A VC - Latest Comments in Slow Capital

Re: Slow Capital

Keenan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:06:43 -0000

Mike,

Well said. The latter is far better. It's about providing value, and
value can't be rushed.

I wrote a "Slow Sales" post I think you will enjoy: http://asalesguy.com/2009/1...

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:32:14 -0000

You are welcome

Re: Slow Capital

ShanaC — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:29:09 -0000

You missed that day, It was in the post on Failure. and the problem with threads is that they are threaded: The comment above is meant to be more general:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/200...

One last word: This posting habit here started as a Random Whim because I wanted to know about a specific lecture that Fred had given. I had written a similar paper about the subject- and just wanted to add the information on the subject from what I already had (which was decently extensive). I came back because of the people and the discussions. I didn't have to. I'm still not quite sure when and how and why I did; all I know is I did. And that I am glad I did. I found something absolutely amazing. Sometimes you need to go with your gut.

Whether I agree with you or not on a subject at hand- ever person who has commented here I have learned something from. You all kept me here. (Wasn't the plan). You've made me more passionate about life, about what I should be doing with it. Even what books I think I should be reading. You've made more curious. I owe every person here a thank you for helping me on that journey out.

So, Thanks!

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:39:04 -0000

You are welcome but you really have to thank yourself and everyone else here too

Re: Slow Capital

ShanaC — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:12:36 -0000

That is 100% true. Gettting a job is critical, I see the difference between me and my high school classmates, and how it's played out in thier family and finacial lives. They are much more dependent on thier extended families throughout thier lives, and they often have smaller savings to make critical decisions with. It's now hampering long term communal growth, because no one knows where the next dollar will come from, because they stuck themselves in a long term ponzi scheme.

Certain things I love about my background. Being raised with such a stress to be married fairly young is not one one them. Dropping that for my kids. It still gets weird because it interferes in normal ways of dating..very odd date conversations. I've dropped dating for a while up until recently because I thought everyone I was meeting was insane from the internal pressure they generated.

Thank you btw, It wasn't my original aim at all. Originally I just wanted some data point and I had no idea what I had found. Then I found some some really exhilarating community where I was learning more than I was learning in a college classroom (which is a bit frightening, what's the point of college?). Then I realised this is where I wanted to be every day of my life in the person to person world. And I had to figure out how to do that. So thank you.

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:54:08 -0000

You should be bragging. I'm impressed

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:45:08 -0000

Nice one Nivi!

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:44:48 -0000

My parents were 29 and 27 when they married in 1957. That was very old to be getting married at that time. They've been together for 52 years now and have one of the happiest marriages I've seen. I would not feel pressure to get hitched from others or yourself. It often ends badly

Getting a job on the other hand is critical. And we can help with that. In fact, I think we already are

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:36:58 -0000

I'm getting better at that last part too

Re: Slow Capital

Karl Mattingly — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:51:14 -0000

Thanks Fred.

Hmm. Didn't mean to brag, sorry. The 10 year reference was in the vein of ... "it's been lonely out here for a lot of years and it is great to see writing like yours - really great!!! Go for it folks."

Best wishes.

Re: Slow Capital

ShanaC — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:40:42 -0000

PS, nice car.

Re: Slow Capital

David Hamilton — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:49:05 -0000

Anyone who has read James Gleick's Book 'Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything' will appreciate what a faster society can lose us.

The best example he gives is the Cinema Audience research, where the viewers twist dials to indicate whether they like a particular scene. However, most of us don't judge a film on individual scenes, and often do not really know if we liked a film until the next day. Thus the instant feedback captures a phantom reaction - one that hasn't actually properly formed in the viewer yet.

Similarly, traded markets allow people to invest and divest so fast that they require no real understanding of the stock that they are buying (or, in the case of shorting, selling!). Hence the fundamental concept of buying shares as a way of capitalising a business among interested investors is effectively dead for publicly quoted stock.

