OurielOhayon

A must read for all entrepreneurs

Marc Andreessen's blog is just killing me. This is the best blog i have discovered in the past 6 months. He wrote another great post, this time on how startups and entrepreneur should face a "no" from a VC.

I am very attentive to this post because for me this is the most difficult and painful part of my VC job. As Marc is saying a No is not necessarily a judgement that your project is not interesting. Pay attention to his note on how to optimize risks in your presentation and project. I guess he has a point, but from my short VC experience this is not enough to get a YES. Really not. Timing could be one, competing portfolio another, trade-off with other deals (at a given time a VC cannot make more than a certain number of deal)....

Actually i still see today many companies i said no 6/12 months ago, because i am interested to understand how they progressed/changed in their approach and even sometimes learn from my own mistakes by passing on a company that eventually is starting to be successful. Saying NO is also a learning process for a VC, not only for the entrepreneur. At least this is how i see it

Also like i already said too sometimes A no can be a great opportunity for something you don't know yet.

Again a must read to all entrepreneurs

Different subject: Marc's blog is also killing me because it is going against the principles that usually attract me in a good blog: Short posts to the point, with great design and visual elements. Here this is the opposite: Boring design, No visual, VERY long posts. But  EXCELLENT content. 

What i like also is the personal notes beyond entrepreneur/vc posts on non business related issues. If you take VC blogs, they all mostly talk about VC matters. Only Fred Wilson dares to go beyond the business limit.

I believe a VC blog should also show some human face: it does not mean expose your whole private life!

Talking about business plans and metrics is not enough to show who you really are. And i sincerely believe that entrepreneurs that come to VCs need something more than just dollars. They need people they want to spend quality time with.

Announcing our 5th LGiLab investment: StyleShake

We are happy to announce our fifth LGiLab investment in StyleShake today.

For now we can't say much about the company but StyleShake is best described as an e-commerce bespoke fashion brand that operates in the UK and Israel. Apart from garment design the service has strong community identity.

The project is lead by Iris Ben David, CEO & founder who worked with top international clients on varied award winning Internet projects. She has over 10 year of international experience in various fields of new media and online advertising.

The team is also composed of

• Romina Karamanea – Creative Director, award winning bright fashion designer, who was recently selected as one of the 100 most promising worldwide fashion designers. Her work has been covered on many prestigious magazines and her recent collection has been shown on London and Milan fashion weeks.
• David Yanovsky – CTO, Chief software architect and Innovator. Formally founder and CTO of Jetro Platform. Before that, he was the CTO of RunOnWEb, San Diego. David Brings to StyleShake 15 years of comprehensive software industry experience.

The company is in stealth mode but will be soon offering a great innovative. The idea is quite powerful and we look forward to see how it is going to be adopted by consumers.

In addition to StyleShake, LGilab has invested in Bp Tech Interactive Technologies, Vestopia, OutBrain and TimelessCities

More things are on the way. Stay tuned.

update: the news is covered by AlarmClock

Technorati Tags: styleshake, lgilab, vc, israel, uk, fashion, internet

Al Foster in Tel Aviv

I was in a cool jazz concert yesterday (yes i know the second this week...) to see Al Foster Quartet the legendary drummer of Miles Davis. Actually i saw him also last year in Benny Golson Quartet. But here he was very different. The guy must be above 60 and still plays like a young kid, full of energy and ideas. Below a slide show with some pics (drag the slider)

The concert was ok. Not amazing but ok. They played several standards from Miles (So What, Dig, Four) and others (Round Midnight...). For me the surprise was the discovery of israeli Saxophonist Eli De Gibri that i believe will have a promising career. Yaron Herman accompanied me yesterday and this was the opportunity to discuss the israeli Jazz scene: some serious good stuff is coming out for the past 5 years. Israel cannot not only build great world champion in High Tech but also in Jazz

Yaron is too modest to admit it but he s one of them, Eli certain also, Avishai Cohen (bass) is already very famous and a great new generation of players is coming up. That's good news

Do you know any other great Israel jazz player?

Technorati Tags: Eli DeGebri, Al Foster, Tel Aviv, Jazz, Israel

Twitter as a platform

This is no secret: i am totally captured by Twitter and the new windows of opportunities to interact with people and services. Services in particular

More and more companies, this is not a secret understand the benefits of using twitter as a platform, just like with Facebook. The only difference is that you have to be very careful in the execution since the Twitter can be very intrusive.

For example some news papers using RSS2Twitter like feature let you get alerts via twitter but that can become disturbing if a news arrive every 30 sec

I am now a DJ a FoxyTunes and i like what they did with Twitter because they give you control on what you can publish. FYI i am a beta DJ with Fred Wilson and Chris Messina on their new service.

Yedda is also using interestingly Twitter. Wefi will do that too very soon

Interestingly i realized that those 3 companies are Israeli: is there something special about twitter in Israel?

I guess that if you are a service that intend to use twitter think how you should give control to your users on what is published in their twitter account.

If i was available today i would seriously think about starting off a company around Twitter and other micro blogging services.

