living, learning, and laughing.

Five years ago I moved to Boston (from NYC) to start a new career with SVB.  And now starting tomorrow, I will be running our NYC startup practice.  I’m excited.

Its been an incredible journey of learning, experimentation, and building.  I feel incredibly lucky every day to learn about some of the most interesting and innovative companies, and to connect with the founders and their teams driving those ideas.  But luck is really just one part - I’ve had supportive mentors, friends, and clients, along the way who have supported me along this journey to not only build our business and help me learn and grow, but to also build a more open and collaborative tech. community that helps new and existing founders grow their companies.  Thank you for helping me grow.

I’m excited to be building our NYC startup practice, meeting the wonderful people in NYC, and leveraging our resources to help build the ecosystem.  As I think about the last piece, I strongly believe the next level is about bridging (given how close we are) our founders, mentors, and all the resources that complement our two great communities.

MassTLC hosted a wonderful awards gala last night recognizing our innovative companies and leaders - John Cullinane, Kelly Powers, and our very own Katie Rae.  Bill Warner introduced Katie and highlighted some very special things about Katie:
-Techstars: Graduated 25 companies which employ over 150 and have collectively raised over $28M
-Boston Startup School: Working with Founders, Aaron O’Hearn and Shaun Johnson, to educate and prepare students and young professionals to work for startups
-Her special secret human power: her ability to listen, connect, communicate, and cut to the chase of what needs to get done.

Katie shared some very powerful stories of what drives her: working with her business partner Reed Sturtevant, jumping off a cliff and doing new things, how being a mother has prepared for her for a multi-faceted life, the rich Greater Boston ecosystem, and how this is the happiest time of her life.  In closing, she asked everyone to continue giving back, paying it forward, and for mentors to engage and support our startup founders.  Thank you Katie for your endless energy, the impact you’ve had on so many of us in the startup ecosystem, and the impact you will continue to make in the future. 

Google, in its awesome wisdom, decided I’d make a good beta tester and sent me a chromebook - thanks guys!  I owe the long post below to them.  If you don’t have the time, here is my personal opinion of the chromebook for the mainstream user:  Its.Not.Ready.  The premise behind the chromebook is to be device and location-agnostic when it comes to accessing and sharing your data (documents, pictures, etc.); it is run completely off the cloud requiring even the ability to go pass the boot screen to be enabled by wifi.  Certainly, Google and other partners have their business reasons for a 100% cloud world.  But as I detail below, my first impression is its not ready for the mainstream users because a) people will want to access their data, not to mention turn on their device, without the presence or requirement of having wifi b) it can’t open widely supported formats like excel, c) the UI needs work.  Finally, for being a cloud laptop, its pretty darn heavy.  So what are the alternatives to the chromebook for its price and features?  I think people will prefer the iPad.  What do you think?

My first hours with the chromebook
Thanks Google for allowing me to be a beta-tester - love playing with new toys and appreciate this opportunity.  Here is a recap of the first few hours of my chromebook experience:

A Mystery Box, received 5/23 @ 2:30PM
My first reaction was, “oh crap,..they sent these legal docs to the wrong SVBer?” Having underwritten venture debt in the past, I used to get a sinking feeling when having to work through the in-flow of all the docs associated with such deals (legal, auditing, compliance, etc..).  But hey, there’s innovation around that.  There must be a way to have that in some type of data-room like those used in M&A transactions.  
Right, well back to the box.  I knew it was something fun when opening the box, I uncovered another box with a peculiar google-y design.  Strange, the handle on the top of the box reminds me of the macbook box!
Google executed the oldest trick in the book, under-promise and over-deliver!  I signed up for the beta in December and have completely forgotten about it since.  In fact, I’m sure I was told thanks, but you weren’t selected.  And why would I?  There’s many more out there who are prolific bloggers, tweeters, and earlier adopters of technology.  I just happened to be a lucky guy, working for a cool bank focused on innovation (insert plug here), and expressed my interest in trying out new tech.  So, thanks Google for giving me this opportunity!

