The New York Times ran an article today about Bigfix and it's viral ad campaign. I typically don't post about my portfolio companies, but this subject is entertaining.
There was also a good article in the San Francisco Chronicle on the beginning of the campaign: Viral campaign spreading.
Click here for link to today's article,
The 90s were driven by greed as we chased technology stocks to temporary wealth. The mood was good while it lasted. Aggressive investing was addictive.
The crash shocked the investment community. If that wasn’t bad enough, 9/11 caused us to be concerned for our personal safety. This sustained period of panic and pessimism has created the equivalent of a low-grade fever that infects our attitudes and actions.
While yesterday the NASDAQ Index just reached a 4-year high, it’s still 50% below its peak in March 2000.
Today, any risk feels bad. Individuals run quickly from stocks that show volatility. Investors have generally moved have far away from risk as possible. Venture capitalists are still taking risks, but returns continue to suffer a shortage of rich exits, with some improved liquidity from M&A. Hedge funds and buyout funds are attracting massive amounts of money with the promise of beating mediocre returns for taking long positions in public equities. Real estate looks so safe that it feels like another bubble.
Consumers are borrowing heavily and spending on new toys from iPods to retro hot rod Mustangs. This may provide some comfort in contrast with disturbing world news and slower career progress at home.
Corporations are still shy of spending on new technologies. Fear continues to drive purchases of security tools to deal with persistent threats. For technology designed to boost productivity, CIOs are less likely to start big projects and more likely to allow individual professionals and/or departments to buy hosted applications.
The London bombs are yet another reminder of the ongoing battle between worldviews. We are also being forced to take sides on domestic issues. Last year’s election started the showdown between red/blue, conservative/liberal, and the religious right/left. This week’s forum is the Supreme Court. The scary part of these debates is that there does not seem to be room for moderation. Great leaders in the past have brought the country together. We appear to be dividing ourselves from the rest of the world and each other.
With these serious distractions, no wonder it’s difficult to get excited about the next new technology. Fortunately, the web is working again with a second wave of economic activity with more personalized commerce. The rapid rate of blog creation is also providing a healthy outlet.
While the U.S. may be suffering through a decade of fear, emerging markets around China are starting to enjoy a decade of greed with the help of positive demographic and political trends. This is attracting more U.S. VCs to head east for this cycle.
Can the next decade provide an easier path for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness back home? I don’t yet see the catalysts to support another decade of greed. My nature remains to be naturally optimistic, but I’ve been training myself to keep expectations low enough to appreciate whatever happens.
Last week, I recorded my first Podcast, courtesy of John Furrier, Founder of Podtech.net. You can go to John's site, www.podtech.net and listen to it. You can also download it (Download keith_podcast1.mp3). Here's John's summary of the interview.
"Topic: What’s going on in Venture Capital and in the Internet? - Keith Benjamin is a seasoned and experienced research analyst,
investment banker, and now a venture capitalist. Keith is a great guy
and very outspoken and always has a variety of stats on venture
business and entrepreneurs. Keith and I talk about venture capital,
funding, the direction for Internet ventures, and much more. This
interview won’t disappoint!"
John's site also has some interesting interviews with other VCs, including Heidi Roizen. The medium is intriguing, given the rapid adoption of iPods and MP3 players for music playback. Spoken interviews would seem to have a longer life through podcasts than radio. Podcasts would seem to be a natural component of blogs, along with pictures and potentially video. As with blogs, challenge is to turn this into an advertising and/or sponsorship supported business. I expect as blog and podcast audiences grow, money will follow.
Failed Internet promises have made us jaded, but it remains a trend that keeps on giving. The nature of big markets is that it typically takes a few generations of trial and error to make technologies easy enough to use for the majority. There are all kinds of We now take the Internet for granted, which is typically a sign that a real market has emerged. We are seeing the network effects of mass connection to the web. We now depend on the Internet for basic communication.
The spike in availability of broadband and wireless access is enhancing the Internet’s value. Right now we have the promise of getting text, video and voice over any network. Of course, we’re not there yet, but convergence is creating a powerful network effect. We will demand more services in more places, enabling real business growth
We still have problems with the wired world. We assume that most major software applications will be a pain to install, implement and maintain. Even successful enterprise deployments have created massive data pools that are barely being used. More applications are being simplified and improved to allow Web access. Linux and other open standards are helping. We may also get to the point where we start to take for granted that software works easily. When we reach this point there should be a significant network effect that dramatically boosts the software business. I would not be surprised to see breakthroughs over the next five years.
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