I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA • Hacker News Board

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#151

Post by pavs » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:04 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #138

pavs wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On topic. I _really_ want to do this.[1] Whats your opinion? Sent a proposal to kickstarter yesterday, waiting for reply. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1351584

Sounds like an interesting idea. A revolution in education is imminent. Better measurement, statistics, and analytics in the real world, better connectivity in the offline world.

Thanks for looking at it.

This is something I wanted to do for sometime, Salman Khan's video just re-ignited the passion I had when I first thought of it (I still have the detailed ~10 page draft lying around somewhere). I am hoping to go all-out on this, not sure how to approach some of the non-technical problems but I am researching/working on it. One way or another I will find a way and make this happen. rápido.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#152

Post by bdevil1 » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:06 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #148

bdevil1 wrote: post #141

Say you have an idea for a web startup, you're working on a prototype in your spare time. How should one make the jump from side project to getting funded? How did you do it with delicious?

Delicious started getting noticed a great deal. Press, etc. I think I had 30-40k users right before I started talking to Fred. This is in the days before user inflation, mind you. I got several offers of acquisition for delicious in the 250k-500k range, and felt that if I actually worked on it full-time it would be worth more. I turned down eight or so acquisition offers before I took VC.

How did you host/fund it prior to taking VC? Was it so low maintenance that this wasn't an issue?

(Many have said this already, but thanks for starting this thread. Very insightful.)

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#153

Post by joshu » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:08 AM UTC

kalvin wrote: post #147

joshu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an excellent question.

If, hypothetically, you were starting a new venture yourself, what kind of change would you want it to make in the world if it succeeded?

One axis along which businesses find themselves has "direct utility" at one pole and "perceived utility" on the other. Perceived utility is stuff like sugary drinks, or pictures of attractive people, or whatever; we're drawn to like those things because of our psychology and evolutionary background. I don't mean to sound negative - if people like the things they can be good things. Like video games, for example.

I think that no business or product exists at either extreme (delicious, for example, over-empowered people's need to collect things; video games are inadvertently good at improving reaction time etc) but I'm pretty sure anything that leans toward direct utility and is large is going to have a significant positive impact in the world. I think Google is a pretty shining example here.

The things I like to build tend toward the "direct utility" side of things. Hopefully they will be large...

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#154

Post by joshu » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:15 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #49

paulgb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this is getting off-topic from investing, but since that's the spirit of an AMA, is there an interesting story re: your mother meeting moot?

Not really. It was after this event: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/arts/design/19rhizome.html and I wanted to go to a diner.

Another funny story:

So it must have been 2004 and Stewart from Ludicorp wanted to show me this new "Flickr" thing they'd built, which was a sort of online flash chat thingy. I'd logged in and poked around, and said something to the effect of "this is neat, but I wonder if somebody's mother could use it." Stewart said to call mine and see what she thought, so I did.

A few minutes later, my mother comes into the chat room that Stewart and I are talking in. If I recall, nobody else is even logged into the system at the time.

"Mom, this is Stewart. Stewart, this is my mother."

Stewart says hello, she says hello, etc.

My mother says: "This is very nice, but I have one question."

Stewart: "What's that?"

My mother: "How is this going to make any money?"

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#155

Post by joshu » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:23 AM UTC

clutchski wrote: post #137

I heard you built one website a month, hunting for the right idea, until delicious clicked. Would you ever fund a person you believed in for that kind of exploratory work?

> Would you ever fund a person you believed in for that kind of exploratory work?

I've put money into a few things based on people's prior work, but generally the idea itself has to be interesting.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#156

Post by paraschopra » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:28 AM UTC

1. Do you ask startups how exactly they are going to spend money? Or are you fine investing even if team doesn't know where each penny is going to be?

2. Since you must be involved with a lot of startups, how much time, attention and guidance you are able to give to an individual startup?

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#157

Post by rokhayakebe » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:32 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #140

clutchski wrote: post #137

I heard you built one website a month, hunting for the right idea, until delicious clicked. Would you ever fund a person you believed in for that kind of exploratory work?

I tried to build something interesting every year. I originally set out to be some sort of expert in social software (I think I succeeded, more or less) way back. In the past I built memepool and geourl and a bunch of other things you've never heard of. However, I never really had the idea of building businesses, just interesting things. I wanted to get attention (I got myself invited to Foo Camp before I did delicio…

I still build some small things here and there. I find it much more difficult to program now, though.

Care to share any links?

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#158

Post by joshu » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:34 AM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #156

1. Do you ask startups how exactly they are going to spend money? Or are you fine investing even if team doesn't know where each penny is going to be? 2. Since you must be involved with a lot of startups, how much time, attention and guidance you are able to give to an individual startup?

Use of capital is a typical open question. But no, I do not ask for a budget. They should spend most of it on people and the rest on other constraining resources.

A lot of them no longer need my help. Many don't use the time I do have available. I have plenty of time for my day job and even playing video games.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#159

Post by joshu » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:37 AM UTC

bdevil1 wrote: post #152

joshu wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delicious started getting noticed a great deal. Press, etc. I think I had 30-40k users right before I started talking to Fred. This is in the days before user inflation, mind you. I got several offers of acquisition for delicious in the 250k-500k range, and felt that if I actually worked on it full-time it would be worth more. I turned down eight or so acquisition offers before I took VC.

How did you host/fund it prior to taking VC? Was it so low maintenance that this wasn't an issue? (Many have said this already, but thanks for starting this thread. Very insightful.)

It wasn't that expensive to host.

At the time I got funding, I had 3u via an ISP (http://www.atlanticmetro.net/ now) in Telehouse. One of the servers I bought, and one was mailed to me out of the blue by Marc Andreessen.

Re: I am a junior angel in Silicon Valley. AMA

#160

Post by joshu » Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:42 AM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #157

joshu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to build something interesting every year. I originally set out to be some sort of expert in social software (I think I succeeded, more or less) way back. In the past I built memepool and geourl and a bunch of other things you've never heard of. However, I never really had the idea of building businesses, just interesting things. I wanted to get attention (I got myself invited to Foo Camp before I did delicio…

I still build some small things here and there. I find it much more difficult to program now, though. Care to share any links?

The last thing I was tinkering with was http://lensdb.com/ but it still needs a lot of work. I haven't worked on it in months and months.

I'm thinking of building an app to help manage my angel deal flow, of all things.