RIP Blackberry...I finally quit you

Over the past 15 years, I've probably been one of the most loyal blackberry users on this side of the Canadian border.  The running joke when I'd pull out my blackberry among a sea of iphones was that I was Jake Gyllenhall's character in Brokeback Mountain and my beloved blackberry was Heath Ledger.  "Blackberry, you sonofawhoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you."  Well, I finally did it two weeks ago and entered the Android camp with a Samsung Galaxy S4.  I'm still getting used to the device and sorely miss the blackberry keyboard, but not much else. 

My Original Mobile Email Device

My love affair with RIM started with my first blackberry I purchased in 1998 - the fat pager pictured above. This was years before "crackberry" entered the lexicon and became a must-have for every ibanker and lawyer in a Brooks Brothers suit in New York along with the jeans clad techies and VC's in Silicon Valley.  At the time, it's only purpose was email and the occasional lighter substitution at a rock concert to beg for another encore. It wasn't the first time I had email on the go (see picture on the right), but was a much slicker solution than the combination of Ricochet wireless model and Palm Pilot (now there's a story to tell the grandkids - reminds me a bit of those annoying AT&T Uverse commercials).  I even had an unoffical antique museum or perhaps mausoleum to my beloved blackberries buried in

Blackberry Mausoleum

my desk drawer containing many retired devices.

I hung on to my Bold waiting for the very late arriving OS 10.  As the launch of the Z10 got delayed again, I finally began to consider the switch.  However, even up until a few weeks ago, I was considering hanging on for the Q10 to experience the slick new operating system and still have the trusty blackberry keyboard. 

When the Z10 finally showed up in March, I paid close attention to the reviews and analyst reports.  I was even amused by the tête-à-tête between the Blackberry CEO and Analyst over reports that the Z10 was experiencing very high return rate.  I stopped in the local AT&T store to get my hands on the new device.  When the salesman approached me, I asked him about the phone and if they were selling a lot of them.  He gave me a look, scratched his head, and responded with "nope".  If you ever want to know how products are doing in the marketplace, often better off visiting the point of sale than reading a bunch of analyst reports.  With a dwindling market base, nobody is going to develp on the platform, which is a death knell for anyone in the smartphone business.  That was the final straw! I decided it was time for a divorce.

So where did Blackberry go wrong?  Where didn't they??? In addition to a number of product failures (Storm, Torch, Playbook) and a really crappy web browser, the biggest issue was probably the hubris of the founders.  Rather than anticipating or even coming up with a competitive response to the iPhone, the Co-CEO Jim Balsillie spent several years trying to buy an NHL team.  The other co-CEO  Mike Lazridis was famously quoted as saying that nobody would want "the equivalent of a personal computer on a phone".  I (and many others) believe the company could've been saved if it had adopted android several years ago.  In August 2010, Dan Frommer wrote an article declaring that RIM must switch to Android before it is too late.  At the time, RIM still had the leading share of the smartphone OS market at 18%, with Android (17%) and iOS (14%) close behind.  Shift to 3 years later and it's game over.  Android has 52%, iOS 39% with Blackberry (5%) and Windows (3%) with also ran status.  Once Windows passes Blackberry, it may be time for hari-kiri.

So what am I going to do with that desk drawer full of blackberries?  Not sure what I'll do with most of them, but I did put my most recent Bold up for auction on eBay and surprisingly someone paid $194 for it, only $5 less than I paid for my new Samsung S4.  Guess there are blackberry fans still out there, but can't imagine there will be for much longer.

Was Launch the right platform to Launch?

While the rest of Silicon Valley is slamming drinks at SXSW in Austin and trying out the mobile app Bang with Friends, I'm sitting in my office thinking about last week's Launch Festival.  Seriously, Bang with Friends?? We decided to launch SocialParent at the conference (full disclosure: I'm an adviser, part-time CFO and investor). 

SocialParent is a social network for those who have moved beyond the Bang with Friends stage, have settled down, had a family and are looking for a social network that mirrors their real life social network.

 
 My proposed tagline for the company was "Powering the Modern Family" (with pic below), but the CEO (Reza Raji) shot that one down and reminded me that I was the CFO and not in charge of marketing.  I do love the tv show, but if they all used SocialParent, they wouldn't get involved with nearly as many predicaments as they would be on top of their schedules and where the rest of the family was at any given time.

(For more info download the app or listen to SocialParent CEO explain the service on PandoDaily below).

