Brad Feld
Investor, Entrepreneur, Managing Director at Foundry Group
Maxims and Personal Mantra
10 Inspirational Moments from Brad Feld
1. Startup communities are fueled by the unwavering commitment of entrepreneurs.
2. Nothing is ever build overnight – it takes courage to have a far-sighted view, honor it.
3. There's no president in a startup community – only the network.
4. Life is never a zero sum game – Give and you'll get. Include others and you'll be included.
5. The hidden secret of mentorship is that you'll learn as much or more than the person you're mentoring.
6. Disconnect from the macro perspective of the world and focus instead on the impact you're making.
7. Your local university is a hotbed for talent and resources – add value to them by becoming a content contributor.
8. Be smart about building your personal network – include peers, mentors, others that you're mentoring and your leadership team.
9. When you reflect and reset, you rejuvenate – make it a habit.
10. Just do stuff – a lot of stuff.
Reflection – Is what you're building lasting?
Listen to part 1 of the 33voices interview with Brad!
Listen to part 2 of the 33voices interview with Brad!
10 Venture Capital essentials from Brad Feld
1. Venture Capital makes sense for businesses that have the potential to achieve significant scale and grow at a pace where the cost of that growth is ahead of the revenue in the short term.
2. Two key essentials of the VC term sheet: The economics of the deal and the control of the company.
3. Great VC's and entrepreneurs are looking to create something significant together.
4. Early on, it's important for entrepreneurs to keep the burn rate as low as possible and focus on using the time to learn.
5. The Foundry group seeks to make one decision within the company; whether or not to support the person running it.
6. The moment of truth comes when $10M is invested in a software company. If you can't demonstrate success, you haven't evaluated well.
7. The most important piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to pick something that you're completely, obsessively passionate about.
8. It's really hard to create a company when you're not in love with your products and customers.
9. As you approach VC's, be unrelenting on your vision and be your own person. Never be someone you're not.
10. The next 20 years of innovation around software and the internet will trump the last 20.
Best Advice:
Only spend time on things you care about.
When you die, they put you in a box and throw dirt on you; make sure you're living in real time.
If you're not standing on the edge, you're taking too much space.
Personal Mantra:
There's only one way that you can determine when you're going to die; which is when you kill yourself.
Heroes:
I love doers. My heroes are Yoda, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Rafael Nadal.
About
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. Brad currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor Media, Cheezburger Networks, Fitbit, Gnip, MakerBot Oblong, Orbotix, Standing Cloud, and Zynga for Foundry Group. Previously, Brad served as chief technology officer of AmeriData Technologies. AmeriData acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications. Brad had grown Feld Technologies into one of Boston's leading software consulting firms prior to the acquisition. He also directed the diversification into software consulting at AmeriData, a $1.5 billion publicly-traded company which was acquired by GE Capital in 1995. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
Recent Questions
Feedback
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— Kelly Taylor I love this point from Brad: The institutions (Government, Academia) themselves cannot play a leadership role because things will not sustain through macroeconomic cycles. They have pressures and conditions like changing priorities and hierarchical structure and so on. It's the Entrepreneurs that have to "transcend the macro" to keep the Startup Community alive because the institutions simply cannot. posted 5 months ago
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