To Blog or Not To Blog…
Posted on September 25, 2007
Filed Under Blogs |
"There’s a bifurcation happening in the Boston venture capital world: Some firms blog, and some don’t. And the divide isn’t just about being hip to the latest trend. It signifies an important shift in the way VC firms interact with entrepreneurs."
The premise of this article is kind of silly, it’s a "you are with us or against us" tone and it’s comical. Not every VC can blog, quite frankly not every VC has something to say… just like the rest of the population. It doesn’t mean they aren’t smart or articulate, but capturing attention in the blogosphere is a lot different than doing it in partner meetings or at conferences.
Blogging takes commitment. If you are Mike Moritz or John Doerr you will have a built in audience, but those guys have personal brands that the great majority of investors do not. You aren’t going to fire up your new wordpress.com account and 2 days later have tens of thousands of page views. Sorry, just doesn’t happen for most of us, what does happen is that you blog for a long time with a small core audience that you cultivate and then it grows with spikes along the way as you get Dugg, Stumbled’upon and other unnatural acts happen.
Blogging takes time for most people (I’m fortunate because I just write like I talk and don’t edit anything, so my blogging consumes no more than 30 minutes a day on average, but I read a lot as well) and this time commitment is a problem for investors because they just don’t have it. Investors are also secretive, sometimes for good reason while most of the time no so. There is a perception that blogging will reveal some long lost secret to VC riches, or that potential limited partners will cringe at the thought of the manager of the fund they are invested in writing about what deals they are looking at, imagine that.
Does blogging lead to deals? Maybe, Fred and Brad certainly think so… but in the end I think it leads to knowledge and relationships that are the precursor to deals.
I’m hesitant to write this last sentence because it is going to sound like an insult to some, but it’s really just an observation gained from 5 years of watching this topic. Ultimately, whether to blog or not is generational with the old timers typically not seeing any value in it while the younger men and women see blogging as something that they can use to gain relevance in the broader technology, entrepreneur, and investor community.
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About
My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. I am the VP of Product Marketing for Get Satisfaction and I write about a range of topics that interest me, including public policy, technology, entrepreneurship, finance, and global issues.
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