Descobri há pouco uma excelente apresentação sobre a situação da crise financeira nos EUA, com uma explicação muito bem feita, uma análise da situação atual e uma série de dicas para empresários e empreendedores.

Veja os slides da palestra:

[slideshare id=648808&doc=sequoia-1223625495238287-9&w=425]

Abaixo minhas observações, sobresse ótimo material. O principal:

• administre o que você controla (custos, previsões de crescimento e lucro)
• foque na qualidade
• não se arrisque
• procure reduzir dívidas (ou não fazer novas)
• fluxo de caixa positivo é um "must"
• orçamento base zero
• use cada dólar como se fosse o último
• equipe de vendas - aumente variável, reduza fixo
• seja rápido nos cortes, para sobreviver (excelente gráfico abaixo)

No final, a frase: "Get Real  ou Go Home".

Os blogs "do crédito" e tellEsfera que indicaram. Ótima dica.

In fact, the slides below give a good synopsis of the entire problem in the US and global markets and the effects which they have had on the global economy and how startups need to deal with new challenges and realities. I especially like slides 46-55, which are strategies which startups can adopt to get past the tough times.

[slideshare id=648808&doc=sequoia-1223625495238287-9&w=425]

What do you think ? If you run your own startup, what's your strategy in dealing with the tough times ?

The fund organized a meeting yesterday where it invited entreprenuers/CEOs from its portfolio companies. The attendees were greeted by a cute image of a Grave Stone, with the happy message "RIP GOOD TIMES". Most disturbing message from the meeting was that this economic turnaround won't be quick. They talked about "years" instead.

You can watch the entire slideshow by clicking HERE.

Updated with the Sequoia powerpoint: Last night I reported

There were some gaps in the details about that meeting, but I have since been able to piece together the minutes and what folks there essentially said. Since these are second-sourced details, I cannot say they are a 100 percent accurate, so please view them with a degree of skepticism. Nevertheless, I still feel confident enough to share them.

These were the four speakers:

Mike Moritz, General Partner, Sequoia Capital, who moderated the speakers. The speakers were Eric Upin, Partner, Sequoia Capital, who until recently ran the $26-billion Stanford Endowment Fund, and Michael Partner, Sequoia Capital, who was Sequoia's very first hedge fund manager and worked at Maverick Capital and Robertson Stephens. The last speaker was, as I mentioned before, Doug Leone, General Partner, Sequoia Capital.

Moritz Musings

Mike Mortiz kicked off the proceedings by saying that these are drastic times and that means drastic measures must be taken to survive. His message to companies was don't worry about getting ahead, instead, "We're talking survive. Get this point into your heads." He warned that companies need to be cash-flow positive, and if they are not, then they need to get there now, because raising capital without being cash-flow positive is going to be tough. He was warning that there will be a price to pay for those who hesitate to act.

Upin Says

Upin, who knows a thing or two about money and markets, told the room that we are in the beginning of a long cycle, what he called a "secular bear market." This could be a 15-year problem, he said. This comment was accompanied by many slides that showed historical charts of previous recessions averaging 17-year cycles. He pointed out that the issue here is not the equity markets but the credit market, and that will take a long time to recover. He was ominous in warning the startups that this is a global issue, it is not a normal time, and is a significant risk not just to growth but to personal wealth.

He advised startups to make drastic changes, to cut expenses and to cut deep, but to still keep marching. "You can't be a general if you turn back," he apparently said. The point he hammered on was that since you can't manage the economy, manage everything else, including your business. He had some interesting advice for startups.

• Cut spending. Cut fat. Preserve capital.
• Throw out the models and spreadsheets, because all assumptions will be wrong.
• Focus on quality.
• Reduce risk.

Michael Beckwith

Michael Beckwith's presentation had lots of charts and data and he pointed out that the V-shaped recovery is unlikely. He also said that the cuts in spending will accelerate in the fourth quarter and the first quarter of 2009, and pointed to eBay as an example.

Leone's lessons

Doug Leone told the group that this downturn was a different animal and one from which it would take "years to recover." He was clear in pointing out that:

• Unprofitable companies would have a tough time raising cash, so get cash-flow positive as soon as possible.
• Go on the offensive and pound on your competitors' shortcomings.
• Be aggressive with your messaging and be out there. In a downturn, aggressive PR and communications strategy is key.
• Decline in M&A will mean that only lean companies with sales models that work will get bought.
• When it comes to deciding between capital preservation and grabbing market share, he advised that everyone should be preserving capital.

