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Travel. I’ve done it.

There are two reasons people travel.

1. To get away from your life

2. To get more from your life

If 1, I get it. I’m all for a beach, a book, no cell phone, etc. but I choose 2. I choose 2 because I often need a change of scenery in order to get out of my own way. To try something totally different. To really spend time with the ideas and plans that keep getting swept underneath the mountain of monotonous chores, mundane commitments, and incessant Facebook messages. 

In the past 30 days, I’ve been three very different places. One beach, one random city, and one Vegas. I realized a few things.

1. A lot of people who answered ‘1’ above spend the most money to go to the worst places at the wrong times. The amount of money they spend and the planning they do beforehand reassures them that they’re going to have a great time, but it actually ensures that they’re going to be disappointed by the experience. It’s just never as good as they think it should be.

2. In places like Las Vegas (where I’m currently writing this) and various beach cities around the world, you’re a tourist. In random cities that you visit for no real reason (like Nashville), you’re an explorer. Plus, there’s no gift stores at the end of your ‘cultural experience’. You talk to people. You make friends. You surprise yourself constantly, and you only had to fly for an hour.

3. Vegas is my least favorite place in the world. Downtown Vegas is cool though.

4. Who you’re with is probably the only thing that matters.

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Detroit Thought [One Year Ago]

This is a post I originally had on Posterous. I was looking for something I wrote earlier today and noticed that a year has passed. Updated thoughts will come soon. For now:

“So, what do you think?”

“Detroit is… a lot.”

I’m leaning against a narrow bar, half-sitting in a chair and easing what would be my only drink of the evening as the response came. We’re at a small, bustling bar called D’Mongo’s just one block west of Woodward Ave. in Detroit, Michigan. A spot that drives a wedge of hope into a city brutally marred by blight and bullshit.

The quote arrives from a friend visiting from Los Angeles, not overtly jaded but far from a hope pornographer. He’s lamenting on the spirit of Detroiters in 2011, the disparity of the communities and the sense that this is, for better and worse, the center of the newly formed Wild, Wild Midwest.

The more my perplexed friend tries to explain his position, the more confused he becomes. It’s a city with a ton of space and a fraction of the people that once used it. Wealthy-seeming suburbs that appear to exist both in spite of and unaware of the city they flank. Communities all give the air that they can’t stand one another. It’s a clusterfuck of issues, really, and it’s all made worse by the early March wintry mix, the Courtney Love of weather. His three-day trip may only make sense after a four-hour plane ride and several days worth of adjustments back to LA life and Pacific Standard Time.

My beer can succumbs to my delicate nursing and goes warm on me. My company, a quickly fading long-haired gentleman who looks more at home in a bowling alley than Bloomfield Hills (that’s a compliment, believe it or not), a beautiful and beautifully idealistic blonde, and my out-of-town guest decide to call it an evening as the lights flare though the rainy, unwashed windows.

The damp wind and blowing rain greet us as we rush to the car to start the harrowing journey- first back to the hotel, conveniently located less than 300 yards away, and then 11 miles north.

Once we’re on I-75, we wonder if our friend enjoyed his time. I wonder what I’m still here for.

I’ve lived here for the better part of my 25 years. Sure, I went to colleges in the state of Michigan, but hours away from the city. And yes, I grew up in a suburb and still live in one, but I can see the skyline as these words are typed. I’ve been implored to move by both friends in other cities and advisors and friends in this one.

Still, I can’t seem to leave.

It’s not for a lack of effort. I’ve spent months away in all of the places where most find exile. Yet after long weekends in Chicago, seemingly endless Thursday nights in Austin, weeks in the sun in LA or days in the canyons of the lower east side of New York, I’m always ready to return to Detroit. It’s grey. It’s cold. It’s home.

Is it comfort? Is it an attempt to stay grounded? Or is it an egotistical advantage to be the young, big fish?

The more I think about it, it’s not because it’s home and definitely not about comfort. In fact, it’s because it’s not comfortable that it’s tolerable to live here. People don’t move because it’s easier, they move because there are opportunities elsewhere. In leaving, they create their opportunities: to work for a company, to join a firm, to pursue a career in an industry that does not yet exist in Detroit, etc. Those who stay must create their opportunities as well, but instead of joining a company, we need to start one. We need to be smart, nimble and focused. The inconvenience gives us no choice but to make it.

