VC, author, blogger and marathon-runner Brad Feld and I are working on a book for entrepreneurs that demystifies the "board" dynamics and inner-workings of a boardroom.

Brad, who once was an entrepreneur, has been an investor in over 100 early-stage companies. Having sat through thousands of board...

Today's "founder hint of the day" is to create an email address called founders@yourcompanyname.com and have it automatically forward to all the founders of your company.

I interact with a ton of companies every day. For the ones we have a direct investment in via Foundry Group, I know each...

I recently spent some time with a long time friend and entrepreneur who I've funded in the past. He's working on a new company which I think is really neat and I'm already a user of. He called me for feedback on his fundraising strategy as well as to see...

These days I'm regularly exposed to patent trolls. Sometimes I read about them, sometimes friends email me about them, and sometimes companies I'm an investor in gets sued by them. Whenever I read the claims in the lawsuits, I often think that the claim in question is "obvious." For those...

Last night I gave a talk hosted by SVB at their Palo Alto office. It was part of the "Never Ending All Old Is New Again Venture Deals Book Tour." I had a ton of fun talking to and answering questions from about 75 entrepreneurs who -- at...

Last night, during dinner with the Return Path board, Fred Wilson interrupted the discussion we were having to tell us that Steve Jobs had just passed away. All of us were stunned silent for a minute as we reflected on the amazing impact that Steve has had on our lives....

I've had a string of great board meetings lately. They all had several similar attributes.

There were no powerpoint slides: While each company has a substantive monthly reporting package, this was decoupled from the board meeting. I got my taste of financials, metrics, qualitative stuff, and whatever else the CEO...

I received at least one email a day last week pitching a politics oriented web startup. The emails start off something like this.

Over $8 billion dollars will be spent on the upcoming 2012 election. The web and social media are critical tools for any candidate. Every candidate will need...

One of the jokes in my little universe is that "every time I hear the word 'marketing' I throw up a little in my mouth." I've been joking about this long enough that it's become conventional wisdom that I hate marketing. Yet, if you look at many of our successful...

Jane and Dick, our fearless cofounders of SayAhh, have set up an accounting system and created their first set of financial statements. This week they set out to create their cap table and hire a CTO.

The founders each have common shares that will vest over...

Yesterday there was solid progress on the Startup Visa Movement - specifically making it easier for foreign entrepreneurs to start their companies in the US. The WSJ had a good summary article titled U.S. to Assist Immigrant Job Creators that discusses two formal communications from the...

I think about competition all the time. Every company we invest in aspires to lead whatever market segment it is in. In many cases, they want to create entirely new markets. Regardless, they always have competition, whether from other startups, existing companies, large incumbents, or companies they don't even know...

This afternoon in Boulder I'll be on a panel as part of the White House Startup America Roundtable. If you weren't invited to the event, there is a web site called Reducing Barriers to Innovation that you can participate in.

Over the past few years, I've...

I was at an board meeting yesterday morning for a new seed deal that we've done that will be announced next week. I love the product vision - it's in an area that I've been working in for a while across a variety of companies and will take a new...

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble." -- Macbeth

Every time I hear the word "bubble" I think of that quote from Macbeth. I also think of Tulip Mania and the South Sea Company which purportedly was the source of the concept of an economic bubble. And...

There have been a number of thoughtful "early warning sign" posts in the past few weeks including one from Fred Wilson (Storm Clouds), one from Mark Suster (What Angel Investing & Florida Condos Have in Common), and Roger Ehrenberg (Investing in a Frenzied Market).

Having been involved directly or indirectly in hundreds of early stage software and Internet companies, I believe the optimal number of founders for a software/Internet startup is between two and four.

Starting a company by yourself is incredibly difficult. It can be done, but it's the exception not the rule....