Thought to Action

Convertible notes are a financial instrument for early stage venture fundraising that provide benefits to both entrepreneurs and early investors. They move much faster than equity financing and give investors a premium for taking on early risk.

In San Francisco (AdLast is in South Park) coffee shops it’s common to hear:

“He invested $100,000 at a 20% discount with a $5M cap.”

Capped Notes (a form of “convertible debt”) convert to Common Shares in the Company at its next round of funding. For startups, this is usually a Series A round.

• Notes usually have a Discount that gives them investors a premium for being early and taking on more risk.
• They can also have a Cap to help protect investors against downsides if you grow too quickly. This helps fully align the incentives of the entrepreneur and the investor.

There are two main scenarios where Capped Note converts to equity:

• Scenario 1: The Series A round is at a valuation above $5M (for example, $10M). Investor gets 100,000/5,000,000 (2 %) ownership.
• Scenario 2: The Series A round is at a valuation below $5M (for example, $2M). Investor gets (100,000/(1-.2)) / 2,000,000 (6.25 %) ownership.

If you found this valuable, I’d love if you shared it on Twitter.

I feel so fortunate to have spent the last 1 year, 11 months as a student at the most forward thinking company in the world. Working at Google, I was surrounded with incredibly talented people solving difficult problems in a culture of creativity, learning and personal growth.

Today is my last day at Google and, while I am incredibly sad to leave, I am, “uncomfortably excited” about what the future holds. The relationships, experience and skills that I gained during my time at Google have given me the confidence to pursue my dreams of being a startup co-founder.

Some of the most stimulating conversations that I‘ve ever had have been over the amazing food at Beta, Charlie’s or Big Table. I will miss the lunchtime talks and impassioned diatribes more than anything else. There’s no way to explain the culture more than just, “Googley” – unique viewpoints, analytical thinking and creativity flowed through the hallways and was palpable on campus.

Google lets its employees work at an incredible scale at all levels in the company. There are very few organizations that impact as many people and make as much money as Google, and it is absolutely marveling how they make it all work. I’ve had the opportunity to launch new products, build internal programs with global impact, patent new technologies and manage technology partnerships for products used by tens of millions of people. I worked on 20% projects, attended Author Talks, learned Linux, answered customer support questions and filed bugs. Google gave me the freedom to identify and fix the problems with the most impact.

My favorite perk from Google is their investment into the continued education of its employees. Google offers courses to help develop and round out Googlers’ skillsets to help them grow as professionals and individuals. I was able to structure my own curriculum and took 100+ hours of coursework in Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Meditation, Strategic Thinking, Creative Thinking, Negotiations, Data Visualization and Building Authentic Relationships. I received an excellent education and was exposed to new ways of thinking about technology, business and myself all while in the confines of the ‘Plex.

I will always love Google and cherish my memories of my time in Mountain View. I spent some of the most difficult times in my life as a Google employee, and the way they took care of me is something that I will never forget. Google truly cares about its employees and its users and will continue to prosper as long as they keep the spirit alive.

Thank you, Google.

On October 17, 2012, my Mom passed away after an 11 year battle with cancer.

My life has changed drastically over the last two months but my love and adoration for my Mom has remained constant. I miss her and think about her every day and can’t help but feel a renewed sense of purpose in life. Her memory has filled me with hope and inspiration to go after my dreams and to not be afraid to take risks, as I know the worst failure I might experience will be nothing compared to the suffering that she experienced.

I have been asked a few times to share the Eulogy that I read at her funeral and today I felt inspired to share a glimpse at the type of person that my Mom was.

Thank you all so much for being here today. There were few things that made my Mom as happy as being surrounded by the people she loved and cared for – I couldn’t imagine a better way to honor her life than by having each of you here today.

Susan was the type of person whose warmth and energy filled every room that she stepped into. She had so much enthusiasm for life and seized every opportunity to share and spread her joy with those around her. Whether she acted as a Team Mom or a Chaperone, a Friend or a Trusted Advisor, I know everyone here has experienced my Mom’s exuberant nature and understands the impact she made in the communities that she was a part of. Through her lighthearted outlook on the world, her way of being honest in a way that didn’t make you hate her and of course her booming laugh, she touched so many people’s lives in the time she shared with us.

