Mark Suster has had one of the best insights into the changing landscape of the venture capital industry I've ever seen: Amazon's technology platforms made it really cheap to build a tech company, and that changes everything: I still think it was Amazon that created this category not the other way around. Where open-source computing gave us a 90% reduction in our software, Amazon gave us a 90% reduction in our total operating costs. Amazon allowed 22-year-old tech developers to launch companies without even raising capital. Amazon sped up the pace of innovation because in addition to not having to raise capital to start I also didn’t need to wait for hosting to be set up, servers to arrive, software to be provisioned.
Are we in the incipient phase of a new tech bubble? Steve Blank and Ben Horowitz debate the issue in the Economist. Big IPOs, big early stage valuations, tight labor in Silicon Valley point toward yes, but if the valuations are still anchored to reality, that points to no. It's good that the question is getting asked and talked about this time around.
Scott Belsky of Behance collects the wisdom of several leading management gurus on how to select, keep and optimize the use of your advisors. Figuring out how to use highly experienced people as a resource, getting the best value from them and to them, and keeping them engaged takes a very sophisticated hand.
New publication available from Windcastle: Startup Stacks, which discusses the value of having a snap-together set of strategies in place for effective organizational growth for early stage companies. Read it here.
Windcastle Venture Consulting is excited to announce the launch of their new Web Site!