The founding duo of SocialParent (Reza Raji and Gerry Gutt) were also co-founders of iControl Networks, where I was also an investor and part-time CFO.  We used the DEMO conference in 2005 as the launch vehicle for iControl and got me thinking about how the seed funding landscape has changed in the past eight years.


In 2005, incubators were thought of as either bubble era disasters or university science projects.  The term accelerator wasn't in the vernacular and YCombinator had yet to set their first class free.  First Round Capital (one of the early entrants in the post bubble seed/micro VC funding category) was just getting going and it's primary focus was investing in companies coming out of DEMO.  The term "super angel" had yet been coined, and Naval and Nivi were several years away from sending out the first interesting deals email which ultimately became AngelList.  Demo days were weeks spent hiking up and down Sand Hill Road not a single afternoon when you can pitch to 150 angel investors and VC's. 

When we launched iControl at DEMO in 2005, the conference was not the only show in town, but was definitely a big deal.  Investors and press would flock to the desert to see future hot startups unwrap their products and mature tech companies show off their latest and greatest.  It was expensive ($20K+) but no better way to get major mainstream and tech press coverage, not to mention interest from venture capitalists.  6 minutes on stage were truly a CEO's 15 minutes of fame. There was a ton of energy, great networking and the jam sessions were epic!

The next time I went to DEMO was 2010 and it had moved from a nice resort in Scottsdale, to a Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara, right in the middle of Silicon Valley.  The energy level was much lower, the startups less interesting, and the jam session gone...I've found through the years that conferences are much better when attendees aren't stopping by between the office and meetings.  I wrote a post forecasting the demise of the conference, Are DEMO's days numbered?  I'm surprised it is still around in 2013, but am sure the selectivity criteria has changed to whoever is willing to pay.

The Launch Festival was Jason Calacanis' response to the pay-to-play of DEMO and other similar conferences.  Launch is a bit of an entrepreneurial orgy (not in a Bang with Friends kind of way).  It is held at the San Francisco Design Center (125,000 sf), had over 5,000 attendees, a massive Hackathon up in the loft, demo pit with over 150 companies, and a cavernous hall where the entrepreneurs took to the stage and Jason held fireside chats with a number of interesting entrepreneurs and investors.  I had the opportunity to judge the Hackathon and was blown away by what the teams were able to build over a weekend.  The winning team (WizzyWig) flew in from Pittsburgh and walked away with over $100K in cash prizes!

While the investors and press made up a relatively small number of the attendees, the overall vibe of the conference was great.  One new addition to the conference was a crowdfunding simulation in partnership with MicroVentures.  I imagine the original intent was to make this real, but with the SEC dragging their feet, this provision of the JOBs Act is far from final.  The simulation was interesting, and was glad to see SocialParent finish on top of the leaderboard.

Hopefully, we can turn that fake investment to real financing.  You can watch the real investment meter go up on AngelList

Back to my original question on whether the Launch Festival is the right platform to launch your start-up.  It obviously depends on a number of factors, one of which is timing.  At a conference held once a year, this is clearly important.  For SocialParent, timing was good.  Also, as experienced entrepreneurs, an accelerator program wasn't that appealing.  For many entrepreneurs, you'll get more investor traction and press coverage out of a YCombinator, 500 Startups or AngelPad demo day.

However, I definitely look forward to Launch 2014.  I hear Jason is looking for a bigger venue.  I wouldn't doubt him and perhaps he can even give those folks in Washington a nudge to make the crowdfunding real next year.

Immigration Reform: Now or Never?

ProfessorVC celebrated his 50th birthday this past week in his hometown of Washington, DC, with visits to the Capitol Hill and the White House to meet with legislators and White House officials on immigration reform.  It was a very timely visit and hopefully our group along with many others descending on Capitol Hill over the coming weeks will help spur action.

Our delegation was led by Carl Guardino (CEO of Silicon Valley Leadership Group) and Greg Becker (CEO of Silicon Valley Bank) and included a number of young Silicon Valley CEO's, VC's, and university representatives.  I fell in to all three camps representing San Jose State University, Startups (through my CFO/board roles) and Investors (with my angel investor hat on).  We met with a wide range of legislators from both sides of the aisle, including Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Raul Labrador (R-ID), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ).  We also had breakfast with our local house delegation of Zoe Lofgren, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Jackie Speier and Eric Swalwell (the junior member who happens to be tall and decided to stand in front of me in the picture below.) At the White House, we met with Cecilia Munoz (Director, Domestic Policy Counsel), Ari Matusiak (Executive Director Office of Business Liaison), Doug Rand (Policy Advisor Science and Technology), and Nick Sinai (advisor to US CTO).