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on how my Mom impacted my life and have realized that it is nearly impossible to untangle my own story from her story. She is so much a part of me that it’s difficult to separate the things I’ve learned from her from those that I’ve picked up on my own. The favorite pieces of my personality are those which I admired most about and learned from her. She taught me to love the world and to find the things in it that inspire me. “From there”, she would tell me, “the rest is easy”. My mom showed me how to see the lighter side of life and how to stay mindful of my priorities. “It’s easy to let your world get small and your problems get big”, she told me, “but in those moments it is especially important to remember how grand the world actually is.”

My Mom wanted Charlotte and I to benefit as much as possible from the lessons that she learned on her journey and as we got older she took every opportunity to teach us about life. She was my spiritual mentor and taught me more about myself than I have any capacity to explain. The strength and courage she demonstrated in the face of her biggest fears acts as a measure of the type of person I aspire to be.

The most important lesson I have learned from my Mom is something she didn’t get to share with me but that she gave me the the chance to learn on my own. When her sickness took a turn for the worse in March, I had the chance to spend a lot of time with her at the hospital. I remember distinctly one day that stood out from the rest. It was a Wednesday and had shaped up to be one of the more difficult days for all of us. Mom was having a very difficult time facing the reality of what we then realized was an inoperable, aggressive and rare form of cancer. We cried together until there were no more tears to share and I whispered to her something she had told me many times in the past: “Mom, we can’t always control what happens in life. The only things we can control are what we do and how we react to them.”

We both sat silent for a moment and then decided to make it outside and explore the beautifully kept grounds at the hospital. After a few minutes she built up enough strength for me to take her outside for the first time in weeks to do little more than sit, breathe and watch the wind move through the trees. She even managed to pull out an iconic Susan smile and flash the peace sign.

In that moment 24 years of life lessons all seemed to click as so many “Mom-isms” came together in an expression of pure joy and understanding. Anything that might have mattered seconds before melted away in favor of simply enjoying our time together. For the first time, I had moved from being the one receiving her advice to the one giving it. Once again, my Mom had changed my life.

One of the most difficult things for me to cope over the last few days has been the concept of my Mom’s physical absence from my life. Though I had grown used to not seeing her everyday and her ability to be a huge part of my daily life lessened as she became more ill, there was still an enormous amount of comfort in having my Mom – Mommy – here with us. I know that I will likely feel that for the rest of my life but I find great comfort in knowing that she is with me in every laugh, smile and moment of joy I will experience.

My Mom is the type of person whose life you can’t help but celebrate – I know that if she were here today she would be the first to remind us to fill our hearts with the joyous memories of our time with her rather than the loss that has brought us all here. With that let us remember all that we have to be thankful for in life and take the day to celebrate my Mom’s wonderful legacy. Thank you.

Each of our online interactions leaves a trail of data that, in aggregate, represents how we explore the web. New standards in data portability have prompted companies to open up its users’ data to make it readily available to those who are curious enough to explore. By leveraging Google Reader, Buffer and IFTTT, I have been able to take my personal data traces and turn them into a social media content machine. Additionally, I can analyze clickthrough data to understand what content is most relevant to my online audience to optimize what I share for the highest clickthrough rate.

The steps below will teach you how to take your own content inflow and seamlessly turn it into sharable content that will help build your personal brand.

Step One: Set Up Google Reader

Google Reader is an RSS feed aggregator that allows its users to collect content from its favorites sites across the web and quickly page through all new posts as they come in. In order to fully take advantage of Google Reader and your Digital Tracks, make sure to add your favorite sites to Reader and categorize them with folders.

Step Two: Set Up Buffer for your Twitter Account

Buffer is a Tweet scheduler that allows users to schedule Tweets to be posted at future point in time. This is enormously helpful to make sure you have a consistent stream of Tweets – a must if you’re looking to build a fanfare.

Buffer also provides post-level analytics so you can understand which of your posts people are clicking on, retweeting, replying to and favoriting. This is very important as you start optimizing your content flow.

Step Three: Use IFTTT to Connect Google Reader and Buffer

IFTTT (If This, Then That) is leading the way in machine-to-machine communication and allows its users to do cross-application data mashups in what they call “recipes.” For example, you can use IFTTT to create recipe that says, “when there is a newly starred item in Google Reader, add it to the Buffer Queue for @jmilinovich.” It truly is that simple.

Step Four: Start Reading!

At this point, you have set-up your Google Reader and your Buffer accounts and connected the two using IFTTT. It’s time to start digesting content! Go to your Google Reader and every time you read an article that you enjoy or would like to Tweet about, Star it (protip: keyboard shortcut ‘s’) and move on. You will start to see your Tweets post up to four times a day.

