Jay Meattle

Author: meattle

  • Multitasking Roles

    “When we were working on our own startup, back in the 90s, I evolved another trick for partitioning the day. I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no one could interrupt me. Then I’d sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what I called “business stuff.” I never thought of it in these terms, but in effect I had two workdays each day, one on the manager’s schedule and one on the maker’s.”

    — Paul Graham, YCombinator

    Wow, this is very similar to my schedule these days.

  • Indians in 90 seconds

  • The Way I Work

    “Music helps me when I’m coding, which is still my priority. When you’re coding, you really have to be in the zone. I’ll listen to a single song, over and over on repeat, like a hundred times.” — Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress and Automattic

    Funny, I do the same thing. It makes me more productive.

    (source)

  • The New Startup Resume

    Came across this comment thread on Bijan Sabet‘s blog today:

    Tal: I’m hoping to join a tech company as a programmer or user experience designer, a small startup would be ideal.

    bijan: do you have a blog or linkedin account. happy to send your contact info to a few of our portfolio companies. where are you located?

    If you’re looking for a startup/any job, and don’t have a LinkedIn account — get one! Also recommend starting a blog if haven’t already.

  • The Evolving VC Business Model

    To give a fund’s investors a 20% annual return, the firm needs to triple the money raised within a six-year period, Kopelman said. For a $400 million fund, that means returning $1.2 billion to investors. Since VCs typically don’t want the risk of holding more than 20% of the companies they invest in, they have to help build a few companies with a total of $6 billion in market value. But in the past few years only a handful of companies have sold or gone public for more than $1 billion. “You sit there and say, ‘Holy crap, that model doesn’t work,’ ” said Kopelman.

    What’s a venture capitalist to do? For Kopelman and other super angels, the answer is to get small. Super angels still aim for billion-dollar exits, but their model doesn’t hinge on home runs. Instead, they can profit by hitting singles and doubles and reducing their strikeouts.

    — Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital in a BusinessWeek interview.