Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

If they aren't ready to listen, it doesn't matter what you say

Every salesperson knows this, but many entrepreneurs don't. If they aren't ready to listen, it doesn't matter what you have to say. Saying it five different ways won't help. Saying it louder, faster, more often, or getting other people to say it for you won't help either. Better to move on to the next opportunity, and come back to this one when they are ready to listen.

This is true for pitching VCs (Venture Capitalists), potential partners, strategic acquirers, customers, prospective employees...and just about everyone else. One young entrepreneur told me it was true of dating too.

So, why is it always a surprise to us when the other party won't listen? Well, we believe so much in what we have to say that we can't imagine anyone not wanting to hear it...and act upon it.

When I worked at Microsoft I would often find new startups that were doing amazing innovative things that could really add value to what Microsoft was doing. If the timing was right, and the product group was ready to listen, things happened very quickly...and successfully. I remember when I first saw Xobni I knew instantly that this would be great for Microsoft Outlook. I immediately sent a note to the top people in the Outlook group. They responded the next day and met with them the following day. Within a week or two Bill Gates was demoing Xobni to thousands of people on stage at the Microsoft Office Developers Conference.

Then there is the normal case. A year or two later I met the people from Gist. I was impressed. Gist had a great collaboration product that worked nicely with Outlook email. Gist captured all the relevant data, from lots of different sources, about a person in context of the email in front of you. The founders previously worked at Microsoft. Brad Feld, a personal friend, and well known within Microsoft, was a major investor. So, this should be easy, right? Wrong. The product group was not ready to listen. No matter what I did, or who I talked to...nothing.

Fast forward 18 months. I bring Gist to Google and they totally get it. Yesterday Google made an announcement about Gmail Contextual Gadgets. Gist (and Xobni) were part of the announcement. So, the people at Google are smarter than the people at Microsoft, right? Not really...maybe in some cases...but that isn't why it worked. It happened because the timing was right. They were ready to listen. Google had a product announcement coming up and needed ISV products to showcase.

I must say that Gist and Xobni both pulled off amazing engineering feats to get this done within days. They worked around the clock to meet an impossible schedule. The people at Google were amazed they did it. Now, Gist and Xobni could have said "Forget it. I have been down that road before and no one listened. I'm not going to turn my world upside down for you guys". They would have been completely justified in saying that. But, they saw opportunity and pounced on it.

So, why won't they listen? Lots of reasons. They could be totally heads down on a product release driving like crazy to a deadline. They could have other priorities that trump this one. They could have a similar idea already in the works. Or, they just simply aren't interested.

Things change with time. In the past I have taken a company or idea back to a group six months later...and they loved it. What changed? They were ready to listen. They were actively looking for ideas or solutions to problems they didn't know they had six months earlier.

Lesson for entrepreneurs - Focus on people that immediately get it. It won't be obvious to you who they are or where to find them. They will self select. They will react positively almost immediately. Pitch to everyone you see..all the time. You never know who will "light up" on your idea and want to help you. This goes for investors, customers, partners, potential employees, etc.

Don't waste time trying to convert someone who isn't ready to listen. Move on to the next prospect. Go back to the doubters later with a fistful of customers or partners. Or better yet, let them come to you...when they are ready to listen.

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The 7 deadly sins and 10 lessons of a failed startup

Failure is part of the maturing process in the startup world. If you haven't failed...you aren't trying hard enough, or you aren't  "pushing the envelope" far enough. I have always said "Success is a terrible teacher. Success masks over flaws that may hurt you later."

Roger Ehrenberg - the co-founder of Monitor 110, wrote a story on the lessons he learned from this recently failed startup. [found via Fred Wilson] He lists "seven deadly sins" that lead to their demise.

• The lack of a single, "the buck stops here" leader until too late in the game
• No separation between the technology organization and the product organization
• Too much PR, too early
• Too much money
• Not close enough to the customer
• Slow to adapt to market reality
• Disagreement on strategy both within the Company and with the Board

In my opinion there are two key reasons Monitor 110 failed; first, no clear CEO leader, and second, too much money. Trying to run a startup as a group of friends or make decisions by committee will never work. Too much money allows you to waste time, ignore danger signals, and continue down a wrong path for too long.

