Boston VC Blogging

Scott Kirsner had a nice article in the Boston Globe (and here in his blog) on the VC blogging phenomenon with a Boston lens. The point he's making, I think, is that those VCs that use new methods to source entrepreneurial deals and ideas will benefit in the long term. His post got some positive comments from lead VC bloggers: IDG, Spark and others.

Boston is a great place to totally catch the entrepreneurship bug: there's huge energy in terms of experienced entrepreneurs, VCs, technology, talent etc. In the past years its completely got to me and now I can say I am totally contained by it. What impact did it have on me, in reality? Okay, I'm with a startup that provides innovative solution in an emerging market, I'm trying to learn, read, watch, follow, attend events and essentially just be close to that warming energy. But, in my eyes, I'm still a fly hovering above the cake: I've yet to substantially contribute anything to this energy, sadly. As many of us, I would guess, I'm having this endless stream of (probably useless) ideas that I'm considering publishing on this blog. I guess it's also down to having my garage buddy ~11k miles away and not finding a local one (anyone interested?).

My initial introduction to VC was on a Harvard event where Jeff Bussgang told the crowd about 1) his way to the top and 2) his thoughts on location based services. I walked out of the event enchanted, because:

• Here's a guy who made it, and made it big
• He's willing to share his experience how he got there, not in a vain way, but in a 'you too can make it happen' (he was probably thinking of HBS peeps :-))
• He has a lot of interest in mobile (cool!)
• He had offered an invaluable lesson on how VCs look at a market/solution/technology, and specifically at LBS
• He's a great guy (eventually he actually invited me to meet with him, which I really appreciated)

And I'm using Jeff as an example only. I'm lucky to know a couple of VC guys that are very friendly, open and just great guys to consult with and share thoughts.

So it doesn't come as a surprise that Jeff and other VC blokes are writing blogs. Beyond the commercial purposes of doing so, it's just about getting closer to the entrepreneurs, teaching them 'how we see things' and the lingo VCs use. It's about the mutual plane.

Also Jeff's comment on Scott's article is not a surprise ("Why do I blog"):
- Definitely less about deal flow and more about transparency and providing accessibility, humanizing the VC process
- Open dialog helps me keep in touch with entrepreneur’s latest issues and hot buttons
- Provides sense of accountability to the entrepreneur community
- Helps me understand social networking, community, blogging, and many other Web 2.0 phenomenon from a practical standpoint as a practitioner, not theoretical

I'm reading Jeff's, Bijan's and David's blogs, yet to use any of it in practice but I know, if ever get there, those would be invaluable. Guys: thank you for writing, it's more useful than any text book.