A VC - Latest Comments in Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

andyswan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:13:26 -0000

Not in the middle of the day....except field trip day. That was brutal :)

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:20:17 -0000

I did some business on the golf course yesterday Jim. Its not over

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:09:16 -0000

More than two/thirds of our invesments are in the NYC area. So I believe in it. But I also believe that you need to be in the best deaks that come your way. So I don't think you can just invest locally but you can make it your primary focus

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:26:18 -0000

Excellent advice and I love the lincoln quote. I'm gonna reblog that at fredwilson.vc

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:24:14 -0000

I tend to think when I blog early in the morning

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Prokofy — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:57:18 -0000

Well site visits seem important of course, but do those folks ever feel like you're hovering too much or that the Inspector General is coming?

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

JLM — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:58:41 -0000

Once upon a time in a different galaxy, lots of business got done on the golf course. Folks negotiated the finer points of business deals, leases, loans and acquisitions. I have never met a guy who cheated at golf who gave me a fair shake on any of the above. You have to create the situation in which the situational ethics is a proxy for the likelihood of success. Then you have to pay attention. There are damn few Mulligans in business.

Money is just a commodity. A pretty damn precious commodity granted, but a commodity nonetheless.

The way it is invested and the likelihood for success can be colored by personality and the personal touch. I have done business with folks I just enjoyed doing business with. I have always made money w/ them. I have made money with folks who I did not like but it was never enough. Ever.

Most VCs want to be entrepreneurs and, if smart, appreciate the entrepreneurial zeal which drives folks to conceive, risk, operate and reap. To be able to size up this talent is a critical element of the skill set of a VC. To fail to develop this talent is to have both a hole in your soul but also a hole in your head.

Some skills are incredibly important. At some level certain skills are indispensable. The greatest baseballer who NEVER lived --- Michael Jordan, couldn't hit a curve ball.

America does business with its friends. Are you a good friend or just a jerk with a lot of OPM? When you go, with no big agenda, to look in on your folks, you are extending the hand of friendship. And that's a good thang!

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Steve Kane — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:04:57 -0000

Used to be rule of thumb in VC: only invest in companies you can drive to, can visit easily, or on impulse.

But in the last few years that has come to be seen as obsolete.

Seems maybe you think its actually smart policy?

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

jturner — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:27:20 -0000

I agree, getting out in the real world and seeing how businesses function in person is very important for any type of business manager. On a related note, I think going forward businesses are going to struggle in this economy, because the government has been the only driver of growth lately, and that is not sustainable in a free market system.

I think that as the employment picture continues to not show many signs of improvement, people will come to realize that the only reason the economy has stabilized is due to govt stimulus and spending. And that the Fed will be forced to continue to keep rates near zero and support the credit markets. This will continue to have negative consequences for the dollar, and unfortunately the only way for most people to protect and potentially prosper from this is by investing in those assets that should rise from all the money printing, such as gold and other commodities. Here is a link to a site that has a good discussion on a gold mining company, Premier Gold that should benefit from a rise in the gold price.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

ShanaC — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:15:54 -0000

Now I need to find the movie. Where am I going to find this movie, Dang you Hulu.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Jake Simms — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:27:17 -0000

Great truth to this post. I'm a project manager at a small interactive agency, and the majority of my days are spent doing nothing but emailing with an occasional phone call. This week, due to a full schedule I saw myself picking up the phone, going in for face to face meetings, and doing some on site work at a video shoots much more often than I normally do. Though half of my days were spent out of the office, I found that once I got back - despite the shorter time frame in front of my machine, I was able to knock out much more than normal and answer questions from my colleagues much more directly and efficiently. Sounds like a no brainer, but sometimes you just need the reminder to shake things up.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Aaron Klein — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:45:12 -0000

Absolutely. Balance between left and right brain is key in a company. Well said.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

J. Pablo Fernández — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:06:26 -0000

It seems that "Getting out from behind your desk" is much harder for a VC than for a manager.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Dave Pinsen — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:29:42 -0000

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts after you see it. Maybe it will inspire a post on your blog?

