Latest posts
State of Venture in Fall 2023
Things feel s-l-o-w in the venture ecosystem. Some craziness around AI, but everything else is “Zootopia DMV slow slow.”
Read moreBeware of Fake / Scam Engineering Candidates
Recruiting engineers is hard enough, but having to deal with fake/scam candidates makes it that much harder. You may be wondering how this whole scheme works. I certainly was, until one of our engineers at HiHello received an inbound from someone offering him $60-$80/hr just to attend a couple of Zoom meetings and pretend to be someone else on those calls.
Read moreHit Start Media – Enabling Enterprise Companies to Own Their Narrative
Hit Start Media is a startup that helps enterprise companies “Own your narrative.”
Read moreI Believe
We’re boiling the frog, where the frog is democracy, the health of our fellow humans, justice and equality for people of different races and genders, and most importantly the health of our planet—remember that we only have one. So I want all K9 LPs and K9 founders to know that my time, my energy, my money, and YOUR money will go to supporting these causes through the companies K9 invests in, or that I start.
Read moreThe Story of How/Why K9 Invested in Pragli
Pragli is a virtual office for remote teams… I often found that it was easier for me to communicate with a remote colleague on Pragli that it was to even get up and walk to the other room to talk to a co-located colleague! In my mind Pragli had nearly achieved remote-work Nirvana!
Read moreIntroducing Avoma: Meeting Intelligence
I’m pleased to announce and support the launch of Avoma, a K9 Ventures’ portfolio company that is making all of us who spend time in meetings more productive by utilizing AI. One of the big changes that has happened in business today is that an increasing amount of it is now conducted on the phone […]
Read moreSolving Hard Problems: Traptic’s Harvesting Robots
A little known fact about me is that my paternal grandmother was a farmer. When we would visit her I remember running along the paths surrounded by fields of rice, wheat, grape vines, and apricots. Barring one lonesome mechanical tractor, pretty much everything else on the farm was pretty manual. The wheat would be harvested […]
Read moreWhat is the biggest enemy of a startup?
In 1998–1999, when I was running my first company, one of my investors, the late Don Jones, came by to visit us at the office. Don was totally a people person and just an all around great person to talk to. In fact, I can hear the intonation of his voice in my head as […]
Read more10 Years for K9 Ventures
My typical Wednesday schedule is pretty grueling (by choice, to try and free up other days of the week) as I do between 9–10 back to back 45 minute meetings with K9 portfolio companies. I have a 45 minute break for lunch. As I sit here eating my apple and peanuts, I realized that today, April […]
Read moreAI Power: Introducing Currant
The home is getting smarter. We hear that every day and we’re constantly exposed to new devices that all help to bring this home of the future to us. From smart doorbells, to smart door locks, to smart light bulbs and more. But one thing in our homes hasn’t changed much in over a hundred […]
Read moreThe future is keyless: Introducing Nexkey
Ah, the morning pat down: wallet, check; phone, check; keys, check. That’s been my routine for decades. That’s probably been your routine for decades as well. And yes, we’re carrying a super computer in our pockets, but so much of our daily lives is still unlocked by mechanical keys — little mechanical gizmos and puzzles […]
Read moreInvestors should pay their own legal expenses
Legal by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images There, I said it; right there in the title of the blog post. And I’ll repeat it again: Investors should pay their own legal expenses. I’ve never understood why the norm for someone putting money into a company comes with the company bearing the cost of the legal […]
Read moreWhat you didn’t know about TechCrunch Disrupt Winner Forethought AI
Yesterday, K9 Ventures portfolio company, Forethought AI, was declared the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 Startup Battlefield competition. SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 07: (L-R) TechCrunch Editor in Chief Matthew Panzarino, Jordan Crook, winner of Battlefield, ‘Forethought,’ and TechCrunch team onstage during Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center […]
Read moreHi. Hello. And Bye Bye Business Cards!
I last ordered business cards in 2009. I think I ordered a thousand of them. And I haven’t run out of them yet — because most times when I need them, I don’t have them on me. They’re either at the office, or in my car, or in my backpack; but never with me where/when […]
Read moreBrowsers were meant for browsing, but with Workona they’re now designed for working
I’m excited to announce K9 Ventures’ recent investment in Workona. K9 led the initial financing for Workona in December 2017. What is Workona? Well, this video does a great job of explaining that… so I’ll let the video do the talking… Quinn Morgan and Alma Madsen, the co-founders of Workona are alumni from another K9 […]
Read moreThe Logical Evolution of Private Markets: A new class of company.
Recently I attended a lunch where we were all asked to present something provocative/mind-blowing. I thought about that for a while and realized that I want my provocative thought to not be something that is a pie in the sky idea but instead something that is based on a series of logical conclusions. Well, here […]
Read moreIdeas Matter aka The Execution Myth
I’ve written about how Ideas Matter before. I’ve also written about Finding a Problem Worth Solving. And I’ve also written about my Contrarian Advice for Graduating Students. What follows is a set of slides from a talk I gave sometime last year (February 24rd, 2017) in Chuck Eeesly‘s E145: Technology Entrepreneurship class at Stanford. This […]
Read moreThe Pre-Seed FAQ
One of the people I respect the most in the VC/PE media ecosystem is Dan Primack. I’ve been an avid reader of Dan’s Term Sheet while he was at Fortune, and now Pro Rata at Axios. His writings and knowledge of the inner workings of the VC/PE ecosystem is impressive, and I have learned a […]
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