We hosted our first event today, on an unseasonably warm day – 75 & sunny – a much needed respite from the cold fog that comes with summer in San Francisco. Barista Joe made as many iced coffees as lattes. The turnout was fantastic with Founders of True-funded companies from SF, LA & Portland, as well as other entrepreneurs, friends of the firm, and our neighbors from upstairs.

We hope to see you next Thursday!

This trip was my first to Demo Day in Mountain View, and I was absolutely blown away by the energy and passion of all of the companies participating in this summer’s program.  For this event, each startup had only 2.5 minutes to tell their story, and each of them rocked it.

TechCrunch has a great write-up of the companies who presented, so I will skip ahead to some high level takeaways from my experience:

Quantity of Companies

The first cohort of YC startups in 2005 featured eight startups (two of which ended up joining Reddit.)  This year’s cohort launched 36 companies with live working products gaining traction and most generating revenue.  This is a true testament to the great program the YC team has built and been able to scale successfully.

Quality of Pitches

Kudos to every one of the graduates for an awesome job on their presentations.  By the end of their introduction, each startup had succinctly expressed their core value proposition and was able to spend the rest of the time showcasing what they had built over the short summer program. The YC team has done a great job coaching each of their startups in the methodology of how to tell their story.

Traction with Investors

Of the 35 startups that pitched yesterday, most had already secured part, if not their entire round of Seed financing.  Adam Smith, formerly of Xnobi, cited this as a function of Angel Investors who are simply looking to index across startups.  Even if that is the case, the strategy only works if investors are backing smart teams who can execute – something I believe that every YC Company that pitched yesterday has demonstrated.

Trends in the Market

I’m a believer that YC companies are a leading indicator for the next generation of technology for startups so the most interesting part of the day for me was learning what tools new startups are using to develop themselves.

Some of those trends this year included:

• Entire websites built to function as a single page (Hipmunk)
• A focus on human actions instead of data or graphs (inDinero, FutureAdvisor, AdGrok)
• Innovative ways to leverage tablets outside of the technology market (Brushes, Teevox, Koduco)
• Products that leverage email as a platform (Rapporative, OhLife)

Overall, I had a great experience and met a ton of interesting new entrepreneurs.  Following the Facebook announcement yesterday, I’m looking forward to the next YC Class and seeing how these companies can better integrate social and personalization into the online experience.

Now ask yourself “How did I spend my time last month?” Most of us could answer that question generally, but very few could answer with the same detail that we can with our money. Time is our most valuable asset, yet most of us don’t treat time with nearly the same respect and caution as we do our money.

Understanding how we spend our time provides us with information to make better decisions on what we do with that time.

Consider this fictional example: Jerry works at a technology company, and typically works between 8 am and 6 pm. Jerry feels like he is most productive in the early morning and late afternoon. His company has a scheduled daily meeting at 10 am that usually lasts 30 minutes. Right when Jerry feels like he is the most focused he is interrupted with an activity that, while potentially important, is not as productive for him. Jerry knows that his work time could be spent more efficiently, but doesn’t really have the detailed data to support his suspicions.

How does Jerry start to gather the details on how he spends his time?

The first thing all of the time management techniques will have you do is keep a journal of how you spend your time for some period. The exercise of journaling your time builds awareness of how you spend your time and very often this awareness alone leads to better management of your time. Journaling itself takes time and is usually only a temporary exercise, but it does give us better information on where our time is going.

Jerry starts journaling his work days and, over the period of a couple of weeks, starts to see some interesting trends. He indeed is most productive earlier in the day, but, once interrupted by the daily 10 am meeting, he finds he is not able to get back in the groove and that his productivity drops until lunch time. After eating lunch, he finds that he tends to get interrupted a lot more and finds it hard to start focusing for a few hours. Around 2:30 pm, he catches his second wind and typically works very productively until 4:30 pm. At that time, he notices that he is interrupted more and easily distracted. He flails around for another hour or so before finally calling it a day and heads home to his family.

Here is a graph of one of Jerry’s days before any changes:

Jerry brings his findings to one of the meetings and does a presentation on what he discovered for himself. During the presentation, others express a feeling that they also work in a similar pattern to Jerry. Jerry suggests that the daily meeting be moved to after lunch, when his coworkers tend to feel less productive.

After working and journaling the results over the next two weeks, Jerry makes a few additional changes. He takes steps to guard his very productive time between 8:30 and 11:30 am. He turns off his IM client, shuts down email, and passes the word around that he is trying to focus between those hours and interruptions should be kept to a minimum. Jerry also discovers that by 4:30 pm he has been more productive than he was previously working until 6 pm, so he decides to start leaving the office before 5 pm on most days.

