Nicole Richie is opening up to fans about her life with husband Joel Madden in a new video.
Nicole Richie is known for fiercely protecting her family's privacy, but the mom of two recently decided to give fans an intimate glimpse of "life on the road" with her rocker husband, Joel Madden.
"This Spring the entire Richie-Madden clan hit the road on the Good Charlotte Cardiology Tour," she wrote on her blog Tuesday.
"How was it you may ask? See for yourself, here's a video I put together," Richie, 29, said. "Hope you enjoy it."
The nearly three-minute clip consists of behind-the-scenes moments that showcase her kids ? 3-year-old daughter Harlow and 1-year-old son Sparrow ? mixed with footage of the band performing.
The short video is set to the Good Charlotte song, "Silver Screen Romance."
Richie and Madden made their relationship official in December, marrying at her dad Lionel Richie's Beverly Hills estate.
Posted by ILookFlyChick - Thursday April 21, 2011 07:19
Kirk from Coronation Street?
Check out these black celebrities images:
Kirk from Coronation Street?
Image by foxtrotyankee ?doing a spectacularly weird public appearance at one of the butchers in Wednesbury.
Claudia Black at Dragon*Con 2007
Image by Perry G Signing our Aeryn Sun action figure from Farscape. She was friendly, but it seemed like she was being rushed. Tried to have a brief conversation, but too many handlers were trying to give her things and asking her questions.
Nicole Richie is opening up to fans about her life with husband Joel Madden in a new video.
Nicole Richie is known for fiercely protecting her family's privacy, but the mom of two recently decided to give fans an intimate glimpse of "life on the road" with her rocker husband, Joel Madden.
"This Spring the entire Richie-Madden clan hit the road on the Good Charlotte Cardiology Tour," she wrote on her blog Tuesday.
"How was it you may ask? See for yourself, here's a video I put together," Richie, 29, said. "Hope you enjoy it."
The nearly three-minute clip consists of behind-the-scenes moments that showcase her kids ? 3-year-old daughter Harlow and 1-year-old son Sparrow ? mixed with footage of the band performing.
The short video is set to the Good Charlotte song, "Silver Screen Romance."
Richie and Madden made their relationship official in December, marrying at her dad Lionel Richie's Beverly Hills estate.
Showing off her inner-child, Ke$ha paid a fun-filled visit to Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, FL on Thursday (April 21).
The "TiK ToK" hitmaker showed off quite the smile as she posed alongside The White Rabbit from Disney's timeless tale "Alice in Wonderland".
The Disney World visit comes just after it was revealed that Ke$ha will be guest starring on a new episode of the hit Nickelodeon show ?Victorious.?
With the episode titled ?Ice Cream For Ke$ha? and set to debut April 22nd, show star Victoria Justice told press, ?I just think Ke$ha is really cool. She has a fun, free-spirited energy that would fit in with all the other kids at Hollywood Arts. It would be cool to do a duet or some crazy performance with glitter and sparkles and messy hair.?
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Will Jennifer Lopez leave with American Idol after this season is over?! That's what we're all wondering today, after reports that Jenny is in talks to do her own reality talent show (her rep told E! News they had no comment on the story), but what did the multihyphenate babe tell our own Ryan Seacrest?
The E! News anchor sat down with J.Lo herself for the latest on her Idol employment, plus how the babies have changed her life and what her new album means for the artist as she matures:
WATCH: See more from Ryan Seacrest on E! News every Wednesday at 7 and 11:30 p.m.!
When asked if she was considering a return to the hit reality series next season, Lopez told Seacrest, "Of course, of course. Here's what's the great thing about this moment for me. There's tons of possibilities, and I'm open to whatever God has in store for me down the line. And whatever it is, I'm going to do my best."
What led the megastar to do the show in the first place? Lopez says, "The big major thing when Marc and I sat down and talked about it was, it would be nice to be in one place with the babies. They've been traveling since they were like 3 weeks old. That was a major consideration, too. So when I looked at my whole life and where I was, and the kind of freedoms that I had to choose to do what I wanted to do...I went with my gut."
