According to a study out of the University of East Anglia, swearing at work is a good thing. The study found regular use of profanity to express and reinforce solidarity among staff, letting them express their feelings, such as frustration, and develop social relationships, according to researchers at the UEA.
Wonder if HR is going to get that memo?
What struck me more was the comments from the announcement on Slashdot. If you’ve got 10 minutes, prepare for a good chuckle.
One of the organizations I work with just finished a Series A financing. This is the first time I’ve been on the receiving end of the money – my past lives have all had views from the investing end of the cash.
The one thing that has struck me during this process is how intensive the process really is. I am downright shocked and dismayed at the amount of resources a company uses in order to raise capital. The CEO’s cycles are on fundraising almost full time, in addition to myself, and the COO. This isn’t to mention the dollars spent on attorneys fees, and the cycles from our board members and advisors. I bet if we sat down and tracked the number of hours spent (excluding the opportunity loss from not focusing on things like sales) and added in all attorneys fees, it would be so disgustingly not worth the raise. In fact, I think if investors had any idea how much of a company’s resources went into fundraising as opposed to growing sales, launching product, gaining market, etc, they might not even invest under a certain dollar amount. I wonder what the magic investment number is to make this process worth it.
One thing that strikes me is that software could be used to somewhat automate this process, thereby DRASTICALLY reducing the adminstrative burden of a capital raise. Letters to investors, responses to letters, signatures, deposits, stock certificates, phone calls, faxes, etc all could benefit from automation. What a great product that would be.
Yet another insightful Luism by my favorite strategist and dear friend, Lu Cordova.
She was releating a story about how she needed to hire a VP for her last company. She had narrowed it down to two options, but really couldn’t decide between them. She brought in a consultant, she had them interview with the board, she interviewed them again, she spent a day with each, she completed her extended due dilligence and she still couldn’t decide.
And that’s when it hit her – she couldn’t decide because both of them were wrong. So she scrapped her search and started over.
I find this is critical insight. Every single time I have found myself at a place where I can’t make a key decision – if I force a decision, it has WITHOUT FAIL ended up wrong. If I scrap the options and start from scratch – WITHOUT FAIL I have ended up behind schedule, but with more than I could have ever hoped for.
So remember that. Don’t relegate yourself to the options that are thrown at you. If you can’t decide, it’s because all your options are wrong and you’re looking in the wrong place.
Thank you Lu!
I’ve been doing a bit of research on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model recently for one of the companies that I work with. While I’m not going to pretend to be an expert, I will share my findings and sources. And please, if I’m wrong, correct me!
SaaS is getting quite a bit of traction recently with investors because of Salesforce.com’s success and the IPO’s of Netsuite, Omniture (in 2006), and DemandTec. And while it’s a hot market right now, allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
1. Of the publicly traded companies that I looked at, only Salesforce.com has been consistently profitable. The rest are still operating at a net loss.
2. It has taken most of these companies somewhere between at least $30million and $65million in venture funding to reach IPO. This is significant because as an entrepreneur, you better be thinking big numbers. Your $300K Series A isn’t going to cut it.
3. They spend an ABSURD amount of money on sales & marketing. Omniture spends between 41%-57% of total revenues on M&S. Netsuite spent 65% of revenues on M&S. Salesforce spends between 48%-61%, if you don’t count the 467% they spent the first year they were in business (thank you Salesforce for educating the public for the rest of the SaaS companies).
While investors are excited because IPO Valuations are coming in as high as 10X revenue, I think the next 36 months will be the true test if the SaaS model can hold its own. These guys had better turn the corner or the model is in trouble.