More Lessons - But here is the story of GameClay, another startup failure at the other end of the spectrum. They didn't raise any VC money...and still failed. [Found via Jeremy Liew]

1. If your idea starts with “We’re building a platform to…” and you don’t have a billion dollars in capital, find a new idea. Now.
2. It’s a marathon, but it’s a marathon made of sprints
3. Initial conditions matter. A lot.
4. Developing in a vacuum never works.
5. Beware the chicken and the egg.
6. Prototype any 3rd-party libraries that you’ll be depending upon, before you base your product on them.
7. If you’re doing anything other than building your project and getting users, it’s premature.
8. The product will take longer than you expect. Design for the long-term.
9. People have an incentive not to crush your dreams. Take everything they say with a grain of salt.
10. Know your limitations.

Building a startup is the most difficult, and most rewarding, thing anyone can do. Sometimes you can even make some money at the end of it all. There are so many things that can go wrong it is a miracle when a startup actually makes it.

It is important to celebrate our successes, learn from our failures, and value them equally. Failure is important...because success is a terrible teacher.

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Web Innovators Boston

WebInno, founded by David Beisel of Venrock, is a Boston based Web Innovators Group where startups can demo their stuff to the tech community.

Last night there were three startups that presented on stage (Main Dish) and eight other startups that showed their stuff at tables (Side Dish) around the perimeter of the room. There were hundreds of people, my guess is 800, in attendance.

Main Dish

• Totspot - a place for parents to publish a page about their kids and share with family and friends.
• Webnotes - a tool that helps you create and manage online annotations. Very similar to Onfolio.
• Zeer - a grocery product community that helps people “believe in what they buy.” Connects people to product information, consumer communities, and buying advice.

Side Dish

• 211me - Personalized mobile mashups
• WordChamp - Free online language learning
• PaperG - Local online advertising
• Creaturepark / Ingeeni Studios - Games
• YouCastr - Interactive sports streaming
• LuckyCal - Mixes together information from your calendar with public events to find events that might interest you.
• Snipd - Stealth mode. No idea what they are doing. 
• Tikatok - Kids create their own stories – and publish those stories into books for friends and family.

The audience voted Zeer as the best presentation/idea. I liked WebNotes, but found myself comparing it to JJ Allaire's Onfolio, and asking what is different?

WebInno is a great Boston Web 2.0 networking event for upcoming startups and "all the usual suspects". I saw Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot), Ben Saren (CitySquares), Matt Douglas (Punchbowl Software), Shawn Broderick (TrustPlus), Karim Nurani (Trinet), Reed Sturtevant (Microsoft), Mike Tyrrell (Venrock), Mike Werner (Web Studio Project) and bloggers Chris Herot, and Pito Salas. I was surprised, and delighted, to see Kevin Marks from Google. Kevin is based in Mountain View and is the evangelist for Open Social. I am sure Scott Kirsner and David Cancel were there somewhere but I didn't see them in the masses of mayhem.

Thanks to David Beisel for organizing the WebInno event. In October I am organizing an event with David focused on web advertising networks - opportunities and challenges.

Upcoming Boston Events

Software Industry Conference 2008 - July 17-19 [Register] This is the Shareware Software conference hosted in Boston this year. Microsoft is a sponsor.

TECH Cocktail Boston 2, Boston - July 24th, 6:30PM
Tequila Rain by Fenway Park [ REGISTER ] I went to the Tech Cocktail last year and it was a huge success in terms of turnout. So many people it was hard to move around or carry on a conversation, but a great party, lots of technology people that you don't see on the conference circuit.

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Bambi Francisco's VatorTV launches Newsroom

Bambi Francisco left CBS MarketWatch about a year ago to launch her own company, Vator.TV. Last week VatorTV announced a new design and new contributors to its Newsroom. I am one of the new contributors along with Mark Cuban, Fred Wilson, and several others.

The new design will make it easier for users to uncover the hundreds of video interviews, blog posts and community comments that have made the site a go-to resource for startup news and information. For instance, VatorNews has a couple hundred videos of lessons from entrepreneurs and investors, sharing advice about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and what investors look for in an entrepreneur.

The newsroom will also highlight video and text-based content generated by Vator's growing community of contributors. Recent contributors include venture capitalists Jeremy Liew and Fred Wilson, and technology executives like Microsoft's Don Dodge. Each contributor will now have their own channel that readers can subscribe to.