Leone's other tips for companies, especially the Sequoia portfolio companies, were something like this:

• Start with zero-based budgeting.
• Cutting deeper is the formula to survive, and this is an era of survival of the quickest.
• Make sure you have one year's worth of cash.
• If you have a product, reduce expenses around it and boost sales. If the product is ready, cut the number of engineers.
• Focus on building the absolutely essential features in your product.
• Be brutal when it comes to marketing -- anything that isn't working, cut it.
• Don't burn through your cash, for cash is king.
• Cut base salaries on sales people and leverage them with upside.
• Most importantly, be true to yourself.

The fund organized a meeting yesterday where it invited entreprenuers/CEOs from its portfolio companies. The attendees were greeted by a cute image of a Grave Stone, with a message: R.I.P.: Good Times, my sources tell me.

I was able to confirm this with at least two sources. I am currently trying to nail down more details. Sequoia Capital declined to comment on the news. 

The gathering was addressed by at least four speakers, including a brief introduction by Mike Moritiz. Doug Leone was another speaker. I am still trying to nail down more details of the two other speakers. A person who handles Sequoia's public market investments is said to have talked to the startups. The message delivered to those in attendance was that things could get a lot worse than people think, and it will be a more protracted downturn. To give a historical perspective, Sequoia had a similar meeting back before the last bubble unraveled burst. We know how that turned out.

They want the companies to cut costs, to figure out way to survive and emerge at the other end of this downturn, which could last years. The speakers went through each functional area of the business and told the companies how to cut costs. By holding this special meeting, Sequoia is telling its companies to put survival strategies in place and figure out ways to outlast the broader market troubles. 

Uber-investor Mike Moritiz told The Financial Times earlier this week: "It's pretty clear that demand is going to soften across the board for every company - it doesn't matter if you're selling to consumers or companies." Moritiz isn't one to mince words, and is one of those few people who likes to get ahead of the fire and not fight it from behind. 

Sequoia isn't the only one advising its startups to tighten their fiscal belts and prepare for a gut-wrenching ride. Ron Conway, a well-known angel investor in the Valley who has invested in companies like Google, offered very sobering advice to his companies via an email earlier today.

Raising capital will be much more difficult now. You should lower your "burn rate" to raise at least 3-6 months or more of funding via cost reductions, even if it means staff reductions and reduced marketing and G&A expenses. This is the equivalent to "raising an internal round" through cost reductions to buy you more time until you need to raise money again; hopefully when fund raising is more feasible.

Letting go of staff is hard and often gut-wrenching.  A re-evaluation of timelines and re-focus on milestones with an eye to doing more with less will allow you to live many more days, and the name of the game in this environment in some respects is survival -- survival until conditions change. If you are in a funding cycle, you should raise your funding as soon as possible and raise as much as possible but face the fact that if you can't raise money now you must cut costs.

Folks this is bad news for Silicon Valley, which has been living in a bubble, assuming that it is going to weather the global economic storm without being impacted. We have been following this story since last year, pointing out that the tech is not an island.

Joost had launched its desktop client with much fanfare but for a panoply of reasons, such as bandwidth limitations, software issues and lack of content, the company lost traction and usage of its client dropped. Joost isn't the only startup to give up backing solely the client. Veoh and Jaman adopted a browser-and-client strategy, which has helped boost their audience.

Joost was started by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström and raised over $45 million in venture capital. The company hired former Cisco executive Mike Volpi as its CEO, and in the summer of 2007, it seemed Joost was heading to the moon. Over past the 12 months, the company has had to tweak its game plan, trim its work force and refocus to a world that is less accepting of clients. The company wanted to be a key distributor of Hollywood content, but that opportunity has faded with the rise of Hulu.

Liz wondered about the possibilities of turning Joost into a web app, and well, it looks like that is finally happening. NewTeeVee writer Janko Roettgers had come up with five ways to save Joost when trouble hit last year -- developing a web version was one of them. Killing the desktop client points to that.

