Brad Feld Quotes
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I'm glad I get to live in the United States of America.
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I hope more cities engage with immigrant entrepreneurs the way St. Louis has - it's a great model.
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While the line between stress, deep anxiety, and depression often blurs, most entrepreneurs struggle with broad mental health issues at various points in their lives.
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For a long time, I've ranted against naming your startup community 'Silicon Whatever.' Instead, I believe every startup community already has a name. The Boulder startup community is called Boulder. The L.A. startup community is called L.A. The Washington D.C. startup community is called Washington D.C.
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One of my core values is diversity of everything.
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I separate the world of startup communities into two constituencies - leaders and feeders. The leaders are entrepreneurs and the feeders everyone else.
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Boulder is a very smart community.
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I'm hugely intrinsically motivated and have always believed that I'm fueled and motivated by learning.
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Often, entrepreneurs don't build a board until they are forced to by their VCs when they raise their first financing round. This is dumb, as you are missing the opportunity to add at least one person to the team who - as a board member - can help you navigate the early process of building your company and raising that first round.
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When I struggled with a depressive episode in 2013, I realized that I had a glitch in my thinking about my own motivation. I had separated learning and teaching into different concepts.
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I can't tell you the number of people who pitched something and have no idea whom they are pitching it to. They don't know the background of the investor.
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I regularly see leaders change what they say because they get bored of saying the same thing over and over again. It's not that they vary a few words or change examples, but they change the message.
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When we raised the first Foundry Group fund in 2007, we took over 100 first meetings. We told our story several hundred times. As part of it was a slide called 'Strategy.' I still repeat the elements of that slide regularly, a decade later, as our core strategy has not changed.
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This is something I've struggled with a lot: how to relate to the fear in a constructive way. It's not that you eliminate the fear. We have all the fears. That's natural; that's human beings. But how do you deal with the fears, how do you engage with your fears in a way that's productive?
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That's the problem with so many organizations around entrepreneurship. They're driven by metrics that don't matter.
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I think one of the brilliant parts of our democracy is how resilient it is. We are each allowed to have our own beliefs and, as long as we follow the rule of law, we can express them however we'd like. This is a unique characteristic of the best democracies and one I value tremendously.
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I read a lot of science fiction and biography - these are my two favorite genres. My favorite science fiction writers are Hertling, Suarez, Gibson and Stephenson, but I enjoy many others. I dislike reading business books, although I skim a lot of them.
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I'm very comfortable in the U.S. and Europe, but I feel completely out of place in the rest of the world, mostly because I never spent time outside the U.S. and Europe until I was in my 30s.
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St. Louis is a good example of a vibrant city. Having stayed in a hotel in 2011 overlooking Cardinals stadium when they won the World Series, their fans definitely show up loud and proud.
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Stress on fast growing companies comes from a lot of different places. The one that is often the largest, and creates the most second-order issues, is the composition of the leadership team. More specifically, it's specific people on the leadership who don't have the scale experience their role requires at a particular moment in time.
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A rite of passage in America when you turn 50 and have good health insurance is a colonoscopy.
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I have a long history with Kansas City.
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So many companies talk about increasing the number of prospects at the top of the funnel, but they spend remarkably little time making sure actions are taken - on a daily basis - to make sure these prospects convert into paid users.
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If you are feeling some December blues, or even depression, don't fight it. Instead, do something for yourself. Be reflective. Let the emotions exist. And be encouraged that, like me, you can get to a better place, but it can take time.