For somebody who grew up in DC and has high school classmates in both the Senate and House, but have been geographically removed for the past 25 years, it was very interesting to get a glimpse of the political machine, but it also confirms the reasons I've spent the past 25 years in Silicon Valley.

We had the opportunity to meet with people behind the four major proposals that have (or will) be put on the table since the end of January: Senate (Gang of Eight), Senate (I-Squared), House, and White House.  We were specifically advocating to fix the broken H1-B and Green Card programs and to provide visas and green cards to startup entrepreneurs and STEM degree holders.

Along with my academic colleagues on the trip from Stanford, Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz, I've had many exceptional students take advantage of our higher education system and then be forced to return home after graduation to work at and build companies.  One of my recent students went through the 500 Startups Accelerator, raised $1M in funding and is now in process of building the next Instagram in Bangalore, at least according to the Business Standard, India's leading business daily.

The backlog of those waiting for employment and family visas is huge (estimates at 4.5 million and wait times as long as 24 years), not to mention those playing the visa lottery and dealing with per country caps.  120,000 tech jobs are available every year, yet we can only fill 40,000 of these.  Over half of the graduate students in STEM related fields are from outside the U.S.  We are providing them skills and sending a majority back home.  In addition, we have many college students and graduates who came to the US as children, have been educated here, consider the US their home, yet can't legally work.  According to the Center for American Progress, an estimated 2.1 million youth (out of approximately 12 million total undocumented population) could be given a pathway to citizenship with the DREAM Act.  This could add $329 billion to the US economy and create 1.4 million new jobs by 2030.  Comprehensive reform would address both the high tech skilled worker issues as well as DREAM Act and agricultural workers.

A few takeaways from the trip:

• Go Big or Go Home (similar to the venture capital model).  Baby steps aren't going to happen.  If it doesn't, many of these legislators will be sent back after 2014 mid-term elections and could also be a stain on Obama's legacy.  It seems clear that the people spoke last November (Mitt, you could've played this one better), but that doesn't necessarily move the political football down the field. While Orrin Hatch seems to believe a narrow solution (I-Squared) can be a starting point with additional reforms added afterward, most of the democrats we met with and the White House officials believe nothing short of comprehensive will pass.  We pushed Hatch to at a minimum add the Startup Visa to his proposal, but he was concerned with the challenge of adding a new visa category. He believes that the O-1 Extraordinary ability visa covers this, but that feels like a kluge to me. 

• The government is trying to get more entrepreneurial.  The US CTO is looking for "bad ass entrepreneurs" (White House term) for the next group of Innovation Fellows.  These 6-12 month paid stints are a great opportunity to get involved if you are between start-ups or can get a leave from your tech employer.  We also met with the SBA, which seems to be trying to make working with the government much more startup and investor friendly, although for some reason it was easier to enter the West Wing of the White House than the SBA.  One of the guys we met with (Andrew Lee) is an EIR at the SBA and came from Zynga who bought his start-up, Jam Legend.

• Blackberry is alive and well in DC.  Haven't seen so many blackberries since before the launch of the iPhone.  And many of these look like they date from early in Obama's first term.

• Pictures aren't allowed in the West Wing (go figure) so was forced to take this picture of me and the Jarrett Fishpaw (the 25-year old mayor of Los Altos) outside the White House gates.  Yes, it was not only my 50th birthday that made me feel old.

What can you do? Write your legislators! Visit Washington! Apply to be a Presidential Fellow! Just get involved! As one of my mentors advised me years ago, if you don't get involved in the solution, you can't complain about the problem.  Good advice I'll take in to my next 50 years...

Series A Crunch...just Darwin at work

As December and 2012 draws to a close, I've decided to weigh in with my thoughts on the impending (or not depending on which blogs you read) Series A Crunch.  It seems that The Series A Crunch has been discussed almost as much as the Mayan calendar this month and I've mostly sat on the sidelines figuring that if the world were really going to end, I had better things to do than write a blog post.  Alas, we survived 12/21 and looks like we will have to get back to work in 2013.