And why are so many good things happening at once for the singer, actress and Most Beautiful Woman Alive? She told Seacrest: "I'm just happy in that?in my life, in my skin, in my body, in what I have to offer, and finally, it's just comfortable with myself in the best way...And I think the babies had a lot to do with that." Awww...
So what's driving Lopez's suddenly resurgent singing career? Lopez puts it down to her accumulated life wisdom, saying, "A lot of people can sing, as you can see when we're on the road, but artists have a message?[a message] to express to the world, and you have a point of view. Whatever that is, if you think of the great artists of our time: Bruce Springsteen, it's that working man's struggle; or Madonna, challenging religion and sex; or Michael Jackson, who wanted to spread love in the world in his way. Everybody has a message, and it becomes part of your expression, and that comes through in the music. And that's what I try to tell the kids, it's not just about getting up there and who hits the biggest notes?as you see, that doesn't keep you on the show. It's about who can connect, who can make somebody feel something, smile, and think and go, 'Oh, I love that song!' That's what being an artist is: Do you feel what I feel?"
Do you love J.Lo as judge? Would you prefer she stick with Idol, or should she get her own show? Hit the comments!
MORE: Who was eliminated tonight on American Idol?
This April 20, 2011 image taken from surveillance video provided by the FBI shows person of interest sought in a fire and the planting of a pipe bomb and two propane tanks near a food court at the Southwest Plaza Mall in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/FBI)
This frame grab from surveillance video released by the Denver FBI shows a person of interest inside the Southwest Plaza Mall, Wednesday, April 20, 2011, in Littleton, Colo. Investigators want to question the man about a pipe bomb and propane tanks found after a fire at the mall, a discovery that raised the possibility of a connection to the Columbine massacre anniversary. (AP Photo/FBI Denver Division)
LITTLETON, Colo. - Authorities reviewed security video Thursday from a Colorado mall where the discovery of a pipe bomb and two propane tanks after a fire raised concerns about a possible link to the Columbine High School attack.
The blaze coincided with the 12th anniversary of the deadly shooting two miles away.
"We're concerned about the date, the time, things of that nature, but we don't have anything solid that would indicate any link at all other than, certainly, circumstances," Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said.
No arrests have been made, but dozens of law enforcement agents were scouring the video and following other leads to identify a man seen entering the mall through a side door not normally used by the public.
The mall reopened Thursday.
Mink said the community shouldn't feel threatened, hinting that progress was being made in the investigation.
"It isn't a situation where we don't have a good handle of the direction where we're going," he said, declining to elaborate.
The propane tanks found at Southwest Plaza Mall were discovered in a hallway of the food court after the fire was reported around 11:50 a.m. Wednesday.
The Columbine shootings started at 11:12 a.m. and ended 24 minutes later on April 20, 1999. Unexploded pipe bombs and a propane tank with explosives attached were found in the school cafeteria after the shooting.
Through the years, students across the country have been accused of threats and incidents modeled after Columbine,
where 12 students and one teacher were killed.
"The kind of crime like Columbine will motivate a certain segment of the population to attempt the same type of crime," said Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel was killed at Columbine. "Whether they're doing it because they're purely evil or in addition to being evil, they just want attention, I don't know."
Investigators were trying to find the man seen entering a stairwell through the side door and on an escalator in the mall.
Authorities also were investigating the cause of the fire, including whether it was sparked by the failed detonation of the bomb, West Metro Fire Rescue spokeswoman Cindy Matthews said.
Denver FBI special agent in charge Jim Yacone said investigators intended to interview several other witnesses.
Despite authorities' assurances about safety, the community seemed uneasy.
Students at an elementary school in Littleton were evacuated to another school Thursday after a man entered the building to use a restroom.
Schools also were locked down following the fire at the mall on Wednesday and alerts were sent to malls in the Denver area.
Associated Press writer Sheila V Kumar contributed to this report from Denver.
In a second, with Google, I can find a phone number that was assigned to you ten years ago, but it takes me an hour to find your phone number on that business card you gave me last week. That's just wrong. We need instant access to the most important of all resources, current contact info.
Too many of us have piles of business cards scattered around the office and home, as well as additional contacts on your cell phone, PDA, Outlook, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The result is we can't find that key name and phone number quickly when we really need them.