It would be fascinating to see how a rule to force investors to hold publicly traded shares for at least 3 months would change the markets (and indeed the whole attitude to shareholding). Some of the results might be:

* Day-trading and other short-term speculation would be forced out of stocks into the derivative markets

* Mispricing of publicly quoted companies would occur much less often, as the markets would exhibit lower volatility.

* Investors would be forced to take at least a passing interest in a company's middle-to-long-term strategy

* Companies would be encouraged to have a middle-to-long-term strategy! (As opposed to so many execs merely having an 'exit plan')

* Trading exchanges would hate the loss of liquidity (and profits). However, the exchanges are purely an market enabling mechanism - why should we let the tail wag the dog?

Re: Slow Capital

ShanaC — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:57:07 -0000

I'm odd- I envy age slightly. They have wisdom I don't have. You have to gain that through experience. I realized the wisdom is far more useful.

It's a cultural thing. I grew up in a community that is primarily Orthodox Jewish. There is a huge premium on young marriages and having children. Marriages reinforce your sense of being inside the community. We even have our own social networking site to celebrate getting married and having children. Therefore, my religious being worries my mother, and my singleness, becuase I never seen to be dating anyone, and when I am, it never seems to be anyone she likes (ie marriagable and will give her grandchildren that will fit in very cutely where I grew up. They'll probably be dressed like preppy-hippy-punkettes and I'll have read them Alice in Wonderland at some ridiculous age, or something else she disapproves of. There are a couple of posts how I like it wilder. Compared to where I grew up, that's probably true.)

Re: Slow Capital

JLM — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:17:36 -0000

Suffice it to say that I drive a favorite car ('66 Fire Engine Red Impala convertible) which is slightly older than you --- age, it is a terminal condition and will usually self correct itself.

You have plenty of time and guess what --- you will probably get better looking and more alluring with age. Don't fret. The older you get the more interesting you become and the more you will have to talk about.

As my grown son says: you are just beyond the "catch and release" point anyway. LOL

I was 30 when I got married and it has worked out just fine. I have children your age and they are all wonderful.

The world envies youth.

Re: Slow Capital

ShanaC — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:29:45 -0000

S'ok. Apology accepted. There are only two things in my life I'm under pressure to do. Get a basic sort of a job, and be cute enough to marry. 40-50% of my high school class got engaged or married while in college. There parents helped support them while they completed. I ran away to go to some weird college. I may or may not be some ruined wanton girl, depending on how you look at life. I'm sensitive on the subject though, since I was raised to think "what makes a good marriage very quickly" I actually was supposed to take a class about something like that in high school *giggles*

I've been close enough to marriage once. I realized I was not really ready and the guy wasn't right. I'm 23. I'm a bit touchy on the subject.

Re: Slow Capital

Mike O'Horo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:28:47 -0000

In many of these threads I'm an outsider, being much longer in the tooth than many here and neither a social media entrepreneur nor investor. I follow this stuff from a try-not-to-be-completely-ignorant-about-the-future standpoint and because, having recently fired myself from a company I founded 18 years ago, I'm sniffing around to see what might be interesting enough to do for another 15 or so years.

Most of us are one-trick ponies, at least when it comes to true expertise. My one trick is sales, more specifically facilitating and managing the buy/sell decision. It's not a bad trick to have; eventually, all business conversations involving revenue, ROI, etc. must include sales.

IMO, "slow sales" takes two forms. One is slowed by the buyer, the other by the seller. The latter is far more beneficial to both.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line the word "sales" took on a negative cast, perhaps justifiably, reflecting behaviors directed toward engineering a predetermined outcome (the buyer saying "yes") that the seller cannot know beforehand is, in fact, good for the buyer. Even if choosing your solution somehow has been a great decision for 100% of buyers who have said "yes" to date (a non-existent condition in the real world), you still don't know whether or not it will be a great decision for this next prospect.

Looking at it from the prospect's perspective, he knows that buying from you is good for you; he doesn't yet know whether it's good for him, no matter how many other buyers it's been good for previously. If a seller tries to get me to take an action that's good for him, but is not yet clearly good for me, I must slow the process, i.e., fend him off and delay a decision, until my self-interest relative to the action urged is clearer. This is buyer-slowed sales. Most times, it precludes trust and yields an antagonistic relationship.

