The Venture Edge

According to the talking heads on my TV set, the U.S. economy has gone to hell in a handbasket, and nothing short of regime change in Washington will turn it around. Bad Santa is here to stay, and he's mad as hell.

 Imagine spending a ton of time and resources coming up with the name for your company or your product only to discover that someone else owns it.  Or they own the trademark while you own the domain name.  Or what about this?  You’re a famous entrepreneur and someone in another country legally changes their name to yours.

Online game maker Zynga (Farmville, Words with Friends, Mafia Wars, etc.) went public yesterday, issuing 100 million shares of stock at the price of $10 each -- putting $1 billion in its pocket as a result. While that's a lot of money in anyone's book, Zynga's resulting market cap of $7 billion is about one-third of what was predicted last summer, when a number of analysts put the company's value at $20 billion. To add insult to injury, Zynga's share price fell 50 cents by the end of the day, to close at $9.50. 

Many entrepreneurs launch their businesses with a board of directors that consists of the founding team and perhaps the first investor while they rely heavily on board of advisors for everyday guidance and to open doors. There's a good reason for this approach: it's easier and less costly to find people willing to be on an advisory board because advisors don't have the legal liability associated with being on a board of directors. Most potential directors will not serve unless you carry directors' and officers' (D&O) liability insurance to indemnify them, and the expense of this insurance is often prohibitive for a startup. However, I would argue that establishing corporate governance early in the life of a startup will often enhance the quality of the company as it grows.   

It's my favorite time of year. No -- not Christmas, though that rates right up there. It's the time of year when trendwatching.com names its 12 Crucial Consumer Trends for the upcoming year, in this case 2012. If you've got a business and you want to meet your customers where THEY are, then this list is worth a look. Here are the top-five trends -- click here for the complete list of 12, along with detailed explanations. 

I want to follow up on Peter’s great post about Google and its march toward brand dilution with its latest venture, a local/online delivery service.  You might scratch your head and ask why are they doing this, but remember this is the same company that is also developing autonomous, self-driving cars so that we can devote our full attention to its search engine while we’re on the road. 

While it has been obvious for some time that Google isn't happy just being the best Internet search website around (Exhibit 1: the Android phone), I was a bit surprised to read today that the company is getting ready to unveil a new venture: a delivery service that would let people order items from local stores on the Web and receive them at their homes or offices within a day. Okay, that sounds nice and all, but why oh why is Google straying so far from its core business of helping me find out how many students applied to Dartmouth early decision this year, or a good synonym for "lyrical," or a creativity video that I can use in the MGT453 class that I'm teaching at San Diego State University?