At the moment, I am two days into the four day Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona. The line-up is incredible – yesterday alone I saw Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Billy Bragg, Low, and a bunch of other bands. Today I will see Sonic Youth, Wilco, Apples in Stereo, and a bunch more. Tomorrow, it’s Of Montreal.
The highlight so far has been getting to see Portastatic on a sunny stage in front of the sea, with only about 200 other spectators. I’m a longtime fan of Portastatic frontman Mac McCaughan, both as a musician (Portastatic and Superchunk are two of my all time favorite bands), and as a businessman. When he’s not touring, Mac runs Merge Records, one of the more influential indie record labels, and home to some fantastic bands like Spoon, M. Ward, Camera Obscura, Lambchop, Arcade Fire, Imperial Teen, and many, many more.
One of the things that Mac likes to do for Merge bands, is to jet in to wherever they’re playing, and open for them with Portastatic. For newer acts struggling to fill venues, the appearance on the bill of a critically acclaimed band like Portastatic (as the opening act!) can do wonders in terms of generating some buzz.
As I said to my friend yesterday, a band that has been signed by Merge is almost like a start-up that has been funded by a VC that not only brings cash, but that can actually drive you traffic.
And then it hit me. If widgets figure in your start-up’s plans (as if there are still any start-ups without a widget strategy), is there a better backer for your business than Union Square Ventures? Not only do you get the cash and expertise, but you also get A VC as a launch pad for your widget.
I’m actually being serious here. With so much cash sloshing around the VC community, positioning your fund’s widget launch pad capabilities could be a real differentiator. Of course, in order to provide value in this area, you have to have a blog that folks actually read.
What other VC blogs could launch a widget to the early adopter crowd? On my shortlist would be A VC, First Round, Lightspeed Ventures (no widgets), Crosslink Capital (no widgets), August Capital (no widgets) and Brad Feld. At least two of these funds are missing the opportunity to use their popular blogs to support the widgets of their portfolio companies, and only Fred and Brad seem to be aggressively pushing widgets.
Come on VC bloggers, you guys need to think like start-ups. Fred and Brad can't be the only guys that get this stuff. Differentiate yourselves. Build an "unfair advantage" by doing the grunt work to build a popular blog. Support your companies by pushing their widgets. Put those fancy Stanford interns to work researching and writing. Think about how much it might be worth to a potential portfolio company if you can push their widget to 10K or so early adopters. Show some initiative for gosh sake :)
Hehe, that felt good.
Lawrence - thanks for the kind words (found via a Technorati search term on my name...) I'm never understood - especially in the current super-trendy zone of the consumer Internet - why VCs don't get more aggressive about helping promote their companies growth. I love your analogy to Mac McCaughan.
Posted by: Brad Feld | June 02, 2007 at 12:07 PM
Thanks for stopping by Brad.
Posted by: lawrence | June 03, 2007 at 09:01 AM