For those readers not already familiar with this concept, it refers to the bottleneck for Series A financing created by the increasing number of seed financings and constant number of Series A financings.  While this has been discussed ad nauseum on twitter and the blogosphere, I have relevant perspective given my three different roles in the new venture ecosystem - investing in seed deals as an angel, raising seed investment as a start-up CFO and teaching entrepreneurial finance as a Professor. 

I'll summarize some of the varied opinions and data before weighing in with my own thoughts. A good place to start for data is CBInsights' Seed Investing Report- Startup Orphans and the Series A Crunch.  According to their research, 2,283 companies received seed funding over a 5-quarter period beginning Q3 2011.  Out of these companies, 102 have received follow-on funding and 212 have been acquired (or more likely acqui-hired).  Out of the remaining 2,200, they estimate that 1,200 will not be able to raise follow-on financing (see visual explanation below) and $1 billion in angel investment will likely evaporate.

Is this a high success rate?  Is this a low success rate?  Is this Armageddon?  Depends on who you read.  Sarah Lacy started this round of debate a few weeks ago with The Series A Crunch is hitting now.  Jason Calacanis responded and argues in There is No Series A Crunch that this is a non-issue and up to the seed financed start-ups to prove they are worthy.  If there are more companies that have met Series A milestones and metrics, VCs will increase the number of Series A financings.  If you are entrepreneur that isn't in a position for Series A, find other financing sources and/or figure out how to bootstrap to cash flow breakeven or in Jason's words "put on your big boy undies". Sarah, of course, responded with Jason is Wrong. Have we reached the "Jane, you ignorant slut" point?

For those who haven't already left this post to catch the latest YouTube cat video, let me see if I can bring these divergent opinions together.  I did finally chime in on the twitter discussion yesterday:

I first blogged about this topic almost two years ago when I called out the large number of convertible debt seed financings that weren't going to have any conversion event.  It turns out the financing instrument probably isn't as material as I had thought, although it doesn make the mechanics different.  From an investor standpoint, I've discovered there actually can be greater leverage with convertible debt if the appropriate protections have been included.  I've had a couple of deals where investors were paid out a multiple on exit and in a better position than if holding preferred stock, where the payout would have been subject to escrow and over multiple years.

Is it a good thing that so many entrepreneurs are able to get $250K - $1.5M in seed financing? HELL YES!!! Investors know (or damn well should) the risk they are taking in making seed investments.  The accelerators clearly know the game and the ground rules.  If as CBInsights posits, $1B is going to be lost by angels in seed financings, one Instagram makes most of that back and presumably there will be positive returns on a material percentage of the remaining companies.

Giving more entrepreneurs the ability to step up to the plate is a good thing.  I love the accelerators and am a regular on Demo Days for 500 Startups, YC, AngelPad and others.  However, many of the graduates of the accelerators aren't even companies, let alone businesses.  They are projects and experiments.  These are part of the entrepreneurs' education.  Learn how to build a product, pitch investors, raise a small amount of angel funding, hire the early team, acquire users, sell, iterate.  If it works, great.  If not, move on and join another team or come up with another idea with the same or different co-founders.  With my academic hat on, this is wonderful.  I specialize in experiential education and there is no better way to learn entrepreneurship than doing it.

My recommendation used to be that it was best to do this learning on someone else's dime and would advise students to spend a few years working in a start-up or potentially large tech company before doing own start-up.  However, they now can still do this on someone else's dime, but it is the angel investor and not an employer.  As an angel, do I take this kind of gamble?  Sometimes, if I feel the opportunity is big and the team is fully committed.  But generally, I'm also looking for those proof points that go beyond what most entrepreneurs coming out of an accelerator have.  Domain expertise is critical and many of these entrepreneurs don't have enough.

So, what are the key takeaways for entrepreneurs besides pulling up their big boy (or girl) undies:

1. Keep your options open.  Don't raise seed financing with only one path to raise Series A.  I'm not a fan of "Go Big or Go Home".  That works great for big venture funds with a broad portfolio, but not so good for an entrepreneur committed to a market opportunity.  Have a plan for Series A, but also have a plan for slower growth, intermediate funding, and a route to cash flow breakeven.
2. Seek appropriate financing.  Most businesses don't fit the venture model and if that is your only path, the most likely outcome is hitting the wall.  I always hate when folks disparage an entrepreneur who is building a "lifestyle business".  If you can build a business that provides a good income, doing something you love, living where you want, and pursuing passions outside of the business, more power to you.  I'm guessing that's how Richard Branson started and he seems to have a nice lifestyle.
3. Nothing wrong with a cash flow business.  Follow around a middle market private equity investor for a few months and you will likely discover some businesses that have great cash flow potential. Unless yoru only end game is being acquired (and if so read point 1 above again), the experiments need to yield a business model that can create a sustainable business that isn't dependent on continued funding to remain off life support.

