Brad Feld Quotes
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When I think about the books I've written, it probably takes 150,000-200,000 words to get a 50,000 page book. Highlighting something and hitting Cmd-X is second nature.
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I often get asked how I write so much. As any writer knows, the answer is to write a lot more than you actually publish.
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I have several close friends who are insomniacs. Over the years, I've heard their stories about being up in the middle of the night, completely awake. I see them yawn at 11 A.M. and know that, regardless of what they are doing, they'd probably rather be in bed sleeping. I've always had sympathy for them, but I've never really understood it.
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If you sell a physical product, you have a lot of Q4 upside and unpredictability, but now you have to manage your cash to get to Q4 so that you can invest in building inventory to over-perform.
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Over the years, I've been involved in many business crises. I qualify this, since my crises have never involved life and death or the survival of the human race. But they are still crises.
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When the entrepreneur is obsessed with the product and the company has organized all of its activities around that, it's very powerful.
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When I was in my mid-20s, running a successful company and clinically depressed, I was afraid to talk to anyone other than my psychiatrist about it. I was ashamed that I was even seeing a psychiatrist.
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My initial desire to blog came from something that's always been my approach to investing - I'm a nerd, and I love to play with the technology, and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level.
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If you aren't going to make your revenue plan, it's unlikely you'll make your EBITDA or Net Income plan. You don't even have to get complicated and look at Gross Margin or more derivative metrics - if you are off in Q1 and have any sort of growth expectations , you are going to miss for the year.
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Silicon Valley has been developing as a startup community for over 60-70 years. This notion that you can create something in two or five years is foolish.
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Usually, the first three months post acquisition are up and down. The acquirer and the acquiree are trying to figure out how to interact. The founders of the acquiree are usually tired from the deal process and adjusting to their new reality.
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In my world, historical revenue is the least interesting thing to consider in an acquisition strategy.
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I talk often about being intrinsically motivated by learning. It's the primary driver of most of my activity.
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Some Sundays, I read it quickly - other Sundays, I savor it. I generally spend most of my time in 'The New York Times Book Review,' 'Sunday Business,' 'Sunday Review,' and 'The New York Times Magazine.' I turn all the other pages, only stopping when I find a headline that interests me.
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By 2002, I realized that what was classically called a rollup strategy was not generally effective, at least not for me.
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I'm glad I get to live in the United States of America.
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In 2016, you no longer have to be in Silicon Valley to launch a successful startup. Colorado is home to many.
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Kauffman Fellows is not necessarily for people just entering the venture industry but for experienced VCs looking to accelerate their growth. The program is centered around established innovation leaders - if you are looking to grow and become a better investor, you should think about doing this program.
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I have trouble sleeping maybe one night a year. On that special night, I get up and read on the couch until I fall asleep.
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I've been traveling more and feel like I've figured out a comfortable way to do it. The biggest shift is that I spend my traveling time 'in the moment,' I don't over-schedule when I'm somewhere and instead focus on longer time with less people. I also give myself plenty of me time on the road.
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While I'm a venture capitalist who invests in early-stage tech companies, I often feel like a professional emailer and conference call maker.
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I'm always fascinated by the dedicated monitors in a hospital. Non-standard cables, funny button shapes, odd LED colors, and lots of extra controls.
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Periodically, at the end of a conversation, someone will ask me, 'Is there something I can do for you?' I used to answer with 'Do something that is helpful to something or someone in my world.'
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I'm not deeply involved in politics, but about 25% of the people I interact with in politics went to law school.