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I have listed down some of the points (that I have noted down!) GV had mentioned during the course of his talk:

You can score some brownie points with VC when

-         You have invested your personal savings in the venture (shows commitment)

-         You have an incubation in a place of repute (shows the idea & team is already vetted)

Issue to consider while taking VC money–Affirmative rights (VC’s would exercise during senior mgmt hiring, selling etc)

Contrary to popular belief, VC’s are not in the business of taking risks but in the business of risk avoidance. They handle other people’s money and so would want to understand clearly what they are getting into and that’s why look for many filters and minimize the risk.

In India most VC’s rarely take concept risks. They only take execution risks (like transplant a successful idea/concept that worked in the US to India)

Fights between promoters can be handled by way of one person buying out the other or VC’s buying out one person or a new investor buying out one person.

80% of Sequoia’s investements are in pre-revenue companies or companies making very little by way of revenue.

Valuation, most of the times, is not done scientifically. It is arrived by mutual agreement

25% to 40% is what VC’s look for in early stage investments (the actual % depends on the risks like the execution capability of the team, the potential of the idea, the stage of the idea etc)

Idea is a commodity. Execution is the key. Therefore, the team behind the idea is critical.

What to do when an idea is ahead of the market? Conserve capital and remain in the market till it becomes the right time.

Early adoptors will buy the product. It is important to “cross the chasm” and reach out to others.

Meet a VC through a reference to add credibility and increasing the possibility of a response.

Seeking funding is like a sales process. You need to sell the “idea” to the VC (customer).

Team elements VC’s consider:

-         Passion

-         How much have they thought through the problem/idea

-         Kind of Advisors

-         Background (top school/company) is a positive but not having it is not a negative.

Assisti há pouco uma palestra (vídeo online) sobre avaliação de empresas, num evento dos EUA chamado Startup Scholl, que deve ter sido ótimo.

O palestrante, Greg McAdoo, da Sequoia Capital, apresenta alguns tópicos muito interessantes.

Alguns pontos que marquei:

• O mercado é uma onda. Escolha uma onda grande, pois você é o surfista. Apenas com ondas boas você poderá mostrar que um bom surfista. Sem ondas não há surfistas. O surfista pode surfar, pode escolher como entrar, como sair. Mas nunca conseguirá mudar uma onda. O mesmo acontece com empreendedores.
• Tenha um produto que resolva um problema, se possível grande. Se você não resolve um problema, não vai gerar valor, não terá clientes.
• Tenha uma oferta atrativa. Seu produto precisa soar bem nos ouvidos do seu mercado alvo. Tem que fazer sentido, tem que aguçar a curiosidade. Há muito ruído, e você não terá uma verba absurda para publicidade.
• A mensagem faz a diferença. Para clientes, parceiros, fornecedores, financiadores, etc.
• Você não tem tempo para enrolar. Tenha um mantra, um mini-slogan, 3 ou 4 palavras que resumem sua geração de valor.
• Acumule vantagens. Construa parcerias, relacionamentos, cria uma rede, tenha design, seja simples, acumule conhecimento do seu ramo, construa processos. Em pouco tempo suas vantagens iniciais não serão mais suficientes, é preciso arrumar mais cartas.

A palestra bem lembrou alguns pontos do ótimo post sobre como montar uma empresa, do Eduardo Carvalho, que me mandou o link da palestra.

Bain Capital has led a $10 million investment in TokBox. The move comes less than a month after the company named a new CEO, Nick Triantos, who has worked for many tech firms, but has never before held that title.

The company launched in October 2007 and has thus far raised a total of $14 million from Bain and early investors Sequoia Capital. Scott Friend, Venture Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, in a press release announcing the Series B round, said:

"The company is executing well...We are excited to be investing with our partners at Seqouia in a company we believe has the potential to be the next 'big thing' in web communication."

Just to put his words into context, TokBox recently fired its founder and CEO, Serge Faguet. And according to Compete.com, they had about 179,000 visitors in the month of July, though they did sign a deal with Meebo that stands to get them some traction. (For a list of their competitors, check out NewTeeVee's round-up of video chat applications.)

From the way I understand it, TokBox is using the built-in video capture capabilities in Flash player combined with the Flash media server to offer in-browser video conferencing. When the company launched, I pointed out that it was an "interesting idea, but more of a feature than a platform for a standalone company or model for a viable, long-term business. If (and that’s a big if) TokBox is going to work, it will need to be rapidly adopted by the marketplace." Rapid adoption hasn't quite happened, however, and I wonder if it ever will.

