Quick, what was the best holiday present you ever received?

Was it something homemade or perhaps a trip for two to Hawaii? Maybe it was an autographed Tom Brady football?

Greg Segall, the CEO of Alyce, was stumped when asked this question, but claimed his favorite present of all-time – well technically the ‘coolest thing’ he ever received was a custom-made Van Halen piece of art.

“That gift blew me away,” Segall said of his Van Halen artwork. “I love Van Halen and that was such a cool piece because it was all in 3-D and it was so neat, so I always think about that particular gift.”

Unfortunately, Van Halen fans may not be able to find Segall’s custom made artwork through his current company, but they can utilize his service’s gifting platform to match their customers and employees with the perfect gift using social data.

Alyce opened its doors roughly a year ago with an initial plan of being a referral application, not a gifting service. However, the idea quickly changed, thanks to friends of Segall who experimented with his application and felt the ‘gifting’ feature, an option that was part of his original product, could be something businesses could utilize when identifying gifts for co-workers or bosses, especially around the holidays.

“I slapped together a bunch of wireframes and took out all of my friends that worked in agencies in Boston and asked them, ‘hey, can you click through this application and tell me what you think?’ And only two out of 10 of them really cared and liked the original idea,” said Segall.

“However, 10 out of 10 of them said, ‘oh man, that gifting thing is awesome and if you could just remind me to send a referral gift and also tell me exactly what to send, that would be awesome.’

“So, that was when all of a sudden we went from this idea of a referral app to basically scrapping that whole thing to flipping into a ‘gifting’ idea, and we did two more weeks of research and that was how Alyce came to life.”

Identifying the perfect gift through Alyce

Like all of us, finding that perfect present for bosses or co-workers can be challenging, especially if you vaguely know the individual.

Luckily, Alyce can assist, thanks to an easy process. Alyce users begin the process by typing in the recipients’ information and budget before the Artificial-Intelligence system sifts through thousands of options before presenting three ideal gifts. Once you have selected the ‘perfect present,’ you can then add a personal message via email or a hand-written note, while scheduling a specific delivery date to the recipient.

As for the recipient, they have the option to either accept, exchange or donate the gift privately – consider it a present that will never be re-gifted, as noted on the company’s website.    

Said Segall, “The whole key to Alyce is if we can create a system where you as the gift giver look like a rock star, then we have done our job.

“Alyce can assist with finding and suggesting three gifts you can send to an individual that are going to be around their interest, and the more information we have about the recipient, the better chance we have to gift something amazing that is 100 times better than the bar that is currently set for corporate gifting now.”  

Andres Alayza, the company’s Growth Marketing Lead, emphasized Segall’s point in a recent blog post on the company’s website where he wrote that ’70% of people want a gift that has been uniquely matched based on their interest.’

He continued writing; most people would rather not receive generic gifts like a fruit basket or corporate swag. 7 out of 10 people (70.22%) want to receive a gift that has been uniquely picked for them, based on their personal interests.

With the assistance of Alyce, along with its three-step process, one is guaranteed to identify the ideal present that will amaze their recipient.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

What really is the secret to Alyce is its teamwork and devotion to the model of finding the right gift?    

“The team we built features just so many passionate folks,” said Segall. “They come from all walks of life … but we toppled together this team that is really passionate about not only gifting, but also the vision of the organization.”

Segall’s team has helped Alyce grow leaps and bounds over the past year, attracting multiple companies in and around the Boston area, as well as outside New England utilize its services. And with the holiday season in full-bloom, Alyce will be the perfect stop for everyone that has a boss or co-worker on his or her list.

“Every day we get people forwarding ‘thank-you notes’ so that is where we step back and say that’s awesome,” said Segall.

Matt Noonan is a contributor to VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter: @MattNoonan11.

David Beisel is a Partner at NextView Ventures, a firm he co-founded with Lee Hower and Rob Go in 2010. They noticed a funding gap for early stage companies, who needed seed capital, but also the same foundation and support that a typical VC firm would provide.

David's impact on the Boston tech ecosystem goes beyond providing entrepreneurs with capital, as he is also the founder of Boston Innovators Group (BIG, formerly known as WebInno).  BIG is one of the largest, must attend events in the startup community with a very impressive alumni list of companies who have presented (Dropbox, Birchbox, Reddit, and many more).

Keith Cline:  Tell us about your background.  

David Beisel:  I was born in Pittsburgh, PA and grew up there most of my childhood (except for a few years in Calgary, Canada and Washington DC suburbs).  I chose to go to Duke University for undergrad (a 7.5 hour drive from Pittsburgh) because of parental limitations on “going to college within a day’s drive from home,” and also because it was a great school - I felt like the culture was collaborative versus some other schools where the students could be competitive and cutthroat.  I started out studying engineering, because I was good at math, but it didn’t end up being the right fit for me.  So, I switch my major to economics because there was a good balance between qualitative and quantitative thinking, which if you think of it, applies to what I do today as a venture capitalist.

KC:  What did you do for work right out of college?

DB:  I joined Parthenon Group, a strategy consulting firm here in Boston, as an Associate.  The do a great job at explicitly hiring people with three traits: smart, nice, and hungry.  I am proud to be part of the alumni network today which is very impressive.

KC:  What led you to the point of starting your own company, Sombasa Media?

