Some honest writing from Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures

It was great to see Fred's post today about Airbnb.  It's very refreshing to see a VC describe a "miss" in honest terms.  Fred writes, in part:

"But we don't always get it right. We missed Airbnb even though we loved the team. Big mistake."

From my experience raising $1MM for AppMakr last fall, I quickly learned that "if it's not a yes, it's a no" meaning no matter what reason an investor gives you, unless it's a "yes" nothing else matters.  And I heard many versions of "no" -- two investors gave me firm verbal "yes" commitments before changing their minds (one couldn't come up with the funds, and another said after doing more research on the market, he got cold feet.  If you want to know who they were, please leave me a comment on the blog.  I won't 'out' them publicly, but I will warn you privately if you request it, so you don't have to go through the same experience I went through).  But far and away, the biggest reason for a "no" I heard was "we love the team, we're just not sure about the business."  So, what Fred said about missing an opportunity because of the team really resonated with me.

To be clear, I also believe that the "we love the team" line is also an old investor standby line that many investors might use disingenuously to create a "soft no" situation for the entrepreneur.  (That's a blog for another topic, but the fact that investors want to avoid burning bridges with entrepreneurs by giving soft no's is very misleading to the entrepreneur and not a good thing.)  So while I don't know if VCs meant it when they said it to me, I did hear it a lot, and I do know that we have a helluva team and that will ensure our company's success.

And thanks, Fred, for being open and honest in your blog.

It was great to see Fred's post today about Airbnb.  It's very refreshing to see a VC describe a "miss" in honest terms.  Fred writes, in part: "But we don't always get it right. We missed Airbnb even though we loved the team. Big mistake." From my experience raising $1MM for AppMakr last fall, I quickly learned that "if it's not a yes, it's a no" meaning no matter what reason an investor gives you, unless it's a "yes" nothing else matters.  And I heard many versions of "no" -- two investors gave me firm verbal "yes" commitments before changing their minds (one couldn't come up with the funds, and another said after doing more research on the market, he got cold feet.  If you want to know who they were, please leave me a comment on the blog.  I won't 'out' them publicly, but I will warn you privately if you request it, so you don't have to go through the same experience I went through).  But far and away, the biggest reason for a "no" I heard was "we love the team, we're just not sure about the business."  So, what Fred said about missing an opportunity because of the team really resonated with me. To be clear, I also believe that the "we love the team" line is also an old investor standby line that many investors might use disingenuously to create a "soft no" situation for the entrepreneur.  (That's a blog for another topic, but the fact that investors want to avoid burning bridges with entrepreneurs by giving soft no's is very misleading to the entrepreneur and not a good thing.)  So while I don't know if VCs meant it when they said it to me, I did hear it a lot, and I do know that we have a helluva team and that will ensure our company's success. And thanks, Fred, for being open and honest in your blog.

I'll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours... Apps, that is

The Wall Street Journal has run a series of articles about the app economy this week, identifying the app ecosystem as a $25 billion business.  They write:

If you're interested in mobile, and apps in particular, I highly recommend searching this series of articles out.

When my co-founders and I started PointAbout, a mobile app dev shop in 2008, we had a really hard time convincing businesses that apps were more than just a fad.  Then in the 4th quarter of 2009 something significant happened:  I started to see budgets for app creation move from the "experimental" bucket to a dedicated budget.  That's when the most forward-thinking businesses started to build mobile apps and we were able to build a strong business making apps for Disney, The Washington Post, Cars.com and many others.

But still, many businesses don't get it.  I recently wrote a warning to Fortune 1000 CEOs because I'm convinced many of them will be fired for underestimating the impact of mobile on their businesses.

For businesses that are trying to figure out how to really double down on mobile, I'd like to highlight a startup that recently launched called Automatic.  It combines a $70 accessory that plugs into a car's ODBII port with a mobile app, allowing the car to communicate with the phone.  This is a beautiful example of how a company took something that's always been available -- diagnostic information from your car -- and turned it into something humans actually care about, with features like "Never forget where you parked," "Automatic calls for help in a crash," "Save hundreds on gas every year" and "Keep your engine healthy."  The way Automatic is unleashing data that's always been available in a new and very innovative (and valuable) way via the mobile device is a great example of how mobile is changing everything.