But again, the guys at Bain must be able to look into the future better than us skeptics.

9. You went and got all tricked out.
I mean with your next business, not your fashion sense. But remember how you got your first hit -- with a kindergarten-level UI that any neophyte could comprehend. Sure your friends called you Forrest Gump and sneered that you were lucky; that's their problem. Trying to prove to your friends that you're really, truly smart isn't good business. Delivering a simple, usable concept that solves problems and makes money is.

8. VC meetings go a little too well.
During your first run, half the VCs shooed you out of their offices, while the other half spent as much time looking at their BlackBerrys as they did you during your presentation. But now VCs call you and when you do take a meeting, all you hear is praise. No matter that a VC doesn't understand your pitch, you get a term sheet anyway. (And who can fault you for co-investing with OATV-Sequoia-KPCB?)

7. You have hobbies that require special outfits.
Your hobby used to be promoting your company six days a week. Now when anyone asks you what’s new, you talk toys, not shop. You’re proud that you "only paid" $1.4 million for that catamaran parked on Catalina Island, but there are hidden costs -- like the time you spent shopping for it, and the clothes you doff while sitting on it (you can’t sail it, remember?). You know what they say about big boats: Every extra foot of length equates to another diminishing asset -- your shareholders’ value.

6. Every weekend is a 3-day affair.
Your workweek used to be six days. Now you work four days because Mondays you have jetlag and Thursday nights you host pool parties. Cut your three-day weekends down to one per month.

5. You have an entirely new "crew."
When your star was just starting to rise, hanging with other nerd founders and bloggers was your idea of a good time. Now you have a contact list filled with party hangers-on. Nothing says one-hit wonder like a circle of friends you don’t really know.

4. You sign the dinner bill without reading it.
At your first hit company you never even expensed airport parking, so concerned were you with impressing your investors by coming in under budget. Today you have a private car service and don’t even see the dinner bill. If you're eating at Evvia’s table 50 twice a week, you’re hurtling toward one-hit wonderdom.

3. You confuse junkets with networking opportunities.
Experienced people know the difference between an authentic business-building event and just another excuse for a corporate-sponsored party. I can say this, because I go every year: The Super Bowl is not a networking event. Figure out which events are which. And if you can't seem to do that, go find a cave where you can build your next arc reactor.

2. You’ve uttered any three of the following five lies:
That wasn't my first startup.
Well, money's not that important to me.
I have no regrets selling to [Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, IDG or that PE firm].
I would never consider buying it back.
I'm going into venture capital to share my experience.

And the No. 1 indicator you’re at risk of becoming a one-hit wonder...

1. You’ve lost your stomach for mistakes.
Business in Startupville is defined by ebbs and flows — one step forward, two steps back. Now you’re so concerned with preserving your new success, you’ve lost the ability to tolerate the ebb of a negative blog post, a business model rehash, or the need to issue pink slips. Business success is the result of being able to adapt to and tolerate temporary failures.

Larry Chiang is the founder of duck9.com, which helps college students improve their credit ratings. He is a frequent contributor to Found|READ.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6979763848480050632&hl=en]

We're not sure the extent of Newsom's announcement, but supporting Meraki is the least the mayor can do after the previously botched San Francisco Wi-Fi network. And in any case, Meraki is actually footing the bill for the entire ad-hoc free Wi-Fi network, including the affordable housing section. Biswas says the cost of the entire network is in the low several millions.

Biswas says Meraki will set up its system of Wi-Fi repeaters and Internet broadband access in "all" of the low-income housing communities in San Francisco, including the Altamont Hotel, where Newsom and Biswas will make the announcement. This is the latest part of the company's "Free the Net" project and Biswas tells us that the company will have access points in every neighborhood in the entire city by the end of the year.

In the past, EarthLink and Google were both linked to a Wi-Fi effort in San Francisco that really didn't go anywhere due to political roadblocks. Both companies have backed away from their MuniFi efforts.

Google, however, was one of those who invested in the seed round Meraki raised in November 2006. The mesh gear maker raised $20 million in a Series B round from Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures and Northgate Capital back in January. Meraki could also be taking a page from Google when it comes to testing out ad-serving to support a free network. Biswas tells us that the company has tested out some contextual ads over the network.

