Pekoe

As part of my 2010 Mantra, I outlined a few things I would like to focus on this year.

Having a cup of tea a day is one of them.

This cup of tea can take many forms. It can be a morning tea (though I love a cup or two of coffee in the morning) or an afternoon refreshing drink. Sometimes it has caffeine, though often it does not.

One great place to get tea is at Pekoe sip house. The motto on their website says:

We want people to create quality time through things that enrich their lives. Our customers are able to slow down and enjoy the Pekoe buzz, the energy inherent in a healthy lifestyle. Pekoe tea revives, replenishes and heals.

I couldn't agree more!

This place is absolutely great. They have a nice and knowledgeable staff and a wide and ranging selection of teas. Think of your favorite, local coffee shop. Or if you don't have a nice local coffee shop, think of your nicest neighborhood Starbucks (though I hate to even make the reference).

You can even order online here.

Great tea house. Great setting. Great place to meet with friends.

Mental Gymnastics

We watched this during a recent MBA class. I think it's a pretty cool video. Check it out!

Be Strategic: The Six Traits of a Fundable Entrepreneur

An absolutely solid article!

The Six Traits of a Fundable Entrepreneur
Yesterday afternoon in Waltham, Massachusetts, Intuit hosted on a mini-conference about the opportunities that cloud-computing offers start-ups. "Startups and the Cloud" proved to be an engaging event, packing a small auditorium on the campus of Bentley College. Sessions ranged from Longworth Venture Partners' Vishy Venugopalan's overview of the cloud computing marketplace to an open Q&A with Intuit founder Scott Cook to panel discussions with venture capitalists and CEOs about cloud computing and the changing economic environment for young companies.The venture capitalist panel featured a seasoned team of investors:

Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Venture Partners
Jeffrey Beir from North Bridge Venture Partners
Todd Hixon from New Atlantic Ventures
Shawn Broderick fromTechStars



This group offered much wit and wisdom on a variety of topics. For now, I'll simply offer their composite profile of a fundable entrepreneur.In response to a question from the audience, the panel offered this list of traits that they look for in an entrepreneur:
- Passion
- Domain expertise (the entrepreneur knows his or her area thoroughly, and isn't just coming up with an idea in response to a news story, for example)
- Unfair advantage (something that gives this team of entrepreneurs a sustainable head-start in the market)
- Street smarts (knowing how to get things done in difficult situations)
- A whip-smart mind
- Salesmanship



And Shawn Broderick offered this observation, which deserves to be mounted on a plaque over every entrepreneur's desk: "Execution is insanely important."

Did you know???

This is an interesting video. Enjoy it if you decide to check it out.

From the "not so surprising" world of the bazaar

Well, when I first saw this headline/teaser on CNN.com, I figured this was the next Flavor Flav dating-type reality show on some random cable station (boring!). I could see parts of this contest being on the next reality TV show of some third-rate station in the States... other than of course the tragic ending.

However, this story is more from the land of the real and seems very telling of today's economic times. This may actually be a very telling story from the land of the next bubble burst: China. Printed without permission from CNN. Enjoy...


Chinese mistress contest takes tragic turn
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A married Chinese businessman who could no longer afford five mistresses held a competition to decide which one to keep.

The businessman and his spurned mistress met in Qingdao, pictured here last August, local media report.

But the contest took a fatal turn when one of the women, eliminated for her looks, drove the man and the four other competitors off a cliff, Chinese media reported.

The spurned mistress died and the other passengers were injured, the reports said.

Police initially thought the car had plummeted off a mountain road in eastern China on December 6 by accident. Then they learned of the contest through a letter the dead woman had left behind, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said.

The 29-year-old woman, identified only as Yu, was a waitress when she met the businessman at a restaurant in the coastal city of Qingdao in 2000.

At the time, the businessman, identified only by his last name -- Fan -- was married and had four other mistresses, according to the Peninsula Metropolis Daily newspaper in Qingdao.
The women knew of one another, but none elected to break up with the man and give up their rent-free apartment and a 5,000 yuan ($730) monthly allowance, the reports said.

When the economy soured, the businessman apparently decided to let go of all but one mistress.

He staged a private talent show in May, without telling the women his intentions. An instructor from a local modeling agency judged the women on the way they looked, how they sang and how much alcohol they could hold, the Shanghai Daily said.

The judge knocked out Yu in the first round of the competition based on her looks. Angry, she decided to exact revenge by telling her lover and the four other women to accompany her on a sightseeing trip before she returned to her home province, the media reports said.

It was during the trip that Yu reportedly drove the car off the cliff. Fan shut down his company after the crash and paid Yu's parents 580,000 yuan ($84,744) as compensation for her death.

The four other women left him, as did his wife when she learned of the affairs.

Cartoons relating perfectly to today's financial market mess!

One of my daily work related readings, PEHub, had this perfect link to an old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon from 15 years ago that perfectly describes today's financial crisis. This is totally great. Click here for a cleaner link if needed.

One semester down... seven to go!

Well, life is going to be back to normal for a while now (see: 3 weeks). I successfully wrapped up my first semester of grad school last night. Now it's time to actually get some things done at home and enjoy the Christmas season with my wife and my family. There a slew of 'to do's' at home and Melissa and I did not get our annual Christmas card out (does it still count if people receive a card around New Year's? We may have to start a new tradition). Anyway, definitely looking forward to a little R&R.

School turned out to actually be really fun. The time commitment makes life busy and time management becomes extremely important. The material has been interesting and the conversations in class are stimulating. My class is pretty small as well (33 people) so I have gotten the chance to know most well on a personal level. People also come from a diverse set of backgrounds so it's interesting to see people's views on things. Below is a pic taken by our professor during our last class... I think we are having fun.