DB:  It was at Parthenon where I met two of the three co-founders for Sombasa, a consumer facing email marketing company.  It was the late 90’s and lots of startups were emerging.  Together, we ended up building a company that was focused on email newsletters which offered sales, deals and promotions.  We raised $1.1M from what was then called CommonAngels and shortly thereafter, we successfully sold the company in the year 2000 to About.com.  Our most popular email newsletter was BargainDog.com, which grew to 5 million registered members.

One of my co-founders was Josh Schanker, who is now the Founder & CEO of BookBub, a company where I’m an investor and a board member.  Another co-founder was Elliot Shmukler, who is now the VP, Product at Instacart.

KC:  What prompted you to attend business school at Stanford?

DB:  After the About.com acquisition, I took a year and a half off and landed in Vail, Colorado, where I became a children’s ski instuctor for a winter.  Besides being a venture capitalist, that could be the best job in the world.

I also took some time to cycle solo and unsupported from the southwest tip of England to the northeast tip of Scotland (known as “Land’s End to John O’Groats.”)  My journey was about 1,500 miles and it took me a month to complete it.  Overall, it was a great experience.  It was an adventure because I didn’t have a plan - each day I would just roll into a town and figure out where I was going to stay that night.  The irony is that it kind of burnt me out on cycling and I haven’t ridden much since.

I went on to attend Stanford with the intent of starting another company out of business school.

KC:  How did you get into the venture capital industry by joining Masthead Venture Partners as a Principal?  What portfolio companies did you work with there?

DB:  Rich Levandov (now a partner at Avalon Ventures) was on the board for my previous company.  They had just raised a fund at Masthead Venture Partners and asked me to join the firm coming out of Stanford GSB.  I thought the experience would be perfect for helping me to either launch my own next company or maybe join one of their portfolio companies.

I had never really intended to be a VC because I really saw myself as an entrepreneur, but by three years later, I realized how much I enjoyed the role.  It was at that time I was recruited by Mike Tyrell to join Venrock.

Both Rich and Mike have been exceptional mentors to me, as venture is very much an apprentice business.  They both have two different investment styles.  Rich is intuitive, while Mike is very analytically driven.  Both firms were also at different stages, which was useful for me too.  Masthead was just getting off the ground and Venrock had been around for 40 years with institutionalized best practices.  I still am in regular touch with both Rich and Mike, and they are investors in our fund at NextView Ventures.

KC:  You are the founder and organizer of Boston Innovators Group, formerly known as Web Innovators Group. What led you down the path of creating this organization which has become a must attend event each quarter?

DB:  I moved back to Boston in 2004 and when I told people that I was an internet entrepreneur, they looked at me like I was cross-eyed.  At that point in time, everyone thought the internet was over, but I knew that wasn’t the case.  I couldn’t find any events to attend and meet other like-minded people, so I invited a dozen people to Tavern on the Square in Cambridge.  We just huddled in the back room and discussed different ideas for starting web companies.

Word spread and the next time we gathered, there was two-dozen people and then 50 people at the next event.  Eventually it became the largest tech gathering in Boston and it just happened organically, as I never intended on creating this massive group.  

A lot has changed since.  If you look across the Boston landscape, there are lots of different events happening every night, which is great for the ecosystem.

KC:  After spending over six years in the VC industry, why did you and your partners start a new seed stage investment firm called NextView Ventures?

DB:  I knew my partners, Rob Go and Lee Hower, individually before starting the firm.  We decided to start NextView because we noticed two trends:

1. Starting companies required less capital.

2. Venture capital firms were raising larger and larger funds, which meant they needed to write larger checks.

Thus, we noticed a mismatch around earlier, seed stage investing where a firm could lead the round and have the same conviction behind the founder like traditional VC firms did.

In 2010, we started working together by investing our own money and made 10 investments.  In 2011, we closed our first fund, which is $21M.  Today, we are investing out of our second $40M fund, which we announced in the summer of 2014.

Since inception, we’ve invested in 57 companies, with just under half based in Boston and one-third in NYC, where we have a second office and a Principal located.  Our investments are split fairly evenly between consumer web & mobile and B2B.

We’ve been fortunate to have three $100M exits over the past few years: GradCAD (Cambridge) was acquired by Stratasys; Sunrise (NYC) was acquired by Microsoft; and TapCommerce (NYC) was acquired by Twitter.

KC:  What are the top traits you look for in terms of investing into a company or founder?

DB:  The biggest thing we look for is authenticity in a founder.  Are they starting a company that was born out of their own true experiences or does the founder have the right fit in terms of his or her background to disrupt an industry.

For example, Eliot Buchanan is the founder of one of our portfolio companies called Plastiq.  The idea came from a problem his dad was experiencing trying to pay for his college tuition from outside the U.S.  Another example is Eric Groves, co-founder of Alignable, who spent several years at Constant Contact and built out a tremendous amount of expertise for the SMB market.

KC:  What sectors of technology, industries, or trends are of interest to you?

DB:  Each of us at NextView are generalists.  We consider ourselves seed-stage specialists, as opposed to domain specialists, but I tend to focus on eCommerce, SaaS, and marketing tech.

Recently, I’ve been doing a deep exploration into “voice as a user interface.”  Tech is moving towards an ever-present voice input computing layer via Amazon’s Alexa, Apple AirPods, Google Home, etc.  There are lots of applications for the voice driven computing layer which are going to be uniquely available.  Plus, there will be a need for a supporting technology layer for the development of those applications.  We haven’t yet announced any investments in this category, but if you fast forward, I bet we’ll have more than a couple over the next couple of years.