City-wide Wi-Fi networks have been proving to not be viable in many cities and communities, but Meraki's type of very low-cost, ad-hoc networks seems to be best suited for the technology. For just a few million, a company like Meraki can slowly add localized Wi-Fi hotspots in communities that actively want and will use the technology. Newsom certainly wants to work with the company to close San Francisco's digital divide. We'll check out the press conference later today and snap some pics of the mayor's do -- and the unwiring festivities.

Drawing on the Dow Jones 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Moritz pointed out that only four of the 30 companies on the index today – DuPont, GE, General Motors, and Proctor & Gamble – were a part of the index in 1960.

With no sense of irony – given Sequoia’s track record of spectacular exit through M&A, Moritz bemoaned the “ incredible shortage of the great enduring companies.”

How do you build one? These are his guidelines:

• Pursue billion dollar opportunities
• The founder’s spirit should rule
• Expand with Care - Walmart and Ames Department stores started from similar humble beginnings and at about the same time. Ames quickly expanded across the U.S., putting up stores ahead of the company’s ability to manage the growth.
• Examine your company as an outsider - Great companies, and here Moritz pointed to Rupert Murdock, must keep reinventing themselves to stay fresh.
• Skeptics are also wrong - Fed Ex was dinged as a business school plan because it would never work.
• Never bow to setbacks
• Lack of money breeds ingenuity - Amazon in the early years was capital constrained. Without much money, the company developed ideas and technologies to help save money.
• Invest during downturns
• Spirit of the founders must be captured by next CEO -The successors to founders Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, Andy Grove and now Paul Otellini, “make the spirit of the founders live,” Moritz believes. “They instinctively know how to react.”     Apple Computer’s board fired Steve Jobs fired in 1985 “because they believed in ‘adult supervision,’” Moritz asserts. “Youthful chaos is preferable to adult supervision.”
• Market growth often hides tremendous weakness.
• Don’t build useless products
• When lightening strikes – strike!
• Design what you want to use

"Sameer's investment experience will complement our partnership and extend our capabilities in both software and the consumer internet," said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Partner of Accel. "We are excited to have Sameer as part of the Accel team."

"The Accel team has built a very strong position," said Sameer Gandhi. "I am looking forward to working with everyone in the group and being part of the Accel team that helps to build the firm over the coming decades."

Prior to Accel, Sameer joined Sequoia in 1998 and has been a partner leading several of their investments including Barracuda Networks, eHarmony, Gracenote (acquired by Sony), Marketlive and Sourcefire (FIRE) among others over his decade at the firm. Prior to Sequoia, Sameer was a technology banker at Broadview and a sales engineer at Oracle. Sameer has an MBA from Stanford University and a BSEE and MSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About Accel Partners

Accel was established in 1983 and is a global investment firm with offices in Palo Alto, London and China via the IDG-Accel partnership. Accel also co-manages the Accel-KKR funds focused on technology buyouts. With over $5 billion under management, Accel has helped world-class internet and technology entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have become category-defining enterprises. http://www.accel.com

However, rapid expansion (including its investment in the cloud) are to blame for the decline in profits. The company made $362 million last year and more details can be gleaned from its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some tidbits of interest include RackSpace spending $7.3 million in power used to operate 36,692 servers in 2007.

In the coming year, the company anticipates expanding its data center facilities by a least 72,000 square feet, and may also opt to find a new data center location outside of its existing facilities. It also plans to launch a platform product for customers who want hosted infrastructure but also have the need and skills to customize the hosted infrastructure to a high degree.

The San Antonio company follows in the footsteps of Google and NetSuite with its auction-style offering. Should the offering go well investors Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners stand to gain. The two firms hold 11.6 percent and 16.2 percent of RackSpace stock respectively.

Startups need to be laser-focused on what they’re trying to do. It’s damn near impossible - especially when having to simultaneously build a product, sell a product, market a product, hire A-talent, raise more money, manage operations and more - but without focus (as Sequoia Capital notes) your startup is in big trouble.

I’ve suffered from “opportunity-itis” on numerous occasions. I still do. It’s so easy to get a bit of product feedback and chase those feature ideas. Or have a good conversation with a potential partner, and then decide to find 10,000 more partners like that. Or see a minor shift in the marketplace, only to revamp your entire business model and 12-month product roadmap (OK, I haven’t done that yet!)

