Month: April 2013

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Some thoughts about Foursquare

by bijansabet

It’s no secret that I love Foursquare. I signed up for the service quite early and I use the product every day. I’m also a fan of the founders, the people at the company and how the product is evolving and growing. 

And I put my money where my heart is and we invested in the company a few years ago.

Earlier this morning Businessweek wrote about Foursquare – it’s challenges, it’s plans and a new round of funding.

I’m frequently asked what is the exit strategy for many of our portfolio companies. For example after our initial investment in Twitter in 2008, I have been asked in almost every interview since that time about our exit strategy, when it is going public, will they sell out, etc. This was even before the company generated revenue! 

And I’m asked that about Foursquare as well. What is their exit strategy. Do you want them to get sold one day or go public? When will they go public?

It’s hard to predict these things and I try to avoid making predictions. My objective is that our firm invests in the best people building valuable important companies. I believe Foursquare is one of those.

The Businessweek story quotes me as saying that they will go public one day. Like I said earlier, it’s hard to predict these things. I’m guessing I actually said something like “I believe they can go public one day” or “I hope they can go public one day” but perhaps I mispoke or the writer misquoted me. Regardless of the error, I’m hoping you all understand my sentiment, hope and outlook. 

I’ll bring this post home by linking to the latest Foursquare update as described on their blog here. Give it a try if you haven’t already. And I hope you love it as much as I do.

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Update: I just exchanged emails with the writer at Businessweek. It turns out I did say “I think the company will go public one day”. But the words “I think” was dropped because of space constraints for the print version of the story. It was an honest miscommunication because their editor thought “I think” was redundant. But my intention was to make it clear this wasn’t an explicit promise for the future but more of my desired outcome.

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Collaboration

by bijansabet

I’m a long time fan of Paul Graham’s work and leadership in the startup world.

I remember the first time I met him over in Cambridge, he said, “why do you VCs wait for traction? Why can’t you invest pre-product and seed companies more”

We then discussed our model, how we often invest early and have no problem backing first time founders. I learned a lot from that session and it helped me not to accept that any of the traditional rules of venture capital should be written in stone. I’m told we were the first Boston firm to back a YC company. Back in those days his wife and partner Jessica would reserve seats for investors that backed YC companies because there wasn’t that many of us. Contrast that to YC Demo Day today and the difference and progress is quite remarkable.

In addition to their fine work at YC, Paul’s essays are legendary. One of my favorite things about his essays is at the end of many of his posts he thanks folks that helped with his thoughts. I love that.

Yesterday morning I was speaking with my colleague Andrew and an entrepreneur about this thing that Paul does and how I would love to see the remarks that those people make to his essays. Wouldnt it be great to see Paul Buchheit or Harj’s feedback — either in real time or after the fact somehow.

So it was pretty cool to read this morning Evan Williams has developed a new collaboration system over at Medium. I think it’s a powerful idea that is wonderful for the writer, the collaborators and the reader. It’s more than comments, it’s the evolution of peer production and I’m quite excited to see what this can take us.