To finish: a smart guy created a FeedFlare Twit this for your feedburner account. I added it on all my blogs. Now you can twit directly a link you are reading or enjoying from my blog RSS

Technorati tags: twitter

ps: i will blog more and more about twitter from now on since this has become one of my first area of interest before online video and search

Great concert yesterday with Yaron Herman

Yesterday i went to see my friend pianist Yaron Herman playing at Shablul Club in Tel Aviv. He joined the band of Guitarist composer Yotam Zilberstein i never heard of before. One thing i felt after this concert: Israeli jazz scene is getting very very serious. I really enjoyed the concert. i believe they played first time together yesterday and it sounded like if they played forever: good chemistry, good swing, good vibes.

They mainly played composition of Yotam which has great sense of lyricism and melody with original harmonic approach and sometimes a great sense of humor.

They also played two standards: Conception by George Shearing and Louisa by Carlos Jobim (this is one of my favourites)

Tonight Yaron and i are going to see Al Foster at Zappa Tel Aviv. Should be a great concert too

Talking about Jazz in Israel, Chick Corea should be there soon: You bet i won't miss him

 

Don't search too much: best Twitter client is Tweet-r

I have tried all the Twitter clients. And i can declare officially that the best one to date is by far Tweet-r. And i do not say that because i appear on their home page. They just released a new version that includes webcam integration AND the killer feature: auto complete for @ and direct message so you make anymore mistakes . Congrats to John Ballinger who seems to be alone on that one.

 

 

Technorati Tags: twitter

When will we have proper road infrastructures in Herzlyia Pituach?

If you don't live in Israel just skip this post.

It's been a while i wanted to write this post. I had the conversation with dozens of people either working in Herzlyia Pituach, the Israeli heart of high tech and VC, or coming there often. They all complain.

It is just a total nightmare to enter this city in rush hours. The road infrastructure is totally inappropriate and i really worry about the next 6-12 months as i see at least 3/4 new huge buildings being built meaning more people getting in the city for work of meetings.

It takes about 30min to do 1km. yes! I would go faster walking

It is just unbelievable that this small city, where is concentrated so much energy and creativity and modernity and money, is served by such a prehistoric road infrastructure. I took some pictures this morning for you to realize how unbearable this is.

We need more access (for example by the sea shore), more bridges, more tunnels.

I can't believe nothing is changing. And the worse is coming.

Technorati Tags: Herzlyia Pituach, israel

MusicCast: Mendelssohn, les Variations serieuses

This is a piece i am lately trying to play. I think this is the most fascinating piano composition by Felix Mendelssohn which is usually known for his "easy and nice" style. (like Songs without Words) One that one he took the counterpart and wrote a very serious and very difficult to play piece of music. It consists of a very simple theme in minor mode followed by a series of 17 variations which take the original theme to unexpected directions. Each time i listen to that piece of music i am truely amazed by the level of energy imagination that each variation contains and how from a simple theme the composer manages to explore totally different universes.

Here is the version of reference by Murray Perahia i have been listening for years.

Variations sérieuses, for piano in D minor, Op. 54

 

 

Technorati tags: Mendelssohn, variations serieuses, music, classic, piano

Execution is the key: #3 viral marketing/word of mouth

I was planning to write a long post for the series "Execution is the key" on the difference between word of mouth and viral marketing that are two very different concepts and most people merge for one concept. But i discovered this must read article in Forbes written with insights of Roelof Botha co founder of PayPal and that funded Youtube at Sequoia.

The key difference between both is that viral requires usage of your web property (think PayPal or YouTube videos) and word of mouth does not (a message to your friend via call, email, twitter is enough). Like mentioned in the article Google and Amazon are not viral properties even though they are great companies and generate lots of word of mouth. Viral Marketing should be like a transmittable sickness, and that reminds me of the excellent presentation of David Hornik at Web2.0 expo where he was explaining how viral marketing can be compared to viruses

In the start up i created in 2000 (a free lottery) word of mouth was responsible for 30% of our registration base. But we did not include viral marketing. That was a big mistake. If i had to start a new company i would not repeat that mistake.

Forget about adding "viral" to your marketing to-do list after your product is already on the market. You need to bake it into your business model from the very beginning. "Viral isn’t something you can just make happen," says Botha. "It has to be inherent in your product."

So just read it.

Technorati Tags: viral marketing, word of mouth

"Renaissance" is a fantastic animation movie

France is not only good at making cheese and wine. They also have amazing know how in animation. Each year the american studios scout the best talents from Les Gobelins, the Harvard of animation based in France.

I have just seen Renaissance, a stunning futuristic animated movie made in France. Beyond the scenario (which can remind some aspects of Philip k .Dick)and music the execution itself is breathtaking and provides sensation i never experimented before in a movie. The closest thing i have ever seen to that is A scanner Darkly, that was by the way very disappointing.

The intensity of the production and originality are also driven by the graphical choice of black and white. And you never really know if this is pure animation of a graphical addition/edition to a real movie (maybe both?)

Here is the trailer to give you appetite 

 

Technorati tags: renaissance, movie, a scanner darkly, animation, gobelins