Master of 500 Hats

Securitizing Happiness: Hacking Human Suffering thru Financial Engineering (TEDxShanghai, June 2009)

Below are slides from my talk on "Securitizing Happiness" at TEDxShanghai later today.  This presentation is a slight update to the original talk i gave back in March 2008 at the O'Reilly Collective Intelligence FOO Camp, held at Google HQ in Mountain View:

Securitizing Happiness: Solving the World's Problems by Making Trillion-Dollar Markets for Individuals, Small Business, & Natural Resources

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave McClure.

Note: many of these concepts are still fairly raw, and since i'm not really a financial engineering expert they could certainly use further refinement... so your feedback and comments are appreciated.  That said, i'm optimistic the basic ideas here are viable, worthwhile and can have substantial economic impact on society in the future.

Startup Metrics for Pirates (Startonomics Beijing, June 2009)

Here is current "Startup Metrics for Pirates" presentation which i'll be giving at Startonomics Beijing: 

Startup Metrics for Pirates (Startonomics Beijing, June 2009)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave Mcclure.

Note this is fairly similar to previous versions of the talk, with a few slides i've stolen liberally from Eric Ries (aka Startup Lessons Learned / The Lean Startup).  If you find my presentation boring, please check out Eric's stuff (he rocks).

US Startup Investment Market Overview (Startonomics Tokyo, June 2009)

Presentation on the US Startup Investment Market from Startonomics Tokyo:

US Startup Investment Market (Startonomics Tokyo, June 2009)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave Mcclure.

The 2009 TechFellow Awards: The Envelope, Please...

2009 TechFellow Awards
Photos by davemc500hats

Thanks to everyone who helped us pull together the first inaugural TechFellow Awards (2009)... according to a few who remembered the evening, it was a raging success :)

I'd like to congratulate all of our 22 TechFellow winners, as well as thank our nominating committee, and TechCrunch and many many others for helping us produce the event.

If you'd like to see more, you can find my photos of the 2009 TechFellow Awards (photos) and also the 2009 TechFellow Awards (uStream webcast).

(one other note: we are all saddened by the recent passing of Rajeev Motwani, and our condolences to his wife Asha and family... thanks to Ron Conway for providing a thoughtful tribute to his dear friend at the beginning of the award presentations)

DMC Metamorphosis :)

I feel like i've hit a turning point in my life.  Something has happened in the past 6 months, in the past 3 years since leaving Simply Hired & PayPal.  I'm not sure when it all clicked, but i've been fortunate to have a lot of wonderful things come my way lately.

Those things include but are not limited to:

• working with / investing in great startups like Mint (thx Aaron), SlideShare (thx Rashmi & Jon), TeachStreet (thx Dave), and many others
• running conferences like Startonomics SF (thx Debbie), Graphing Social Patterns (thx Gina & Tim), and Web 2.0 Expo SF (thx Brady & Jen)
• creating the now-infamous Stanford Facebook class (thx BJ, Yee, Jia, many others & our students!)
• coming up with Startup Metrics for Pirates AARRR! (thx Hiten, Andrew, Eric, *SO* many others) 
• getting Startup2Startup rolling last year (thx Leonard, Brian, Kat, Saar, & MANY friends/sponsors)
• joining FoundersFund this year (thx Sean Parker for giving me a shot)
• launching FF Angel LLC and investing in some great startups (thx FF, also Jeff Clavier & many other angels & VCs for great advice)
• retooling fbFund & creating the fbFund REV incubator program (thx Cat & folks at FB, Accel & FF, many others)
• kicking off GeeksOnaPlane Asia trip (thx Christine, George, lots others)
• putting Finance4Founders together & ready to rollout (thx Dan & others)

while this may seem like a laundry list, the one common thread in all of the above projects has been the amazing help of my friends & colleagues.  there is no way i could have accomplished any of these efforts without the patience, tolerance, brilliance, and sheer hard work of my home boys & girls.  you folks really do rock.  (and i know how much of a pain in the butt i am to work with!)

seriously: how lucky am i, to be blessed with so many incredible people in my life, who have given me so much, created such tremendous opportunities... while i remain the lazy, ADD, easily-distracted, crazy sonuvabitch i've always been, who barely manages to make rent each month. i mean, it's nothing short of a miracle that i can find my ass with both hands in the morning, and yet somehow after so many years in the valley i have found a nice little groove. how cool is that.

these days i actually wake up early & excited to do the work i'm doing, happy as a newborn puppy to spend time working on projects with people i like, and i keep pinching myself to make sure this shit doesn't disappear tomorrow.  well even if it did, i would treasure the moments thus far...

lastly, i must acknowledge the folks at home who help me find purpose and reason amidst all this insanity... thank you to my wife and our two beautiful kids.  you are the light of my life, and your smiles & laughter are precious beyond the treasure and measure of mortal men.  

truly, i am a very lucky person.  thank you to everyone :)

Pimpin' da Maestro: May 29th Eric Ries "Lean Startup" Geek Masterclass

  Ok i'll admit it... i have an incredible ubergeek man-crush on Eric Ries. 

