VCinJerusalem

No Time for Blogging

Just heading back to Jerusalem from hectic week travelling in the US with, yes, you guessed it, Shimon Constante, CEO of mPortico, as we pull together next round financing and progress on business development front.

Passed through the eye of the storm on Sunday in NY, then straight to Silicon Valley, bouncing around between venture funds, strategic business partners, and some nice running along the water in San Francisco.

Did not have any real focused downtime on trip for formulating blog entry, which is par for the course, these trips are go go go. Thank God took the time to run outside every morning.

Look for me next week back in Jerusalem, as we celebrate Israeli Independence Day.

Shabbat Shalom

Take Off the Costume

Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to timeshift and placeshift in the real world. You see, the holiday of Purim was celebrated in most of Israel yesterday (in Jerusalem celebrated today, commemorating the part in the Purim story wherein fighting continued into the fifteenth day of Adar...a lengthier explanation of "Shushan Purim" can be found here). As a Jerusalemite I was not yet celebrating, yet had reasons (see below) to be traveling outside Jerusalem. Even in Jerusalem there was an "off" feeling, as outsiders came into town dressed in their Purim finery (costumes of all kinds, Purim being the time when we try to be who we are not...a day of opposites).

Jerusalem in general feels like Purim, as we have such a wide variety of communities here, many with a unique style of dress....to say the least. Hasidim of all kinds, Christians from all points of the globe (Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc etc), Muslim, and fusion -- every day in Jerusalem feels like a dress-up day, everyone in their own costume (mine usually consisting of jeans and a t-shirt...). On my way to bus station to go to Tel Aviv, I saw a group of people walking, looked like usual Ultra Orthodox folks (men dress in black and white), all of I sudden I realized the man's long black coat had colorful polka dots painted on...what a refreshing sight! A bit of color in an otherwise monochrome lifestyle!

I continued on to my meetings in Tel Aviv, sitting on a crowded bus with soldiers armed for battle (soldiers in Israel are required to carry their guns with them at all times, and tend to travel on buses since they have free passes), tourists, Jerusalemites trying to get ahead of themselves and in Purim costume, and a few like me, working, on our way to Tel Aviv for business meetings. I joined Shimy Constante, CEO of mPortico, in a meeting/presentation to a local Israeli venture fund together with a Silicon Valley fund in Israel for a few days. During the meeting we all put on our "costumes." Shimy as start-up CEO, me as strong supporter, other venture guys with their own versions.

Following the meeting, as soon as we got outside, Shimy asked me -- so, what did you think? Did they like it? etc etc. I told Shimy that it seemed there was interest, but obviously no one took out their checkbooks at the meeting.

And then I realized, if I had more guts, especially in honor of the Purim holiday, I should have done the opposite of what we usually do -- I should have asked everybody to step out of costume, and just say what they were thinking, feeling -- no playing the role of a venture capitalist.

But our costumes are an important part of who we are, and how the game is played.

It would be refreshing, however, just like the colorful polka dots on the black coat, once in awhile to go to one of these meetings and declare "Take Off The Costume" -- give instant feedback, decide on the spot, no games. Yeah, would be refreshing, but probably too much to expect on a regular basis. We need our costumes. They define us, comfort us.

Happy [Jerusalem] Purim!!

It All Remains the Same - CES Review

OK, so this was my first CES. I had attended Comdex many times (what do you say about a dead trade show -- May It Rest In Peace?), and for many years was a regular speaker at the VON conferences hosted by my friend Jeff Pulver. But this was first time at the fabled CES -- where all the latest gadgets and doodads get released, and in the demise of Comdex and E3 everybody was supposed to converge on Las Vegas.

And so they did. For three days we (remember, was there with the mPortico team) ran from meeting to meeting, which made the trip well worth it. But what of CES itself, you ask -- did I learn anything new? Did I see any extraordinary developments coming down the pike for the technology industry? I am sad to say, no. What I saw was same old same old. On every level. Down to worst aspects of trade shows -- yes, the "booth babes." No, I am not referring to the Adult Entertainment Expo happening literally next door (that's a whole other subject), but rather to the need for seemingly self-respecting serious companies to feel the need to bring themselves down to the lowest level -- mainly because for most, in this day of instant journalism and constant communication, there really isn't anything new to say. Even the iPhone from Mr. Jobs had been blogged to death before the "unveiling" at CES.

To use one example close to my heart, which is the current best known VoIP company, Vonage. These guys have spent hundreds of millions to let everyone know who they are, and they succeeded in generating over 1 million subscribers (paying!). But Vonage does not have a new story to tell -- they are about making phone calls. Lets analyze their booth:

For a better view of the Vonage Vixens, click on the thumbnail. Now what do dancing girls in short minidresses have to do with Internet based communications? Please enlighten me. In addition, if you enlarge the photo, you will see the tag line of Vonage on the booth: "A Better Way to Phone for Less." It seems that VoIP companies like Vonage are still focused, ten years after the first commercialized VoIP efforts (I was blessed to be among that pioneering generation) on cheap phone calls. Even ten years ago we said it was NOT about cheaper phone calls, but something else (because we were pioneers no one expected us to actually say what else...;-)). The best thing I can say about the Vonage booth at CES is that they had nice giveaways for my kids (VON trucks for my three year old, playing cards for the others).

