David Crow

Connector of dots. Maker of lines. Rider of slopes.

Entrepreneurship

Canadians at YCombinator

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Wow, at least 2 Canadians were accepted to this session of Y Combinator in Cambridge, MA. It looks like Y Combinator program is becoming the MBA program for entrepreneurs. Graduate from a degree program, work for a couple or 3 years, and then decide to start a company and get the unbridled focus offered by Paul Graham and the Y Combinator gang.
Michael Parkatti and Mike Marrone are writing about their experiences for the Globe and Mail in the Y Combinator diaries.
Michael provides some details about their backgrounds in the first post,

It’s been almost three years since I finished my post-graduate degree at the London School of Economics. In that time I’ve begun a career as a management consultant, worked for an Internet startup in Calgary (taking my finances to the breaking point), worked for a startup in Vancouver, committed to start a PhD program and now have started my own company.

Mike Marrone has a similar story. In the three years since finishing his Bachelor’s at Trent University, he’s worked at a small technology company in Ottawa, an Internet startup in Calgary, and Yahoo Inc. in Sunneyvale, California.

What a fantastic opportunity to get exposure to world-class Internet and software entrepreneurs. I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Graham at FooCamp07, and was just completely blown away by his personality, insight and engagement of entrepreneurs and designers.

My favourite part of the blog post is the description of what they are trying to do:

“we’re simply two guys trying to make something that people want”

Imagine that. Software that solves a problem. Makes peoples lives better. Changes the world. I’m curious at what was their Y Combinator submission. I’m curious to see what comes out at the end of the process. I’m curious if Michael and Mike decide to return to Canada after the Y Combinator experience. Whatever ends up happening, my hats off to these guys.

I can’t wait to see this story develop. I hope it turns out better than the 90 Days blog.

What would you do with $44 Billion?

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Forty four billion dollars! It’s a huge sum of money. It’s a lot of money to pay to create Pepsi (apparently I prefer Coke). Others have provided their analysis of the deal. There is a mad rush to create a true competitor to Google in the rapidly growing online advertising market and now that a combined Microhoo/Yahsoft which would have created a set of highly trafficked sites and a huge amount of ad revenue, it is now off the table.

Cash. Stock. Debt. It doesn’t really matter because $44 billion is a lot of money. It’s more than the combined venture funding in the US in software since 2002! The actual amount according to PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree is closer to $31B. Interestingly, angel investors in 2007 put $26 billion into 57,120 ventures according to a study by Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire!

To hell with a $10 million dollar Facebook Application Fund. Never mind a $100 million dollar iPhone Fund. What about a new huge software fund aimed at funding new solutions on the Microsoft platform?

Going on an acquisition spree seems to make a lot of sense, Kara Swisher calls it Project Granola, but imagine the power of creating MicroBook, FaceSoft AND all of the other properities already out there. Digg. TechCrunch. GigaOM. LinkedIn. Meebo. The list is almost endless. Building a open media ecosystem to compete with Google, Yahoo and others. What about investments in non-North American properties? It’s a great time to be building media properties. It’s not the first time that it has been suggested that Microsoft could benefit by encouraging entrepreneurs to build successful media businesses.

With the $30 billion left over, it could be like Christmas in July for the geeks and venture firms of Silicon Valley. But Microsoft could scoop up a lot of good stuff, even if prices are high.

Here’s a list: LinkedIn. Digg. Flixster. Slide or RockYou. Veoh. WordPress. Sphere. Sugar. Some international stuff. And more.

Then, some noted, Microsoft would have to give massive financial incentives to those entrepreneurs to stay and thrive. Most importantly, it would have to keep its Redmond hands from interfering.

Time to take the lessons from building a successful software business, and see if the proceeds can be used to build an online media business(es).