The SaaS model definitely makes sense though. From a personal perspective, the less software I have to manage, install, update, host, etc, the less time I have. I love all that is online because my life goes with me where ever I go, without requiring to lug around my laptop. And to the extent that, on the consumer side, companies can partner, I’d be even more likely to rid myself of bulky clients and opt for the online version. (By the way, I’d pay someone to take away my 2007 version of Quicken and provide me with a usable, easy, online, interconnected version of personal financial software)
Anyway, here’s a link to a Google Spreadsheet (love goog, biggest fan) with all of the historical financials I found on a select number of SaaS companies, including Omniture, Netsuite, Salesforce.com, RightNow, DemandTec, and Concur. I’ll continue to update it as I find more information.
Here are links to some interesting articles that I’ve found as well:
SaaS Blogs – The Saas Investing Landscape
The Ponderings of Woodrow – Netsuite IPO
Resistance Fades as SaaS goes Mainstream
Saugatech has a research article out on SaaS trends – anyone care to share with me?
Good luck to all the SaaS companies out there – and share your research with me if you have any.
I had an interesting conversation two nights ago with Catherine Merigold of Vista Ventures. She and I share a similar interest in seeing women in entrepreneurship succeed, because there are oh-so-few of us. Given that investors job is to minimize risk, she has a theory that anything that separates an entrepreneur from an investor qualifies risk. For instance, a woman with long, red fingernails might be seen as more risky to a group of male investors since they don’t share that trait and might not understand it. I think there is merit here, but I also think that anything distracting to an investor, whether it be a woman with long, red fingernails, or a man with a full set of chops is detrimental.
This isn’t to say that you can’t be unique and individual, but it is to say that it might take you longer to reach your goals. I think of music artists here. If you want to make it BIG, most musicians have to play to the whims of the public, whether you like it or not. But once you reach a certain stage in your career, people will begin to like anything you play. You can effectually change the likes and dislikes of an audience, be a trend setter. But you have to be on top to do that.
The take away from our conversation was simple. If you’re trying to raise money for your company, what do you want your investors to notice? Your long red fingernails? Your shaggy long hair? Or your stunningly brilliant business model? I do think women will have a more difficult time raising money, they have more obstacles to overcome to get there. But ensure the investors are focused on the right thing – how you are going to return their investment quickly, safely, and in large quantities.
This week has been the You Tube week.
…And this guy keeps a straight face the whole time. Impressive!
The thing that’s not so funny is I’m pretty sure I’ve seen almost identical presentations at the CTEK Angels. Engineering entrepreneurs are so wrapped up in the technology that they assume everyone else understands. Think investors fund things they don’t get? (Not usually, unless their best friend is investing and he/she gets it).
Okay, they’re cousins by marriage. But I’m greek, and in the greek tradition, we’re ALL family!
This is a shameless familial plug, but it’s good!
My cousins The Brother’s Nee wrote, directed, and filmed this second version of A Fine Frenzy “Almost Lover”. It’s getting some good traction! You can view the video in it’s entirety below, but don’t forget to vote for the video on VH1 here…
You know that I have a reputation with photographs – that they are decent but everyone has to wait YEARS to see them (case in point, wedding photos still are not up from July 2006). So here’s my funny (but long) story.
My husband and I have recently returned from a three month trip to South America. Everyone keeps asking me to see the photos, and determined not to disappoint, right when I got back from SA I uploaded everything to my father’s computer, organized, deleted, edited the goodies, and starred the ones I would upload. I couldn’t yet do the upload though b/c I needed my own laptop for that job, which was in Colorado. So I backed everything to DVD’s and flew back to CO.
When I got home, I learned that my hard disk was FULL and I would need to move some old photos off to accomplish the job. No prob. I have a network storage device with hundreds of gigs just for the job.
Well, right about the time I went to do the transfer, our network went down. Comcast came out, fixed it. then 2 days later mark broke it again. Comcast came BACK out, fixed it from the modem to the computer, but as soon as you put the router in there, it broke. After 3 weeks of me trying to figure out what was going on, I discovered that the router was broken. New router.