Here is a graph of one of Jerry’s days after implementing his changes:

When we compare the productivity between the before and after change days, we see that overall Jerry is just as productive and actually spends more time in activities he identified as being very productive. He cuts down significantly on the distracting time, mainly due to leaving the office right at the end of his afternoon productivity peak before he becomes distracted.

By being aware of how he spent his time, Jerry was able to become more productive and at the same time “save” over an hour a day that he now can choose to spend doing other activities, like spending more time with his family.

Journaling how you spend your time takes a commitment, and many people fail to follow through with enough detail to see meaningful patterns in how they spend their time. Fortunately, there are a number of automated options available to help gather those details. Of course, I’m particularly biased towards RescueTime. Regardless of the tracking method you choose, I believe the time has come to give a bit more respect to our most valuable asset, Time.

This post was written by Joe Hruska, CEO & Co-Founder of RescueTime, a True Ventures Portfolio Company.

We have a number of portfolio companies that work with FM, and FM Founder John Batelle is a good friend of the firm.  This acquisition is a fabulous fit for FM, as they augment their in-house technical capabilities with some truly great semantic technology.

At TextDigger, the team always liked to say that they addressed the ‘findability’ of content.  Given FM’s distribution reach and its goals for future growth, the TextDigger team and technology will play an important role in growing FM’s platform into the future.

Congratulations to Tim, Robin, Jim, Peter and Bob.

Recently, based on internal feedback from our team and our founders, we have decided to change a key term around change of control in our seed investments.  The specific language for this is usually tucked into a longish paragraph about Protective Provisions which states that a change of control cannot occur without the consent of a majority of the Preferred stockholders.

At the earliest of stages when we have made only a small, seed stage investment, we believe that it is appropriate for founders to control the decision about the potential sale of their business.  Since launching True in 2005, we have never enforced this term nor have we ever planned to in our seed stage deals.

In keeping with that theme, we have decided to remove the “Change of Control” provision from our seed stage deals moving forward.  We believe that entrepreneurs are our customers, and we believe this small word change exhibits the much larger issue of mutual trust that our Founders and True maintain.

We are extremely excited to announce our recent investment in Scio Security.  Scio provides the simplest and safest way to secure any Internet transaction by delivering multi-factor authentication as a service.  They are in short disrupting an industry riddled with complex and expensive solutions.

Founders Dug Song and Jon Oberheide bring a wealth of security experience and we couldn’t be more excited to be partnering with them.  Dug previously founded Arbor Networks, which achieved over $100M in revenue before its recent sale to Tektronix, was Chief Architect at Barracuda Networks, and has his name attached to some of the most widely used security protocols in the world.  Jon has authored numerous papers on security and is wrapping up his PhD at the University of Michigan, where he is part of the Networking and Security Research Group.

At True, we see a new wave of infrastructure solutions that are taking advantage of the dramatic changes in the data center itself, the exponential growth in data, and the proliferation of web and mobile apps.  Companies such as Urban Airship, PuppetLabs, Loggly, and now Scio are delivering newfound ease of use and value to their customers as part of this changing landscape.

Congrats again to the Scio Security team!

Let’s be honest; mobile has been the technology that cried wolf for the last 10 years. There have been promises and hopes that never seemed to materialize. Then along came the iPhone. The iPhone completely shook up the Carrier/Developer/End-User relationship in such a way now that its almost like mobile is just getting started. The growth of the smartphone and mobile device market has been astounding and when you realize that there are over 4 billion mobile phones on the planet (compared to less than a billion PCs) the ramifications are huge.

What’s really amazing is that we’re in the midst of the mobile gold rush. The mobile opportunity is a big one and ironically I think a lot of the effort is being mis-placed. People keep talking about apps and how do you must get your app onto a peoples phone at any cost. Pay money. Pay lots of money, even if your app is free. You have to get on the device. To this I say rubbish and honestly it points to signs of a mobile-bubble forming (we all remember the mad dash in the 90′s to get eyeballs at any cost).

At its core, mobile is a channel. Its a channel directly to your customers, users, colleagues, friends and family. Right to their
pockets. While I agree its important to have a presence on these devices in the form of an application, the real question is how are you turning mobile into an effective channel to engage and monetize your customers?

Recently we have seen mobile completely shake up the music and movie industries and now the app store has opened up all kinds of new possibilities. We at Urban Airship have been starting to work with several print publishers who are grappling with the move to mobile computing devices. The iPhone. iPad. Android phones and the soon-to-be-released tablets. In the case of print publishers its not just a channel; its a newstand in every pocket.

