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Feld Thoughts

Some Practical Advice For Getting ProfitableNovember 21

Ted Rheingold at Dogster has a great post up titled 10 Tips for Building a Profitable Business.  My favorite is #4: Spend at least 50% of your time selling.

Many technology companies assume if they built great product it will sell itself yet that almost never happens. Usually we’ve found that incorrect assumption is a rationalization of people who love building product, but secretly loathe the business side of running a business. Such a strategy is a great way to lose a lot of money. So constantly ask yourself, are we spending 50% of our time selling? I bet you’ll always realize you’re focusing too much on the product and not enough on finding customers that want it. (Of course the inverse is true. If you love selling you need to make sure you spend at least 50% of your time building product or your sales effort will be for naught.)

In most companies, too few people sell too little of the time.  If you are a member of the senior executive team of a company that is trying to become profitable, are you spending 50% of your time selling and generating revenue?  If not, why not?  And, if you have a board of directors, are your board members selling also?

Feld Thoughts on Down to BusinessNovember 21

The nice folks at Down to Business have republished my post The Priorities of a Venture Capitalist. 

Down to Business is a website and online show that is a fresh take on the business Q&A. Host Pat Croce cuts through buzzwords and jargon to find out what drives the people who are revolutionizing business in the worlds of media, technology, entertainment, fashion, and beyond. 

It's got some fun stuff on it.

Lookery Site of the WeekNovember 21

Thanks to the guys at Lookery for making Feld Thoughts their site of the week.  As an endless obsessed data weenie, I'm enjoying seeing the data and demographics that Lookery is tracking for my site.  Neat stuff.

Take Responsibility For Your ActionsNovember 19

I made a mistake this morning.  I allowed myself to get ramped up during my morning information routine.  As I read through my online news and feeds, I kept seeing various permutations of discussions around "the bailout."  Which bailout you ask?  So did I.  Before I knew it I was way down a rat hole of reading about all the various requests around "the bailout", tricks for getting "your share of the bailout", absurd requests from very large established companies regarding "the bailout", some surprising and particularly offensive (at least to me) requests from other companies around "the bailout", and lots of justification for action couched in terms like "economic disaster", "crisis", and "collapse."

You don't have to go very far to see where I started getting ramped up - just read the front page of the New York Times business section online this morning.  Note to self - you are an idiot - you should have gone running instead.

I hate the word bailout.   None of the companies I invest in are getting a "bailout."  When they make bad decisions, don't execute, or run out of capital, they fail - which sucks, but it's part of the economic cycle. I tried calling 1-800-BAIL-OUT to see if I was missing something.  They wouldn't help me, but they let me rant about what I think about bailouts (smart entrepreneurs!)

Ev

Ian Rogers Speaks on The Future of the Music IndustryNovember 18

Ian Rogers - the CEO of Topspin - just posted his entire keynote speech (with slides) from the GRAMMY Northwest MusicTech Summit 2008.  The pivot slide of the presentation:

It's been awesome to get to know and work with Ian, Shamal Ranasinghe, and Peter Gotcher - the founders of Topspin.  These guys know their business - and the transformation it's going through - better than anyone else I've ever met.  My partners Ryan and Jason who spearheaded our investment in Topspin have been looking for their "music investment" since I met them.  This is it - and it's a monster.

If you make music for a living, go visit my friends at