Israeli VC on Sand Hill road

What constitutes a good meeting?

Entrepreneurs often suffer from a pseudo–illness, commonly referred to as optimism, rose-colored glasses or just plain naivete.  I suppose that it’s a required “illness”, otherwise, most would never start a journey in which the odds are clearly not in your favor.

In many of my meetings, entrepreneurs report about a recent series of meetings with customers/partners/investors to discuss their company.  Most often they are very energized, having had good meetings all over.

I have a simple question for all them: “Why was it a good meeting?”.

Here, I would like to present my definition of a good meeting, which will obviously vary from one type to the next. Here’re a few points to note:

• Title of person/people attending - and more specifically - do they have any authority to approve whatever it is you’re offering
• Actions items - where there any clear next step action items defined. 
• Who’s action items were they?  For example, if a company has a demo product, and the action is for the company to deliver the demo product, that’s not a good sign…. need to have some traction from the other side (the buyer in this case).  Action items that require the other side are a much better sign of a good meeting
• Was the meeting interactive, or did the other side nod their heads a lot and do less of the talking.
• Did the meeting start on time ?  If it’s not deemed important, often the people that you go to meet don’t take you too seriously, and keep you waiting in their conference room.
• Did the meeting go over time ? Again, not because you spoke too slow, but rather the others were asking so many questions, that you ran over the alloted schedule.  It’s no secret that you are given a small time slot, but it’s amazing how easy it is to make time if there is real interest
• Is there a time line for the next meeting/call/AI deliverable? Committing to a date makes it much more real.

This may be very simplistic, but I think worth quantifying before declaring that a “good meeting” has taken place.  I will blog separately about what I think is a good meeting with a venture capitalist…

Tags: business+meeting

Oh my, I've become an American

May 15^th, London.  Living in Israel means that Europe is just a quick hop away; TLV to London is faster than coast-to-coast.  While living in Silicon Valley, I rarely had the opportunity to spend any time in Europe, and if so, it was usually at an airport somewhere.  Last Sunday night, I arrived in London for some meetings, and realized how US-centric I’ve become. 

First, I didn’t remember how to make a local call on my cellphone.  It took 3 tries before I got the call completed (how embarassing).  (Note: Gemini portfolio company Starhome is actually helpful with this, but I tried to make the call as a local might….). Then, I didn’t bring the correct power adaptors (for some reason, thought they were like in Israel).  I set my cellphone to the wrong hour, since I was not thinking “24 hr. clock”.  As I was relying on my cellphone instead of a “wake up call”, I was lucky to have awaken in time for my first meeting.

Yep… definately become more of an American than I used to be….

 

Tags: International+travel

Software 2007 - My summary

I just spent a good part of the past 2 days at “Software 2007” in Santa Clara.  Conferences are very time consuming, but I have always felt it important to attend every once in awhile to get a better sense of what’s going on in the industry. 

The Software industry has been regarded by many as “dead”.  Didn’t feel dead…. there were lots of attendees.  But as I mingled among the crowd, I met lots of entrepreneurs, service providers of all sorts (many Indian outsourcing firms…), marketeers from the companies delivering the keynotes (SAP, HP, Microsoft, SalesForce.com, Motorola) and a few rare appearances by my venture capital colleagues.

For me, this means that Venture Capitalists are not interested in Software.  Perhaps I’m wrong, but if this was a Cleantech conference, I bet it would be a different story.  However, this venture capitalist hasn’t given up… I’m actively seeking innovative ideas in the broadly defined software space. 

During the conference, I listened to quite a few of the keynotes, specifically Hasso Plattner (Co-founder and Chairman of the Supervisory Board, SAP), Shane Robbison (Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, HP), Marc Benioff (CEO, Salesforce.com) and Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft).  Here’s my summary:

SAP: Hasso Plattner’s key message: not only small companies can innovate.  As he presented SAP’s new offering for SMB’s, what I heard was not “innovation” but rather “catch-up”.  Sorry… however, it’s still impressive (since often, large companies can’t do that either), but SOA, On-Demand, Collaboration, Community, Standards, etc. are themes we’ve been hearing about for quite some time. 

Looking further into the future, Hasso talked about in-memory databases, and the impact they will have on performance.  Another point he drove was that the applications should remain “dull looking”, the more minimalistic the form, the better.  The more you put color, shades, etc., it doesn’t change the content, it convolutes it.  Performance is everything, and Google is a good example of this.

HP: The fact that HP delivers a keynote at a Software conference, says something.  These guys are certainly serious about software.  Just noting some of the numbers: of the $3.6B invested in R&D, 70% is software (compared to 30% 3–4 years ago).   Software powers hardware and differentiates products, and that’s where HP makes most of it’s $$.   Shane spoke about the shift in software focus from management software to Business Technology Optimization.  Wow!  Not only did they acquire Mercury, they’ve kept the pitch!!  Have to admit, it felt odd to hear it from HP.  It’s so Mercury, well, ex-Mercury ….

SalesForce.com: Marc Benioff is a great presenter.  During his session, I kept thinking of my Israeli entrepreneurs… why can’t they speak like him!  He reminded all of us that SalesForce.com was a catalyst for change in the software industry.  Very true.  Initially, the users were SMB’s, but now, that’s not the case anymore.  Marc then went to pitch a new platform that will allow anybody to create and then run new applications on top of this platform, empowering users and ISV’s to build next generation apps. This company is moving beyond just being a single application, to providing a platform, with multiple applications. Sounds like a familiar strategy…. perhaps, they should rethink the name of the company .

