Some of you might have noticed a change in the commenting system for my blog. Its a new company called Disqus that I learned about from over dinner a few months ago Fred.
Basically people reading my blog can now create their own forums through their comments. I hope we can use it on howardlindzon.com to create better discussions around my postings and get some dialogue.
Today Disqus is announcing a new round of financing and a new set of features. Fred and Brad (Union Square Ventures) led the round with Naval Ravikant and ex-Googler Aydin Senkut. Our Knight’s Bridge fund was also an investor.
One feature in the updated beta that I really like are the community pages. Check out mine here. People can now track all of my comments across all blogs and also see who comments the most on my blog.
Another cool thing is the social identity that will follow commenters onto other sites that have disqus installed. So if you create a disqus account (it takes 5 seconds) it will allow you to comment on my site and fred’s with out having to sign in each time. Its really easy to use (which I like) and streamlines the commenting process by making it interactive.
You can also track other commenters (making it more social) so you can follow what they are saying on other websites, which is pretty cool. Think of it like an OpenID, but for commenting.
There are some more updates, but they are more technical so read Daniel Ha’s post on the updates.
Not only is it free, but it works on all the major blogging templates like WordPress (which I use for this blog), Blogger, MovableType and Typepad.
Social leverage is my personal favorite them for venture investing. Om has a good post on Disqus.com . I love social leverage and don’t think you can blow yourself up tapping it. Banks call it the multiplier effect. Problem is you get a credit crisis.
Sign up for an account and keep the comments coming.
Discloser: I am WAY LONG on Disqus and an investor.
My man Andy keeps barelling forward with his vision for ‘CROWD CONTROL’ product from Lotame and now has some more serious financing to roll out his vision. Andy (Lotame) has figured out how to wring money out of the hugely popular, but difficult to sell, social networking sites. The series A round of $10 million is led by Battery Ventures. Peter at Alley Insider has the full scoop .
I am an advisor to Lotame. Andy and I became great friends from his blind trust and video passion investment in Wallstrip, where he sat on the Board. He was a great inspiration to the team with his positive energy and ideas. Andy is the perfect leader fr a start-up and now gets to prove it further.
The money raising process is grueling and I spent some time with Andy during the process. Hopefully he will share some of the lessons on his blog. We did chat Friday about Black Licorice. Andy tells me you either love him or hate him, like Black Licorice. Me… I love black licorice. I love ‘good and plenty’ candy and just straight up black sticks of it.
You can’t/won’t please everybody so you must trudge forward in the stocks and entrepreneurial world. Head up and guns blazing. I expect to carry black licorice to all future important meetings. Good ice breaker.
Too much free shit on the web and too many ‘Business Development’ people. If you call someone business development, you are giving them free reign to social network all day and take meetings. That’s just wrong at this point.
If you are starting a web business today, how about a ‘Chief Revenue Officer’ and ‘Chief of Burn Rate Control’ – that reports to the founder and investors
Too many biz plans with ‘free’ as the basis for building a business around eyeballs that will some day lead to ads that nobody clicks on.
I am not saying that ‘Freemium ‘, as Fred calls it, is dead. BUT, if you don’t have MAJOR VC backing or lightning strikes your genius application, than really, why bother.
I don’t have the energy anymore to start or back a business that relies on building eyeballs first and no click throughs later.
If Wordpress had a ‘Chief Revenue Officer’, someone could at least be ‘FIRED ‘ for not calling me to ask me to pay SOMETHING, ANYTHING (I will pay $240 if someone from Wordpress just picks up the phone and calls me to ask for it) for all the wonderfullnessessisness that this software has brought to me. If they are just expecting to me to pick up the phone and donate, I won’t.
Waaaaay to much revenue being left on the table by Web 2.0 companies and way too many Web 2.0 companies being started and funded without revenue number one on their mind. It is really time to start caring if you are a founder and a VC.
Here is what I had to say in his comments about what an anti-VC would look like:
“The anti-VC will actually pay you to get in the deal for the sheer joy of the stress and aggravation of building something great. It’s worth it I think.
The anti VC is willing to “whack” troublesome angels and/or hire a hit.
Than, they ask not to be recognized after a successful exit and pays AGAIN for the joy of having been involved.