During the time off between semesters I plan to do some reading for fun, see friends I haven't had the chance to see and of course on New Year's day we are headed to Puerto Vallarta for eight days. We planned it back in early August and with school done now I can finally begin to think about hanging out on the beach and having some fun!

I've been Googlized... are you next?

As a self acclaimed late adaptor, I finally gave in and adapted to Gmail. Admittedly, I love it. I've got my calendar (which is still a work in progress), my tabs set up with my favorite online websites set up set up on my iGoogle page, my Photos on Picasa (Google acquired product), YouTube (Google acquired product), my own Reader with articles marked and RSS feeds (more Google purchases), and I can even go to the Google Blog Search - where anyone can search and find the greatness of a new, growing website named Musings from Boulder. Google has made my life SO easy. I love Google.

I have a Google blog (the aforementioned Musings from Boulder). Soon I think my wife will have her own Blog. My friends have Blogs. Their friends have Blogs. All on Google (at least the cool ones).

Last night I heard about a new Google product in Beta. I HAD to have it. I now Google Chrome - the new Google search engine. The desktop item even looks like an old Simon Says game (see left). Did Google purchase Simon Says in order to use a similar looking logo of the old game, or did they just "creatively" come up with this all on their own? All I had to do to get it was go to Google.com and search "chrome". Not Chrome.com, just "chrome". (I hate Google for making my life so easy).

We discussed Facebook in my MBA program after reading a case study and discussed it's massive potential as a giant information aggregator based on its database of information and the question regarding if it will be the next Google or should sell now to Google for a huge payday. This is a very real time, real world discussion. The class unequivocally said that Facebook should not sell to Google and remain independent and fight the "man" (ie Google). The discussion ended and compliments of "I just love Google" and "Everything in my life is tapped into Google" comments flooded the room. (Google even tells me I am spelling Facebook wrong in this post! How's that for ruling the Internet).

So what is Google doing with this information? They seem to be involved and inside every part of my life. Do they know where I sleep and if I snore? Do they have me under satellite surveillance? Will they hunt and take down Bin Laden? Something tells me he Google's too and they know where he is. Will we look up at the moon someday just to see a big Google "G" on the it's surface? Will it change daily to go along with the day's theme on their browser? Can I trust them? I highly doubt it. They won't hand their information over to the US Government. They probably know too much and are invading my life. I absolutely hate Google now!!

So perhaps Google is the monster of today and we are all just living in Google's world and that is a very scary thought. On second thought, maybe I don't feel so bad anymore about being Googlized because it's made my life so much easier and of course, everybody is doing it. My Google calendar is telling me I have an appointment soon... gotta run.

Cleantech

What is cleantech? "Is an extraordinary amount of money being flushed away on a pipedream?" Have you heard of it? Should you know what it means? What does this all mean?

Definition according to Wikipedia:
Cleantech is a term used to describe knowledge-based products or services that improve operational performance, productivity, or efficiency while reducing costs, inputs, energy consumption, waste, or pollution. Its origin is the increased consumer, regulatory and industry interest in clean forms of energy generation—specifically, perhaps, the rise in awareness of global warming and the impact on the natural environment from the burning of fossil fuels.

One way I look at it, in very simple terms is that Cleantech has emerged in widespread use to describe a group of emerging technologies, industries, and financial asset classes based on principles of resource efficiency, science and second-generation production concepts in basic industries.

These emerging technologies are things such as alternative energy, renewable engery, wind warms, hybrid technology and technologies generally considered green and/or clean. Thought of another way, technologies and that help us lessen our carbon footprint.

Venture Capital Investment:
Investments in clean technology have grown considerably since coming into the spotlight around 2000. According to the United Nations Environment Program, wind, solar and biofuel companies received a record $148 billion in new funding in 2007 as rising oil prices and climate change policies encouraged investment in renewable energy. $50 billion of that funding went to wind power.

Overall, investment in clean-energy and energy-efficiency industries rose 60 percent from 2006 to 2007. In the United States, the clean tech industry is largely based in Silicon Valley. [SVB has started a small cleantech practice to compliment our technology and venture capital banking activities.]

The affirmative part is that the investment ramp-up has been too rapid to be responsible, as evidenced by the dozens of firms (not an exaggeration) that have rushed to form cleantech practices and/or funds within the past year. There will be a lot of losses in this space, particularly given the relative lack of potential acquirers (assuming the continued lack of an IPO market).

The negative part, however, is probably more important. The ultimate problem for VC-backed nanotech companies is that most of them were technologies without products. Kind of like if Google had created its breakthrough search algorithms in 1985. Cleantech companies, on the other hand, almost always have a clear vision of their products and market opportunity. Their problem is getting the technology to work. It’s obviously a more fundamental risk, but also should give VCs better guidance when it comes to follow-on financings or cutting bait.

Annual cleantech investments volume analysis
Year Deals Investment ($mil)
2005 100 532.7
2006 180 1,779.6
2007 168 2,604.9

* There has been a large ramp up in spending and given the potential market, investments are expected to continue substantial growth in 2008 and into 2009.

Conclusion:
When applying sustainable development as a solution for environmental issues, the solutions need to be socially equitable, economically viable, and environmentally sound.

Now if a few clean/green solutions come about and help improve the world, this could have a great impact on society (in a variety of ways). "Green" has been all the rage in the past 6-12 months and seems like a marketing campaign that will stick around for a while.

I have added a few blogs (see right hand column) that relate specifically to CleanTech / GreenTech.