(optional) Step Five: Analyze and Optimize

After you’ve been following this information workflow for a few weeks, log-in to your Buffer Analytics dashboard and observe which of your Tweets people are interacting with and which people are not. You can get a sense of how sticky a post was by looking at how many Clicks it received relative to its Potential audience (Clicks/Potential represents clickthrough rate). When someone retweets you, the Potential audience increases as well.

As your sample size become big enough, you will start to observe trends in which of your posts people enjoy interacting with. In my case, I noticed that people were much more likely to click on links about technology and social media than they were about design and architecture. Fortunately, this doesn’t change what I read in Google Reader but just what I decide to star and share.

Are you currently taking advantage of your Digital Tracks?

Recent innovation in sensors, smartphones and connected devices enable users to measure an unprecedented amount of information about how humans interact with and live in the world. As this data continues to become valuable and actionable, a new layer of data revolution will emerge.

In most of the current ‘Quantified Self‘ products, the most compelling use cases revolve around health and fitness. They all solve for problems that exist within their communities and have a critical mass of users who are willing to try new things.  Soon, similar use cases will evolve within parallel verticals like eco-consciousness and lifelong learning.

My Measurement Framework
My “Quantified Me” exists through 5 main interfaces: Fitocracy, The Eatery, RunKeeper, Withings and Fitbit. Each attempts to measure a specific part of my activity, either implicitly through sensors or explicitly through an interface.  The goal of measurement in each context is to help you move towards certain milestones or achievements.  This could be getting to your ideal weight or setting new weightlifting max’s.

Some of the applications (RunKeeper, Withings, Fitbit) have API’s that allow me to connect one product to another. Fitbit integrates with Withings to more accurately measure calories burned, while Fitocracy lets me get Points for Runkeeper runs. There is a certian data economy that is starting to emerge but hasn’t quite hit ubiquity…

(read full post)

“Lewis and Clark were lost most of the time. If your idea of exploration is to always know where you are and to be inside your zone of competence, you don’t do wild new shit. You have to be confused, upset, think you’re stupid. If you’re not willing to do that, you can’t go outside the box.”

-Nathan Myhrvold

Don’t be afraid to experience the world.  Growth comes from discomfort and change.

When have you pushed your own limits of competence and gone outside the box?

tl;dr: passion is contagious – finding yours is much easier than you thought.

The Foundations of Passion

When I meet someone new, passion is one of the most quickly identified traits I see and admire.  The excitement that is revealed when someone is talking about their passion is enough to get others interested in what they’re talking about and cannot really be faked.  At a personal level, passion unlocks the ability to truly enjoy the things that you spend your time doing.

People perceive passion in various ways at different stages in life.  Oftentimes, children who are passionate about something outside of the mainstream are called “Nerds” and “Geeks” simply because what they care about is not widely adopted or understood within their peer group.  This certainly happened to me and I know many others who experienced this as well.

As people get older (and usually mature), impassioned individuals start to be perceived differently because of the fact that they start to perceive themselves in a different light.  This inner change and self-confidence is palpable and is very, very real.  I remember a time in college when one of my friends recommended that I, “stop reading so much ‘Internet stuff’ and watch more sports” so I could relate to people better.  I am happy that I didn’t take his advice and now live and work in a place where Tech is cool.  My passion brought me to Silicon Valley and the sense of tech culture and excitement is what will keep me here for a very, very long time.

About a year ago I read a great article by Tim Ferriss called “How to Harness the Superstar Effect” that talks a lot about how people with narrow-focused passions are the ones who become top Opera singers, Sumo wrestlers and CEOs.  He calls it the Superstar corollary:

“Being the best in a field makes you disproportionately impressive to the outside world. This effect holds even if the field is not crowded, competitive, or well-known.”

While I don’t believe you have to be the best at something to be happy or fulfilled, it is a great model to aspire to and in effect, it doesn’t matter what you are interested in – as long as you are willing to put the time into being the best at, you will do well.

Find Your Passion

It might be easy enough to buy into the power of passion, but the challenge then becomes finding something you are truly passionate about.  Fortunately, the answer is simple but not clear cut or well defined: try a lot of stuff you don’t like and eventually something will stick.

