The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists

Guy Kawasaki is blogging. Sweet! I’ve been a fan of Guy for a long time, and his writings are both inspirational and informative.

Today, Guy writes about the The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists. Lie #3:

 “Show us some traction, and we’ll invest.” In other words, “no.” This lie translates to “I don’t believe your story, but if you can prove it by achieving significant revenue, then you might convince me. However, I don’t want to tell you ‘no’ because I might be wrong and by golly you may sign up a Fortune 500 customer and then I’d look like a total orifice.”

 Guy lied though, there are only 9 lies in his list. His PowerBook ran out of juice before he could finish.

 

Smile!

Late model cameraphones have replaced digital cameras for some folks.
Here at the flower park, a couple of older ladies just use their 2
megapixel cameraphones to document their day.

| 20 years ago in Japan

Aki Matsuri

The procession of dashi at the Aki Maturi.

| 20 years ago in Japan

Old meets new

There was something about this scene, the old gravestones surrounded by
the “kitchen garden”, and the Circle K convenience sign right behind
it… Now that’s Japan, I thought to myself.

| 20 years ago in Japan

The piracy opportunity according to Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban throws out so many multimillion dollar business ideas on his blog that the VCs must be printing out his blog regularly and passing it around as if it were a prospectus:

The entire content industry is missing a unique opportunity to eliminate most content piracy and more importantly, to generate a whole lot more revenue by offering revenue sharing. If the NYTimes, to use them an example, were to offer 50 pct of the revenue generated from traffic delivered by affiliated websites, not a single website with half a clue would steal your content. Instead, every blogger, splogger and small content creator would look to find ways to link to your content and drive you traffic. Companies like LinkShare offer revenue sharing programs for product sales, why not offer the same for advertising sales?

OK, why not offer the same model for advertising sales on content? If linking to Mark’s post could line my pockets, or at least fill them up with a little loose change, wouldn’t that be a cool thing?

Surely Adsense has this up their sleeves already… Right?

Rice harvest

Here the rice has just been harvested nearby, and is hung up to dry.

| 20 years ago in Japan

Choosing a morning iced coffee

The Rainbow Mountain Blend gave me a sort of reggae mood when I looked
at it, the Wonda Shot & Shot was advertised as “a fine taste for over
30s” – I am well over 30 now so I thought I would qualify, and Boss
World Executive Blend made me feel real important.
In the end I chose the World Executive Blend, based solely on the taste
I assure you, it had nothing to do with my inflated sense of
self-importance.

| 20 years ago in Japan