KC:  Which investments are you involved in at NextView Ventures?

DB:  BookBub, which is one of Boston’s quietest fast-growing companies with over 9M members and over 75 employees.  Josh Schanker and I were co-founders at Sombasa Media and he’s now the CEO and Co-Founder of the company.  BookBub is solving a critical problem in the publishing industry, which was an authentic discovery by Josh and his partner Nick Ciarelli.

Another example, Renoviso, is disrupting the home renovation industry.  The founders are growth marketers with a tremendous amount of experience from successful companies like FlipKey, Constant Contact, and BuyerZone.

In NYC, I’ve led our investments in TapCommerce and Code Climate, which offers automated code review for software development teams.  I’ll have some more investments in NYC announced shortly.

KC:  You have been a very active investor in the Boston tech community for a long time.  What excites you about the Boston market and how has it evolved since you’ve been in the venture capital industry?

DB:  There’s been some great progress towards openness which didn’t exist when I moved back here in 2004.  If someone arrives in the Boston tech scene today, things feel a lot different and the tech community is very welcoming of other people.  Plus, there are easier ways to navigate through the Boston tech scene with VentureFizz, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Boston Tech, and Jeff Bussgang’s Boston tech presentation.

Although there has been progress, I still feel like we could be doing an even better job at helping first time founders raise capital and making the local angel investment community more accessible.  It has definitely improved, but we still have a way to go.

KC:  Which companies outside of your portfolio in the Boston area do you find interesting?

DB:  I think Quantopian is very interesting in terms of how they are democratizing Wall Street and the hedge fund industry.

KC:  Greatest misses - what company(ies) have you passed on that you wish you hadn’t?

DB:  For me, it was Dropbox and Birchbox.  Both companies participated at Web Innovators Group and I did spend some time with Drew Houston and evaluating Dropbox as an investment.  We as a community (Boston investors) definitely let that one get away.

KC:  Outside of being a VC, what are you personal interests or activities?

DB:  I’m married and have three kids - 4.5 year old son and a set of 3 year old twins.  I’m an avid runner and I love skiing in the winter.

KC:  What type of music do you like?  

DB:  I tend to listen to a lot of Indie music, bands like Whitney and Pine Grove.  Although, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I have been listening to more and more country music recently.  My kids enjoy singing along.

I’m probably the most avid listener of music in my firm, but the irony is that I have a strong bias against making investments into music startups.  It is such a tough industry to crack.

Keith Cline is the founder of VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.

In today’s modern era of connected web services, APIs, and apps, why is it that personalized recommendations are still a siloed, homebuilt solution for media companies?

If you have an account on Amazon, Pandora, iTunes, Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, or any other service, you have to train each one to learn your personal tastes.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a product where you could plug into new services andmagically, it would already know what you like or don’t like? Imagine if you signed up for a new account on Hulu and it immediately started recommending the right TV shows for you.

THE HISTORY OF MATCHMINE

The history of the company and technology goes back to some work that was being done by the New England Patriots organization. The Patriots have always been on the cutting edge in terms of how they leveraged technology and digital media to improve the fan experience. The organization was the first professional sports team to launch an official website and then offer streaming video.  

Trent Adams, who was the Chief Innovator of the Kraft Group Sports Properties, originally came up with the idea to connect people to things they found interesting through an attribute-based system. Most recommendation systems work via collaborative filtering, meaning if a lot of people like A, B, and C, and you find someone else who likes A and B, they’re likely to like C as well. Collaborative filtering is popular because it’s easy. The algorithm doing the predicting doesn’t need to know anything about the particular items it’s recommending, just who likes what.

An attribute-based system takes the opposite approach, relying on a pre-determined schema of “attributes” for each and every item in the consideration set, and using an algorithm to spot patterns in the data that have predictive value. Pandora’s music genome project is an example. So is the system created by Boston-based Echo Nest, acquired by Spotify in 2014.

Adams pitched the idea to Jonathan Kraft, who liked the idea and wanted to commercialize it.

Mike Troiano was then signed on as the company’s CEO. Troiano remembers meeting with Jonathan Kraft, Robert Kraft, and Adams to discuss this new spin-off company. After exploring more of the details on the idea and technology, Troiano decided that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

The next steps was then focused on figuring out how to make the technology work and how to build out a business model.

MatchMine added Jim Butler as CTO and VP of Engineering, then Scott Oddo as VP of Science to help commercialize Adam’s model and build a platform around it. Troiano and his team focused on figuring out the market and revenue opportunities.

“There was a big network effect in the underlying science, in that the more data we had, the better at predicting preference we would become,” said Troiano. “To get up the curve faster we hit on the idea of embedding the technology on different third party sites, and set out on a biz dev exercise to sign them up.”

Here's a flashback video which explains the product:

 

The company launched at the DEMO Conference in the Fall of 2007 and quickly earned buzz as a promising technology. It landed pilots with media sites like Fuzz, FilmCrave, and Peerflix to replace homegrown recommendation systems that were typically cobbled together. MatchMine’s platform gave them a much better solution with better recommendations for consumers, leading to more deals with MediaMellon, Blogdigger and Odeo (the Evan Williams/Jack Dorsey startup that was the precursor to Twitter).