Microsoft: Steve Ballmer’s presentation skills are not-too-shabby either.  He spoke about the transformation in the industry which is created by the Internet.  Software is a commodity, and everything will evolve to a SAAS model.  Monetization of software is moving to 2 important business models: On-line advertising, and the Consumer-Electronics model (meaning sell hardware, which is differentiated by software).

So, for me, net-net…. not a lot new.  In any case, I still found it a worthwhile conference.  When we live so far away (Israel…), we frequently visit Silicon Valley, which is still the heart and soul of this industry.  The question is always what to put as the anchor reason for a trip.  Software 2007 is a good one.  Next year, however, MR is moving the conference to Las Vegas… might be good for some.  I wish it would stay in Santa Clara.

 

Tags: Software+2007, hp, microsoft, sap, salesforce.com

Silicon Valley: the land of technology, no cell coverage, and...

no Electricity!

It is no secret that I miss living in Silicon Valley.  Fortunately, my frequent business travels bring me back regularly.  But just as one idealizes a past love, I have a tendancy to think of this place as just about perfect. That is, until reality sinks in….

Yesterday, as I was driving to my office on Sand Hill Road, trying to talk with my kids at home, my cell disconnected every 30 seconds… I just gave up.

At 2PM, I attended a board meeting in San Mateo.  The air conditioning in the building was not working (which is a problem when it’s 90 degrees out, and you’re on the 6^th floor).  After the “hot” meeting, we drove back to the office, but couldn’t get into the building…. turns out there was no electricity in the building, and the key card wasn’t letting us in.  In fact, there was no electricity on the entire Sand Hill Road, and surrounding areas.

Yep.  Silicon Valley, the center of the universe for hi-tech…. she’s not perfect at all.  I miss home.

 

 

Tags: Silicon+Valley, Power+outage+Sand+Hill+road, No+cell+coverage

VC's - knowing when to quit

In the venture capital industry, there is much discussion about supporting existing portfolio companies.  When we first embark upon an investment, we do so with great enthusiasm.  We have put in hours and hours of work with the entrepreneurs, understanding the market opportunity, etc. The risks are clear, as are the rewards.

But as the newly funded company starts to execute, we often find ourselves with less-than-perfect performance. Delayed release schedules, missed revenue targets, over budget expenses, etc.  Our challenge is to identify the cause of the weak performance, and decide if we continue to support the company - or not. 

If the decision is to support, the premise is not to invest “good money after bad”.  What’s gone is gone and it’s not a good enough reason to invest more.  Supporting a troubled company, is accompanied by a good understanding of what’s causing the missed results, and an already-in-place course of action to rectify the problem. 

If we decide not to support, we risk our reputation on one hand, as well as “throwing away the baby with the bath water”.

On this subject, Red Herring published an article voicing the conflicting opinions of Kleiner’s Ray Lane and Sequoia’s Pierre Lamond.  Certainly worth a read.

There’s never a single “right” answer, and different funds have different approaches to the subject.  I suppose that’s one of the reasons that Venture Capital is often described as Art, not Science. 

Tags: red+herring, Pierre+Lamond, Ray+Lane

Panaya: On-demand Impact Analysis for SAP

A bit over a year ago, Gemini invested (together with Benchmark) in the Series A round of Panaya.  At that time, we had a great entrepreneur, technology on paper and a huge dream.  Today, the company is already preparing for it’s beta launch.

What Panaya does is simple to explain, but extremely complex to deliver.  The company is providing on-demand impact analysis for SAP.  This means that as your SAP code and configurations are modified, Panaya automatically identifies the impact of these changes.  Although still a young company, this is a company that I expect to become a dominant player in this industry. 

For me, this is definitely one of the more exciting times in a company’s life.  You get to see what was envisioned come to life. Having just returned from SAPPHIRE® ’07 Atlanta (and soon going to SAPPHIRE '07 Vienna), there’s nothing like hearing real feedback from the industry (especially when it’s positive feedback!). Go Panaya Go.

(SAP users, if you’re interested, you can register for the company’s beta product here).

 

Tags: panaya, impact+analysis+for+sap, gemini+israel+funds

Men - and why don't they notice obvious changes !

Was not sure if this should be part of my blog, but after a quick chat with Ouriel, here it goes.

The story is simple.  Since the day I turned 40, I’ve started to need “long arms” to read small print.  After awhile, you reach a point where your arms aren’t quite long enough.  Following quite a few months of pure denial, I came to the conclusion that it’s time to get multi-focals.

To shorten this story, while my multi-focals were being prepared to be mounted on my old (and perfectly good) Silhouette frames, I wore a temporary pair of glasses.  Silhouettes are minimal, frameless, almost not there. My temporary pair was red, plastic, with red sides, heavy and you could spot them a mile away.

Well, all the women at Gemini noticed right away…. In the office, only 3 of the men paid any attention.  We had our Monday staff meeting, so everybody had the opportunity to see.  How can you not notice something that’s SOOOO obvious?!

My 3 boys all noticed, with various comments: #1 “Yuck, they’re ugly”, #2 “Since when are you wearing glasses”, #3 “Why are you wearing somebody elses glasses”.  You can try and guess which comment to attribute to which boys (reminder: ages 13, 9, 3).

I wonder what will happen when my boys grow up to become men… will they still notice?

Tags: new+glasses, multi+focals, silhouette