To Be Continued…

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barthel: Web culture is great and all, but every once in a while it strikes me how strange it is that a major portion of our online cultural production is dedicated to essentially identifying, distributing, and judging America’s Funniest Home Videos submissions.

barthel:

Web culture is great and all, but every once in a while it strikes me how strange it is that a major portion of our online cultural production is dedicated to essentially identifying, distributing, and judging America’s Funniest Home Videos submissions.

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jedsundwall:

Remember.

(via oats)

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The 2012 Dilemma

In 2009, I had one resolution: to create more than I consumed.

One month later, TFLN was born. After a few more months, it took off and I was too busy to consume much of anything. This continued until early 2010 when I started to read tech blogs regularly.

Then, the world seemed to explode with content and myriad ways to consume it.

It’s far too easy to waste a day just passively clicking and navigating around the internet. In my opinion, it’s easily two million times easier. Yes. At least 2,000,000x. Endless scrolling on Tumblr. Tweets on tweets tweets on Twitter. New pins on Pinterest made from photos gleaned from Tumblr reblogs of magazine editorials. 

I’m too tired to elaborate, but it’s looking like we’re losing creativity to cultivation and curation. We’re hunters of taste trying to pass as tastemakers. Everyone wants to own an art gallery, but no one wants to be an artist blah blah blah. 

I think 2012 is the year for a chosen few to use the tools at their disposal to create more than they curate or consume. I’m calling it the year of the experiment. Time to get weird.

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rozenswag: “What about young entrepreneurs just starting out? What advice would you give to a 20-year-old with a start-up idea right now? Well, I think if you’re a 20-year-old, what you want to do is think, “What am I frustrated with in life, and how can I make it better?” I went into the airline business when I was in the record business, and I hated the experience of flying on other people’s airlines. I thought, “I could do it better, so let’s just get one second-hand 747 and see if I’m right.” I think it doesn’t have to be on a grand scale like that, but if you feel like you can do something better, give it a try. And if you do it better, it doesn’t matter if you’re competing with big companies, people will seek your product out. And then find a great group of people around you who also believe in the difference you are trying to make and inspire them to work with you. Just get up and give it a go.” (via Richard Branson: My Plan to End Occupy Wall Street | Inc.com)

rozenswag:

“What about young entrepreneurs just starting out? What advice would you give to a 20-year-old with a start-up idea right now?

Well, I think if you’re a 20-year-old, what you want to do is think, “What am I frustrated with in life, and how can I make it better?” I went into the airline business when I was in the record business, and I hated the experience of flying on other people’s airlines. I thought, “I could do it better, so let’s just get one second-hand 747 and see if I’m right.” I think it doesn’t have to be on a grand scale like that, but if you feel like you can do something better, give it a try. And if you do it better, it doesn’t matter if you’re competing with big companies, people will seek your product out. And then find a great group of people around you who also believe in the difference you are trying to make and inspire them to work with you. Just get up and give it a go.”

(via Richard Branson: My Plan to End Occupy Wall Street | Inc.com)

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brycedotvc:

I’d never heard of Jerry Weintraub before my flight to NYC last week.

Turns out he’s quite a colorful character in the world of Hollywood. Or, at least enough of a character that he has a documentary detailing the ups and downs of his life in the business.

Jerry’s story is one right out of a Hollywood script- Brooklyn kid, raised tough, works hard, gets some breaks, wins big, loses it all, rebuilds and comes out a winner in the end.

What struck me as I watched his story unfold was just how much hustling, persistence and seizing of opportunity factored into his succes. Such determination seems almost quaintly old school in this current age of entrepreneurial entitlement and overnight success. But it’s the foundation upon which nearly all great entrepreneurs are built.

In this clip, he describes how a cold call and a year of “NOs” lead to him becoming Elvis’ tour manager and, ultimately, a multi-millionaire.

