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Guy Kawasaki has been doing something like this for years, with Garage.com. Their biggest success was Claria, which distributed adware. Not a great track record there.

Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist

Riiiiight, that's what makes guy significant and worth listening to. Because he's a vulture capitalist. Michel Marriott, the NYT correspondent who wrote this tripe, is a triple asshat for not being able to use google.

Garage.com has been doing this for years. They have some modest successes.. Guy Kawasaki ran Garage.com for a while, after he quit Apple.

Garage.com has been doing this for years. They have some modest successes.. Guy Kawasaki ran Garage.com for a while, after he quit Apple.

If so, why is it OK when Guy Kawasaki and the folks at Apple do it, and not OK when JBoss does it? I remember a lot of pleas on the EvangeList to do just the same thing on bulletin boards, etc. One tactic was to encourge people to write to little boutique software shops and encourage them to develop Mac versions. This may cause someone to spend 1000s (or millions) of dollars developing a product that there's no real market for, because the Maccies making the requests have no intention of buying the product.

I also know that Apple employees frequent Slashdot and other forums to "mod" dissenting views down, and talk up their technology.

So why is it OK for Apple to do this and not JBoss?

One more thing holding back micropayments: for anything that small--music, movie reviews, weather reports, stock quotes, cartoons--there is someone giving away the same thing (or nearly so) for free. Yahoo! gives away weather reports because they want traffic and name recognition. Ebert posts his movie reviews for free. I enjoy his reviews, but if he started charging for them, I'd stop reading. Everyone has their price. Penny Arcade, user Friendly, and Dilbert are loved by thousands, if not millions. How many PA fans would pay $.01 to read each day's strip? How many $.05? How many $.005? Everyone's going to get to their point where they say "Ah, skip it" and go somewhere else.

Stick with what we have now: instead of 1000 users paying $.10 every time they read a comic, just reach those 10 fans who will pay a buck. Like that BitPass site--I'm really gonna sign up with them so I can take my choice of 3 comics, 2 musicians, and some guy's PowerPoint slides? (OK, PDF, but whatever.) I'm sure someone else is saying something equally interesting somewhere else for free. If his viewpoint is truly valuable and unique (no offense Guy) then hook up with Gartner and sell it to CIOs for $1,000 a throw. Otherwise, I'll stick with CNet, Slashdot, whatever. Actually, yeah, let's take a look at what he has to offer:
The most important lessons that Guy has learned thru his long and checkered business career.--Those stories are everywhere for free, even moreso after .bomb.
Tactical tips to raising money in the most difficult of times.--I recommend a google search for 'VC blog'
Guy's fearless predictions about the Next Big Thing in Silicon Valley.--Cringely, Metcalfe, ad infiditum.
How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: A guerrilla manual to driving your competition up the wall. --Google: "guerilla marketing"
Lies of VCs --"vc lies"--Results 1 - 10 of about 60,500
Lies of Entrepreneurs--starting to see a pattern here?
Then and Now: Entrepreneurs $0.10 The differences for starting and running a business between then (1998 or so) and now (2003). --Jeez... *Lots* of people have time to write stuff like this... especially since about mid-2000.
(getting redundant, so I'll skip a few.)
War for Talent: Insights into the hiring and recruiting game.--I recommend JoelOnSoftware.com.

What is this guy (or anyone) saying that a million other people aren't saying for free? How do we know that this guy is *right*, and everone else isn't, and therefore worth--wait--ten cents?!? Wanna get your opinion out about business and make some money? Write a book like Iacocca. Otherwise, you'll learn the true meaning of "dime a dozen."

The biggest obstacle to you walking out and forming a company with your colleges would be the terms of your contract. Every employee contract I have ever seen contains a clause that states you are not allowed to temp other employs to leave and join you at a new job. Mass resignation is legal, its just a problem if you all want to set up a new firm doing what ever it was you where doing before. Normally you need to wait about six months before you could form the company, you could not directly target customers you where introduced to while at your previous company and you would be best advised to seek legal conceal about the best way to do it.
Also depends a lot on where you are in the world.
Be aware of the risks of starting a company in your spare time

The result was Windows 95 and Apple had nothing to bite back with except Guy Kawasaki. They seem to have their act together a lot more these days. Let's hope that, by the time Longhorn is released, they're four years ahead again.

Some clarifications: First of all, we don't sign NDAs. Neither do any other reputable VCs along Sand Hill Road, because we'd quickly be swamped with them (we review upwards of 10,000 plans a year). Our business depends on our reputation, and nothing else--everyone's money is green, and our competitors are literally everywhere along Sand Hill. If someone approaches us with an NDA, and refuses to talk until we sign, we pass on the deal.

Second, VCs do take a big ownership stake. But it's not just about money. We have the connections into our portfolio companies and into other large companies around the Valley and beyond. As an early stage firm, we work for our money. We help recruit talent, we help with later financings, we help make strategic decisions, etc. CEOs often talk with their lead investors several times a week.

Third, regarding patents, they're nice, but what's more important is defensibility in the marketplace. With the exception of foundational algorithms like RSA, it's unlikely that patent protection will be all that significant. It's more important to have a lead over potential competition due to a combination of better technology, speed, and strategy.

Finally, no bank in the world is likely to give a loan to a startup company without financial backing--you're simply too risky, and there's no assets to recover. VCs can handle the risk; we're used to it.

As far as advice goes: 1. Make progress. Prove your assumptions--people want your product, say they will pay for your product, want an alliance with you. Move your technology as far along as possible. Hire good people.

If you have had no professional money invested yet, consider approaching angel investors Garage.com, Angel Investors LP. They will help you advance to the stage where VC money is appropriate. If it's two guys and an idea, we generally won't back it unless it's people we know and trust already. And sometimes not even then.

2. Think about the strategic landscape of the market you're entering now, 6 mos from now, a year from now, and beyond. What will happen once you enter the market? Most importantly, what problem are you solving, and who will pay you to solve it? How much will they pay? How will you market to/sell to them? VCs will ask tough questions about everything--you, your competition, your technology, your strategy, etc.
Good VCs aren't just money managers--they are engineers with MBAs. Many have CS or EE degrees, and all are up on the latest technologies. You'd be surprised how many technical discussions take place here.

3. Do your homework. Figure out who else is out there, what they're doing, and make yourself stand out. Be the diamond in the rough of 10000 plans we see. For advice on how to do that, check out MIT's 50K page. Pay special attention to the "resources" section.

There are dozens of other pieces of advice to offer. So I am considering creating a website with this and other information on the VC process. Does that seem like something people would be interested in? If so, please post a reply, and I'll start putting one together.

I may not know much about the kernel, but finally a subject I can be useful on!

Garage.Com


It's where the big boys play.

check out Garage.com.

the site is dedicated to matching VC with developers/companies with new ideas. (any chance of getting a finder's fee??) -la

Yeah, it might have been nice if the EvangeList switched gears and became a cool-Mac-news thing instead of Mac apologetics, but I guess the advocacy was ingrained into their name. Besides, there's a whole slew of other Mac groups and websites now.

BTW, Guy's at Garage.com now, a VC thing for startups.