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February, 2011

  1. Coming of Age as an Entrepreneur

    February 25, 2011 by Matt Mireles

    Well it was just a dream
    Just a moment ago

    I think back to the Winter of 2008-2009. SpeakerText was a few months old. I was still living in New York. The city was cold at night. It snowed like 2 feet in one day.

    Back then, for all intents and purposes, SpeakerText was just me, just my dream. We had no hustler on staff. No hacker. No money.

    I remember one night in particular. I had left a small meetup organized by what was then called the Blue Venture Community (aka BVC), Columbia’s entrepreneur group. Goddamn it was cold. I was cranking Biggie on the iPod, walking down 53rd St in midtown, huddling in my wool coat. The Bloomberg sign hung in the air above. One day, I told myself, there’d be a SpeakerText sign. One day.

    Well, we ain’t there yet.

    But we’ve come a long way. On February 1, 2011, we got our first office (see photo above). And then, about two weeks ago, I found myself at The Rosewood, a posh restaurant on Sand Hill Road. Swanson and I were there meeting Mikael Berner, one of SpeakerText’s investors. It was a strange, fantastic feeling. I wasn’t there to beg for money; I wasn’t there as “the help,” picking someone up in the ambulance; I was there as a CEO meeting an investor––not a prospect, but an honest-to-god man that had written us a check.

    For the first time in my life as an entrepreneur, I felt like I’d arrived, like I was equal and not just another outsider trying like fuck to break in. It felt awesome.

    ***

    Over Christmas, I shaved my mohawk. It started off as an accident. Normally, I would cut the sides myself, then let Swanson clean up the edges. But it was December 23rd and he had already left to see family. I was about to turn 30 and fly down to LA. Over Christmas, I was expecting to see a woman that, well… let’s just say I wanted to look good for her. I wanted to cut the edges as close as possible, and ended up creating a bald spot in the back o’ the hawk. This led to me shaving my head entirely.

    I ended up letting my hair grow out. I even got it cut at an actual barber.

    As it turns out, I’m not an outsider anymore.

    Vote for this post on Hacker News and follow me on Twitter.

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  2. Why I Love Hip Hop, America

    February 17, 2011 by Matt Mireles


    I grew up in Orange County. I was corn fed on punk rock. When I was 17, I saw Rage Against the Machine at Irvine Meadows. The mosh pit was gigantic. Actually, it started off as two pits. They ultimately merged. There was a fire in the center. I ran against the grain. It was awesome. Just. Fucking. Awesome.

    Thirteen years later, I still relish that night.

    But there’s something about hip hop that I enjoy. Something distinctly American. Something I fucking love: the songs all tell a Horatio Alger story of rags to riches, of hustle, of “you can’t put me down.” As an entrepreneur, it tells my story.

    Sometimes, when I’m running down Market Street in SF, I blast the music, think about it all, and shed a tear.

    It just feels right.

    I love this life.

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  3. AngelList: The Best Thing for Startups Since…the Internet

    February 15, 2011 by Matt Mireles

    AngelList is essentially a public market for private, early-stage tech stocks––without actually being a transaction processor. It is the single most important innovation in venture capital in the last 5 years.

    My startup, SpeakerText, raised $600k and 90% of our investors came through AngelList, including our lead investor, the Silicon Valley legend Mitch Kapor.

    Imagine if Evan Williams (founder of Twitter) designed a NASDAQ competitor just for web startups, minus any govt regulation. What would it do? How would it work?

    -Lots of Investors: AngelList has something close to 700 1,200 angel investors signed up so far. These are not random people. Literally, it’s all the top people you’ve heard of, plus a ton you haven’t. But most of them are really, really good.

    -Structured Pitches: AngelList pitches are not a free-for-all. The submission format forces entrepreneurs to get to the point and allows for only a short list of fields: Product, Traction, Team, and Social Proof.

    -Frictionless Intros: Investors who see a startup’s pitch can get intro’d to the startup with a single click. Investors can also “vote” for startups they like (typically after they’ve heard the pitch in person), and declare if/when they’ve actually invested. (Yes, it really is that baller.)

    -Social Dealflow: Investors are encouraged to connect with and follow each other, a la Twitter. Each time an investor asks for an intro, votes or invests in a startup, it goes into the activity stream of that investor and everyone who follows him/her. This makes it easy for investments to “go viral.”

    -Limited Curation: Babak Nivi, Naval Ravikant and Brendan Baker actually pick out what they think are the best startups and blast them out to investors via email. This is hugely effective, and great for the startups that make it into their email blasts.

    Honestly, in my view, AngelList is the best thing to happen to startups since…the internet. The guys who run it are awesome, accesible and no-bullshit. The community is excellent. The money is real.

    With all that said, I have one feature request:

    -Investor Rating System: Not all investors are the same. TheFunded tried to do this in a half-ass sort of way, but given AngelList’s transparency, I think it’s the perfect venue for entrepreneurs to rate investors and offer feedback. Markets work best, after all, when everyone is operating with “the shadow of the future” in their mind

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