Brad Feld is not just a VC, but is co-founder of TechStars. TechStars is kind of like YCombinator, except instead of just trying to find a handful of a super specific kind of company, they're growing a network far and wide of incubators across the entire U.S. They have programs in Boulder, New York, Boston, Seattle, and are growing even further through their "TechStars Network".
I met Brad briefly on their book tour. He's very much an "I'll look you in the eye and listen to who you are and what you're doing, and see how I can help" kind of guy. Unlike YCombinator, TechStars pledges to try and help out EVERY company who applies, with advice or connections or whatever they can do, even though they can only accept a few into their program. I'm sure he's connected former applicants to TechStars (not even accepted companies, applicants) with strategic partners he meets on the road. I'm sure he makes all kinds of crazy connections between contacts. In some sense, running an incubator and being a VC.... making connections like that is his JOB.
Brad doesn't have my contact info, but if I gave him my card and he ever contacted me, or gave my info to someone else, it would be the OPPOSITE of spam. I would be stoked to see anything in my inbox from him or someone in his network. Brad is really a "water that raises all boats" kind of person, from what I've seen.
That's very nice. I don't care who the user is, there's no way humanly possible any person can or will maintain individual contact with 10,000 people over the course of a year. Just trying to remember who half of the people were or when the last time you talked or what about would be ridiculous.
It seems to me this is why there are (for example) sales tools which help track relationships and organize aggregate contact data into a manageable system. But come on. However much of a VC rockstar Brad Feld is, he's not e-mailing or calling 10,000 people. Like most people he'll add everyone he meets to his standard contacts list, but this is not scalable, and there's probably a couple thousand people sitting in the list that either he's never had correspondence with or hasn't for a year or more, making a follow-up unlikely. Of course I am generalizing and assuming based on my own experience with PIM systems.
Instead of just adding people to a contact list and forgetting about it perhaps Brad should invest his time in a system which will provide more features tailored to the nature of his business contacts, and that way Google doesn't have to redesign its infrastructure to support 0.001% of users. That's all i'm saying.
Brad Feld is not just a VC, but is co-founder of TechStars. TechStars is kind of like YCombinator, except instead of just trying to find a handful of a super specific kind of company, they're growing a network far and wide of incubators across the entire U.S. They have programs in Boulder, New York, Boston, Seattle, and are growing even further through their "TechStars Network".
I met Brad briefly on their book tour. He's very much an "I'll look you in the eye and listen to who you are and what you're doing, and see how I can help" kind of guy. Unlike YCombinator, TechStars pledges to try and help out EVERY company who applies, with advice or connections or whatever they can do, even though they can only accept a few into their program. I'm sure he's connected former applicants to TechStars (not even accepted companies, applicants) with strategic partners he meets on the road. I'm sure he makes all kinds of crazy connections between contacts. In some sense, running an incubator and being a VC.... making connections like that is his JOB.
Brad doesn't have my contact info, but if I gave him my card and he ever contacted me, or gave my info to someone else, it would be the OPPOSITE of spam. I would be stoked to see anything in my inbox from him or someone in his network. Brad is really a "water that raises all boats" kind of person, from what I've seen.