The solution is simple to define. What we all need is a digital tool that can extract data from business cards, as well as sync it with your cell phone, your email, and the social networks you use. It needs to have great search and display capabilities as well as spreadsheet-like sorting so you can look at the information in various ways. Finally, we want it cheap (of course).
My old Rolodex for 100 business cards doesn't do the job any more. So I've been scouting around for something better, looking at the pluses and minuses. There are a wealth of alternatives, but no universal solutions:
Bump. Here's the latest technology. A new smart phone app that allows users to simply tap their smart phones together, and with the right setup, they will exchange contact info. This is great and it's free! Of course, you both need to have compatible smart phones with the software already downloaded.
CardScan Personal. Here is the old standby low-end hardware-based solution, a simple business card scanner for $150, with software to synchronize the data with Outlook, Windows mobile devices and smartphones. That doesn't address social networks and other lists you may have. The scan hardware here is required for all software solutions.
Sage ACT! If you prefer the software and data be all on your own computer for security and privacy, ACT! has been the standard for businesses and individuals for over 20 years (base $200). The cost goes up if you want to synchronize with Outlook and your PDA, but most of the features you might be looking for are available.
Salesforce.com. In business, contact information management is a key part of customer relationship management (CRM). Salesforce.com is the most popular online service offering, meaning no software to install, and accessible from any computer. For individual entrepreneurs, it's a high-end alternative (entry $5+/month), and it's definitely a candidate for your business sales force. Basic sync functions are available.
Shareware. I found dozens of software packages available on the Internet for free download, or a nominal price. Several of these have good reviews, including PIMEX, Diasho, Enhilex, and Advanced Contact Manager. Yet my experience is that shareware software is usually worth what you pay for it.
Commercial software. There are hundreds of other alternatives and add-ons out there, like Quickbooks Customer Manager, Personal Information Manager, Beyond Contacts, and Goldmine. They range in price from $150 to over $4000, but check each for the features important to you.
Social networks have added additional layer of complexity to this challenge. LinkedIn supports the export of connection contact information to Outlook and Gmail, with no special software required. Facebook, however, does not provide this interface, and has specifically prohibited applications from being offered to solve the problem. They consider such data proprietary.
Even email is a problem. You need to capture contact details beyond the email address from email contents, including signature blocks. I did find a package named Copy2Contact, which can save you lots of cutting and pasting. Now if everyone included contact information in every email, I wouldn't need to bump into you periodically to stay current.
GUESS WHO was spotted on her Vespa in Cali on Wednesday afternoon? HiNT: She recently signed a content partnership deal with AOL. It’s multi-talented Queen Latifah. The star stopped at an LA gas station to fill up her Vespa scooter … Continue
Pemo Theodore, a Startup Coach & Australian origin online entrepreneur, video interviews venture capitalists & women entrepreneurs on the shortfall in funding for women @EZebis: Winning theVenture Game for Women.
Video interview with Elaine Coughlan, Partner Atlantic Bridge, Ireland. Elaine has over 15 years operational experience in technology companies with extensive merger and acquisition experience.
She has been involved in three successful initial public offerings and two secondary offerings raising more than $1.6 billion in capital for various companies. She served as the CFO of semiconductor company Parthus Technologies plc (now CEVA Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company), from 1999 to 2003. Most recently she was a director and co-founder of GloNav, a GPS semiconductor portfolio company which was sold to NXP in January 2008 for $110 million
Pemo: Which themes do you like to invest, what is your sweet spot?
Elaine: We just do tech. In Europe we are rare enough in that the team is all from industry. We're from semi conductors & software backgrounds, long careers. So you have people in the team that are serial entrepreneurs that have built a few companies. Executives, so CEO, CFO all types of roles. That's not the common, it is in the US but it's not in Europe the common approach where venture capital is typically drawn from the financial industry. We don't like taking product risk so we like to move a little bit beyond the curb. We have done it & in our first one we've got a mix of mid & early stage. But we prefer to move beyond the seed & the first round & to I suppose the scaling type stage. But we're not religious about, if you have an opportunity where you have a serial entrepreneur who has a fantastic record in a particular domain it can be of interest to us.
