All posts by bfiggefox

On the East Coast Startup Summit

Uncategorized
Guest post from Mark Simchock:  

Could the Princeton area be the next Silicon Valley? Well, yes (and no) is what Fred Wilson (iconic VC / Partner at Union Square Ventures shared with a room-full of primarily university students at the East Coast Startup Summit 2012, sponsored by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club, last weekend (April 20-22, 2012). Specifically, what Wilson said was, “You don’t need to go to Silicon Valley to do a start up.” He clarified that, saying that location is not as important as it once was. Proof, he noted, can be seen in the “super exciting” – a phrase used by the next speaker David Tisch – startups that are popping up all over the globe.

Wilson began with a hyper-condensed history of the technology / software sector, how the plot arc started on the East Coast in 1946, eventually moving west in the mid/late ’50s, and remaining centered there until fairly recently. The drift away from a Silicon Valley-centric view of the world is due to the “installation phase” being over. The tech industry is shifting from a model where innovation and success was focused on building the (technology) platform, to a model where using the established “installation” is where the action is, Among the examples that Wilson pointed to was the renowned crowd source model of  Kickstarter.com.  

When asked what Wilson and Union Square Ventures looks for in a start up, he listed four key attributes: The right people, with the right idea, packaging that idea the right way for the market, at the right time. For instance, video sharing websites existed prior to YouTube, but they were too far ahead of the wide adoption of broadband internet access.

Wilson exuded confidence, saying “It has never been easier for an entrepreneur to get funding than it is today.”But there was a not- so silver lining to Wilson’s VC rain making. Later in the Q&A; session he lamented the fact that capital is currently being drawn to ideas and sectors where the moment of truth (i.e., success or failure) happens sooner rather than later. Investors are now less likely to be interested in ideas that might take ten years (or more) to determine whether it would be successful. Yet big and complex problems can take a long time to solve. 


Oddly, Wilson made no mention of his outfit (or his peer firms) making a conscious effort to be less short-sighted. It was as if Wilson was saying, “Aim high and think big but nor too high or too big”. To some this should give pause. Perhaps this is the Achilles heel of capital – it uses a self-serving definition of success? What if, in these times of unprecedented global scale, there are problems that for the capital-based market are “too big to solve” or “too big to finance”? Time will tell if we’re placing too much trust in “free markets.”

Following Wilson was David Tisch, Managing Director of  TechStars New York  Tisch, a former lawyer, skipped the history and focused on the immediate. He suggested that the shift in power is to big swinging software driven models that break the rules to disrupt old stale industries. He too emphasized the importance of team, market, idea and product, but also added that, in the end, it’s execution that makes the difference. Ideas, even original ones, are plentiful. What’s rare is the ability to turn a raw idea into a need-satisfying product. His student-centric advice was to build something now; have a prototype (because talking isn’t a fraction as effective as showing); and to be fearless and share your idea with as many people as possible. 

The last and presumably youngest presenter was Joseph Cohen, founder and CEO of Coursekit.  And present he did. Of the three, Cohen, a designer by nature and trade, was the only one to use Power Point slides. Cohen’s pearls pushed against the grain of technology cliches and theorized that modern day tech entrepreneurs exhibit characteristics that are more archetypal artist than Big Bang Theory geek. In support of his theory Cohen noted that  artists get to do what they want and they (try to) make money doing it. As an artist you also get to “invent the future.” Further along Cohen promised that, “the internet is still a wild west…land is still being grabbed” which drew no noticeable reaction. Perhaps the roomful of mostly male students, that dwindled in numbers as the afternoon progressed, already knew this, digital gold panning tools packed in their laptops and ready to go. Apparently history can repeat itself. 

It was an inspiring spring afternoon. As I walked across campus I wondered about the odds of the next Mark Zuckerburg also being in that same room. I’m sure if you asked those who attended they would say, “Yes, of course.” Naturally, myself included, affected as I was. 
— Mark Simchock 
For Simchock’s account of the Tiger Launch Startup Challenge, featuring Bill Wilson, founder of FastCompany, see his blog. 