“Activating” the Chromebook, @ 3PM
I love using the Chrome brower on the Mac, so when the chromebook powered on and displayed the chrome logo, I thought, “cool!”  To my dismay, however, you need a wifi connection to activate the chromebook.  Not that it was much to be dismayed about; it was more disappointing that I couldn’t figure out how to log-in to SVB’s super-secure network -> Tuan #Fail.  So much for hoping to play with the chromebook; I decided to charge it and activate later.  

“Activating” the Chromebook, @ 6:45PM Part Deux
Over drinks and dinner with an entrepreneur, we decided that we’ll use my chromebook to do his product demo.  The kid in me still loves showing off new gadgets, and here was my chance!  Yikes, #fail again, as the hotel’s wifi was temporarily down.  We decide to do the demo on his laptop instead.  I thought about connecting to the Google Guest wifi, but it would’ve taken longer as the system needed to download updates.

Using the Chromebook, @8:30PM
Success!  After connecting to wifi at home, the chromebook takes a few minutes to download updates, and then I’m off to the clouds!  It starts immediately with a familiar sight: the chrome browser!  I’m liking this thing already.  Gmail, news, and twitter, are all loading just fine.  I share a few messages with friends over gchat (+video chat) and make a few notes in google docs.  
So far so good.. I proceeded to the web store where you can download apps and extensions for the brower.  First downloads: feedly, picnik, and last.fm.  I try to look for an official tumblr app/ext but its not available.  I can’t be sure if its the more tabs I open, but I’m starting to notice scrolling through sites are not as smooth compared to the macbook - which is surprising given the 2GB of RAM for a cloud computing device (and I’m assuming ample CPU).  Speed and flow decreases when I’m running the last.fm extension :(.  Well, on to actually doing work..

Loading Office files and doing work, @10PM
In and out.  Tried to download and edit an excel file - must be too early, as Chrome cant natively support it, and there aren’t any apps or ext. out there.  Opening it, I get an error message, and an option to open the folder its in, which leads me to some Windows 3.1 folder system interface.  I think about tinkering with the Microsoft SkyDrive, but I’m sure IT won’t be happy with our files out there in the cloud.  Back to the Mac.  

I’ve dabbled in blogs here and there, but never consistent enough, to make my presence meaningful.  The reason is on certain things, I tend to be a perfectionist - (I’ve always wanted to perfect my jump shot and the sky hook, random thought) and have always wanted to deliver the right things at the right time.  I should’ve known better -> minimum viable product.

Well for my first post, I’d like to share with you a huge win I’m proud of in every single way.  SVB recently extended a summer internship offer (thanks Pamela for pushing this!) to a graduating senior  at University of Massachusetts Boston management school.  That student has impeccable work ethic and credentials.  In addition to having an internship with a top financial institution, he paid his own way through Uni by way of working almost full-time at a restaurant while simultaneously taking on a full course-load.  I’m not in a position to make a direct hire, but given the choice, I’d choose this student any day.  In our startup world, he hustles and executes with no excuses.  

I’m proud because most students at UMB, by necessity, have to work to pay their own way for school.  There’s a unique kind of toughness to that, that like other characteristics, deserves admiration and respect.

I’m proud because SVB found a great candidate from UMB (and also 5 other students) who deserved this opportunity; one that from personal experience will allow them to work with great people and make a positive impact on their growth.

Finally, this student took a bet on SVB.  He is a graduating senior who would’ve received a full-time offer elsewhere.  Working with startups and founders, I can relate to making bets on what you think is right (of course, failures are accepted).  Thanks for making a bet on us.  You won’t find a more supportive team than at SVB.  On top of that, its going to be our mission to make sure you succeed and make this an awesome learning opportunity - one I’m privileged to be a part of on a daily basis.

I should thank Dan (http://danallred.tumblr.com/) for pushing me to share my thoughts regardless of how imperfect I think it is, and Jeff (@jiffylu) for introducing me to Mark Suster’s post, “Whose Life are You Going to Change?” (@msuster) that have affected me in profound ways and helped articulate the human purpose to my work at SVB.

Here’s to more thoughts and your comments.  -TP