In terms of technologies we may sometimes change but generally speaking mobile, wireless have been a big feature of what we have done both in our tech backgrounds & in our businesses. Mobile, wireless, cloud computing is such a huge part of the shift & trend. Security around that, security software, web infrastructure. It's very difficult to know or back what's the next Facebook or Twitter so we probably focus a little bit more on the infrastructure that enables those businesses. Digital home, home networking, intranet everywhere, technologies like wifi direct which is both home & wireless play. So we accept the domains & we obviously keep them under review & they change sometimes. We then go out & try & find the companies in those domains. So we probably have 5 or 6 domains that are relatively broad. We stick to those & they're areas that we have guys that have domain knowledge, expertise etc in. So we try to stick to what we know.
Pemo: What do you look for in women entrepreneurs & startups that indicate interest to you in investing in their businesses?
Elaine: Well there's not many of them, that's the first problem. I don't think there's anything different in terms of what we look for between a woman entrepreneur or a guy. I think in general when you meet women entrepreneurs you find that they are incredibly energetic & focused about their business. That's really critical. They probably have that in spades maybe a little bit more than some of the guys. Just purely because they've had to have that to even get to the stage to spin something out, back something out, start something up. But genuinely I've been disappointed in terms of just the numbers coming through. They say never waste a crisis, I think the current recession particularly in Ireland & indeed across Europe will probably long term be a very good driver for women entrepreneurs. I think there's probably better structures now & we can talk about some of those later on.
But I think in general from an entrepreneur we look that they are very passionate about what they're about to do or want to do. That they have fantastic knowledge, domain knowledge about the market, product, the competitors. Not just the technology, but how it actually fits into the ecosystem & how it's going to compete. Then finally how they're going to take it to market. A lot of entrepreneurs don't actually think about (they might have great technology) but they haven't quite worked out what the sales strategy, what the business plan is & how they'e actually going to get it into the market. I think they're kind of personal attributes. You want them also to be keen listeners. I mean in the sense, open to taking in input. We're not passive investors. Entrepreneurs aren't passive people either. You back entrepreneurs, you don't hire them! You hire CEOs, you don't hire entrepreneurs. So we back teams, we back entrepreneurs & teams. That's what we're looking for first & foremost. Not easy to find the ones that are truly world class but you can find guys that can absolutely grow & scale & benefit from our mistakes, as previous entrepreneurs & founders. And our successes as well & you're hoping to actually pass that on. To do that they've got to be open to it.
Pemo: What can women entrepreneurs/startups do to increase their chances in sourcing venture?
Elaine: I think that's a very good question. I think that women have got to be really much more confident in themselves & have much more belief in themselves. Be a little bit more ballsy & going out there & sourcing capital & be willing to get nos. Because the reality is you get a lot of nos in this business. Actually you don't even get the nos, a lot of people don't even tell you no. The good guys tell you no. I think women aren't as good at getting out there & networking & being a little bit more forthright. It would never be said about us that we're too backward in going forward, which we are. Typically you find women entrepreneurs are product experts so maybe they've been the code monkey, they've been the one that has built the product. They know the space well. Completely blind on sales, pushing, marketing, getting out there. I think those front of house skills, as I call them, as opposed to back of house skills. I think they must be much, much more confident in front of house. Take a chance. Guys are much more willing to give it a whirl. Let's spin, let's see what happens. Instead of quietly beavering away. They don't really shine the light very brightly in terms of saying 'Look how fabulous I am & look at what a fabulous product I have. So in selling ourselves I think we've just got to be much more confident & a little bit more outgoing. I don't want to use the word aggressive but being much more proactive about pushing. Be open & be very aware that you're going to suffer a lot of rejection. But you just need one to say yes! You can take thousands of nos if you get one yes.