There were some interesting plays on mobile television, unfortunately most of those companies could not say when their demos would be really commercialized. Sling Media had a huge booth, very slick materials, (no booth babes -- I guess they have confidence in their product) and were always crowded with people. Sling are first movers in place shifting, but when you think about it they are a backhanded hack -- redirecting data from my house, for use when I am traveling. Now, if I want to get HBO while traveling, why have it stream to my house and then be redirected....seems like a waste of perfectly good bandwidth. If I want to get HBO when in Singapore, why not just subscribe to HBO directly (for beginning of this idea, see Network2.tv initiative). Of course HBO doesn't let you subscribe to it directly as RSS or some other form of direct subscription...but its only a matter of time.

I guess my real problem is that I just don't like Las Vegas -- I don't gamble and hate the smell of cigarettes, which meant going in and out of buildings in Vegas a torture. In general, I found Vegas to be a sad and depressing place. But to each their own.

Here is the view from room at my hotel:

I much prefer hills of Jerusalem...

Energy AND Skill...

In the early days of a start-up an almost inexhaustible amount of energy is required from all involved -- it is a journey of complete dedication, certainly not a 9-5 life. But energy alone will not a company make -- a healthy dosage of skill is required as well.

I was reminded of this while playing squash today with my good friend Gideon Ben-Zvi -- Gideon is a much better squash player than me, even though my energy level is probably a bit higher level than his....because his skill quotient more than trumps my energy.

Gideon is exploring some fascinating new ways to be involved in start-ups, and I will let him decide at what pace to make those plans (and realities) known to the wider public. Simply put, however, Gideon is a wonderful combination of skill and energy, both off the court and on. As a start-up CEO Gideon certainly puts in the hours, but most importantly invests his time (=energy) smartly.

Next week I will be accompanying the mPortico team to the CES trade show in Las Vegas, which will be a intense energy experience, but if that energy is not focused, could easily spend three days chasing our own tails (which when you think about it, is actually the whole point of Las Vegas...).

There is no magic formula to the correct energy/skill balance, but like any sport requiring skill (most of them, unfortunately for us semi-spastic people) some of that skill can be acquired. Note I say "some," as I do believe one needs to have the right DNA to be an a successful entrepreneur. Yes, you need to be born with it -- and  need to spend a lifetime honing the skills and stamina to go the distance with a start-up.

Now if I could only figure out the time management piece, I could increase my skill level so that my energy/skill combination will allow me to finally beat Gideon...;-).

Stuck in Time and Place

After five intense days of road trip with Shimmy Constante, CEO of our portfolio company mPortico, I was more than ready to return home. We left Israel on Sunday morning, and had been in San Francisco, San Mateo, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, and all over Manhattan. We spent time talking with technology gurus, multi-billion tech companies trying to figure out their next moves, premium brand content managers looking into the abyss of content chaos, and venture fund managers trying to catch a wave. Conversations swirled around mobile content, place shifting, time shifting, and the worlds of virtual lives.

All this came to  brutal hard stop when we crossed over into the archaic world of air travel. If you think about it, we have just about reached every technology dream of Gene Roddenberry (the prophet otherwise known as creator of Star Trek) except for the transport of physical bodies -- we still cannot simply say "Beam me up, Scotty."

I am jotting this down between flights, and will write more tomorrow, but let me sum it up by saying that THE next area ripe or technology disruption is commercial air travel...any incremental change for the better will be a "killer application," and much more important to real world people than all the avatars in the world....

As you can guess...my return trip is not going as planned. when its all over I will vent properly.

I hope you are ready this from the comfort of wherever it is you want to be!

Safe travels.

On the Road...For The First Time

This week is another major step on my path to cementing my venture capitalist career -- it is my first road trip with a portfolio company. While technically Double Fusion was our first portfolio company, my involvement in that venture is much more complex, as I am co-founder, investor, and initially part of the management team. And by the time Jerusalem Capital got off the ground this past Summer, I had stepped down from active involvement in Double Fusion (back to that later).

So this past Sunday morning I set out with Shimon Constante, CEO and co-founder of mPortico, to tour the US in search of strategic partners and potential next-round funders. We are now half way through our journey, having spent two days in the Bay Area. For me it was a new experience, sitting at the table not as CEO or even title-less but completely committed co-founder. Now I was there as "active" investor. No matter how "involved" I claim to be, I am perceived, and this matches reality, as something short of a wild eyed entrepreneur. Shimon, on the hand, played the role (quite well!) as complete passionate. I find myself consciously holding back in discussions -- because I know that both business partners and potential investors need to see Shimon as the CEO -- as the guy they are staking their decision on. After all my theoretical speeches about the need for seed stage venture capitalist to empower CEOs, not squash them, I was put to the test.

As we not market ourselves as smart but passive money, I did not feel the need to sit idly by, taking active part in all the meetings -- yet feeling the need to let Shimon shine, to give him the space to articulate his vision for mPortico (which is still somewhat in stealth mode, although we do say publicly it is focused on a unique, patent pending method of mobile content/application distribution). if I felt, however, that it was an emergency situation, to protect my own capital as well as that as my investors, I would do whatever it takes. Thank goodness, Shimon gave me no cause for concern, as well as the rest of the team, and we are pretty far along after these two days. Now we need to keep up the pace -- with meetings already scheduled for CES in January and 3GSM in February. Our challenges are well-defined, and the market completely validated our reading of the pain points. All we have left to do now is execute...and deliver what we claim to be developing.

I write this sitting at SFO waiting to board the red-eye to New York, where we spend another 2 days before heading home. I know this the beginning of the journey for mPortico, but also formal beginning of the next stage in my growing into new guise of seed stage venture capitalist. May both mPortico and Jerusalem Capital continue in the positive momentum both are currently enjoying!