Brad Feld Quotes
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I'm a huge believer in the importance of vacations for leaders, entrepreneurs, and everyone else. I work extremely hard - usually 70+ hours a week.
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For those trying to protect the past, it is a way of retaining power, status, money, a way a life, predictability, comfort, control, and a bunch of other things like that. It is a struggle against the inevitability of change.
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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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I talk often about being intrinsically motivated by learning. It's the primary driver of most of my activity.
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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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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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In my world, historical revenue is the least interesting thing to consider in an acquisition strategy.
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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'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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I'm glad I get to live in the United States of America.
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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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My view was, if I didn't like Boulder, I'd keep going west, except I never really wanted to live in the Bay Area.