Also I think familiarity with the process. I think that's fair. Women just aren't familar with the vc process because quite frankly this generation of women entrepreneurs are standing on the shoulders of the previous generation of women. And there wasn't many of them that were out there as entrepreneurs. So they're really pioneers & cutting new ground. I think that's where we have to look at the supports, the mentoring, to help give them the framework of this is what you need to expect. Because women are really fast learners. They don't need to be told things twice. You don't expect people to do it in a vacuum is the reality. It's going to be difficult for them to do it in a vacuum. I think network. We've got to be much better at networking. Women should not have a bias now with networking with other women & other successful women. Other successful women always to the next generation of women, to put a hand down & pull them up. At all levels, both the women that have been successful in venture, in industry, in finance, we need to be much more cohesive as a group in trying to bring women entrepreneurs forward. The reality is that entrepreneurs need a lot of support in any event. But as a minority women entrepreneurs just need much more coaching, mentoring, support to understand the rules of the game as it were.
Pemo: That's one of the reasons I've been doing these interviews. I think the other piece that happens in Europe, having lived in Ireland & the UK is that failure which is obviously part of the deal when you're doing these sort of startups or ventures is culturally looked at differently than it would be say in the US. I'm wondering how you tackle that I guess with female entrepreneurs? Because women tend to want to really make sure that they succeed, that's what I've heard from other vcs & women founders. That may be also where the numbers are falling down?
Elaine: That's a very good point. I think it's very true. Failure is very difficult & there is a cultural aspect to this. If you look at the US its a badge of honor. Here it's a bit of a badge of honor, believe it or not, I love for a guy to say we did this but we failed. I immediately think well you know what he's gone off & bled on somebody else's carpet. He knows now, he's worth backing. So culturally it is an issue & genderwise I think you're right, women always aspire to be top of the class. I think failure doesn't come naturally to us. We're not probably natural risk takers either. That's the other part, that's the corollary of that. So I think again I think it comes back to, to the extent that they're in the world of tech, venture, finance, they're going to see hey you know what a lot of other people fail. It's a bit like the banks here in Ireland. I have to say they were run by guys & you know what girls we really can't do any worse than them. They've made such a screwup of it. So women need to think like that.
Thanks to Alexander Blu for music 'Moderato'
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Video interview with Elaine Coughlan, Partner Atlantic Bridge, Ireland http://www.abven.com/team/elaine_coughlan.html Elaine has over 15 years operational experience in technology companies with extensive merger and acquisition experience. She has been involved in three successful initial public offerings and two secondary offerings raising more than $1.6 billion in capital for various companies. She served as the CFO of semiconductor company Parthus Technologies plc (now CEVA Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company), from 1999 to 2003. Most recently she was a director and co-founder of GloNav, a GPS semiconductor portfolio company which was sold to NXP in January 2008 for $110 million
Pemo: Which themes do you like to invest, what is your sweet spot?
Elaine: We just do tech. In Europe we are rare enough in that the team is all from industry.We're from semi conductors & software backgrounds, long careers. So you have people in the team that are serial entrepreneurs that have built a few companies. Executives, so CEO, CFO all types of roles. That's not the common, it is in the US but it's not in Europe the common approach where venture capital is typically drawn from the financial industry. We don't like taking product risk so we like to move a little bit beyond the curb.We have done it & in our first one we've got a mix of mid & early stage.But we prefer to move beyond the seed & the first round & to I suppose the scaling type stage. But we're not religious about, if you have an opportunity where you have a serial entrepreneur who has a fantastic record in a particular domain it can be of interest to us.In terms of technologies we may sometimes change but generally speaking mobile, wireless have been a big feature of what we have done both in our tech backgrounds & in our businesses. Mobile, wireless, cloud computing is such a huge part of the shift & trend. Security around that, security software, web infrastructure.It's very difficult to know or back what's the next facebook or Twitter so we probably focus a little bit more on the infrastructure that enables those businesses. Digital home, home networking, intranet everywhere, technologies like wifi direct which is both home & wireless play. So we accept the domains & we obviously keep them under review & they change sometimes.We then go out & try & find the companies in those domains.So we probably have 5 or 6 domains that are relatively broad. We stick to those & they're areas that we have guys that have domain knowledge, expertise etc in.So we try to stick to what we know.
Pemo: What do you look for in women entrepreneurs & startups that indicate interest to you in investing in their businesses?
