punctuative!

Cool, I've been unearthed !
punctuative is a blog written by Matt Winn, an analyst at Chrysalis Ventures in Louisville. I met him briefly at the AlwaysOn Summit this summer (webcast archives). His posts are well worth the read, especially his recent insights on exits and the entrepreneur's stake. So, right backatcha Matt !

2006 quickie music retrospective- Part 1

Jolie Holland - Mexican Blue from her album Springtime Can Kill You
Let's start slow with this low-key jazz tune with a sexy southern twang. Lovely album.

Sodastream - Twin Lakes from Reservations
My favorite Aussie band. Guitar and stand-up bass duo.

Patrick Watson - Daydreamer from Close to Paradise
Patrick lives two corners from our place and, true story, last summer he saved the life of a dog we were dog-sitting. And then put out his superb sophomore album. Super-Hero stuff.


Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up from their album Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Also from Montreal, side-project of Spencer Krug, of Wolf Parade fame.

Malajube - La monogamie from the excellent Trompe l'oeil
We're still in Montreal, this time in French, and Malajube are the best thing that has happened to québécois rock in forever. Cool vids, too.

Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones from their debut EP Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss
More Montreal indie rock goodness... man, I love this city.


More to come...

Stuff I enjoyed in 2006 (and my 1st music post)

Yup. I think my next few posts are going to be about things I liked in the past year; music, books, blogs, movies, gadgets, videogames, etc.

Music - I'm not going to do a top10 of 2006 (check here for a long list of those) but i'm going to mention artists and albums that I think were overlooked, or that I think really set themselves apart.

The first one I'd like to mention is "Technology Won't Save Us" by the band Sophia. Sophia really is Robin Proper-Sheppard, an american expat living in London and an artist I've enjoyed since the shoegazey-loud days of The God Machine. The first 2 Sophia albums were dark, sparse, beautifully depressive folk recordings, but his sound has evolved into a more straight forward indie-rock. Very melodic, very intense, maybe a wee bit over-produced.

Here's a song from the album : Lost (She Believed in Angels)

This is my first time posting music on a blog... hope it works...

Web 2.0 and what it means for early-stage VC investing

A blog i enjoy reading is Fred Wilson's A VC. He's a partner at Union Square Ventures, a NYC based early-stage VC firm. He's been blogging for a long time and his blog is overflowing with widgets and add-ons and tidbits, many of those from companies he's invested in (as I understand it). He also blogs a lot about music, and his indie rock tastes seem to intersect mine on many occasions. I haven't seen that often in the local VC community...

But his posts about VC are what keeps me coming back. This one, on what the Web 2.0 should mean for VCs, is well worth the read, especially for investment teams like ours, who are going back to early-stage investing after a few years of absence.

Holiday Cards

Si vous n'avez pas encore vu la carte de Noël de BluePrint Ventures... c'est une caricature assez fidèle de la vie en capital de risque... à part peut-être les jets privés, yachts et gonzesses...

Speaking of Xmas cards, this following video is of my distinguished colleague Robert Lévesque, whose business networking skills are SO amazing that he yearly near-drowns under them cards. RESPECT.

The Ignorant VC

I've spent way too much time in the last months reading blog posts written by VCs, about VC and entrepreneurship (check out the list compiled at VC 101) and i'm amazed by the depth and general helpfulness of most of those articles. I realised that blogs, and content syndication, could not only entertain and inform my little self, but also potentially make me better at what it is I actually do for a living. It's allowed me to understand better the potential and many of the possibilities of blogging and of the whole Web in general. Hey. If it's works for me, it's gotta work for a whole lotta people.
2.0 indeed...

So what am I doing here ? Not sure... Time will tell.

The much-talked-about Venture Capital Aptitude Test posted last month by Guy Kawasaki told me that, in theory, i should be one of the worst VCs around... Venture Capital IS my first real job. Hired straight out of my Business Management MSc. (5 years ago already !). No serious technical background, no real sales background, etc. But I've been steadily learning the Game, working with some of the best and smartest people around, colleagues and entrepreneurs, making mistakes, making good calls, and loving every minute of it (except for most of 2004... more on that later).

I also think that the "VC job" at a Québecois institutional VC firm like Desjardins is very different than what the job is in Sillicon Valley, or in most typical private funds. Also something i'll try and discuss later.

But anyhow, I strongly believe that Venture Capitalist is one of the best jobs there is. I especially love how you get to become a Jack of all trades (but, no, master of none): technology, strategy, finance, accounting, sales, marketing, legal, HR, governance... if there's something VCs are expert about, it's being experts of nothing, but smart enough and networked enough to find the right experts with the right skills and tightly watch them turn ideas into products, markets and, hopefully, huge-ass returns and bonuses. Fun, I tell ya !

Resolutions for the coming year

• Get more sleep (i can check out Colbert on youtube anyways)
• Become a better networker / business developer
• Talk more often in French with sweetie darlin' Christy so she'll get better faster
• No more checking the Blackberry during meetings.
• Get with the times and start a goddamn blog, already.

so.
there
you

go.