Same way i fell for Andrew Chen awhile back. (Andrew don't think yer getting away from my SwimFan clutches, i still ♥ U + yr big brain bigtime). 

While there are many other startup gurusi stalk regularly (Steve Blank, Sean Ellis, Hiten Shah, Dan Olsen, Ted Rheingold, Amy Jo Kim, Jeremy Liew, + other Startonomics SF peeps), there's no denying Eric Ries is the biggest Grok-Star to hit the Silicon Valley scene in 2009. I swear i witnessed the Second Coming of Muad'Dib at his Most Awesome Web 2.0 Expo Sermon on The Mount... er i mean The Lean Startup to the Fremen Faithful this past spring.  

I have rarely seen such a terrific presentation by a relatively unknown speaker absolutely KILL the audience, and NEVER had i seen ~150 people get up after the talk was over, and follow him into the hallway for a followup conversation (can't you just feel the Who / Tommy concert crush in that pic?)

But of course, there's a reason... it's because Eric knows his shit. 

and it rings true whenever startup geeks listen to what he's saying. I've had the pleasure of seeing several of Eric's Lean Startup presentations, and they're all fabulous.  it's refreshing to hear someone speak concretely from their own experience (both failure & success), and then summarize Startup Lessons Learned for the rest of us to grok at our leisure.

If you'd like to hear more about the Gospel that Eric is preaching, i STRONGLY encourage you to signup for the O'Reilly masterclass on Lean Startup methodology he'll be teaching in San Francisco on May 29th (and other places later). the price might be a bit steep for a startup budget, but the knowledge & learning & value for your company you'll take away from it will likely be priceless.

 Register here to signup.

Here's a brief taste of the Spice that Eric will be serving up for your thirsty startup:

2009 05 01 How To Build A Lean Startup Step By Step

View more Microsoft Word documents from Eric Ries.

Become a Web 2.0 Metrics Jedi: Using Product & Marketing Metrics to Optimize Your Business

Here are slides from Web 2.0 Expo SF talk i gave today along with Dan Olsen (YourVersion.com) & Ted Rheingold (Dogster / Catster):

How to be a Web 2.0 Metrics Jedi (Web 2.0 Expo, April 2009)

View more presentations from Dan Olsen.

(extra special kudos to Dan for finding the Yoda Pirate graphic... AWEsomeness :)

How to Pitch a VC (aka Startup Viagra: How to Give a VC a Hard-On)

[UPDATED] video & slides from my talk at Presentation Camp SF:

Dave McClure - How to Pitch a VC (aka Startup Viagra: How to Give a VC a Hard-On) from Chris Hutchins on Vimeo

How to Pitch a VC (aka Startup Viagra: How to Give a VC a Hard-On)

View more presentations from Dave Mcclure.

MediaMemo: PAID is Not a Dirty Word

i may swear a lot on this blog and in person, but the word "PAID" is not a dirty word (altho strangely, it *is* a four-letter word ;)

here's interview i did at SXSW with Peter Kafka of Media Memo / AllThingsD:

note to Mom: didn't drop any F-bombs, only a few choice curse words. oops.

Reid Hoffman Kicks Ass, Takes Names, Envisions Future.

Not many people labeled as Visionary really deserve the title.  

Reid Hoffman definitely does.  

He's proven it multiple times, both as an EVP at PayPal & founder/CEO/Chairman at LinkedIn, and as an insightful & early angel investor at Facebook, Digg, Friendster, Flickr and over 60 other startups.

Here's a recent video interview below Reid did with Charlie Rose (who seems to be meeting with all the top geeks in Silicon Valley lately), and also a link to Reid's op-ed piece in the Washington Post on the proposed Stimulus bill ("It's The Startups, Stupid").

i've had the privilege to work with Reid briefly at PayPal, at Simply Hired as a LinkedIn partner, and more recently as a "friend of the company" at LinkedIn (not to mention an incredibly addicted user). Reid has always been thoughtful & generous with his ideas, and very kind to offer some great advice & feedback the few times i've been lucky to receive his mentorship.

hope i get the opportunity to stay within his occasional circle of influence in the future; he's really an amazing person on so many levels... thanks Reid!