I wrote an article "Does Web 2.0 = Bubble 2.0?" that has generated a lot of interest and comments on VatorTV. You can find my "channel" on VatorTV here.

The Entrepreneurs Dilemma - Sell now for $Millions or holdout for $Billions?

If you had to choose between selling your company now for $100M or continuing on for another 5 years or more and maybe selling for $ Billions, what would you do? Every entrepreneur hopes to have this dilemma, but when it happens it is a difficult decision with many different factors.

This week I had the opportunity to talk with several entrepreneurs who faced this decision. The results were different in each case, but the major factors in the decision were the same.

Competitive environment - Are you in a leadership position? If you have already carved out a dominant position in one market and could move into other market segments or geographies, that would argue for staying private and going for the big exit. On the other hand, what if the big billion dollar players are  entering the market? What if the market is consolidating, and your competitors are being acquired by big players?

Financial structure - Is your company well capitalized and profitable? If so you could probably grow organically, without raising more money or taking dilution. However, even in this case you may not be able to grow fast enough to keep up with the competitors and market movement. If you need to raise more cash, or are not yet near cash flow break even, the decision is more complicated.

Economic environment - Is there a recession looming or is the market booming? If the market is booming and you have a good competitive position, you may want to raise more money and holdout for the big exit.

Age of company - Startups are full of enthusiasm, vision, and hope. After 7 years or more is the fire and passion still there? Most employees are fully vested by then. Are they still totally engaged or are they leaving? A startup can't stay a startup forever. The dynamics change. You need to keep a finger on the pulse of the whole company.

Founders - Are the founders still at the company and still passionate? Are the founders financially secure, or are the looking for an exit? Can the management team take it to the next level? These are the toughest questions to face and answer honestly.

Investors - Venture Capital investors need to answer to their Limited Partners each year. If the fund has already generated a nice return for investors they may be more inclined to holdout for a bigger exit. If the fund is not doing well they may push for an early exit.  You may have several VCs on your board who have opposing views and motivations.

Employees - After 5 to 7 years many employees are fully vested. They may want to buy a house or put away money for the kids college education. Engineers and creative people may be looking for a new challenge. Keeping key employees is always a factor to consider.

Alternatives to selling out now

Raise more money - You may be able to raise more money but the valuation is likely to be less than a buyout offer. Investors may demand onerous liquidation preferences that put prior investors and employees at a disadvantage. Raising more money also means your eventual exit valuation must be much higher to satisfy all investors. This is actually something to consider at every stage of raising money.

Take some money off the table - Many times the founders have not made any money previously. They want to cash in a few million dollars so they have some financial security for their family. Then they can push ahead another five years and hope for the big payoff. Most VCs don't like this idea. They don't want the founders taking "their" money out of the company. The VCs want the founders to be "hungry" and push for the long haul. Founders Fund, and a few others, think their interests are better aligned in they allow the founders to take some money off the table. As you might imagine there are some very strong opinions on each side of this question.

Give the founder a break - Sometimes the founders are tired after 7 years of pushing hard 7 days a week. Sometimes it is a good idea to rotate the management team and give them new challenges. There are cases where the founder / CEO moves to chairman or CTO, or even leaves the company but stays on the board.

New management to take it to the next level - Many times founders are great at starting a company but not so good at managing growth, hundreds or thousands of employees, international complexities, and all the other challenges of big companies. The skills required to go from zero to $10M are very different than those required to go from $50M to $500M. So the question becomes do we sell out now for millions, or do we reorganize the company to prepare for the billion dollar trajectory?

What would you do?

One CEO I talked to evaluated the situation and decided to sell now for about $150M. The VC investors agreed that it was the right decision. Employees are happy. The merger just made sense.

The company was not profitable. He said he could have raised another $30M, but at a valuation that was 20% to 30% below the buyout offer. Raising the additional money would have raised the acquisition envelope to $300M to $500M in order for the new investors to get the multiples they were looking for. He asked "How many companies sell for $500M?" Very few. So, the investor multiples worked at $150M, but they would need to be much higher if they took on new money. He also mentioned the competitive environment with new big players entering the market and consolidation happening all around him.

Another CEO I talked to decided to take the plunge and go public now rather than wait for a better market and higher valuation. This company is a leader in their market. Going public was important for several reasons. First it gave them increased credibility with their customer base. Second, being public also gave them stock currency to make acquisitions. Third, it gave them access to raising more cash on the public markets with much lower dilution than they would get from VCs.