You know you need to focus but at the same time you have to be looking for the right opportunities to make your startup a success. So how do you achieve startup focus? What follows are Ben's four rules ...

1. Be Systematic. Running a startup is a crazy experience. Most of the time you’ll feel like you’re running a 600-mile sprint (because startups are the ultimate combination of sprinting and marathon racing), and doing anything in an orderly fashion is farthest from your mind. But taking a systematic approach is critical.

For example, let’s say you decide that partnering with a certain type of service provider would make sense - they can act as resellers of your product. Attack that idea systematically:

* Research the space

* Put together 2 or 3 offers

* Find a list of 50+ similar service providers

* Pitch them each one of the offers

* Measure the response

* Collect feedback

* Decide if partnering with those service providers make sense

* If yes, find a list of as many as you can, hone the pitch that worked best and go get ‘em!

* If no, drop it and move on.

2. Be Merciless. Opportunities that take too long to materialize are bad opportunities. Startups don’t have the time - especially right out of the gate - to spend long periods of time in negotiations or chasing leads. That’s not to say that every long-term deal is a bad one (raising money for example takes many, many months), but don’t waffle around on things that aren’t making serious progress.

3. Be Organized. It’s almost impossible to succeed unless you’re well organized. That goes beyond stating the obvious. But something that might not be as obvious is making sure you have the infrastructure in place to support what you’re doing. For example, once you get into generating leads and sales, implement a CRM tool. It’ll help. It’ll keep you focused. A project management tool of some kind isn’t a bad idea either; at minimum be merciless and vigilant about priorities so you know what needs to be done first, second and third.

4. Be Analytical. Question everything. Track data on everything. Test everything.

Staying focused in a startup is a true balance between enthusiasm, creativity, new thinking, aggressiveness and being systematic, merciless, organized and analytical. On the one side you have all the “fun stuff” and on the other side you have all the “boring” stuff. Lean too far to one side or the other and you’ll start losing focus very quickly. Finding a balance is key: Being receptive to opportunity without jumping on every single one that comes knocking. And generally I don’t think startups will lean naturally to the “boring side” so implementing some of the stuff I’ve mentioned above will almost immediately create more balance than was there before. And that’s a good thing.

Startups need to be laser-focused on what they’re trying to do. It’s damn near impossible - especially when having to simultaneously build a product, sell a product, market a product, hire A-talent, raise more money, manage operations and more - but without focus (as Sequoia Capital notes) your startup is in big trouble.

I’ve suffered from “opportunity-itis” on numerous occasions. I still do. It’s so easy to get a bit of product feedback and chase those feature ideas. Or have a good conversation with a potential partner, and then decide to find 10,000 more partners like that. Or see a minor shift in the marketplace, only to revamp your entire business model and 12-month product roadmap (OK, I haven’t done that yet!)

You know you need to focus but at the same time you have to be looking for the right opportunities to make your startup a success. So how do you achieve startup focus? What follows are Ben's four rules ...

1. Be Systematic. Running a startup is a crazy experience. Most of the time you’ll feel like you’re running a 600-mile sprint (because startups are the ultimate combination of sprinting and marathon racing), and doing anything in an orderly fashion is farthest from your mind. But taking a systematic approach is critical.

For example, let’s say you decide that partnering with a certain type of service provider would make sense - they can act as resellers of your product. Attack that idea systematically:
* Research the space
* Put together 2 or 3 offers
* Find a list of 50+ similar service providers
* Pitch them each one of the offers
* Measure the response
* Collect feedback
* Decide if partnering with those service providers make sense
* If yes, find a list of as many as you can, hone the pitch that worked best and go get ‘em!
* If no, drop it and move on.

2. Be Merciless. Opportunities that take too long to materialize are bad opportunities. Startups don’t have the time - especially right out of the gate - to spend long periods of time in negotiations or chasing leads. That’s not to say that every long-term deal is a bad one (raising money for example takes many, many months), but don’t waffle around on things that aren’t making serious progress.

3. Be Organized. It’s almost impossible to succeed unless you’re well organized. That goes beyond stating the obvious. But something that might not be as obvious is making sure you have the infrastructure in place to support what you’re doing. For example, once you get into generating leads and sales, implement a CRM tool. It’ll help. It’ll keep you focused. A project management tool of some kind isn’t a bad idea either; at minimum be merciless and vigilant about priorities so you know what needs to be done first, second and third.