Next Generation Entrepreneurs: April 20-22

Uncategorized


The Princeton Entrepreneurship Club hosts the East Coast Startup Summit April 20-22, which brings all-star entrepreneurs and investors to the Princeton campus, including Jennifer Hyman, pictured here courtesy of the Huffington Post. Most events are for students only, but the talks on Friday and Sunday at noon are open to the public. As below 

1. Friday, April 20 at 12:00pm in McCosh 46 The Startup Revolution in NYC
Speaker Schedule
12 p.m.- Fred Wilson; 1:30 p.m. – David Tisch; 2:00 p.m. – Joe Cohen
Speaker Bios
Fred Wilson is a Managing Director of Union Square Ventures, a leading venture firm in New York. Fred has invested in Twitter, Zynga, Foursquare, Tumblr and Etsy, among others. He is also the renowned author of the “A VC” blog.
David Tisch is the Managing Director of TechStars New York, the top startup accelerator on the East Coast. Tisch is also a prolific angel investor in companies like Fab, Skillshare, Art.sy, and GroupMe.
Joe Cohen is the founder of Coursekit, a disruptive education startup building a simple and elegant way to manage college courses.
2. Sunday, April 22 at 12:00pm in McCosh 10 – Democratizing Luxury: the Story of Rent the Runway
Jennifer Hyman, founder of Rent the Runway, will share insight from her experience in building a revolutionary e-commerce company. Rent the Runway enables women to rent luxury designer gowns and accessories at a fraction of retail price, through the mail. Before founding Rent the Runway, Jennifer Hyman was an executive at Starwood Hotels, IMG, and WeddingChannel.

The above is the press info issued by the students. To add to that —  All talks are free. All four speakers seem to be New York  based, Joe Cohen is a Wharton dropout and Rent the Runway requires login to see anything so don’t bother. Interestingly, Rent the Runway has been dubbed “Netflix for Couture.” 

For Princeton’s version of while-a-student-at=prestigious-school, found a company, hear Bob Martin, founder of Raging Bull while he was at UVA, speak at the Princeton chamber on Thursday, May 3.  And you don’t even have to give up your Sunday. 

Sashihara: Business – a Factory for Making Decisions

Uncategorized

Optimization, explained Steve Sashihara at the Princeton chamber breakfast on April 18, can be understood by invoking the concepts of Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman. The Princeton University psychologist won the prize in economics because he aptly explained why people make biased decisions. Sashihara named a handful of bias types, including the “optimism” bias, example: the kitchen renovation that you estimate will cost less than the final cost. Reducing bias in investment decisions, studies from McKinsey reveal, will result in a seven percent increase in profit.
“Think of your business as a factory for making decisions,” said Sashihara, in a tour-de-force of explaining a complicated topic in simple terms. If it’s a non-profit business, someone is deciding when to hold an event, whom to invite as a speaker, where to hold it, etc. etc. “Organizations of all types are making all sorts of decisions.” Eliminating the bias in those decisions – is optimizing them.
Everyone likes to optimize, but in the business world, software programs do the optimizing. To qualify as optimizing, the software must make recommendations. Everything else is like the dashboard on your car. You read the speedometer, the REMS, the fuel tank level. But not until you turn on the GPS does something on the dashboard make recommendations.  
Sashihara admitted that he has had a 30-year disease – he can’t get away from thinking about optimizing, whether in the grocery store or an airport security line. You would think that the big companies would turn to optimization, but no, most decisions are made in the board room, after a Power Point presentation, with people going around the table to state their opinion. (Even that method can be improved, he says, merely by asking everyone to write their opinion on a card and all show their cards at once – then no one is affected by the Important opinion.)
Yahoo and Google exemplify the difference. Yahoo paid experts to rank web pages in the early days of the Internet. Google wrote optimizing software. Yahoo couldn’t keep up once the web attained the size of 44 billion pages.
Jeff Bezos, a Princetongrad like Sashihara, has said he just wanted to get a piece of the action on the Internet before it went away. His company started so small that they rang a bell when they sold something. (This is encouragement for small consulting companies that work with small businesses – ergo, your client could grow into an Amazon that now has $17.4 billion in sales and grew 30 percent last year – yet event that disappointed Wall Street.
Amazon, said Sashihara, makes its money on the alsos — the five “other things you might be interested in,” and they are controlled by optimizing software. Amazon also makes a profit by optimizing its fulfillment strategy.
You don’t have to be a big company to use optimizing software. Sashihara – in his talk and in his book – discusses a Latin America-based bulb company that is small but, with optimizing, dramatically increased its profit. U.S. Sugar is another of his clients that reaped big profits from small optimization changes.
Sashihara’s tips for consultants, any consultants:
1. Look for the wallflowers. If three priorities are named in the annual report, look elsewhere. The department that is ignored – that is working where the air has been sucked out of the room – it needs help and will welcome you.
2. Pick some low hanging fruit first, a quick project for an easy win. You’ll earn admirers who turn into supporters.
3. Don’t loll in your own success. Yes you can do the same thing two years in a row, but don’t be tempted to do that.
Of the many door prizes, a management consultant – Benjamin A. Burditt of Princeton Strategic Advisors – won a copy of Sashihara’s book, The Optimization Edge: Reinventing Decision Making to Maximize All Your Company’s Assets.  