Elaine: Well there's not many of them, that's the first problem.I don't think there's anything different in terms of what we look for between a woman entrepreneur or a guy.I think in general when you meet women entrepreneurs you find that they are incredibly energetic & focused about their business. That's really critical.They probably have that in spades maybe a little bit more than some of the guys.Just purely because they've had to have that to evenget to the stage to spin something out, back something out, start something up.But genuinely I've been disappointed in terms of just the numbers coming through.They say never waste a crisis, I think the current recession particularly in Ireland & indeed across Europe will probably long term be a very good driver for women entrepreneurs. I think there's probably better structures now & we can talk about some of those later on.But I think in general from an entrepreneur we look that they are very passionate about what they're about to do or want to do.That they have fantastic knowledge, domain knowledge about the market, product, the competitors. Not just the technology, but how it actually fits into the ecosystem & how it's going to compete. Then finally how they're going to take it to market. A lot of entrepreneurs don't actually think about (they might have great technology) but they haven't quite worked out what the sales strategy, what the business plan is & how they'e actually going to get it into the market. I think they're kind of personal attributes.You want them also to be keen listeners.I mean in the sense, open to taking in input. We're not passive investors.Entrepreneurs aren't passive people either. You back entrepreneurs, you don't hire them! You hire CEOs, you don't hire entrepreneurs.So we back teams, we back entrepreneurs & teams.That's what we're looking for first & foremost. Not easy to find the ones that are truly world class but you can find guys that can absolutely grow & scale & benefit from our mistakes, as previous entrepreneurs & founders. And our successes as well & you're hoping to actually pass that on. To do that they've got to be open to it.
Pemo: What can women entrepreneurs/startups do to increase their chances in sourcing venture?
Elaine: I think that's a very good question.I think that women have got to be really much more confident in themselves & have much more belief in themselves. Be a little bit more ballsy & going out there & sourcing capital & be willing to get nos.Because the reality is you get a lot of nos in this business.Actually you don't even get the nos, a lot of people don't even tell you no.The good guys tell you no.I think women aren't as good at getting out there & networking & being a little bit more forthright.It would never be said about us that we're too backward in going forward, which we are.Typically you find women entrepreneurs are product experts so maybe they've been the code monkey, they've been the one that has built the product. They know the space well. Completely blind on sales, pushing, marketing, getting out there. I think those front of house skills, as I call them, as opposed to back of house skills.I think they must be much, much more confident in front of house. Take a chance. Guys are much more willing to give it a whirl. Let's spin, let's see what happens.Instead of quietly beavering away.They don't really shine the light very brightly in terms of saying 'Look how fabulous I am & look at what a fabulous product I have. So in selling ourselves I think we've just got to be much more confident & a little bit more outgoing. I don't want to use the word aggressive but being much more proactive about pushing. Be open & be very aware that you're going to suffer a lot of rejection.But you just need one to say yes! You can take thousands of nos if you get one yes.Also I think familiarity with the process.I think that's fair.Women just aren't familar with the vc process because quite frankly this generation of women entrepreneurs are standing on the shoulders of the previous generation of women.And there wasn't many of them that were out there as entrepreneurs. So they're really pioneers & cutting new ground. I think that's where we have to look at the supports, the mentoring, to help give them the framework of this is what you need to expect.Because women are really fast learners. They don't need to be told things twice. You don't expect people to do it in a vacuum is the reality. It's going to be difficult for them to do it in a vacuum.I think network.We've got to be much better at networking. Women should not have a bias now with networking with other women & other successful women. Other successful women always to the next generation of women, to put a hand down & pull them up. At all levels, both the women that have been successful in venture, in industry, in finance, we need to be much more cohesive as a group in trying to bring women entrepreneurs forward. The reality is that entrepreneurs need a lot of support in any event.But as a minority women entrepreneurs just need much more coaching, mentoring, support to understand the rules of the game as it were.
Pemo: That's one of the reasons I've been doing these interviews.I think the other piece that happens in Europe, having lived in Ireland & the UK is that failure which is obviously part of the deal when you're doing these sort of startups or ventures is culturally looked at differently than it would be say in the US. I'm wondering how you tackle that I guess with female entrepreneurs?Because women tend to want to really make sure that they succeed, that's what I've heard from other vcs & women founders.That may be also where the numbers are falling down?