4. Be Analytical. Question everything. Track data on everything. Test everything.

Staying focused in a startup is a true balance between enthusiasm, creativity, new thinking, aggressiveness and being systematic, merciless, organized and analytical. On the one side you have all the “fun stuff” and on the other side you have all the “boring” stuff. Lean too far to one side or the other and you’ll start losing focus very quickly. Finding a balance is key: Being receptive to opportunity without jumping on every single one that comes knocking. And generally I don’t think startups will lean naturally to the “boring side” so implementing some of the stuff I’ve mentioned above will almost immediately create more balance than was there before. And that’s a good thing.

Kenshoo's platform, known as KENSHOO SEARCH, aims to automate and manage processes such as selecting relevant keywords, updating deep link URL's, creating effective ads, providing and constantly updating bids, monitoring traffic, structuring cross platform campaigns and reporting and analyzing data on-time. According to their website, the platform works with the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Thomas Hoegh, Managing Partner of Arts Alliance and a Board Member of Kenshoo, said they were impressed with Kenshoo's innovative approach to search engine marketing. "This is a great team that has developed market-leading technology that solves the problems of online advertising by using a unique Quality Management approach." He hopes the investment will help expand an already impressive list of clients.

Yoav Izhar-Prato, CEO and co-founder of Kenshoo, added that a "high calibre investor like Arts Alliance is an important endorsement of Kenshoo’s business and we believe they will be instrumental in helping Kenshoo to expand its market share both in the UK and in continental Europe.”

Check out the press release for more info.

Ever lament the fact that you don't have that coveted Harvard/Stanford/Wharton MBA? Sure, such emblems open doors, but there are plenty of calling cards and networking organizations that can help you get access to marquee investors. In fact, some of these networks have been around a long time -- longer even than Harvard.

I recently stumbled upon a post at Paul Kedrosky's blog under the title Freemasons, and Social Networks in the Markets. In it, Paul asks: "Does being in the right social network mean an easier time getting credit?" (Just guess.) Apparently Paul read an interesting new paper that looked at whether, historically, Freemasons favored their fellow entrepreneurs when it came to funding. (Guess again):

...Using a unique data set of 410 companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange between 1895 and 1902, I find that Masonic managers were associated with greater access to credit in small and young companies whose securities where traded over the counter. These companies earned higher profits, but the effect is not statistically significant. On the other hand, large publicly quoted corporations that were managed by Freemasons did not obtain greater access to credit; they had lower profits and lower Tobin's Q.

We call this syndicate behavior. Sequoia, Kleiner, Accel certainly subscribe to it. Heck, Kleiner even marketed this strategy once. They called it Keiretsu. And just this mere hint at "Masonic tradition" casts me back to hushed breakfasts with NEA on the 3rd floor of the old Park Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco. Or those curiously-long VC lunches at the "Sun Deck" on Sand Hill Road (Sun Deck. Star Chamber. I'm not sure, but the food sure wasn't the draw.)

I know you know there is a Venture Mafia. But this doesn't mean you can't get access to it, without Ivy; without white shoes. OK, you might have to wear a funny robe now and again. But the Freemasons really take care of each other -- they're about apprenticeship, personal development and craft-mastery. (Sounds a lot like Stanford entrepreneurship courses.)

Once in a while there may be "blood penalties", but at this point, that's one more small risk in the mix when it comes to getting your shop funded. And as Kedrosky's passage points out: Freemasons pay each other more, too -- even if statistics show that mason-managers don't last in mature business (again, just like a lot of founders).

Passion, dedication, sacrifice. I'm telling you, Freemasons may be founders' original peeps. (Just look at this org chart and tell me these guys aren't engineers!).

We think you should consider this, especially if you don't have and MBA. Membership is apparently open to anyone.

For more information, read:

* Freemasonry and Its Etiquette, by William Campbell-Everden.

* Masonic Enlightenment - The Philosophy, History and Wisdom of Freemasonry, by Michael R Poll.

* A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry (Ars Magna Latomorum) And of Cognate Instituted Mysteries: Their Rites, Literature and History, by Arthur Edward Waite

* Complete Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry (available via Kindle!) by S. Brent Morris, Ph.D., late of Duke and Johns Hopkins Universities, currently at George Washington University.

* The Da Vinci Code, By Dan Brown