Jerry is a great story teller and this tale of his hustle is inspiring. Which is why it’s required weekend viewing here on BRYCE DOT VC.

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➜ Terms.

This article about James Erwin, Reddit and Warner Bros reminded me that the @TFLN TOS is by far the best thing I have ever copy & pasted.

It almost wasn’t.

The TOS we borrowed from another content site had one glaring issue. In that document, there was one word that described that, instead of reserving the rights to our content, we only reserved the rights to display the content. This meant that someone, if we chose to post those them, could lift everything from us without violating our terms. 

Luckily, a real lawyer caught the mistake before it was too late. When we got our television development deal, it took multiple calls to convince our producers that we hacked together our terms enough to be sufficient. 

Creating anything, especially content is hard. Creating something worthwhile is just plain difficult. Getting people to read/see/listen to even brilliant stuff is so hard that people die before anyone notices it. Sometimes you’re lucky, so make sure to take some precautions so that when people do find your work, you’ll own the rights to it. Even if you take the damn thing to the grave. 


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gq: Diplo: ”People don’t know exactly what I do, they just know I’m ‘cool.’” I spend most time rushing out ideas, like when you put an idea together, it’s the tip of the iceberg, the rest of the iceberg is mixing it and delivering it, you know? There are so many iceberg tips, for every ten thousand tips, I have a hundred icebergs. Big, giant icebergs, you know? You gotta weed out what works, what goes which way, and just kinda wrap it up. More. 

gq:

Diplo: ”People don’t know exactly what I do, they just know I’m ‘cool.’”

I spend most time rushing out ideas, like when you put an idea together, it’s the tip of the iceberg, the rest of the iceberg is mixing it and delivering it, you know? There are so many iceberg tips, for every ten thousand tips, I have a hundred icebergs. Big, giant icebergs, you know? You gotta weed out what works, what goes which way, and just kinda wrap it up.

More. 

✖  ❖ Source: gq  ⟲ Reblog

brycedotvc:

The very first document we put together when forming OATV contained the following quote from Tim which captures the heart of our investment thesis:

We get most of our good ideas at O’Reilly by watching the ‘alpha geeks’. We look for people who appear to be doing magic, and ask them how they do it. (Remember Arthur C. Clarke’s dictum: “Any sufficiently advanced technology appears to be magic.”) There are always people in any field who are the most clued in to the deep trends, who seem to be playing with all the coolest stuff, and seem to have their finger in everything before most people even know about it.

This concept of watching the alpha geeks was an odd one for most institutional investors to get their arms around. They were accustomed to investment thesis that revolved around well defined markets that could be easily described in broad strokes like enterprise software, mobile, telecom, consumer internet, etc.

Who were these magical alpha geeks and how did we find them?

Though wrapped in a tech vernacular for our own purposes, the idea of watching influencers is not a new one. In fact, it was a 2001 New York Times piece titled Here Come the Alpa Pups that inspired the term alpha geek. In it the author describes the process by which Hasboro targeted potential influencers for a new game they were hoping to launch. Their process was instructive:

Early this year, market researchers headed into playgrounds, skate parks and video arcades throughout Chicago looking for what they called alpha pups. They went up to boys between the ages of 8 and 13 with a question: ”Who’s the coolest kid you know?” When they got a name, they would look for that kid and put the question to him. The goal was to ascend the hierarchy of coolness, asking the question again and again until someone finally answered ”Me.” 

As a firm, we try to stay open to the moves of these alpha geeks without boxing ourselves in too much by over defining the markets they’re going care about. We pay attention to the applications and underlying technologies they play with. We watch what they spend their free time doing. We find smart people then ask them who are the smartest people they know. Then we overlay judgement about where along the adoption curve these people, ideas, technologies and companies lie to determine whether timing is right for investment.

Whether watching the alpha geeks for inspiration or simply seeking them out to influence others the role they play in shaping the arc of mainstream adoption is inescapable. Which is why this beautiful short film on Influencers by Paul Rojanthara and Davis Johnson is required weekend viewing on BRYCE DOT VC.

✖  ❖ Source: brycedotvc  ⟲ Reblog
THEME BY PARTI