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

ShanaC — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:19:42 -0000

Thank you.

But to be very clear, I think Google does do certain design principles perfectly. They are copying and pasting that principle on everything they do, and they may dominate some markets we are only becoming aware of because of it. If they didn't, they would be a very poor company right now. See this: http://www.shanacarp.com/es...

It would be equally bad if they hired a company full of idea people. Nothing would get done quite the way as expected. Think of it this way- with a lot of help, I probably could go and have a fun time in a startup doing the creative side. Probably, given enough time, I could even come up with a company idea or two. I equally know that some ideas that I have are loony. And that's what causes bad grammar in the post above... ;)

And I'll reiterate what I said above: If someone wants to help me do scheduling, I like doing the testing. I want companies, even if they walk away bankrupt, or ehhh, to at least get that humans have relationships with computers that are distinct, and that one should be careful with them. It makes much better products long term if someone sits down and explains the pluses and minuses of various technologies on even a cursory level because of human error, and what sorts of expectations people have and feel about items in their lives.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

ShanaC — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:41:08 -0000

I intergiew people on trains and try to get them to talk among themselves and explain to me why they like things.
BTW, you really should get a female staffer, ideally young to do this. They do studies with this, for some reason women under the age of 35 tend to get more and better results if you need someone to go up random strangers and get them to do something. I know it sounds sexist, but the women are perceived as friendlier and as less harmful, and even a tad more, nurturing...

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

CoryS — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:03:40 -0000

Working for a larger company, I totally get the challenges and benefits to 'management by walking around'. It consumes hours, if not days, but honestly, I can't imagine being more productive when done right. Now, we all pay the price by doing email and quant work at 8PM, but I think office time is really good collaboration time and should be used for it when possible v. being in an office with the door shut. If there's no common office, then making time in a common space is priceless for high output people.

Fred, my bet is that you offer more vision and strategy in one hour than most entrepreneurs could hope for the rest of the month. Keep on it.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Paul Jozefak — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:49:08 -0000

Basically Fred we have our regular "Monday meetings" ( we do them on Wednesday.) In this case, all three partners are together. We also have a formal pitch from a company for all three partners which happens somewhere in the middle of the D.D. process, after which we can really hash out all issues each partner may have. Further, we are all in the office at least one or two days a week. We may not all speak with one another but one or the other (we are also three partners) is usually there. Finally, we do use the technology available to us on a fairly spontaneous basis (email and phone). I prefer the face-to-face more with target companies and portfolio companies. I know my partners fairly well (as should most VC's) to not need to be face-to-face with them constantly, or definitely not as much as with the start-ups. Nevertheless, as I said, this is a process I too am constantly reviewing and trying to optimize as I surely have not yet found the perfect solution.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:08:47 -0000

isn't it a bit loud in the bowling alley :)

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

Farhan Lalji — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:08:35 -0000

Love the starbucks user testing idea! Thanks for sharing this technique!

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

bfeld — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:06:04 -0000

I prefer to hang out with them in the mountains around Boulder. There are plenty of them there.

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:05:23 -0000

I like your approach. There is a lot of merit to it.

We don't run our back office, we outsource it. So the main things we do in our office are take meetings and talk to each other

The former could/should happen at the company as you point out

But there is a lot of value in the latter. We are three partners who like to act together in synch all the time

I'm not sure how you achieve that if you are never together

So ultimately it is a balancing act. It may well be true that I need to get out even more than I do. That's kind of what I was saying to myself when I wrote the post

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:04:59 -0000

Well I am a big believer in getting a ton of user feedback. One technique I like is taking a laptop to starbucks at morning rush and offering to wait in line and buy their coffee for anyone who is willing to do a 10 minute on the spot user test

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:04:56 -0000

Totally agree. Its a balancing act between the two

Re: Getting Out From Behind Your Desk

fredwilson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:04:55 -0000

Me too