Another CEO said they decided to sell out in the $150M to $200M range. They had been at it for over 12 years and decided the acquisition made sense for many reasons. However, he did say the integration issues with the big company were a hassle, and that the culture of the startup company was changing.

The conversations with these founder/CEOs were fascinating. It was interesting that each of them, almost without recognizing it, had to deal with many of the factors mentioned above. I suspect that every company faces these issues when contemplating a buyout offer whether it is $10M, $100M, or $1B. No matter how many zeros you add to the number the basic issues remain the same.

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Guitar Hero a 10 year overnight success

Eran Egozy, co-founder and CTO of Harmonix Music Systems was on a panel at the Nantucket Conference entitled "Tipping Point: The keys to getting new ideas to take off". Harmonix is the maker of Guitar Hero, the wildly successful video game.

Guitar Hero was an instant...overnight success, 10 years in the making, selling over $1Billion to date. Harmonix was founded in 1995 but Guitar Hero didn't come along until 10 years later in 2005.

What did Harmonix do in the first 10 years? Harmonix founders met at the MIT Media Lab and their first idea was to create new ways for non-musicians to experience the joy of making music. Similar to another MIT Media Lab company called HarmonyLine, this idea never really took off.

Eran joked "For the first four years we couldn't sell anything but stock. We knew that wasn't a business model, but at least we had money coming in to keep us going."

Around 2000 they decided to try applying their music technology to video games. But it was 5 more years until they tasted success. They released eight video games over that period, with modest results. Eran said "The trick in the video game business is to make enough money from your game to keep you going until you can release your next game."

Most new video games don't make a profit. The game business is very much like the music business, or even the venture capital business, in that it is a "hits" driven business. One big hit pays for lots of losers.

Guitar Hero was the 9th video game produced by Harmonix, 10 years after founding the company, and it put them on the map with more than $1 Billion in sales. They recently sold the company to MTV Networks, a division of Viacom for $175M.

iRobot a 12 year overnight success. Colin Angle, founder and CEO of iRobot told a similar story. iRobot was founded in 1990 with the idea of creating robots to do interesting stuff. For 12 years they did projects and built products but never really achieved financial success. Colin said they paid employees once a month at the end of the month. They never had enough cash at the beginning of the month to meet the payroll at the end of the month. But they persisted in their dream.

September 11th 2001 changed everything. They decided to apply their robot experience to help the military in dangerous situations. DARPA, the research arm of the U.S. Defense Department paid out grants to lots of companies to develop proposals for new defense technologies. iRobot won a $200K grant to write a proposal for a battlefield robot.

Colin Angle said the company had never had $200K in the bank...ever. So, rather than use the money to write a proposal they just built the robot. What a concept!! DARPA had a big meeting to review all the proposals from various defense contractors. iRobot showed up with their robot and a tiny written proposal. They won the business and DARPA awarded them a $4M contract to build robots for use in Afghanistan. They have since sold over $150M of robots to the military.

Colin said that iRobot entered and exited 18 different businesses over their 12 year existence before finally landing on the military robot idea. They have since entered the consumer market with robot vacuum cleaners and swimming pool cleaners.

Persistence and tenacity are hallmark qualities of successful entrepreneurs. Harmonix and iRobot are excellent examples of that never die attitude. There is a fine line between success and failure. There is no secret formula or obvious path to success. Just one common trait...an indomitable desire to succeed against all adversity and doubt. Very few people have this drive and the leadership ability to attract great people to their cause. This drive is indefinable but we know it when we see it. It is sometimes misdiagnosed as being delusional and fanatical. The difference in diagnosis is success or failure. Succeed and you are a brilliant visionary. Fail and you are a delusional loser. The line between them is very fine.

Sim Simeonov of Polaris Ventures is also at the Nantucket Conference and has a great blog post about "Top 5 suggestions for startups from IDEO". Lots of great speakers and content here at the Nantucket Conference.

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Boston startup events and resources

Boston loves startups. The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council is doing a great job setting up events. Watch the MTLC site for future dates. MITX, The Capital Network, the Angel Capital Assoc, and others are also putting on events. Here are just a few of the upcoming events this week and next.

