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Why you SHOULDN’T start a tech company in Silicon Valley

There’s been a bit of back and forth on what the best place to start a technology company is these days. The conventional wisdom these days is that the place to start and run a technology company is Silicon Valley. The key reasons put forth to justify this is money, talent, and expertise. If you’re...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 07-08-2008
Serial Entrepreneurs and High Valuations

I wrote in the past that sometimes you can take too much money - doing so creates certain expectations for an exit that might not be achievable and limits your flexibility. In the context of the discussion last week, I think it's important to highlight that these economics are not always the fault...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 06-09-2008
Simultaneous Discovery and its impact on stealth mode

We’ve talked a lot about the anti-stealth movement here and on the nextNY list, and the topic has resurfaced again recently thanks to Brad Burnham’s post about the advantages of being open . I noticed that, at least anecdotally, there was a correlation between how open entrepreneurs were...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 06-08-2008
Innovation, Disruption and The Economics of Free

Hank Williams managed to stir up quite the controversy with his recent post lamenting the rise of free and blaming the VCs . His assertion is that the venture capitalists have made free, ad-supported businesses the norm and effectively "ruined it for everyone else" (my words). I believe it...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 04-08-2008
TheFunded brings more transparency to raising venture capital

Asymmetry of information plays a major role in negotiations, and it is often said that venture capital investments are made under extreme information asymmetry. On one side of the table, the limited partners don't know much about the company, the VCs know a little (relatively speaking), and companies...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 01-27-2008
Passion and its role in evaluating new product ideas

Evan Williams has an absolutely wonderful post up about evaluating a new product idea . I think Marc is spot on - the "personally compelling" criteria is the one that stands out. Last on the list, but probably the first question I ask myself is: How important to me is it that this product exists...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 12-26-2007
Why Notches isn't "Anti-Stealth"

There's been a lot of discussion about being anti-stealth . A stealth startup is one that isn't telling anyone what they're building and being very protective about the idea. Anti-stealth is the polar opposite - broadcasting everything, from your long-term vision, project status, and even...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 11-26-2007
How do you get started raising venture capital?

Alex commented on my previous post about raising too much venture capital. This is great. However, some of us are really puzzled by the whole VC process to begin with. It would be nice to get some "semi instructional" slash "story of my life" about making a transition from the basement...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 09-13-2007
More about raising too much venture capital

I recently wrote about the dangers of "taking as much as you can get" in a series A. Shortly after that, Dick Costolo wrote an absolutely amazing post about raising too much money. Nonetheless, I don’t think it makes sense for most entrepreneurs to raise big A rounds, because you don’t want...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 08-24-2007
Distinguishing between a platform and a destination

Charlie says that "the whole idea that you have a main site is dead". I couldn't agree more - I strongly believe that platforms are the future of the Internet. One clarification I'd like to make in this whole discussion is Facebook is both a destination and a platform. It's important...

Posted to Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled (Weblog) by Tim on 08-21-2007

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