Team Building on a Tall Ship

Uncategorized

New Jersey has its own tall ship — the A. J. Meerwald, a restored 1928 Delaware Bay Oyster schooner — and it begins the season on April 15.


Paul Gray of Archi-Tech  (on Phillips Boulevard in Ewing) will be on the volunteer crew to help sail the Meerwald from Bivalve to Philadelphia.”I believe they will be in Philly until the 26th, then they start their season of wandering around NJ doing school programs, educational sails, public sails and their teambuilding programs,” writes Gray. He explains: 

The non-profit is the Bayshore Discovery Project whose  charter, in part, reads:“The Bayshore Discovery Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to motivating people to take care of the environment, history, and culture of New Jersey’s Bayshore region through education, preservation, and example.” 
“The organization runs educational programs for school groups aboard the Meerwald, as well as at their musuem in Port Norris. Their teambuilding program consists of taking groups of people aboard the Meerwald for a six hour cruise, where the natural team elements of handling a traditional schooner form the backbone of the “formal” teambuilding program.”



Gray’s company, Archi-Tech, has signed his company up for the team-building event on the schooner in September. Says Gray: “I very much like the concept of a non-profit supporting themselves by this type of “commercial” activity.”


Princeton’s Warren Buffet? Doll of BlackRock

Uncategorized

Says Bob Doll to CBS News, Don’t abandon equity stocks just yet. 

The five-day downturn is only the correction he predicted, he told Business Insider.

Among the suggestions in his April report to Black Rock clients: Focus on domestic stocks.

To U.S. 1 Newspaper, for the April 11 edition, he gave 10 tips. One of them: Treasury rates will rise by two points by this time next year.

Doll is the keynote speaker who concludes the Mercer County Economic Summit on Thursday, April 12. You can register at the door for $60 if you belong to the Princeton Regional Chamber, $75 otherwise.

It’s rare to meet an investment guru, in close enough range to raise your hand and ask a question. And the afternoon (1 to 6 p.m.) features many other luminaries. But Doll — you could reasonably call him Princeton’s Warren Buffet — is the draw.


The photograph from Princeton Magazine is by Tom Grimes. 

Tag Sale of Fashion History

Uncategorized

A tag sale to end all tag sales starts Thursday, April 11 and runs through Saturday. The collection and memorabilia of Elizabeth S. Brown, noted fashion historian and a church friend of mine, will be sold by antique dealer Evelyn Gordon over the three day period. Antique dealers, decorators, window dressers, fashionistas — and I — will be ogling mannequins, jewelry, hats, lots and lots of dresses, antique toys, furniture, postcards, and memorabilia. Her collection has been called “an epic labor of love.”



I expect prices to be pretty reasonable because Brown has generously donated many of her museum-quality 18th and 19th century fashions to her alma mater, Cornell, and most recently to the fashion school at Houston Community College.

The first exhibition of the more than 4,000 donated items opened in Houston last August, called “Steampunk,” Victorian demeanor paired with punk rock rebellion. This clip is a veritable tutorial in how to pair the very old to make something very new. To quote the press release,  Steampunk Chronicles: The Elizabeth S. Brown Fashion Collection will explore 19th century fashion silhouettes and details along with industrial revolution images that have combined with current fashion to create the Steampunk aesthetic.


Brown is also known for her collection of antique sewing machines — she has all versions, from wonderful pieces of furniture to early historic ones. Her extensive array of dolls –everything from vintage barbies to “dolls of all nations” — are very reasonably priced, and they are all made IN the country that they represent. Brown tells of one doll that is NOT on sale, as below:

“I have always collected Harper’s Bazaar, and I have the first issue, in 1868,” says Brown. “I used the blue fabric, the extra yardage from my grandmother’s trousseau, and I used a pattern from Harper’s Bazaar for a visiting dress for the doll — and then I couldn’t find the doll, after it was on exhibit at FIT. I had used a pattern for the hoopskirt from the Newark Museum. But Evelyn (Evelyn Gordon who is doing the sale) found the doll. I told her I was looknig for a doll from 1868. I brought her home, I didn’t leave her there to sell.”