Tech Tuesday - is a regular monthly meet-up organized by Dan Bricklin, of Visi-Calc spreadsheet fame. Tech Tuesday is for geeks, tech savvy professionals, DIY-ers, press, and other industry luminaries for an informal gathering. Bring your laptops, robots, OLPC XO's, Amazon Kindles, new cell phones, gadgets, and other new-fangled devices. Tech Tuesday meets the second Tuesday of every month. Microsoft is a sponsor this month.

New England Angel Capital Conference - The Angel Investor groups of greater Boston meet once a quarter to review their best companies. Each group nominates companies to present. They are all looking for a round of funding that is bigger than any one Angel Group can handle. This meeting lets all the groups get a look at promising companies and pool their investment dollars.

Entrepreneurial Team Building - a panel of entrepreneurs that have built companies from the ground up and know the ins and outs of building great teams. What really makes a team come together? How can you be sure that you are bringing in the right folks? Who should be hired first, second, next? We'll talk about teams at the senior management level and at the BOD level.

Entrepreneurial Series - Plain English Term Sheets - This is a webinar for startup entrepreneurs who want to understand the details of financing term sheets. What to ask for...and what to avoid.

MITX - Mass Innovation & Technology Exchange have lots of great events for technology based startups. The next session is "Building Social Applications and Widgets".

The Capital Network - TCN's network consists of entrepreneurs on their way, entrepreneurs who have lessons and talents to offer and investors who may have themselves drifted across the entrepreneurial line. TCN has 3 or 4 events a month. The next one is on Founders Equity Issues.

The 128 Innovation Capital Group -  The regular meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at the Best Western Hotel on Totten Pond Road in Waltham. Every month an investor provides our formal program. After Q&A, our speaker generally remains to speak with audience members, one on one. After the meeting, a roster with the contact information of all attendees is made available to those who came to the meeting.

Web Innovators Group - WebInno was founded by David Beisel of Venrock Capital. Scott Kirsner is also deeply involved. WebInno has regular meetings. The usual format; early stage start-ups and individual innovators will briefly demo their product/service in two different forums. First, there will be a couple center-stage presenters giving five minute demos for the entire crowd (aka “main dishes”) at 7pm. In addition, there will be a number of tables set up at the periphery of the room for live informal demonstrations to smaller groups during the schmoozing sessions (aka “side dishes”). Each will help provide the community a glimpse of current local endeavors in the space and offer the basis for further conversation.

Nantucket Conference - The 2008 Nantucket Conference audience will consist of approximately 150 of New England's top entrepreneurs, investors, and tech executives. Rather than sitting through a series of speeches and PowerPoint presentations, the audience will be engaged in a dialogue - and sometimes a heated debate - with Conference presenters.

Boston based bloggers

Scott Kirsner, a writer for the Boston Globe, and a blogger at Innovation Economy is always organizing and promoting startup events. Watch Scott's blog for announcements of upcoming events.

Jeff Bussgang - VC partner at Flybridge Capital Partners (formerly IDG Ventures Boston). Jeff is a former entrepreneur and now a VC. His blog is appropriately called Seeing Both Sides.

Xconomy - Bob Buderi, Rebecca Zacks, and Wade Roush cover Boston based startups, technology trends, and VC investments.

Mike Hirshland - VC partner at Polaris Venture Partners in Boston.

Nicholas Carr - Nicholas is a former Harvard Business Review editor and author of several books.

Boston based entrepreneur bloggers - Ben Saren (founder & CEO of CitySquares Online), Matt Douglas (founder & CEO of Punchbowl Software), Pito Salas (former CTO of eRoom).

BlogString has an extensive list of Boston events. Thanks to Nathan Burke for the link.

Come on out to these events. I try to attend all of them, and would love to say hello. However, for the next two weeks I am working in Silicon Valley...my second home.

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How to make your startup successful

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch wrote "Startups must hire the right people and watch every penny, or fail" This was in response to a blog by Jason Calacanis, founder & CEO of Mahalo, who wrote "How to save money running a startup". Both stories stirred up a ton of comments, mostly negative, on why they were wrong, and trashing Calacanis for being a ruthless task master.

I agree with much of what Arrington and Calacanis say, and I love this picture that Mike used in his post to illustrate failure. It is very important for a startup to hire the right people and watch every penny. Bigger companies can make a few mistakes and spend too much money on things, and still do just fine. Startups have no margin for error.