Wise sellers who value their reputation and integrity look at sales through a different lens. They see a sale as a decision to be mutually investigated and facilitated. They recognize that an honest, objective investigation of the decision environment and buyer/seller self-interest will yield one of two clear outcomes: 1) It's a great idea for us to do business together; 2) It's not a good idea for us to do business together. In case #1, we'll both want to move forward together. So much for the silly idea of "closing." In case #2, the seller will often recognize this regrettable truth first. If he urges doing business anyway, he proves conclusively that he has no integrity. If he acknowledges the discovered truth, he shakes hands with this prospect and steps away, he strengthens trust for the next encounter and raises the likelihood that this prospect will refer others to him based on his integrity and the legitimacy of his decision-management process.

Salespeople who have, and rigorously apply with integrity, a reliable decision process insert into the sales dynamic a hugely valuable decision ingredient that's usually missing. Buyers know it when they see it.

In the sense that they're not injecting the too-typical artificial urgency that taints the word "sales," such a salesperson could be said to be practicing "slow" sales. "Hold on. I don't know if this is a good idea or a bad idea, if you should buy from me or not. Let's find out, together."

Trust is the currency of the realm, and the only thing that preserves one's welcome at the decision table.

For 14 years, we published a weekly sales/marketing tip called ResultsMail. Its purpose was to provide practical advice for the senior lawyers we trained to sell to Corporate America, and to remind them that their coaches were on standby with just-in-time coaching. (Interestingly, three years into it, Seth Godin published "Permission Marketing" and gave us a label for what we'd been doing.)

We're no longer proactively in the lawyer coaching business, but we've kept the searchable ResultsMail archive active at http://salesresults.com/rma.... I hope you find it helpful.

Re: Slow Capital

JLM — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:38:36 -0000

The empty nest is very, very, very nice. But nowadays your kids can find you and you can find them via all the technology and you have the ability to drop in on them unannounced.

I am absolutely certain that no child needs a parent to be a "friend" and parents who make that mistake live to regret it. But when the hard work of parenting is done, when your children are educated, when they have begun to establisih their independence --- then they actually make pretty good friends and their friends make good friends also.

Wives are brilliant in ensuring that lives are cemented by common experiences --- like skiing vacations --- which then act like mortar to hold our lives together. Celebrating the landmarks of our lives is very important.

The other great thing is how WE treat our parents. I have gone from a horrendously failing grade to just passing. But it is a great improvement. I am teachable.

Re: Slow Capital

Keenan — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:55:56 -0000

Thanks for the inspiration, I will be doing a "slow sales" post. Sales needs it. The pursuit for revenue NOW is undermining relationships, sales environments, long-term growth and some cases pushing the integrity line.

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:47:43 -0000

I'll do that
Thanks for the suggestion

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:46:16 -0000

So that's how its gonna be with my kids JLM? Hmm.

Re: Slow Capital

fredwilson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:30:16 -0000

It only took me ten years to catch up to you

I'm with you

Re: Slow Capital

David Semeria — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:01:26 -0000

..being careful not to allow them to fall on you

Um, shooting bears out of trees looks like it can get a lost messier than shooting fish in barrel....

Excellent analysis of the lion/bear fight. It would appear I've lost that particular argument.

Re: Slow Capital

Karl Mattingly — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:56:31 -0000

Yes Dave. An oldie but a goodie in popular culture, with many reference points.

I guess the question is not our didactic prowess, but rather whether it still rings true.

And I'm sure that like my grandmother, Walt would attribute it correctly to the ancient Greeks.

Re: Slow Capital

ivospigel — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:46:30 -0000

For a wonderfully readable overview of the slow movement, consider reading Carl Honore's "In Praise of Slow" http://www.carlhonore.com/?...

Re: Slow Capital

JLM — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:21:18 -0000

I love your description of an "inner scorecard" because after all we are all our own worst critics. And rightfully so. An inner scorecard is what YOU really think which like character is how we act when nobody is watching. A great thought.