I may be on to something”.
I have thought further about this and come up with a simple rewards program for entrepreneurs that sweetens the deal on a payoff for the risk of having an anti-VC – whatever it might really stand for.
Entrepreneur Rewards:
Just like Bridal Showers and Wedding Registries, entrepreneurs will register their reward choices at EntrepreneurRewards.com. If the deal is a success, the Angels and Venture Capitalists will be required to buy gifts for the Founder(s) based on their returns.
For 100 baggers – Planes, Homes
For 10 baggers – Ferrari’s, Porsches, Yachts
For 5 baggers – Scion’s, Appliances, Furniture
For a Double – Gift Certificate’s to Apple Store and Chipotle (Long both) .
…Bessemer Ventures and little know Biltmore Ventures (that’s me, Morris and Adam). We are small but pesky people and appreciate the opportunity to make our first fund investment with a few legends. I am double excited as an angel investor in the Company. Here is the deal:
LifeLock Announces $6.85 Million Series B Funding
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Leads Group of Venture Capital Firms Investing In LifeLock
TEMPE, AZ — (April 26, 2007) — LifeLock today announced that it has secured $6.85 million in Series B funding from a trio of prominent venture capital firms led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. LifeLock will use the funding to support the company’s dramatic growth and further its mission to increase consumer awareness and adoption of LifeLock’s guaranteed services.
“We see significant potential for LifeLock given its unique and guaranteed offering,” said Ted Schlein, KPCB partner. “Increasingly innovative criminals, the digitization of society and the rapid growth of the Internet will fuel the need for the effective and sophisticated services that LifeLock will deliver for years to come.”
Along with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the additional investors included Series A lead investor Bessemer Venture Partners and new investor, Phoenix-based Biltmore Ventures.
“This investment provides financial strength that will allow us to sustain our rapid growth and solidify our position as the industry leader in protecting Americans from identity thieves,” said Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock. “We will use these funds to improve service for our existing customers and to connect with the millions of potential customers who believe they may be at risk of identity theft. We thank Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Bessemer Venture Partners and Biltmore Ventures for their investment and commitment to helping us combat one of the fastest growing crimes in the U.S.”
LifeLock (www.lifelock.com) was founded in 2005 by seasoned veterans of the banking, payment, credit and security industries. These individuals have set out to defend American citizens from the onslaught of identity theft at a time when personal information is increasingly compromised through low-tech fraud, security breaches and the Internet. The founders crafted a simple, proactive service that can help prevent identity theft that is offered to the public for just $10 per month or $110 per year. To date, more than 100,000 adults and children have already enrolled in the service.
LifeLock helps consumers to render their personal information useless to thieves, backing up its service with a million-dollar guarantee. Located in a secure facility in Tempe, Arizona, LifeLock is a private company registered with Dun & Bradstreet, Verisign, ScanAlert, HackerSafe, and the BBBOnline Reliability Program, and is a corporate sponsor of the National Crime Prevention Council. Recently LifeLock was named to the Red Herring 200, as one of the 200 most innovative and promising private ventures in the United States and Canada.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Since its founding in 1972, KPCB (www.kpcb.com) has backed entrepreneurs in over 475 ventures, including AOL, Align Technology, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, IDEC Pharmaceuticals, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, LSI Logic, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign and Xilinx. More than 150 of the firm’s portfolio companies have gone public. Many other ventures have achieved success through mergers and acquisitions.
About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (www.bvp.com) is the oldest venture capital practice in the United States, carrying on a tradition of hands-on, active investing that has continued since 1911. The firm manages two billion dollars of venture funds from offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Shanghai, and Mumbai. Over 100 Bessemer companies have gone public, including Blue Nile, Ciena, Gartner Group, Ingersoll Rand, International Paper, Maxim, Parametric, Perseptive Biosystems, Staples, VeriSign, Veritas and W.R. Grace.
About Biltmore Ventures
Biltmore Ventures is a Phoenix-based venture firm chartered to grow the Arizona private capital marketplace. The firm provides capital to local entrepreneurs focusing on high-growth businesses with an integral Internet component. The Biltmore team has over 50 years experience as entrepreneurs, investors, architects, and team builders.
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