I have worked at five startups (Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, Groove Networks), and helped hundreds more. There are some common success factors like;

1. Build a product or service people want
2. Customers are willing to pay for it
3. Competitors can't easily replicate it
4. Assemble the best management team
5. Hire only the best people

Those are all obvious points...but extremely difficult to get right. It only looks easy in retrospect. Most successful startups are unique, one of a kind, at a certain point in time, non-repeatable events. If it was easy or obvious everyone would have already done it, or just copy what has already been successful.

Tony Wright, cofounder of RescueTime, a Ycombinator company, has a great post showing that for every example of success there is a counter-example. Tony points to the following examples;

• “Release Early and Listen to your users” VS “Ignore your Users and Build for Yourself.”
• “Seek out Press early and often” VS “go guerrilla until you have a brilliant product“
• “Failure to scale kills” VS “you can have tons of downtime and still grow like gangbusters“
• “Take more funding than you need” VS “overfunding kills“
• “Viral always wins” VS Google Search (which is not REMOTELY viral).
• “Design is critical for user engagement and trust” VS um…. MySpace. CraigsList. Google.
• “Starting a business on Microsoft technologies is ridiculous” VS MySpace or PlentyOfFish (2-3 people, classic ASP, a few MS servers = millions of bucks)
• Headcount! VS Keeping your team lean to force scarcity (CraigsList and 37Signals)

I talk to hundreds of startups every year. They all have some of the elements of success. VCs invest billions of dollars in startups every year. Every entrepreneur and every VC believes they are going to be successful. Very few are.

There is no secret formula or obvious path to success. Just one common trait...an indomitable desire to succeed against all adversity and doubt. Very few people have this drive and the leadership ability to attract great people to their cause. This drive is indefinable but we know it when we see it. It is sometimes misdiagnosed as being delusional and fanatical. The difference in diagnosis is success or failure. Succeed and you are a brilliant visionary. Fail and you are a delusional loser. The line between them is very fine.

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Mark Cuban for President!

Politics, once a noble calling, has degenerated into slime ball, double speak, demagoguery usually reserved for defense lawyers. Many years ago, while I was in college, I did an internship for U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie, and later was a paid staffer for U.S. Senator Bill Hathaway. Politics was different then. Now it is disgusting.

The politicians of both major parties should listen to Mark Cuban.  Mark is talking sensibly about business and tax policy. Please read his blog post (linked above) to get the full picture. Mark has done a masterful job of explaining why taxes should be higher on the super rich, and why $250K per year should not be considered rich.

Warren Buffett has been in the news a lot lately saying that he, and most wealthy people, pay a lower percentage of income in taxes than their secretaries do. That is because Buffett gets most of his income through capital gains which is taxed at only 15%, while most people get most of their income from a W-2 salary which is taxed at much higher rates. Everyone pays a social security tax, known as FICA, of 6.2%, but it caps out at $90K of income. Everything over that is free from FICA tax. Sales tax is another regressive tax ...proportionately it effects lower income people more than rich people.

Mark Cuban actually makes sense of all of this by making several proposals.

Consumption tax on luxury items - "I would be perfectly fine paying a higher percentage of income, both in federal income taxes and as part of a consumption tax on luxury items. If Warren wants to buy or build a yacht for a hundred million dollars. Nail him with a 10pct federal tax surcharge. If I want to buy a Gulfstream Jet for 40mm dollars. Nail me with a 10pct federal surcharge above and beyond current taxes."

$250K per year is not rich - "The perspective that Hillary Clinton is offering that 250k in annual earnings qualifies you as rich is not only ridiculous but its a huge disincentive to those who work their asses off every day and have accomplished a salary that rewards their hard work. It also will impact millions who can least afford it.
I will tell you who will suffer the most if a "tax increase for the wealthy" starts at only 250k. The 50 plus year old executive who has spent the last 25 to 35 years working his or her butt off to reach a 250k salary. The 60 year old executive who is already scared shitless that their job could be eliminated tomorrow and that they have not saved enough for retirement."

Cut taxes on small business - "If we really want to stimulate job creation in this country, take the same approach to small business with fewer than 25 employees that we take to Internet taxes. Outlaw them.
No taxes of any kind on small businesses with fewer than 25 employees. No employer payroll tax. No state or local taxes. No taxes on earnings. Nada. The business owners will pay income taxes on their personal income they pay themselves, but not corporate earnings."