….

I just came back from the first day of the sale — it was stand-in-line-only, for an hour, in order to get in the house. But from here on, you will be able to get in. I came away with a magnifying glass on a gooseneck stand, a Terrible Towel from the Pittsburgh Steelers, and $40 worth of jet beads for jewelry making. The house is chock full — there is plenty left..

Sashihara Says ‘Optimize’

Uncategorized

Optimization has its roots in “optimism,” originally defined as “doing the most good at the cost of least evil.” Today, says Steve Sashihara, it implies an active search for the best. “What we are doing is the practical best based on available data,” he says. He speaks at the Princeton Regional Chamber on Wednesday, April 18, at 7:30 a.m. 

Optimization often gets confused with strategy, says Sashihara, an author, the founder of Princeton Consultants, and the subject of a U.S. 1 cover story in August  Strategy is what high level executives use to make major decisions, but optimization works on any level. 


He sees optimization opportunities everywhere, and this could be the key to his success. Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David J. Linden defines a successful leader as someone with a physical addiction to it — the feeling of success in improving something, to never be satisfied with the status quo.

“I don’t characterize myself as indomitable but I don’t give up,” he says. “When people have a view that they are in the wrong place, I say, ‘if it is not as good as it should be, you can make the party happen where you are.’ This world view is a gift from my parents and grandparents — a nice positive way of looking at life. “

The root of optimization, after all, is optimism.


(Sashihara’s name is pronounced with the accent on third syllable). 



This Just In: April 17 Speaker Now New Avon CEO

Uncategorized


ANNOUNCED TODAY, April 16: THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: why are we not surprised?


Johnson and Johnson missed its chance to have a female CEO, Dartmouth alumna Sheri McCoy.   The pharma company’s loss is Avon’s gain — and McCoy will speak next Tuesday, April 17, 4:30 p.m.  at the Carl A. Fields Center. 


Sheri McCoy (left) was slated — no doubt long ago — to speak at the Keller Center on the 17th. She had been in the horse race — competing with Alex Gorsky — to replace William Weldon at the top job at Johnson & Johnson.  Gorsky (a West Point graduate with a Wharton MBA) won in February. 

 On Monday McCoy (a chemist from UMass-Dartmouth, with a master’s from Princeton and an MBA from Rutgers) was named to replace Princeton alumna Andrea Jung as Avon’s CEO. Jung remains as board chairman

I liked Jung when I heard her speak at the Rothman Institute in 2009 (right), and her plans to storm overseas markets sounded good then — but apparently they didn’t work out.    Here are the details of McCoy’s talk, as listed by the Keller Center. I’m wondering if they will need to change the venue to a bigger space! 
      
Perspectives on Leading Through Change
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. in the Carl A. Fields Center Room 104 (campus map)
The School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Keller Center are pleased to host the G. S. Beckwith Gilbert ’63 Lecture with Sheri S. McCoy *82, Vice Chairman, Executive Committee, Johnson & Johnson. Sheri began her Johnson & Johnson career in 1982 as a scientist in the research and development organization supporting the Consumer women’s health business. In her most recent at Johnson & Johnson, Sheri led the organization through a period of significant product launches, acquisitions and partnerships, and pipeline advances, while managing through significant loss of patent exclusivity. She is a passionate advocate for diversity of thought, leadership development, employee engagement and customer focus. This lecture is open to the public and a reception will follow. 

Small Biz and Universities: Perfect Together? Maybe Not

Uncategorized

Find out how your company, or a company you work for, can more effectively collaborate with a university on Sunday, April 22, 6 to 9 p.m.in Princeton.  
“Challenges for Small Businesses Interacting with Universities” will be held in Bowen Hall, 70 Prospect Avenue, (just down from Olden Street). This seminar costs $35 and kicks off the the University Industry Demonstration Partnership meeting scheduled for April 23-25 at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, NJ. 
The program is posted at collaborationreference.eventbrite.com.“We are fortunate to have experienced UIDP members, representatives from New Jersey entrepreneur networks, institutions supporting job growth in New Jersey and the Governor’s office speak at the event,” says Judith Sheft of NJIT. Contact jdapprich@uidp.net or Judith.Sheft@NJIT.EDU with any questions. 