Considering this is an entirely new channel for content, it’s no surprise that the industry is working out some kinks. In a nutshell,
when it comes to taking publications to iPads and other mobile devices, publishers face several challenges:

* No way to offer subscriptions (only single-issue downloads)
* No clear way to track conversion rates when subscriptions end
* No way to offer magazine subscriptions as gifts
* No easy way to alert app users to new content
* Integration with existing print subscription/entitlement systems

Publishers want subscriptions so they can have valuable customer data – this is how they demonstrate value to advertisers and has been thus for eons. Users want subscriptions because it costs a lot less per issue and looking at many of the apps in the iTunes store you can see user reviews echoing this sentiment.

Even more than that, these publishers are cautious about these new platforms. The big sticking point right now, as was high-lighted by Time Inc. having their iPad app removed from the app store, is that publishers do not want to have to pay the 30% premium for access to the platform.

One of the most difficult problems with mobile apps is getting the app onto the device. Print publishers already have a fantastic channel for reaching end-users; the newstand. Print publishers are already looking at how they can tie in redeem codes into those annoying little magazine inserts that come with the newstand edition to drive users not only to the print but also digital versions of their publications. This also gives them the potential benefit of being able to directly invoice the users (outside of the normal app store transaction engine and thus the 30% cut).

All of these are just the start. Imagine when you juxtapose social components along with this. Being able to see who of your friends are reading or commenting on articles you’re reading. You can share more freely from directly within your app. Furthermore, why be limited to the ad inventory available in the print magazine? What if you can deliver context-sensitive advertising for the person reading the magazine? The opportunities are limitless.

Print publishers are working hard to find ways to leverage these new mobile platforms. Its exciting to watch and while I don’t know if it will “save” the industry, its certainly helping it redefine itself in an ever changing marketplace.

This post was written by Scott Kvetin, CEO & Co-Founder of Urban Airship, a True Ventures Portfolio Company.

Raise your hand if you know what I am talking about.

I was quickly faced with the reality that without a boss to report to, peers to collaborate with or a team to manage, I was left in a quiet, lonely vacuum where my productivity mattered only to me.  Combine this with constant distraction from blogs, Facebook, Twitter and just about everything else in the Internet and I was performing at suboptimal levels.  Over time I developed better self management practices to help me focus, filter and be more accountable.  And while solo entrepreneurship makes self management essential, in this always-on, distracto-conomy, most of us can benefit from better methods for staying productive as our companies and teams grow.

Before I explain my approach, it is important to note the hard part about a personal productivity plan, isn’t the plan itself.  It is doing it.  Much like diets or workout routines, the plan is the easy part.  Doing it every day is the challenge.  Therefore, for a plan to work it must be very, very simple and lightweight.  After all, this is supposed to make you more productive, not give you more to do.  And secondly, it must fit your personal style.  It must feel as natural and easy as possible.

My personal recipe is not novel or new, but a mash up David Allen, Stephen Covey, Agile/Scrum practices with insights from great ideas and posts from those such as Marc Andreseen, Mark Suster and Merlin Mann.  Every morning I sit down and plan my day.  I often do it sitting in a cafe with a cup of coffee.  The less distraction the better.  The more space for reflection the better.  I currently use Things for the Mac for to do list management, but there are a million different task list apps out there.

UPDATE MY TASK INBOX

My task inbox is the waiting room for anything I want to accomplish.  Big tasks, small tasks, important tasks, future tasks, old tasks, new tasks, work tasks and personal tasks.  It is the big laundry list.  Everything goes in here.  Pay bills, send emails, interview candidates, work on strategy, make phone calls… everything.  It gets all that clutter out of my head and frees up cognitive space.  Every morning I start by updating the inbox and broadly capturing what stuff I need to get done.

CREATE MY LIST FOR THE DAY

I then look through the INBOX and identify all the things I want to get done for the day.  I then move them to my TODAY list.  These are the urgent & important items or the important & nonurgent items.  However, while anything can go in the INBOX, only discrete, finite tasks that require less than 8 hours to complete can go in the TODAY.  For instance “work on funding” can go in the INBOX, but not the TODAY list.  “Followup Larry at Acme Capital” or “Update 50 year financial plan” would be better discrete tasks for the  TODAY list.

It is important that the TODAY is realistic.  Less is more.  if I crank through it faster than expected, I can always go back to the inbox and add more.  A short, real list helps filter out distraction and helps you focus on important stuff.  This list is as much about what you are not doing, as what you are doing.

SEQUENCE

I then sequence my list.  Not just prioritize.  This is possibly the most important part of the process.  I actually put tasks in the sequential order of which I will complete them.  This is my roadmap for the day.  I believe inefficiency exists largely in the spaces between completing one task and starting another.  It is in this gap we get distracted, avoid doing dreaded tasks and generally screw around.  By sequencing tasks there is no ‘figuring out what to do next,’ I just move into the next thing.  For added efficiency, I often group my tasks by like activity.  For example, I will do all my email tasks at once.

