the free accounts and the advertisers (plus maybe Google shareholders) are subsidizing Gmail. In order to be long term viable, I think "free" needs to be "subsidized" where the entity paying the subsidy derives business benefit greater than the cost. If that is true, and you compete with this, then you are in big trouble. Otherwise, if your competitor is someone who just does "free" then all you need to do is outlast their funding ;-)

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:42:51 -0000

Twitter-Grade rank-ordered group of entrepreneurs. Now that's really cool (except the part how I suck ;-)

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:05:59 -0000

Thx for the tip, Jeff. I added you both to the list and I love IdeaPaint!

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:00:25 -0000

Done. Added.

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:58:22 -0000

Thx, added!

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:54:13 -0000

Thx, added you to the list!

Re: Google Redraws Michigan Border

fnazeeri — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:56:17 -0000

Who knew? Oh, that's awesome! Thx for the tip!

Re: The VC's Customer (continued)

fnazeeri — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:35:02 -0000

I'm reminded of a post I wrote a while ago about a HBS paper titled, "Strategies for Two-Sided Markets." Essentially venture capital is a two-sided market between LPs and entrepreneurs. So who's the customer? Both, naturally. Who's more important? Well, that's what the paper delves into. The answer is the one that is "harder to get" and that's usually not the one with the money (e.g. candidates in the case of Monster.com, searchers in the case of Google, etc.). By that definition, I definitely agree that the customer of VCs is the entrepreneur.

Re: What VCs Are Worrying About

fnazeeri — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:03:55 -0000

Approximately half of the participants are "broken"...which is a lot.

Re: Cracking the Code on Patient Medical Record Search

fnazeeri — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:55:53 -0000

I do know that i2b2 is designed for federated queries and in fact there are a number of sites that are already doing this. The collaborative aspect of that is quite significant. The trick, of course, is that the data is non-anonymized so access is limited appropriately. And you're right, the software, while not trivial, is only a piece of the solution.

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:53:19 -0000

Done. Welcome aboard!

Re: Cracking the Code on Patient Medical Record Search

fnazeeri — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:22:07 -0000

I completely agree, Ted. Medical records are probably the most complicated data set on earth when you consider the amount and nature of the data. What's scariest about this, though, is that the US $2.4 trillion spend on health care is driven by these data. Couldn't agree more that we need to get cracking on the effort to upgrade and improve patient medical record systems.

Re: What % of the information or skills you learned in college do you use in the average month?

fnazeeri — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:21:35 -0000

About the same for me too I suppose. But then how much of what someone does in a given month is useful? Probably about the same...

Re: Directory of Blogs by Entrepreneurs

fnazeeri — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:16:25 -0000

Great blog, although you should probably be on Larry's list of VC blogs.

Re: Designing the Obvious

fnazeeri — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:54:28 -0000

Robert Hoekman pointed out that the books is not sold out on Amazon but because of some snafu there are multiple listings (i.e. check the other ones!).

Re: Designing the Obvious

fnazeeri — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:03:53 -0000

It's worth the wait!

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:21:24 -0000

It was a grueling process that makes the admissions process at Harvard look easy in comparison. But seriously I compiled the list starting with entrepreneurs that I follow and then added folks recommended by others. Not all of the folks on the list are founder/CEOs but most are. A few are senior executives at startup companies. If you think there is an egregious error with the list, let me know.

Re: Entrepreneurs on Twitter

fnazeeri — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:21:49 -0000

Hi Elliott, thx for the tip. I added you to the list. When you're in China, do pass the word about @compstudy.

Re: Angel Investors' Blogs - Angel Investor Bloggers | Angel Capital Blogs

fnazeeri — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:59:52 -0000

Thx for the bundle...nice!