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December 2007

The Archives

• 12.31.07
  Venturing on the frontier: requisite attention Uncategorized | Comments

  Venturing on the frontiers requires distinctly holding attention on two discrete aspects of any venture:- Productive, iterative, exploration of the complexity dynamic- Core venture viabilitySimple to say but in practice, venturers who aren't stuck in perpetual analysis and thought, are pulled toward focusing on linear, or hopefully exponential, growth of the most promising aspect at hand particularly after attracting professional investment capital. Stop thinking and just do it right?Well, avoiding the trap of perpetual analysis does not have to mean stop thinking and exploring, it simply means actively cycling through observation, reflection, interpretation, and decision that moves the venture forward. ...

  Tagged: frontiers, vfi1
  
• 12.30.07
  Venture investing shake-up? Really? Thoughts | Comments

  An interesting article about a new way of doing deals http://mobile2.wsj.com/beta2/htmlsite/html_article.php?id=1&CALL_URL=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119889558568757053.html (thanks to Fred @ USV http://avc.blogs.com for the pointer). What this article really seems to be dancing around is value of relationships in finding and doing deals and in venture success. What also comes is the conventional approach of being hands-off if you are going in early and also the power of being lean/lightweight in early-stage venturing. I'm in the midst of doing a series of posts from my lastest conversations on the frontiers of venturing and this fits... and it's also a good reminder of how little really ...
• 12.29.07
  The dynamics of the frontier: complex ambiguity Uncategorized | Comments

  The frontiers of venturing are the places where conventional venturing and planning approaches become least effective. It is the effective limit of conventional approaches to venturing that define the edge of the frontier with the deepest depths of the frontier being the pre-concept stage of a systemically focused venture. Conventional approaches loose effectiveness the earlier a venture is in the development phase because of increasing ambiguity.  The less that is known the harder it is to do linear modeling and planning.  Choices made continually reduce ambiguity as the venture moves along the development and into the realm where conventional planning ...

  Tagged: complex ambiguity, frontiers, venture, vfi1
  
• 12.29.07
  Venturing on the frontiers – Inquiry #1wrap-up Thoughts | Comments

  A little over a year-ago I began considering what's next in my journey and exactly 3 months ago I initiated my first inquiry into what's needed on the frontiers of venturing and venture investing. It hasn't been a linear journey of course, with a good deal of my attention going towards getting Causeway going over the last year. While that was ongoing, I had about a dozen conversations over November and December with some extraordinary social venture investors and funds in North America (including Renewal Partners, Social Capital Partners, Kellogg Foundation, RSF Social Finance, Good Capital and others). To all of ...

  Tagged: frontiers, venturing, vfi1
  
• 12.07.07
  Social blogging Uncategorized | Comments

  Fred Wilson at USV had a post exploring the differences in twitter and tumblr from other things like blogs and social networks.I am sure there are a lot of people reading this who think "how is this different than blogging?" I'd like to suggest that everyone try thisI blogged earlier about a simple way to give twitter a try (here and here) and think that both of these need to be experienced to get a sense of what they are like. There's something about the ambient nature of twitter (think the value of fb status updates amped up). ...
• 12.05.07
  Measuring incipient instability Thoughts | Comments

  I've been thinking about what it is that really needs to be tracked in early-stage and transformative ventures. There certainly is the simple dynamic of financial viability and then there is the concept of productive, iterative exploration in the area of complex ambiguity I raised in an earlier post. I've been digging into what the measures are that actually help indicate the emergence of potential instability - before it's actually happened. That's the trick because learning that ap has exceeded cash + ar at the next board meeting isn't very helpful. And that's not such a rare scenario - e.g. ...

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