This “interacting with universities” event – unusual because it’s on a Sunday – is cosponsored by the Keller Center, which is also co-sponsoring four more programs this month. The first is theoretically on technology but it brings in that scary subject “Ethics.”  As listed by the Keller Center: 

Governing Science: Technological Progress, Ethical Norms, and Democracy
Friday, April 13 and Saturday, April 14, 2012 in Lewis Library 120 on the Princeton University Campus (campus map)
The James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, with the co-sponsorship of the Bouton Law Lecture Fund, the KellerCenter, and the University Center for Human Values, is pleased to announce a conference on Governing Science: Technological Progress, Ethical Norms, and Democracy. The conference will address both theoretical and practical considerations involving the scientific enterprise. Participating scholars represent a variety of disciples–theoretical physics, philosophy of science, medicine, political science, history, and ethics. The conference is open to the public. Please visit this link to view the complete program and schedule of talks.

Those who were convinced that employee engagement matters when Kevin Kruse spoke at the Princeton Regional Chamber breakfast will want to hear Sheri McCoy on April 17. Those who want to work for Avon will want to hear McCoy as well. McCoy is listed below as an executive scientist working for J&J; but she has just been named to replace Andrea Jung as Avon’s CEO.
Perspectives on Leading Through Change
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. in the Carl A. Fields CenterRoom 104 (campus map)
The School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Keller Center are pleased to host the G. S. Beckwith Gilbert ’63 Lecture with Sheri S. McCoy *82, Vice Chairman, Executive Committee, Johnson & Johnson. Sheri began her Johnson & Johnson career in 1982 as a scientist in the research and development organization supporting the Consumer women’s health business. In her most recent at Johnson & Johnson, Sheri led the organization through a period of significant product launches, acquisitions and partnerships, and pipeline advances, while managing through significant loss of patent exclusivity. She is a passionate advocate for diversity of thought, leadership development, employee engagement and customer focus. This lecture is open to the public and a reception will follow. 

Do you use your iPad with a tinge of guilt? Get the story behind the story on the  on Chinese subcontracting practices, as seen in this New York Times article on Apple/Foxconn. 
Ethics and Social Responsibility in Supply Chain Management Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 7 p.m. in A224 Engineering Quad (campus map)
The Princeton University Chapter of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will host a panel discussion with Dave Nelson, former Senior Vice President of Purchasing and Corporate Affairs for Honda Motor Company, and Jay Benziger, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University. The purpose of the talk is to raise student awareness about the field of supply chain management and its ethical implications, and how this field has evolved over the last ten years, and where it is headed in the future.

A Stanford organizational behavior expert suggests that “the way things are done” in any particular company will affect how — or whether — a young company grows and prospers. 
How do Work Environments Shape Entrepreneurial Transitions?
Monday, April 23, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the Friend Center Convocation Room (campus map)The Graduate School, Butler College, and the Keller Center are pleased to welcome Stanford Professor of Organizational Behavior Jesper Sørensen to the Princeton University campus on Monday, April 23, 2012. Sørensen, a sociologist who specializes in studying the dynamics of both organizations and careers, will be the third and final speaker in the series “The Power of E: Advancing the Boundaries of Entrepreneurship”, which aims to promote cross-disciplinary and undergraduate-graduate dialogue on social issues through an entrepreneurial lens. The talk will be followed by a light reception and networking.

By the way, the J in his first name is pronounced like Y. 

Bullying: The Bystander’s Dilemma

Uncategorized

What do you do when you see a bully mistreat a child? How can you, a parent, help your child deal with bullying? What can you say to the parent who bullies his child on the soccer field? What about the workplace bully — yes, bullying does take place in the workplace.

Tonight at the Princeton Public Library, through interactive drama and discussion, adults and young people will explore the internal conflicts that bystanders experience when they witness bullying or other mistreatment.

The program will include five short theatrical events, with time for discussion. This collaborative experiential event is co-sponsored by Corner House’s Project GAIA, Princeton Not in Our Town, HiTOPS, the Princeton Public Library, and Kidsbridge Tolerance Museum. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt is scheduled to speak.

You are invited!