Here is a quick play-by-play of how I found my passion for social data and social media marketing:

1. Identify a list of things you are interesting in learning about from as wide a range of topics as possible.
2. Take the first item on the list and read everything that there is to read on the subject.  Familiarize yourself with the space, the trends and who the ‘Superstars” are.
3. Once you have a good base of knowledge in the area (should take about 2 weeks of due diligence), reflect on whether this is something you’re more interested in than when you started.  If yes, continue on; if no, move back to step 2 with the next item on your list.
4. Reach out to some of the top bloggers, writers and “movers and shakers” in the area to learn more about their journey getting to where they are.  You’d be surprised at how easy it is to reach out to people – don’t be afraid to try!  Start writing and collecting your own thoughts on the subject to start figuring out your own story.
5. Determine what it would take for you to become a superstar in this area.  List out the steps between where you are and where you want to be.  Rapidly start working through the steps but be conscious of the fact that expertise takes time.
6. Give things at least 1 month to catch on and if, at that point you’re not more interested in it than you were at the beginning, move on.

This approach has worked for lots of people I have spoken with across many different disciplines.  If your interest is in something like cycling or triathlons, you should move into the ‘practice’ phase in parallel with the ‘knowledge’ phase.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what your passion is or how you end up with is as long as you make it your own.

What are you passionate about and how did you decide on that pursuit?

tl;dr: work hard, learn to code and build meaningful professional relationships.

It’s been just over a year and a half since I moved to Silicon Valley.  To the outside world it’s the land of The Internets and the place where kids become billionaires (Thanks a lot, Zuck).  I’ve been here for a year and a half and, while I’m still as much in love with this place as when I arrived, it is for much different reasons.

Hitting the Ground Running

Fresh out of college, I showed up ready to take the world by storm.  With the haze of graduation slowly starting to fade and the everlasting hangover beginning to tide, I felt like I had a purpose in life.  This was the place where the ambitious came to see what they were made of and to know what it felt like to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

I’m an idealist, and the notion of having a chance to change the world was enough of a selling point to take me out of the comfort of Los Angeles (In retrospect, all of the recruiting messages worked extremely well on me) and throw me into something completely new.  I studied Architecture and Accounting at UCLA and always enjoyed thinking abstractly, making stuff and playing with data: combine that with my unhealthy Tech blog habit and a career in technology made perfect sense.

The back of my first “big boy” business card as an Intern at Yahoo.  Seriously.

I started at Yahoo! as a Financial Analyst in August 2010 and hit the ground running.  My group’s job was to focus on streamlining 15 years worth of inefficient financial process and, as our SVP told us, to “try to eliminate our own jobs.”  This was a harsh reality check and it didn’t take too many Weekly Headcount Reports to realize that everything in a big company comes down to dollars on a line item.

Full Speed Ahead

I quickly realized that Finance wasn’t the right profession for me (I think I had I-Banking/Consulting envy) but I had a serious thirst for the way technology frames our experience of the world.  I began to immerse myself in Hackathons and side projects and started to cut my teeth alongside some amazing engineers.  The thing they don’t tell you in High School is that Industry is built on engineers.  If you don’t make stuff, you are supporting those who do.

I joined Google in early 2011 and felt like the treadmill was put into sprint mode.  I was placed on the Google Offers Customer Operations team before our launch and played a pivotal role in defining, designing and implementing our entire social media strategy.  I learned that I’m not afraid to work long hours, pitch my vision or challenge convention: these are all fundamental components of what it takes to suceed in any hyper-competitive environment.

What I’ve Learned

While I am the same person as when I arrive in the Valley, my entire world and what I think is important has changed.  I used to believe in ideas and now I believe in action.  I enjoy spending my free time hacking, reading and learning… passion is what makes people interesting and I feel incredibly lucky to live in a place where everyone is incredibly excited about what they’re working on.

Looking back on the last year of my career, there have been a few monumental shifts that have happened that I wish I had known would be so important earlier in my life.  I hope to outline these here and leave them as items that warrant further exploration:

1. No matter what part of The Internets you’re interested in, learn to code.  You don’t need to be an expert, but be able to build something;
2. Find stuff to work on that you enjoy so much, you don’t care how much you work.  Trust me, this makes things much more fun;
3. Establish meaningful relationships with people, both personally and professionally.  Relationships are the currency of life and without them you’re poor;
4. Meditate and learn to breathe.  You will never feel as alive as you do when you’re fully living in the present moment.

My relationship to Silicon Valley has deepend drastically since I got here and I wouldn’t change my experience for anything.  I’m not quite sure what will happen next, but where’d the fun be if I did?