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Josh Maher's Blog » Entries tagged with "startup"

5 Investing Lessons From Howard Lindzon

April 2nd, 2012 | Add a Comment

Howard spews investing advice every Monday (usually), he talks about the individual companies he invests in all the time on StockTwits and isn’t shy to discuss his reasoning behind each of those picks. As you may have picked up on, the Investing Lessons series that has looked at Fred Wilson and Chris Sacca focuses on lessons that we can take back and incorporate into our own investment strategies. While it may be great to follow Howard into some of his picks (like Pabrai, I’m a fan of cloning great ideas), I think it is more valuable to learn from his examples and discussions about how he invests. Howard recently popped up in a foundville interview and provided some insights into himself and his thought process. Thinking through the lessons we can learn from … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, Profit, stocks

5 Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson

March 19th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Following up from my last post in the series 5 Investing Lessons From Chris Sacca, I came across this article that Jeff Bussgang wrote on lessons for startup entrepreneurs. Reading the article, there were a few key points that Jeff points out as important for startup entrepreneurs. These are great for the MBAs Fred was speaking to and entrepreneurs, but it is interesting the insight that Fred is providing into his thoughts on investing and how relevant they are to investors in public companies. Let’s look at each of the key points and how they are relevant to retail investment decisions.   Lesson #1 – Embrace Failure Fred observed that failure is typically a valuable and powerful experience—forcing introspection, humility, and an extra drive to prove something to others. He observed that the entrepreneurs he … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, ESPP, Investing, Startups, stocks

5 Investing Lessons From Chris Sacca

March 12th, 2012 | 2 Comments

There is a lot of hype around venture capitalists, the VC 10x return requirements, their high flying exits when companies like Facebook IPO, and their exclusive carried interest income that is barely taxed. It is certainly well deserved hype, there is a lot of money to be made (and lost) in venture investing, what is interesting though is that the basic principles used in venture investing are principles that any investor can and should use. Have a look at this recent report on GeekWire on the returns of venture captialists, you will see an obvious trend that VCs returns are long term and not short term. The thought here is that these returns are based on longer term fundamental or value investments and not shorter term momentum or technical investments. … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Investing, stocks

TechCafe Happy Hour @BlueBoxGroup

February 20th, 2012 | Add a Comment

I must say that I am pretty excited to go check out the event on Friday – nearly sold out (10 spots left)… We have been planning this one for some time and can’t wait to see all the great people in the Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond tech community come out for Happy Hour. Last year was an awesome year for TechCafe events – so awesome we took a few months off from getting geeky with the best startups and technologists in the area – rest assured though we are back and planning a few awesome events. If you are interested in sponsoring or hosting one – let us know! First up is one of our personal favorites. Blue Box Group! We have been watching this team grow for a while now and it has … Read entire article »

Filed under: NW events, Seattle, seattlelunch20, Startups, TechCafe

Lots of new Seattle Lunch 2.0 content

April 16th, 2010 | Add a Comment

We’ve been having a few great Seattle Lunch 2.0 events lately and they are definitely a blast!! A few people have been asking me about being able to get in (some of the events fill up the same day)… Some people are asking to get in so that they can meet people, while others are asking to get in so that they can hear the talks… Recently I started recording the talks at the events, so folks at least have an idea about what went on and where the various speakers were at when the event happened. I want to include a couple here and will start to post them more regularly soon… Here is the first one – from today Seattle Lunch 2.0 Happy Hour @Symform… Here is another recent event. This … Read entire article »

Filed under: Seattle

Startups, small businesses, and definitions – oh my

December 1st, 2008 | Add a Comment

I was recently commenting on a nPost’s blog about What Defines a Startup and ran out of room for an effective comment so wanted to expand on it here.   First let me re-cap the basics of nPost’s blog entry…   Nathan poses the question, what defines a startup and offers a few thoughts about what might define a startup. Things like: Having been around for less than 5 years? The number of employees it has?  If so, how many would that be? Whether they are bootstrapped, a sidestartup or funded? Their growth rate?  If so, how quickly do they need to be growing? 10% a year? 500% a year? A scalable business?  Can a lifestyle company be defined as a startup? A product company?  How about a professional services firm, are they a startup? Simply “I know one when I … Read entire article »

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Startups, Technology