Elaine: That's a very good point.
Video interview with Elaine Coughlan, Partner Atlantic Bridge, Ireland http://www.abven.com/team/elaine_coughlan.html Elaine has over 15 years operational experience in technology companies with extensive merger and acquisition experience. She has been involved in three successful initial public offerings and two secondary offerings raising more than $1.6 billion in capital for various companies. She served as the CFO of semiconductor company Parthus Technologies plc (now CEVA Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company), from 1999 to 2003. Most recently she was a director and co-founder of GloNav, a GPS semiconductor portfolio company which was sold to NXP in January 2008 for $110 million
Pemo: Which themes do you like to invest, what is your sweet spot?
Elaine: We just do tech. In Europe we are rare enough in that the team is all from industry. We're from semi conductors & software backgrounds, long careers. So you have people in the team that are serial entrepreneurs that have built a few companies. Executives, so CEO, CFO all types of roles. That's not the common, it is in the US but it's not in Europe the common approach where venture capital is typically drawn from the financial industry. We don't like taking product risk so we like to move a little bit beyond the curb. We have done it & in our first one we've got a mix of mid & early stage. But we prefer to move beyond the seed & the first round & to I suppose the scaling type stage. But we're not religious about, if you have an opportunity where you have a serial entrepreneur who has a fantastic record in a particular domain it can be of interest to us. In terms of technologies we may sometimes change but generally speaking mobile, wireless have been a big feature of what we have done both in our tech backgrounds & in our businesses. Mobile, wireless, cloud computing is such a huge part of the shift & trend. Security around that, security software, web infrastructure. It's very difficult to know or back what's the next facebook or Twitter so we probably focus a little bit more on the infrastructure that enables those businesses. Digital home, home networking, intranet everywhere, technologies like wifi direct which is both home & wireless play. So we accept the domains & we obviously keep them under review & they change sometimes. We then go out & try & find the companies in those domains. So we probably have 5 or 6 domains that are relatively broad. We stick to those & they're areas that we have guys that have domain knowledge, expertise etc in. So we try to stick to what we know.
Pemo: What do you look for in women entrepreneurs & startups that indicate interest to you in investing in their businesses?
Elaine: Well there's not many of them, that's the first problem. I don't think there's anything different in terms of what we look for between a woman entrepreneur or a guy. I think in general when you meet women entrepreneurs you find that they are incredibly energetic & focused about their business. That's really critical. They probably have that in spades maybe a little bit more than some of the guys. Just purely because they've had to have that to evenget to the stage to spin something out, back something out, start something up. But genuinely I've been disappointed in terms of just the numbers coming through. They say never waste a crisis, I think the current recession particularly in Ireland & indeed across Europe will probably long term be a very good driver for women entrepreneurs. I think there's probably better structures now & we can talk about some of those later on. But I think in general from an entrepreneur we look that they are very passionate about what they're about to do or want to do. That they have fantastic knowledge, domain knowledge about the market, product, the competitors. Not just the technology, but how it actually fits into the ecosystem & how it's going to compete. Then finally how they're going to take it to market. A lot of entrepreneurs don't actually think about (they might have great technology) but they haven't quite worked out what the sales strategy, what the business plan is & how they'e actually going to get it into the market. I think they're kind of personal attributes. You want them also to be keen listeners. I mean in the sense, open to taking in input. We're not passive investors. Entrepreneurs aren't passive people either. You back entrepreneurs, you don't hire them! You hire CEOs, you don't hire entrepreneurs. So we back teams, we back entrepreneurs & teams. That's what we're looking for first & foremost. Not easy to find the ones that are truly world class but you can find guys that can absolutely grow & scale & benefit from our mistakes, as previous entrepreneurs & founders. And our successes as well & you're hoping to actually pass that on. To do that they've got to be open to it.
Pemo: What can women entrepreneurs/startups do to increase their chances in sourcing venture?