On the business side of the equation, MatchMine would make money by allowing publishers the ability to deliver highly targeted ad impressions to consumers and MatchMine would take a percentage of the revenue. CNET’s Rafe Needleman covered the story, saying the company now had both an underlying technology and a business model that made sense.

One of the key value propositions for consumers was MatchMine’s respect to one’s privacy. Although MatchMine knew a lot about what you liked, it didn’t know who you were, having deliberately excluded personally identifiable information (PII) from the MatchKey. Back then, the social media landscape was still emerging and consumers were not accustomed to sharing personal details with websites.

MatchMine went on to raise $10M from the Kraft Group in September 2007 and the team grew to about 45 employees. The company’s VP of Marketing, Michelle Heath, has fond memories of the company.

“It was an interesting challenge to market something that was abstract," said Heath. "You couldn’t touch it or hold it, but your MatchKey was something you could interact with digitally."

The company had a lot of momentum, but there was a major factor outside of its control which would ultimately bring it down: the financial crisis of 2008. The credit crunch hit every industry, while the infamous R.I.P. Good Times slidedeck from Sequoia Capital made the rounds across the tech industry. A tough decision was made to shut down MatchMine.

It was an incredibly difficult time for Troiano. Based on the circumstances at hand, he tried to handle the situation as humanely as possible. He went on to write a blog post about the final day of the company and included links to the team, hoping that other companies would scoop them up quickly.

“Although it didn’t determine our outcome, we were wrong about how people felt about privacy," Troiano said, looking back. "It turned out consumers were happy to share their personal info on the internet, which facebook first proved and then took advantage of to great effect.

"We aspired to assemble a slide of the advertising juggernaut they built, but pulled the plug before we really got rolling," he added.

There are still times when I think back about MatchMine and the MatchKey I had set up. Although I didn’t have enough time to build an emotional attachment to it, I do believe the technology was very meaningful and I’m surprised another solution hasn’t solved this problem of personalize recommendations. It would be a much better experience for consumers. Viva la MatchMine...

---

Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz.  Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.

Images via Michelle Heath and the Internet Archive.

Sarah Hodges recently joined the venture capital industry by joining Pillar a couple of months ago. Pillar is a new VC firm in the Boston area launched by Jamie Goldstein. Over the years, Sarah has made her mark on the Boston tech scene in many different ways. From playing a key role in high growth companies like Carbonite, RunKeeper, and Smarterer... to bring the Boston tech community together through events and charitable organizations. Sarah is also a co-founder of Intelligent.ly, Boston's source for leadership development. 

Keith Cline:  Tell us about your background. Where did you grow up and how did you end up at Scripps College in California?

KC:  Tell us about your experience as a Partner at Pavo Real, a women’s clothing company.

The store was born in 1978 from a Faneuil Hall push cart, and the founders were based in Boston. When I joined, the owners were slowly closing the retail stores, but the timing was ripe to bring the business online. They took a huge chance on me as a fresh-faced kid straight out of college, and made me a partner in the company. I moved to Boston, where we had a small shop on Newbury Street.

I launched our eCommerce and direct mail business, and reignited the production of our own clothing line in Lima, Peru. Lima really became a second home for me during those years. I miss so much about that city - my friends, the food, running on the Malecon, and learning about yarns in factories run by an amazing group of women. The experience was a truly wonderful opportunity to learn the ropes of of launching a new business, and I was grateful for mentorship from my partner, Mindy Brush.

KC:  What brought you to Carbonite, then to RunKeeper and Smarterer?

I sure was hungry for the experience of learning from a growing company, and proved him wrong in the end. We had a powerhouse team of operators, and I was fortunate to learn from people like Swami, and Ivana Flodr, and Rebecca Van Nederynen (who went on to help grow Help Scout). When a company is growing that quickly, you have no choice but to roll up your sleeves and learn on the go. Everyone on the team had a strong worth ethic, and it was exciting to see what we were able to accomplish together.

When I started at Carbonite, I loved the breadth of responsibility that came with working in an early-stage startup. As the company continued to grow and each of our roles became more specialized, I started to feel constrained. I was ready for a change, and met the CEO of RunKeeper, Jason Jacobs, through a good friend, Aaron White, who was doing contract work for the company. My intent wasn’t to leave Carbonite at that point, but as soon as I met Jason, I was immediately consumed by his passion for RunKeeper and his vision for the future of the company. I was running half-marathons at the time, so the opportunity to lead marketing at a running company seemed too good to be true. When I met the rest of the team, including my now good friend, Jake Cacciapaglia, it was a no-brainer. I was employee number nine at RunKeeper, and the time we spent together was pure magic.

KC:  What prompted you to start Intelligent.ly?

Jennifer and I immediately went home and built a website, Twitter handle and Facebook page for the Dave Balter Tech Prom. By 8 am the next morning, a reporter was calling Dave to get the scoop; we hit him like a freight-train. He was bewildered, and could barely remember having met us!

Naturally, Jen, Dave and I roped Cort and Mike Troiano into forming a prom committee. In 30 days, we raised money and threw the 80s prom of a lifetime, complete with corsages, letterman’s jackets, and branded flasks. As luck would have it, Travis Kalacanik, Uber’s CEO, and Austin Geidt, who led expansion, were in town before the event, and stopped by the RunKeeper office, where I was working. Tech Prom became Uber’s launching pad in Boston. The night of the event, we looked around in awe; together in one room were over 500 members of the startup community - experienced entrepreneurs, startup newbies, and investors. The whole experience was a trip.

