Today, I was called for jury duty.  Upon arrival, we sat for 30 minutes, then we watched a 12 minute video for juror orientation. The voiceover kept cracking me up, however, as they were unable to pronounce “voir dire” correctly.  (Think “vor dire” as in Dire Straits).  If you don’t believe me, watch the video.

Anyways,we kept moving rooms, filling out forms, being segregated into different piles of humanity and I thought “couldn’t this be simpler?” and made some snide comment under my breath about the efficiency of government.

While I was sitting there being frustrated, I realized that over complicated things, maybe more than anything, really ruin my day.  Then I realized that I was an arrogant ass, because I’m not sure my ecosystem is all that more simple or efficient most of the time, either. 

I could write tomes on all of the efficiencies that I see every day – the same ones that I’m sure you don’t like either.  I think all this artificial complexity probably plays back into our lives in that we start to overcomplicate things that don’t need the added brain damage.  This includes both professional and personal contexts and the sad thing is that we have so little control on most of these situations.

But we should rethink about how we do things when we do have control. 

Thinking back over my career – and specifically even if I just think deeply about the last few  weeks of meetings that I’ve had -I think the number one piece of advice that I’ve given is “keep it simple.” Whether it’s a business model, financing plan, product user interface, or a plan to deal with human conflict, simple is best the vast majority of the time. 

And likewise, when I think back to those seminal moments of mentorship that I’ve been fortunate to receive, there has usually been a component to simply what I was trying to accomplish.

So, there’s my fortune cookie advice for the day: “keep it simple.”  Likely you and those around you will be happier for it. 

I’m looking for a Boulder/Denver based operations person to work part time with one of our companies.  Depending upon successful engagement, it could turn out to be for more than one company.

Basic qualifications:

1. Strong finance ability.  Not CFO, level, but able to keep 100% of the books of a small startup;

2. HR.  Be able to set up benefits and help with HR paperwork;

3. Office Management. Be able to set up supply deliveries; and

4. General Admin. Be flexible enough to take on other administrative tasks that the technology-only company doesn’t want to deal with.

My guess is that this is half day a week job at first.  Given the amount of times that I’m asked this question, chance for multiple clients is possible.

Email me if you are interested, or leave a comment. 

Of the most popular posts that Brad and I have created are our series on Term Sheets, Compensation, and Mergers and Acquisitions.  One of the subjects that we’ve wanted to tackle has been the dissolution of companies.  It’s never fun to think about failure, but it happens a lot.

I recently gave an interview about how to handle start-up failures and gracefully exit your venture.  That being said, neither Brad or I had gotten around to creating a written series on the subject, so it was with great joy that my friend Roger Glovsky elected to write the series himself. 

We are going to post these on Askthevc.com and the first post is here.  These are must reads for anyone struggling with the issue. 

My friend Amy Hartman, who recently started her own law firm specializing in employment matters wrote a great piece called "Feel the Burn."

It’s a very informative, yet easy to read piece on strategies for cutting your company’s burn rate during these challenging times.

Most of her advice is with her employment law hat on, which is certainly a chief concern when contemplating cost reductions.

The other day, I was chatting with a local venture capitalist who remarked that Foundry Group has received some nice press coverage during our first year of existence.  While true and absolutely appreciated, I am smart enough to realize that the press can turn on a dime.  Who is today’s darling might very well be tomorrow’s devil.

So the question became "how do you manage the press?" to which I my initial reaction was "you can’t really manage the press, but you can get to know them and understand their world a bit." 

While some people believe that the media (and in my world this means tech / VC / startup press) is evil and out to get them, I tend to think that they just have a much different job than I do.  The irony of the relationship is that each of us have different incentives.  For instance, if you have dirty laundry and want to keep quiet, that is when the press is most interested in writing about you.  If you have something wonderful to announce, normally it’s hard to get anyone to write about it, as "puff pieces" don’t win authors any accolades.  There are exceptions, but it’s a basic rule of thumb.

This doesn’t make them evil, rather they have a job to do and their job is acquiring eyeballs.  And, unfortunately, bad news sells. 

Over the years, as a group, we’ve both been praised and punished and with some years under my belt, I’ve become much more mellow about both good and bad treatment.  It’s just part of the industry.

If there are two pieces of advice that I’d give, they would be first, get to know some of the people in the media and second, email is your best friend. 

I’ve spent some time with several of the "usual suspects" in the tech media and for the most part thought they were smart,  nice and certainly not mean spirited.  Folks like Dan Primack take their jobs very seriously, really do research their topics and have even become contributors to our industry with events like peHUB across America.  That being said, I’m sure Dan will be the first to call me out should he think that I’ve done anything "noteworthy."

Others such as Russ Garland and Dave Barry at Dow Jones spend a lot of time developing free educational panels for folks in our industry including VCs and entrepreneurs, alike. 

By getting to some people, I’ve found that I’ve mellowed about their jobs and at least know that they aren’t "out to get me" as some others fear.  Some of them are actually fun to have a beer with, even.

My largest criticism about the press are misquotations.  That is why email is your best friend.  I’d suggest having as much of your exchanges as possible over email unless you have a relationship with someone that you really trust.  I can’t even being to tell you the extent to which "reputable" news sources have misquoted folks that I know.  I’ve never known is this is just sloppiness or something more nefarious, but it’s something that everyone should be aware of. 

In summary, they have a job, you have a job, sometimes you are both aligned, but not usually.  Get to know them as people, be smart and you’ll have a better platform in which to interact with them.