B I J A N

A few weeks ago an entrepreneur at one of our portfolio companies referred to himself as a misfit.

In his words and mind, he couldn’t fit into most places or companies. He’s not a business person or a marketing person or a manager. He creates.

Some stuff is genius and other stuff is experimentation that doesn’t go anywhere. It takes work and it takes courage. But it’s all he knows. He’s a self aware misfit.

Many companies have a hard time with misfits. How do they “manage” them? How do they measure them. How do they take the greatness along with the craziness. Sometimes they do it well and sometimes they just can’t seem to make it work.

One of the best things about startups is that are usually born from the minds and courage of misfits. I think it’s our jobs as investors to support this and add value without messing with the misfit part.

Today I was at the musee d’orsay in Paris. It was a good reminder that the misfits like van Gogh and other artists created things considered revolutionary or outrageous in their time. But years later we can see the brilliance and can cherish them properly.

Management, boards, VCs, colleagues and end users would be well served to remember all of this and not wait years to cherish the misfits.

Let’s celebrate them now.

(please excuse the lack of links or typos. Wrote this post on my iphone).

I remember many moons ago picking up Macworld magazine and reading it cover to cover. Same with Rolling Stone.

And when I mean cover to cover, I mean the entire thing. Letter to the editor, reviews, tips, specs, interviews and ads. Sometimes, especially ads.

Now we all have something called “banner blindness”. We don’t see many or most of the display ads we see online (this post isn’t talking about search ads btw). And it’s more than just “blindness”. I’m told over and over again the most popular firefox extension is ad blocker. And some of my favorite extensions like rapportive blow out the ads on gmail to make gmail better.

As a result of all of this, ads need to get smarter. That’s just evolution at work.

There are many ways ads are getting smarter.

-real time exchanges know more about us than ever. It’s allowing a whole new level of targeting. And the data is getting richer than most people know.

-ad formats getting more interesting. Apple recently announced the new iAd. It’s a highly interactive ad that offers a whole new user experience and combined with your purchase history on iTunes. Personalized and interactive.

-like/dislike. Facebook, hulu and others provide ways for users to directly vote if they like or dislike an ad. I don’t know how many people actually do this but it’s a powerful idea. Maybe there should be incentives or better transparency to give users the feeling that things are improving with these gestures.

-promoted tweets. Twitter recently launched a new ad network around a new thing called “promoted tweets”. They aren’t ads per se, they are tweets that combine earned media with paid media. If the promoted tweet doesn’t resonate they fade away. That’s a smarter ad unit.

There are many more examples of startups and big companies creating and building new ad technologies and compelling formats combined with rich data sets.

I am optimistic that online advertising will significantly improve. We will see ads personalized and as interesting to me as those in MacWorld back in the day or even better.

And that will be a very good thing for everyone. Users, developers, publishers and advertisers.

(please excuse typos and lack of links. Wrote this on my iPhone)

I’m writing this at 30k feet on a flight from Boston to Paris. We don’t have wifi which is fine with me since this is a red eye. I’ll post it when I land Saturday morning.

This past February Lauren and I celebrated our 15th year anniversary. We knew we wanted to go to Paris but didn’t want to go in February. That was the same month as school vacation and it was cold.

So here we are. On our way to have a week in Paris without the kids. This is actually the first time we have been away from them together for this long. I know we are going to miss them.

One thing is pretty clear to me. I need this vacation. I feel like I’ve been running a million miles an hour since January. My body is hurting and I’m simply wiped out. I also feel like I’m in a bit of a funk so this trip came at the perfect time.

I know Lauren needs this vacation as well. I don’t know how she does what she does every day. She is nothing short of amazing.

I am not going to do any work email this week. I set the “out of office” reply on gmail to say just that. I will likely blog but lightly. No music posts because I didn’t bring my laptop (which is a first for me). I did bring the ipad.

So aside from a single call into my partners meeting on Monday, I plan on taking a real, honest to goodness vacation. I don’t think I’ve done one of these in years. But im determined. I’ve got my running shoes, my panasonic gf-1 and a lot of sites to see, streets to walk, people to watch and places to eat.

And best of all I get to spend it with my wife. In Paris.

Perfect.

Wikipedia’s definition of vaporware:

Vaporware is a word used to describe products, usually computer hardware or software, not released on the date announced by their developer, or announced months or years before their release.

This morning the lead story on Techmeme is the news that HP is killing off their Windows 7 tablet and Microsoft is killing their Courier tablet product.

There is a long history of vaporware in this business. The Palm Foleo is another good example. Unfortuntately it happens all the time with big companies.

While some big companies (may) get away with vaporware backlash from time to time we know they will continue to do it and somehow they get away with it.

On the other hand, startups do not get away with it. Get a vaporware badge as a startup and you’re dead. A startups early community of users and customers are and feel joined at the hip with the company. So when a founder says we are building xyz, they need to do just that.

Many startups often stay mum about new products coming down the pike. They don’t want to give their secrets away too early or their might be too much risk associated with the schedule which might change.

But if that product becomes significantly delayed or if the project gets canceled, I believe the company should communicate why they made their decision, clearly and directly. That’s the best way to handle it and avoid the vaporware stigma.