A few months later, Dave and I were still high from the experience of collaborating. He approached me about consulting for a company he’d founded, Smarterer. Mike Kowalchik, Dave’s co-founder, immediately won me over. Mike’s a brilliant technologist, and was erupting with passion for the business. Before long, a few month consulting gig turned several years on the management team in roles spanning marketing, operations and strategy. Dave, Mike and I went through the emotional highs and lows of building that company with a truly exceptional team, and came out on the other side of it as family.

Four years later, the company has evolved into a leadership development company, with Gabriela McManus at the helm as Executive Director. Through programs like Exchange, for new managers, and EMERGE, for high-potential individual contributors, we’ve impacted over 1,000 leaders from over 50 Boston companies. It’s still a mind-blower for me.

KC:  You were an advisor to Flybridge Capital Partners, can you share more about your role there?

KC  Why did you join the venture capital industry and join Pillar?

I resigned in March, with the plan to stay on through June, and take the summer off to recharge. Then I met Jamie Goldstein, Pillar’s founder.

I’d given a lot of thought to what I wanted to do next, and a few things were clear. I was hungry for the sense of community I’d experienced connecting with so many entrepreneurs when I launched Intelligent.ly. I was eager to share the experience I’d gained with other entrepreneurs in the thick of scaling their own companies. I wanted to build something meaningful. Pillar checked every box.

Everything Jamie shared with me about his vision for rethinking venture resonated. I was fortunate to experience the support of so many wonderful investors - Boston Seed Capital, True Ventures, Google Ventures, Rethink - but I’d also seen some of the negative behaviors that have tarnished our industry’s brand. Jamie was taking the long view; he had surrounded himself with a world-class team of co-founding investors, and wasn’t shy about making short-term financial personal sacrifices to ensure that our entrepreneurs are aligned with the resources they need in the long run. I knew I wanted to build Pillar with him.

KC:  Can you tell us more about what the Access group is at Pillar?

SH:  We invest in early-stage companies, and prefer to be the first capital in. We believe we can be the most helpful and make the most meaningful impact if we align with an entrepreneur at the ground level.

KC:  What are the top traits you look for in terms of investing into a company or founder?

KC:  What sectors of technology, industries, or trends are of interest to you?

KC:  What is the current fund that you are investing from?

KC:  Who do you admire or who has been the greatest mentor for you?

KC:  Outside of your day to day work, what are your personal interests or activities?

SH:  I love to travel. I’m on a plane several times a month, whether it’s to catch a quick weekend in San Francisco or Florida, or to indulge in a longer trip to Italy or Amsterdam. Will travel for food and adventure. Two years ago, Dave and I rented a house in a remote village in southern Spain. We invited friends and spent the morning exploring surrounding towns, and afternoons working by the pool. I love that we live in a world where you can pick up your laptop and work from anywhere.

KC:  What was the last concert that you went to?  

SH:  The last concert I went to was a three-day run of the Phish tour in Denver. In fact, I went to eight Phish shows this summer. Dave has seen hundreds, and introduced me to the band a few years ago. In our first year together, we saw 16 shows! There is an entire set of people I only see when we’re on the road with Phish. I can’t begin to describe the feeling that takes over when the band takes the stage, the music lights up, and everything falls into place.

KC:  Are you involved in any charitable organizations?

SH:  Growing up, my grandfather was an episcopal priest who devoted himself to others. He was a big supporter of Habitat for Humanity, and the non-profit has deep personal meaning for me. Several years ago, Jeff Glass introduced me to BUILD, and I had the pleasure of serving on the board for a year. BUILD uses entrepreneurship to help at-risk students remain engaged in highschool, propelling them on to college success. Before joining the board, I attended their annual event, and heard a powerful story from a brave young BUILD student entrepreneur. Her courage was astounding, and I was hooked. More recently, I’ve gotten involved with Science from Scientists, an organization Erika Angle created to bring STEM education back into our schools, by deploying real scientists into classrooms.

With the cool air beginning to sweep through the east coast, the first signs of winter are upon us.  As many of my parent’s generation start to pack up their belongings and head south for the winter, so do the thousands of geese flocking to retreat from the bitter Canadian air.  Being ill at home today and watching the geese from my window, I reflected on how much those geese have in common with my work teams.  

Comparing geese to teams isn’t a new concept.  However, when considering them based on my own dealing with my teams during my absence, I was amazed to how much they truly do have in common. 

When Canadian geese fly, they form a v shaped flying pattern.  One goose takes center position, with the other geese flying close behind in two lines.  And just why exactly do they do this?  A few reasons.  Take a read, and see if your team measures up to these brilliant creatures. 

THEY PARTNER TOGETHER TO HELP THEIR BUDDIES

When geese fly together, each goose provides a bit of lift and reduces air resistance to the goose flying behind it.  When they fly in a v formation, the whole flock can fly about 70% farther than if they flew solo.  Greater distance, faster accomplishment, and less energy expended. Who doesn’t want that?