That advice should work in good times, bad times and all those in between.  

Democratization of Angel Investing

I had a conversation recently with Alex Mittal, Co-founder and CEO of FundersClub (FC) and decided to revisit my blog post from last fall that was skeptical of crowdfunding for angel investments.  FC is the latest Kickstarter type site to launch to give entrepreneurs the opportunity to raise financing from a large number of individuals.  Some of the current services act on the investment bank model and either facilitate transactions between investors and companies (i.e. Micro Ventures) or provide a secondary marketing between investors (i.e. Second Market). 

FC's approach is much more akin to the deal flow and social proof model of AngelList, with the ability to make small investments in a number of companies.  Since the provisions of the JOBS Act relating to angel investments by non-accredited investors haven't been finalized yet, these platforms are currently only available to accredited investors, who already have the ability to make angel investments.  However, there are many pieces of the FC model that are intriguing.

First, a little background on the company.  FC is a YCombinator (YC) company in the current Summer '12 class that will be pitching at next Tuesday's Demo Day. The site has recently launched and all of the 6 companies on FC are part of the same YC cohort.  Only one transaction has closed to date.  Surprise! Surprise! It is FundersClub, so good to see they are eating their own dog food, in VC parlance.

In many respects, the service is similar to the way Angel Groups operate, or at least the way Sand Hill Angels, where I was a long time member does.  Individuals pool their cash in to a single purpose entity to make the investment in the company.  Individuals can make smaller investments in a number of companies, gaining portfolio diversification benefits.  And the company has only one investor on the cap table but can (if they wish) take advantage of a larger group network. On FC, you can see who else is investing, invest with a few clicks, and see how the round is coming together by viewing a real time thermometer. Very cool!  I had always thought AngelList would go in this direction and this indeed may be on their roadmap.  You can connect to FC through Facebook and LinkedIn, but not AngelList...Investors pay a one-time 12% administration fee on top of the investment amount.  This may seem steep, but is certainly cheaper than the annual 2% management fee and 20% carry of a typical venture fund.  Of course, this is comparing apples to oranges.

One of FC's goals is to expand the pool of investors.  While I will be attending the YC Demo Day next week along with many other Silicon Valley Angels, this is not a public event and difficult to attend for those out of the area.  Anyone can now have access to many of the highly competitive investment opportunities.  In addition, the angel investment process can be time consuming and daunting to those not familiar with venture deal terms.  Now, if you wish, you can make investments as small as $1,000 in several companies in a matter of minutes.

I'm curious as to how the SEC will view FC.  The site was designed with the very simple registration process we are all demanding, including checking a couple of boxes to prove you are an accredited investor.  It is no more difficult to move through this than all of the under 13-year olds who have facebook profiles by checking that they are 13 or up.  I'm guessing (if FC proves successful) that there will be unsophisticated unaccredited investors making investments and that the SEC may see this as a public offering of securities. On SecondMarket, there is a much more rigorous interview process and an electronic signature is required.

I still don't see FC as a place I'll make many investments and the administrative fee seems like it will have a material impact on returns, but could prove a great way to have your own angel investment portfolio with aggregate investment amount of $50K instead of $500K-$1M.  Jury is still out, but I'm excited to track their progress and am optimistic that there will be a successful angel investment crowdfunding platform. 

I wouldn't bet against FundersClub.  Unfortunately, I can't bet on them.  I was on vacation last week and missed out on investing in FundersClub through FundersClub before the opportunity closed.  Perhaps, there will still be an opportunity to invest the old fashioned way, but signing a bunch of docs and writing a check. 

Angel Groups Panning for Gold

ProfessorVC just returned from an Alaskan vacation and was mortified to realize it was almost six months since the last blog post. One of our stops was in Skagway, which became the biggest city in Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush.  Most of the prospectors came up empty and of those who did strike gold, most lost their new found wealth through bad investments or dealings with swindlers. This got me thinking about the "suckers bet" of angel investing and how most don't strike gold for a variety of reasons.  Interesting enough, it was an entrepreneur (John Nordstrom) who was able to get out of town with his gold and opened a little shoe store in Seattle.
 