Okay! Intranet/Internet now working, after about 4 weeks. I go to connect to the network storage device, and I can’t see it. Can’t ping it, can do nothing. 2 weeks go by of me communicating with their tech support, they can’t fix it. After pulling my hair out, I come to learn that the new firewall I installed on my computer was blocking the map network drive and ping functions, but only to the network storage device (have other drives mapped no prob). Go figure. So after configuring the firewall, VOILA! Now I get access to the storage device. So I move a whole bunch of files off (takes 2 days, we’re talking lots o’ gigs here). I install the SA photos. Except some of the tags and descriptions I had set with the photos aren’t there (this part took me HOURS AND HOURS when I got back from SA). So I ended up re-creating them. That took me maybe a week.
Okay, tags and descriptions done. On hard drive, done. Now let’s begin the upload! I start to upload. Right when the first set finishes, my computer battery dies. So I plug it in, but no juice is flowing. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with it, I’ve come to discover that the DC jack on my laptop has just died. It’s fused to the motherboard. And battery is fully drained, without a way to juice it. Mark and I operated on the laptop figuring the connectors were lose and we could just re-soder. After 1 agonizing hour of intensive laptop invasive surgery, we discovered this job was for a pro and WAY beyond our skills. That was thurs.
So, right now, I have about 1/20th of my photos online. The rest are stranded on my laptop HD which is sitting besides me, calling my name, but no way to access it. HD enclosure didn’t work. Installing the HD in a new laptop didn’t work. My motherboard is sitting in a repair shop in WA somewhere trying to get fixed. There’s lots more blood and guts to this story, but I’ll spare you the details.
Suffice it to say if you really want to see photos, I can direct you to about 1/20th of them. Let me know if you’re interested.
I’m having somewhat of an embarrassing problem, and for those that know me, I don’t embarrass easily.
I’m somewhat of an exercise addict. I have tons of energy and get stressed out easily. Exercise is the only thing that brings my energy and stress to manageable levels. I feel better about myself, I obsess less, I’m less grouchy and irritable, and generally, a nicer person to be around.
I spend probably half my workout time in a spinning class, and the other half my workout time outside in some manner, running, hiking, or road biking. When I’m outside, I obviously don’t have access to a mirror. In my spin class, I usually sit so the mirror is next to me instead of in front of me – I have ZERO desire to see myself all sweaty and blotchy and frizzy.
ANYWAY, a while ago, I had to sit in a different seat in my spin class since the class was almost at capacity. So there I am, in front of the mirror. I ride hard that day, and at the end of the class, I sit up on my bike, stretch my hands over my head, and glance at myself in the mirror. To my horror, I realize that MY NIPPLES HAVE SWEAT THROUGH MY SHIRT. I have huge wet RINGS around my nipples, and it looks like I’m lactating! I am not pregnant, I have no other shirt, and it is glaringly obvious. All of a sudden I feel all eyes on me. I know the whole class is staring at me, probably trying hard not to laugh. I’m convinced the person next to me is suppressing a guffaw. My face instantly goes red, I quickly dismount, grab my towel and water bottle, hold them in front of my wet boobs, and I leave.
Next day I’m in class again, and the same thing happens! I sweat a lot, so my shirt is fairly wet, but my breasts are dry except for my wet nipples. The HUGE wet spot around my nipples! The next day I go for a run outside. When I get home, same thing. I’m sweating through a lined jog bra and a t-shirt. I am not exaggerating here. I’m not imagining it either.
I’m so embarrassed. I’m going to have to put maxipads over my boobs when I exercise.
I have a hypothesis and am looking for someone to validate it for me.
Pavlov was a founder of classical conditioning. His experiements showed that if you repeatedly rang a bell before presenting a dog with food, the dog would salivate. Pretty soon you could stop presenting the dog with food, but the dog would still salivate at the sound of the bell.
Why can’t this work for abdominal muscles? I’ll drink a margarita, then do crunches. Margarita, crunches. Margarita, crunches. Pretty soon I can stop doing the crunches and my abdominal muscles will still respond after I do abs.
Anyone care to give it a shot?
Nearly Nicole 