THEY REALIZE EVERYONE NEEDS A BREAK 

When one goose drops from the formation, it realizes quickly it takes a lot more energy to play catch up. It moves quickly to play catch up, and receive that lifting power from others. Whether a team member is ill, goes on vacation, or is just has an off week, sometimes people need to rely on their teams to keep the pace for them. However, most quickly realize they benefit from the comradery and energy that comes from being part of cohesive team.  

THEY TAKE TURNS

Taking the lead position can expend a lot of physical and mental energy. The goose at the center spends the most energy to provide that air lift for all the following geese. As is bound to happen, when the leader needs a break, it moves to the rear of the formation, where less energy is required.  Another goose takes on that leadership position, and so follows the rotation of leadership.  Much as with my own team this week, when I am down, someone else steps up.  Perhaps the best leader for the time is determined by strengths, or other experiences.  Perhaps they are just the best leader at the time.  Regardless, it’s great when your team is strong enough that everyone has the opportunity – and competence – to play both the leader and follower roles. 

THEY COMMUNICATE WELL

Geese make that rather annoying honking sound as they fly for a purpose; it’s how they communicate during their long journey.  Obviously, this communication is just as vital to team members as they are working together to accomplish a goal.  When strong communication fails to exist, the team often falls apart.  

THEY HAVE EACH OTHER’S BACKS

I will never forget driving down the highway one morning, trying to determine what the traffic jam was.  It was one goose who refused to leave the side of its partner, lying dead on the highway.  Apparently when one goose is injured, two other will stay behind to help protect them from predators until it is able to fly again – or until it passes on.  Similar to our own teams, we aid each other when one is not at our best.

I’ve got to admit, geese are not my favorite animal.  However, there is much to learn from their brilliant approach to teaming and partnership.  To my own team; thank you for picking up the slack when I was down.  May we all learn from those around us – even animals – who seem to have it all figured out.  Sometimes, even a little better than we humans do.  

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

Image via Pixabay

If you look at Larry Bohn investments at General Catalyst through the years, it's a who's who.

Do companies like HubSpot and Demandware ring a bell?  Yes, both companies went public and Demandware was recently acquired by Salesforce for $2.8B.  

Have you heard of Locu and Paydiant?  Both are Boston companies that were acquired over the past few years.  GoDaddy acquired Locu in 2013 and PayPal acquired Paydiant in 2015.  

How about the next wave of companies like Drift, NewStore, and Semantic Machines?

These are all companies that Larry has invested in and it isn't even the full list.  Needless to say, his track record speaks for itself.

Keith Cline:  Tell us about your background.

Larry Bohn:  I grew up in a suburb of Boston (Milton), went to public schools. My dad died when I was 17; he was a decorated airman in WWII. He was shot down over Romania and spent 18 months in a POW camp. When he returned, he ran a lunchonette in my uncle’s drug store.  My mom was a bookkeeper and after my dad died, she worked full time to support three kids. She later became a travel agent. The main thing I learned from this was that life is full of unpredictable challenges; you need to work hard and become independent, and your determination and resiliency is how you develop character. 

KC:  Per your bio on the General Catalyst website, it looks like you’ve had some interesting jobs before college (delivered groceries, drove a taxi, worked on a farm, was a short-order cook, and managed a pool hall).  Did you learn anything from these jobs that set down a foundation for later success?

LB:  I learned early that working with people of all types, learning to listen, being able to manage conflict, and providing excellent service goes a long way to being successful. I really enjoyed all the jobs I had (except for picking corn, which sucked). It gave me confidence in my ability to make money, to be independent, and to learn important lessons from many types of people.

KC:  What prompted you to study English at UMass Amherst for your undergraduate degree and then, complete your Masters in English Linguistics at Clark University?

LB:  I entered college at  a time of great volatility; Vietnam War, social division, etc. I was fortunate to be able to go to college on the GI bill as a "war orphan" as it was determined that my dad's death related to his war injuries.  I didn't really have a career goal other than a vague sense of wanting to be a teacher or professor. Everyone who studied business at the time was a dunce. I liked English for the intellectual challenge and I was a good writer. I was lucky enough to get a teaching fellowship at Clark University where I taught expository writing. It was great experience but I learned that if I wanted to be a college professor, I would need a PhD and I didn't have the stomach for it. So I got a job teaching writing and English at a junior college in Boston. After a year, I realized I was really capped in my career and wanted something different. I had two real skills; I was a talented writer and I had a knack for technical things. I had taken one Fortran programming course. So at the time, I was actually qualified to get a job in the nascent computer business.

KC:  Was your first job your of college at Data General?   

LB:  I landed a job as a software technical writer at Data General where I wrote manuals on how to operate and program 8 and 16 bit computers. My first masterpiece was called "How to Load and Generate your RDOS System"; it was a bit hit! Later, I became fascinated with computer programming and taught myself assembly language programming and a whole range of database technologies. This gave me a strong technical background to move on to technical and management roles at Digital and later Apollo computer, where I developed a software system for document retrieval and became sort of an expert in docoument production systems.

KC:  Tell us about the rest of your career before getting into venture capital.

LB:  While at Apollo I learned about a Cambridge software startup called Interleaf which was an MIT based company doing WYSIWYG document production software. I sort of fell in love with the product and later was recruited to be the VP Products and Marketing at the company. It was a terrific fit because I was very much the "voice of the customer" and was able to lead the product team to become the leader in the space. It was an amazing ride, from a small team to a sizeable public company and it forever gave me the startup itch.

