A little while back, I wrote Part I, a tongue-in-cheek post on this region. People often ask me what I mean when I tell them that our firm’s investment focus is the area known as the “Intermountain West”. It was explained to me when I moved here 10 years ago that it is defined as […]
Archive for May, 2009
May
29
May
21
Draft The Best Available Athlete
I grew up in New York and have always loved my NY sports teams. In the NFL, it was all about the NY Giants for me. Unfortunately, during my most impressionable sports years (the 70′s), the Giants simply sucked and the Dallas Cowboys utterly dominated the NFC. As a matter of fact, I barely remember […]
May
19
Startups: Finding Opportunity in the Economic Downturn
A little while back I wrote a post called M&A Opportunities in the Economic Downturn. It was based on information that I read in a paper published by McKinsey & Co. The paper reviewed research that McKinsey had done regarding what actions/steps companies took during the downturn, that either enabled them to accelerate their growth […]
May
17
“Can’t Get A Shitty Meal Here”…
On Friday afternoon, my wife and I were driving through rural eastern Oregon on our way to Washington. We stopped in the small town of Pendleton (home of the Pendleton Roundup, one of the ten largest rodeos in the world) for the night for an incredible steak at Stetson’s and a few hours of shuteye. […]
May
12
The Reason There Are So Few Great Entrepreneurs
Last year I had very little understanding of venture capital; what it was and how it worked. VC’s were this near mythological creature that held the fate of startups in their hands. To listen to some entrepreneurs talk, VCs are like a fairy godmother who could grant instant success to any startup they bequeathed their […]
May
10
The “Lifestyle” Company
There are two broad categories of companies an entrepreneur can choose to start, “lifestyle” and “investor-backed”. Both can be financially and psychologically rewarding, but each has their particular demands. A lifestyle business is one in which an entrepreneur often supplies the starting capital, which may include “borrowing” funds from family or a bank. Often a […]
May
06
In Extremis Leadership
in extremis: in extreme circumstances; especially: at the point of death Over the last three days, my partners and I had the rare and immense privilege to attend an intimate event for the Village Ventures network on leadership at West Point, our nation’s oldest military academy. On many different levels, it was one of the […]
May
04
Local Knowledge vs. Outside Perspective: Cage Match
Last week, the Boise Chamber of Commerce hired a professional from Washington DC to be the new CEO for the Chamber. I certainly wish this person the best, but believe his unfamiliarity with the people and business of the Treasure Valley will put him at a disadvantage for a period of time versus hiring a […]