DO IT

I then make a commitment to myself to accomplish this plan as best possible and then get to it, checking off items as I go.  And come next morning, I grab that coffee and start over again.

3 LESSONS LEARNED

• I like mixing personal and professional stuff together.  There is only one me.  One focus of attention.  So having one list works better.  And after all… what entrepreneur has a personal life totally independent of their business anyhow?
• I front load stuff I don’t like doing and reward myself with things I am excited to do at the end. This gives me extra motivation to knock the hard/less enjoyable stuff out of the way.
• I try to close all the windows and apps that are irrelevant for the task at hand.  This helps reduce distractions.

Now stop wasting time reading blog posts and get back to work.  Don’t you have anything better to do right now?

This post was written by Tim Roberts, CEO & Founder of Infectious, a True Ventures Portfolio Company.

When True Ventures invested in Puppet Labs last year, we had been talking to other firms but not actively pitching, and their enthusiasm for working with us, along with their great reputation and references, encouraged us to just work with them and get back to business. We could have tried to find other investors or held out for a larger valuation, but the amount was the right amount, the partners were great, and we were able to get back to work without ever having to formally pitch to a bunch of other investors (or even True – we never did build a deck for them).

When we decided that raising a second round of funding was a good idea, we spent a couple of months asking potential investors what they would like to see from us and what they thought of the story we were telling. I’ve been told that this kind of meeting is a bad idea – that every meeting with a VC should be a pitch meeting – but that just seems silly. If you think someone’s good enough to be an investor, they’re good enough to give you advice and feedback, and, if you don’t trust them enough to give you real feedback, then you probably don’t want them investing in your company.

We got varying levels of interest in that first round of conversations, and we kept talking to more people until we had a story that seemed like the right story and pool of great investors who seemed interested. This is when we started formally pitching, and the difference between an interested investor and an enthusiastic investor became very clear. Everyone we talked to said we should talk again soon, but Matt Murphy of Kleiner called again the next week, had us pitching in front of his team a week later, and had a term sheet in front of us the next day. That’s enthusiastic. It’s also almost exactly the same story as we had with True.

The key here is that the enthusiasm came before any terms or valuation for the deal were discussed. This enthusiasm has worked out great in our relationship with True, and it gives me great hope in our relationship with Kleiner.

I expect we could have gotten a higher valuation in both rounds if we were willing to pitch to more firms, but I don’t think we’d have gotten investors who believed as much in what we’re doing.

That leads us to the second lesson – it’s about the business, not about the money. Sometimes you have to raise money, but that raising keeps you from working on your business. If you decide to spend another quarter out looking for a better deal, that’s a quarter where you’re paying more attention to investor meetings and presentations than you are to running your business.

This is especially important for me. I basically hate the money-raising process – I want to write software, close deals, hire people, talk to customers, or present to hundreds of potential users, not present to just tens of people who won’t use the software. Telling your story again and again, continuously refining in the face of hopefully difficult questions, is incredibly informative, but it doesn’t get your release out the door and it doesn’t convince a potential customer that you’ve got the right solution to their problems. I’m not sure I ever would have even raised an A round if Puneet and True Ventures hadn’t been so enthusiastic about working with us.

In the intervening year, I’ve had to become much more of a CEO than a developer, but I still don’t like raising money. I like the challenge, and we were able to effectively refine our story, but I was thrilled to get back to building software and working with customers.

So my second lesson is to keep focus on the fact that money raising is about the business, not the process. We’re lucky enough and planned well enough that we had plenty of money left in the bank when we started to raise our second round, but we ran it pretty close with our first round – our sales pipeline was entirely empty, and, given that our sales cycle is a couple of months long and this had been my only source of income for 4 years, we let ourselves get into a dangerous position because we got too focused on closing the deal.

Find an enthusiastic partner, close the round, and get back to work. If you can’t find the enthusiasm, ask yourself if you’re really willing to sacrifice the next 3-6 months of work to get a deal closed.

I guess I have a couple of other small notes about our round. First, our initial term sheet mattered a lot. True set a strong precedent by providing great terms in the first round. Also, we were able to get one term sheet hack into our deal that enabled us to sell a small portion of our shares without having to ask every investor first. This is unlikely to come up any time soon, but I have a friend who was at his startup for 13 years through $55m in venture raised in something like 11 rounds of funding, and his life got very complicated when he wanted to sell a bit before the company went public. This small carve-out can make a huge difference, and it’s very little skin of your investor’s back.

Now get back to your business!

This post was written by Luke Kanies, CEO & Co-Founder of Puppet Labs, a True Ventures Portfolio Company.