This was at the very beginning of things that created the web, like XML, the rise of PCs, networks, etc.  I ran almost all the different functions at different times at Interleaf and it gave me the confidence and desire to want to run my own company. I got recruited to become President of a startup in the document management space, PC Docs, which was headquartered in Tallahassee Florida and was owned by a Canadian company. My job was to move the company to Boston where there was better talent and to grow the company. Most of the employees in Tallahassee where students at FSU, and I was able to convince them to move to Boston in February!

The company hit a great vein of opportunity, riding the growth of PC networks, Microsoft SQL, etc. We catapulted to the #1 position in the market and after the second year we did a US public offering. It was an amazing and exhausting experience, and two years later another Canadian company, Hummingbird, acquired the company.

I was fortunate at the time to be able to take 10 months off and look for my next opportunity. During that time I met with a number of startups and I was very focused on finding an emerging internet application company. By chance, I was introduced to a very small MIT startup called NetGenesis which had a web analytics product. There were about a dozen people in the company but I really liked the two founders, Matt Cutler  and Eric Richards. They had the beginnings of an interesting product but really lacked the go-to-market skills. Over a couple years, we worked hard to become the leader in the enterprise space, took the company public in 2001, and had a billion dollar market cap for about a month before the market crashed.  The next 18 months of running the company were really tough; we retrenched, had layoffs, but were fortunate to sell the company to SPSS software in 2002 in what was a horrific M&A market.  Again, I took some time off, was pretty burned out, but got a call from an old friend, David Orfao who was just starting a new venture firm in Boston and was looking for some help.  

KC:  How you did you get into venture capital and join General Catalyst?

LB:  As a CEO, I had worked with venture folks and had flirted with the idea of changing roles. After selling NetGenesis I was looking for a change and joined General Catalst (GC) as a Venture Partner which is a good transition role. GC was just getting started; I really loved the startup nature of the firm and the motto of "entrepreneurs investing in entrepreneurs." Very soon, I made a couple of investments and my first one, Venetica, got sold to IBM after 14 months and I said "wow, this is easy"; what a false positive!

KC:  How has venture capital changed or evolved over the almost seventeen years you’ve spent as an investor?

LB:  I think the biggest change is that because of a number of technologic innovations (cloud computing, SaaS, mobile, etc) companies can get started and grow initially on much less capital, so venture tends to see companies that are already formed and starting to scale. When I first was in the business it took several million dollars just to get started.  So the advent of seed funds, incubators, etc., has been a good thing overall and we get to see companies at the next stage of scaling. I also think the business has become increasingly specialized as the most successful venture investors have deep knowledge of certain areas and can be more helpful to startups as they understand their challenges and opportunities. For example, I focus on enterprise and B2B software and while I have lots of opinions on the consumer side, I know that my focus on commerce, SaaS, and analytics, gives me an advantage to source deals and benefit companies I invest in. 

KC:  How about Boston, how has the ecosystem evolved since then?

LB:  I think Boston is a terrific environment for startups and technology but we have to realize that we are not the center of gravity. Silicon Valley and SF are clearly the leaders here. Boston has great strengths in software (SaaS, analytics, mobile, commerce, etc) and certainly the biotech sector is premier.  But some areas like internet infrastructure are more challenged and we are weaker in consumer technologies.  This has resulted from not having enough big internet companies where the most advanced technologies are being developed and brought to market and where teams spin out to create the next great thing. I don't obsess or fret about this. Boston has great universities, superb talent, and a long term startup and innovation culture. So while today we may feel a bit underappreciated, I see companies like HubSpot, KAYAK, Demandware, etc. spinning out startups that will become terrific companies in the future. 

KC:  What stage of investments do you primarily target?

LB:  I have been almost exclusively a Series A investor, which means I back founders and teams very early. It's only now that I contemplate doing things slightly later stage, like Series B or C.  

KC:  What are the top traits you look for in terms of investing into a company or founder?

LB:  I have a pretty simple rubric for a founder:

• Has great domain expertise and has "over the horizon radar" in the space they are persuing. 
• Is personally magnetic and can recruit and build a terrific team.
• Is relentless in their pursuit of building something significant.
• Is resilient and can recover from hardship and failure.
• Is team oriented, and wants to build something lasting and bigger than themselves. 

KC:  What sectors of technology, industries, or trends are of interest to you?

LB:  I am very focused on SaaS, including commerce, marketing and sales technologies, and the range of analytic applications. I tend to be "up the stack" in terms of where I focus. I'm also very interested in various AI applications both fully automated and human assisted. And I try to ground my investment focus on areas where I believe we can make money.

KC:  What is the current fund that you are investing from?

LB:  We are currently investing out of GC 8, which is an $850M fund that is both early stage and transformational growth. 

KC:  You are a very active investor in Boston companies such as Drift, NewStore, Semantic Machines, and several others. What excites you about the current market in Boston?

LB:  As I mentioned, Boston has great entrepreneurs and innovation areas. I think we are especially blessed with deeper software technologies like AI, and application areas that are ripe for disruption. The amazing ecosystem in healthcare also gives us fertile soil for healthcare IT/data/etc. And there's every kind of oddball inventing the next great mobile game, cloud app, or mobile widgit.

KC:  A lot of your previous investments have been successful leading to an exit, recent examples include HubSpot, Demandware, Locu, Paydiant, etc.  Looking back, are there any common traits about these companies that led them to a successful acquisition?