Earlier this year, I left Sand Hill Angels, the angel group I was actively involved with since 2005.  I've been meaning to share my thoughts about angel groups and will do so in an upcoming post.  In the meantime, I ran across the recent Halo Report on angel group investing prepared by Silicon Valley Bank.

 Some of the nuggets from the report are summarized in the infographic below.

A few of my takeaways:

• Interesting that 81% of deals completed outside of California.  This compares with less than 50% of venture deals being outside of California.  I would guess that overall angel investments are greater than 50% in California, which means that angel groups are active in areas where VCs and individual angels are not.  With deal velocity so great in Silicon Valley along with the large numbers of experienced entrepreneurs and investors, there is little need to associate with an angel group.

• Median pre-money valuation of $2.5 million also indicates a majority of deals being done outside of California, where I would guess the median is closer to $3.5M.  There are a number of reasons for the premium, not the least is the cost of engineering talent.

• Internet dominates total deals while Healthcare received the largest share of funding.  If you add mobile, ratio is greater than 2:1 on deal basis and a little higher on funding.  With the low cost of creating these companies, they are a good fit for angel groups that can move quickly, make a number of bets and have the ability to follow-on.  Healthcare (primarily medical device companies) are very well suited for angel investments.  At Sand Hill Angels, we invested in a number of these medical device companies that had serial entrepreneurs, patents filed, low valuations, and clear paths to exit.  The investment thesis made sense from both sides as funding could get to (or though FDA) and requirement for further funding was low.

Rebuild our Inner Cities one Venture at a time?

As an active participant in the Silicon Valley new venture ecosystem and entrepreneurship educator, I'm intrigued by the recently announced program Venture for America (VFA). VFA is sending high achieving recent college grads into small businesses and start-ups in inner cities.

Conceptually, this is very intriguing and goes against the current popularity of accelerators in start-up hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Seattle, Boulder) that are filled with recent grads and drop outs looking to build the next web sensation. I am a big fan of the accelerator programs and while most of the companies coming out won't be successful, many will, and all of the graduates will receive a tremendous education. Many will likely be successful in subsequent ventures and you can't start your second company until after you've done your first.

VFA is taking a different approach to fostering entrepreneurship. It is modeled after Teach for America (TFA), a program that sends high achieving college grads into inner cities as teachers. These have become very high sought after jobs as TFA has been successfully recruiting students that would otherwise be going to McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. Rather than spending 80-100 hours per week on Wall Street, these students spend 80-100 hours per week creating lesson plans and learning how to teach disadvantaged children. While certainly a laudable mission, I question how many of these teachers actually remain in the career vs. using TFA as the golden ticket to Stanford Business School, Harvard Law or other select grad school.

VFA's tagline is "Mobilizing graduates as entrepreneurs" and is "A program for young, talented grads to spend 2 years in the trenches of a start-up with the goal that these graduates will become socialized and mobilized as entrepreneurs moving forward." In an Inc magazine article on VFA, one student is quoted:

I've applied to a ton of companies," she says. "I have this entrepreneurial mindset that I have to work at a start-up and do marketing, but every company I have applied to, whether it was a start-up or not, said they found someone more qualified or I didn't have enough experience."

Nothing against Ashley from UVA, but that is not how you go about finding a job in a start-up. You network! You attend start-up events! You go hang out at the engineering school! You find companies you are passionate about and where you can offer solutions to problems! You don't send in a bunch of applications. Is this the kind of individual that is going to create jobs in inner cities? I don't know, but I'll bet against her.

Couldn't you accomplish the same thing within the university environment? That is what I am doing with the ELAB program at San Jose State University. (Entrepreneurship Lab Provides Students Work Experience in Start-up World) We have had 50 students through the first four offerings of the program and almost 50% have received job offers at the end of the semester for either full time jobs or paid internships. All have received tremendous experience not available in a typical academic setting.

Back to Venture for America. I hope they are successful in creating companies and jobs in inner cities. Clearly, we live in a bubble in Silicon Valley and our economy is rarely in sync with the nation as a whole. If the rest of the country were experiencing the new company growth, hiring challenges, decreasing office vacancies and rising rents that we are in the Bay Area, the economy wouldn't be the top issue in the presidential campaign. In fact, nobody outside of the far right would care about the Republican primaries as Obama's reelection would be a fait accompli. Politics aside, as the Beach Boys sang, "Wouldn't it be nice"...