Mark Cuban has it right. The politicians are wrong. They want to make this a class warfare issue pitting the low income people against the high income people. Mark says raise taxes on the truly super rich, not the "high income" people who work hard every day for $100K to $250K.

Mark's idea for not taxing small business (up to 25 employees) would do more for real job growth and economic growth than anything the politicians from either party could dream up.

Give the death tax the death penalty. I have never understood the logic or fairness of the estate tax, which is really a death tax. How is it fair for an entrepreneur to work really hard to build their business, pay very high taxes on their income every year, then pay even more capital gain taxes on their investment income, then pay another 55% in estate taxes on top of all that when they die? How is that fair? Many entrepreneurs have to sell their businesses because their children can't afford to pay the estate taxes. The politicians always trot out the "family farm" example, but the far more common example is the thousands of small businesses of every description that must be sold every year to pay estate taxes.

These issues are too complicated for politicians to understand, and they don't fit into pithy 20 second sound bites...so they never get addressed. Instead we are treated to pontifications on immigration, national defense, and education. And nothing changes.

Mark Cuban, please run for president!

OK, now that is off my chest...I will return to topics I love like technology and business.

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TechCrunch Boston

Mike Arrington organized TechCrunch Boston on Friday night, attended by 800 tech people, and sponsored by IDG Ventures. It was the best tech party of the year in Boston.

The IDG Ventures Boston team was out in force.  I talked with Michael Greeley, Chip Hazard, Jeff Bussgang, David Aronoff, and Kate Castle. Pictured here is Mike Ford (TownConnect), Mike Arrington, and Michael Greeley (IDG Ventures).

This was definitely an event for startups and entrepreneurs but I did talk to some other VC's including; Michael Skok (North Bridge), Lucy McQuilken (Intel Capital), Steve Schlafman (The Kraft Group), and Charley Lax (Grandbanks Capital).

Punchbowl Software was one of the startups doing demos at TechCrunch Boston. Here is David Aronoff (IDG) and Matt Douglas, CEO of Punchbowl (center) hamming it up with Mike Arrington of TechCrunch.

Mike was like a Rock Star. There were entrepreneurs and pretty women crawling all over him. Towards the end of the night Mike made me his manager/agent in charge of all photos and  meet/greets. I was sitting at Mike's table at the after party eating a late night dinner and Mike could barely get two bites before someone else approached. Mike was actually loving it. He is a great guy and will talk to anyone anytime. I went to the bar to order tequila shots for the table...Mike insisted on Patron. Only the best. Mike shouted to  Heather Harde, the brainy beautiful CEO of TechCrunch, that he had managed to spend $1,000 in the first 45 minutes of the after party. He was loving it!

On the way back to the table I bumped into Steve Schlafman (Kraft Group), Eunice Chou (Massive), and Danny Moon (UpNext). By the time I finally got back to the table they were on the next rounds of tequila.

There were some press people and lots of bloggers at the event. Scott Kirsner (Boston Globe) was interviewing and doing video. I also talked to Nick Carr, Francois Gossieaux, Halley Suitt, Doc Searls, and Wade Roush.

I talked to over 200 people at the event and saw another hundred or so with a quick wink or nod. It was a wild night. Startup entrepreneurs were everywhere. Off the top of my head I remember talking to; Ben Saren (CitySquares), Reed Sturtevant (Microsoft Labs), Doug Levin (Blackduck Software), Shawn Broderick (TrustPlus), Jeremey Allaire (Brightcove), Matt Douglas (Punchbowl), Mike Ford (TownConnect), Pito Salas (BlogBridge), Chris Herot (Zingdom), Danny Moon (UpNext), Eduardo Saverin (Firefly Health), Michael Kokernak (BackChannel Media), Mark Pascarella (Gotuit), John Zib (GetMemo), Scott Durgin (OffshoreTP), Nikhil Roy (Spendview), Sarah Meyers (PopSnap), Sean Ammirati (FeedHub), Dave Evans (TheProgressBar), and Ted Morgan (Skyhook Wireless).

I know I talked to more people but after 5 or 6 Martinis my memory was a little foggy. Here is Jeff Bussgang (IDG Ventures) and me towards the end of the night.

Next stop for the TechCrunch Party tour is Los Angeles in December. See you there!

More blog coverage of the event at Chris Herot's blog, and Doug Levin. 

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