LB:  These companies were led by great founders and entrepreneurs who had the characteristics I mentioned earlier. And they have been blessed by both timing and luck. 

KC:  What companies in Boston, outside of your portfolio, do you find interesting?  

LB:  I am a big fan of Wayfair (I buy stuff from them), DataXu (amazing ad tech platform) and Rocket Software (the $500M revenue company no one has ever heard of).

KC:  Greatest misses - what companies have you passed on that you wish you hadn’t?

LB:

• Applause: I screwed it up
• MongoDB: I was a moron
• Zendesk: I was a moron

KC:  Who do you admire or who has been the greatest mentor for you?

LB:  Really so many people. My grad school advisor, Dr. James Macris, was someone who had a rare mix of intellectual curiosity and hard knuckle practicality. And he believed in me.

KC:  Outside of being a VC, what are you personal interests or activities?

LB:  I am an avid cyclist, being an 18 year rider in the Pan-Mass Challenge. I am an occasional woodworker and I like to read a lot. 

KC:  What type of music do you like?  What was the last concert that you went to?  OR… what was the last book that you read or movie that you saw?

LB:  I tend to be trapped in music of the 70s/80s. Last two concerts were the ABBA reunion and Bruce Springsteen.  The last book I read was “Truck Full of Money” which was just released and profiles by good buddy, Paul English.

KC:  Are you involved in any charitable organizations?

LB:  Through the PMC, I am a big supporter of Dana Farber. My wife works with and we are supporters of Facing History.  We are founding members of the Arlington Education Fund.  Also, I consider some of what I do as a VC to be a form of charitable giving:)

Keith Cline is the founder of VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.

Like many Americans, I watched the presidential debate this week like I was watching a movie from the Saw franchise: I knew it was going to scare the hell out of me, but I sat back in stunned horror nonetheless.

It was a difficult thing to explain to my teenage daughters why these two adults were intent on sabotaging each other and eager to attack the other’s point of view in such a harsh manner. I did my best to explain that, despite the nastiness of the debate, something beautiful did exist. Put simply, I shared that the notion that these two people could speak their minds and beliefs freely, leaving us – the citizens - to determine the best choice to lead. 

To embrace the freedom our country was founded on is a great responsibility each of us over the age of 18 has the right to possess. So regardless of my political leanings, I feel it my personal responsibility to vote. And I can’t understand why anyone would choose not to.

Conversely, workplaces are not run by a democracy, though most organizations are savvy enough to solicit feedback and opinions from their trusted team members. Do you know how to find your voice and speak up? Do you find yourself concerned about offending someone with your ideas? Maybe looking silly because you don’t have full information? Of course, sometimes it makes sense to bite your tongue. 

Despite your fear, here are four reasons why you should let your voice be heard at work.  

SILENCE EQUALS ACCEPTANCE

Maybe you are staying quiet to avoid conflict, but it could actually have the opposite effect. 

When a topic is shared and you do not say anything, you risk being seen as enabling. If you have a concern and fail to voice it, you are just as culpable as the person who caused the problem in the first place. To not share your voice may destroy trust - and you will rarely find someone who is grateful that you withheld your opinion in the future.  

FOCUS ON THE GREATER GOOD

Of course, most people never want to be perceived as “the bad guy.” Maybe you worry that by sharing your thoughts, you risk appearing overly critical.

However, if you feel an individual or team is headed down a bad path, it’s selfish to put your own feelings of comfort or safety before the needs of others. The worst case scenario is that someone might disagree with you. The best case? The team might truly benefit from your insights.  

SHOW YOU ARE ENGAGED

If you are involved in a conversation, actually be in the conversation. Why bother to participate if you don’t truly wish to engage? 

To do that, become impactful by sharing your voice. Doing so in a productive manner is a trust-builder, especially when it’s partnered with tact and empathy. When you share your ideas this way, you build trust and a healthy reputation for giving good advice. Who doesn’t want to partner with team members like that?

BE COURAGEOUS

You might be the first to speak, but chances are if you are thinking about something, it might have occurred to others as well. Once you have the courage to share your ideas, you might just find you’ve made it safer for others to speak up as well. While this might put you in an uncomfortable place momentarily, it’s unlikely any company will not support the voice. Companies thrive on new perspectives and fresh ideas. Staying quiet doesn’t benefit anyone.

Next month, we head off to the polls to elect our next Commander-in-Chief. While workplaces are quite different than how we run our country, we still get a voice. To build your own career and strengthen your own thinking, be courageous and share your thoughts and ideas. You might just add some significant value.  

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

Image via Unsplash

Yesterday, we took a look at the history of CMGi, an incubator and venture capital firm from the dot-com era.  The company was based in Andover, Massachusetts.  It had a historic rise and a rapid fall, as the internet bubble burst in 2000.

During the mid to late '90s, the internet was the wild west, as lots of companies were being built to leverage this new form of technology.  Regardless of the financial outcome of the companies being built over this time period, they were still groundbreaking and ultimately laid down the foundation for what the internet is today.

We decided to take a look at CMGi's portfolio in Boston (operatings companies and investments) from the dot-com era and translate these companies into the web products of today.

Below are the details in a slideswhow.  We gathered the images from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.  We apologize that some of the images unded up being incomplete, but at least it gives you a glimpse as to what the homepages looked like for each company.