Elaine: I think that's a very good question. I think that women have got to be really much more confident in themselves & have much more belief in themselves. Be a little bit more ballsy & going out there & sourcing capital & be willing to get nos. Because the reality is you get a lot of nos in this business. Actually you don't even get the nos, a lot of people don't even tell you no. The good guys tell you no. I think women aren't as good at getting out there & networking & being a little bit more forthright. It would never be said about us that we're too backward in going forward, which we are. Typically you find women entrepreneurs are product experts so maybe they've been the code monkey, they've been the one that has built the product. They know the space well. Completely blind on sales, pushing, marketing, getting out there. I think those front of house skills, as I call them, as opposed to back of house skills. I think they must be much, much more confident in front of house. Take a chance. Guys are much more willing to give it a whirl. Let's spin, let's see what happens. Instead of quietly beavering away. They don't really shine the light very brightly in terms of saying 'Look how fabulous I am & look at what a fabulous product I have. So in selling ourselves I think we've just got to be much more confident & a little bit more outgoing. I don't want to use the word aggressive but being much more proactive about pushing. Be open & be very aware that you're going to suffer a lot of rejection. But you just need one to say yes! You can take thousands of nos if you get one yes. Also I think familiarity with the process. I think that's fair. Women just aren't familar with the vc process because quite frankly this generation of women entrepreneurs are standing on the shoulders of the previous generation of women. And there wasn't many of them that were out there as entrepreneurs. So they're really pioneers & cutting new ground. I think that's where we have to look at the supports, the mentoring, to help give them the framework of this is what you need to expect. Because women are really fast learners. They don't need to be told things twice. You don't expect people to do it in a vacuum is the reality. It's going to be difficult for them to do it in a vacuum. I think network. We've got to be much better at networking. Women should not have a bias now with networking with other women & other successful women. Other successful women always to the next generation of women, to put a hand down & pull them up. At all levels, both the women that have been successful in venture, in industry, in finance, we need to be much more cohesive as a group in trying to bring women entrepreneurs forward. The reality is that entrepreneurs need a lot of support in any event. But as a minority women entrepreneurs just need much more coaching, mentoring, support to understand the rules of the game as it were.
Pemo: That's one of the reasons I've been doing these interviews. I think the other piece that happens in Europe, having lived in Ireland & the UK is that failure which is obviously part of the deal when you're doing these sort of startups or ventures is culturally looked at differently than it would be say in the US. I'm wondering how you tackle that I guess with female entrepreneurs? Because women tend to want to really make sure that they succeed, that's what I've heard from other vcs & women founders. That may be also where the numbers are falling down?
Elaine: That's a very good point. I think it's very true. Failure is very difficult & there is a cultural aspect to this. If you look at the US its a badge of honor. Here it's a bit of a badge of honor, believe it or not, I love for a guy to say we did this but we failed. I immediately think well you know what he's gone off & bled on somebody else's carpet. He knows now, he's worth backing. So culturally it is an issue & genderwise I think you're right, women always aspire to be top of the class. I think failure doesn't come naturally to us. We're not probably natural risk takers either. That's the other part, that's the corollary of that. So I think again I think it comes back to, to the extent that they're in the world of tech, venture, finance, they're going to see hey you know what a lot of other people fail. It's a bit like the banks here in Ireland. I have to say they were run by guys & you know what girls we really can't do any worse than them. They've made such a screwup of it. So women need to think like that.
I think it's very true.Failure is very difficult & there is a cultural aspect to this.If you look at the US its a badge of honor.Here it's a bit of a badge of honor, believe it or not, I love for a guy to say we did this but we failed.I immediately think well you know what he's gone off & bled on somebody else's carpet.He knows now, he's worth backing. So culturally it is an issue & genderwise I think you're right, women always aspire to be top of the class.I think failure doesn't come naturally to us. We're not probably natural risk takers either.That's the other part, that's the corollary of that. So I think again I think it comes back to, to the extent that they're in the world of tech, venture, finance, they're going to see hey you know what a lot of other people fail.It's a bit like the banks here in Ireland.I have to say they were run by guys & you know what girls we really can't do any worse than them.They've made such a screwup of it. So women need to think like that.