Marginize received a lot of press coverage yesterday with the announcement of the completion of the round:  TechCrunch – Xconomy - Boston Business Journal

Where could all of this go?  Just imagine sharing ‘deals of the day’ with friends via one click on Marginize – or – rating a web site with comments on how they have serviced you in the past – or – just sharing ideas or input on a topic – or – giving the site curator feedback on how to improve the web site or services?  The applications are endless.

Marginize is a 2010 graduate of the TechStars Boston program and eonBusiness’ first investment in the Boston area.  Marginize is our sixth Techstars investment overall.

So – try Marginize – you’ll like it!

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Dave DuPont, CEO of TeamSnap, over the past year and see the progress has made with TeamSnap.  TeamSnap solves a real problem I have experienced many times as a father of kids playing sports by helping to coordinate parents, coaches and even the kids on a particular team.  Where is the game?  Was the field changed?  Did the time change?  Who is brining the snack?  Was the game canceled?  What is the new game time for the canceled game?  Is there a map to the field?  What team are we playing?  What contact information is available to try to coordinate rides to practices and games?

TeamSnap makes it a ‘snap’ to coordinate all of the above and so much more!  Game photos, comments, statistics, uniform purchases, etc.  Try it out at TeamSnap.com.  The basic service is free!  Have fun!

What is the definition of ‘passive’?

If you are raising seed or early stage funding, do you want ‘active’ investors or ‘passive’ investors?  For an entrepreneur in a start-up this is an important question.

First, start out by defining your preferred investor profile.  Do you want investors to have knowledge and expertise in your specific industry?  What about specific professional expertise in finance, marketing, operations, sales, technology, etc.?  Do you want to receive feedback on an ongoing basis from your investors or would you prefer to give just a monthly or quarterly update?  None of the options are wrong.  You just need to know what you want before your start to engage with potential investors.

The flip side to this equation is asking the investor how they see themselves contributing to your venture … across the spectrum from ‘only investing’ to ‘stepping in’ to help run the marketing department on a daily basis until you find a full time person.

Make sure you have a clear understanding of what ‘active’ and ‘passive’ means to you, your management team and to the individual investors.  I learned early in life that everything is relative to the position from which a message is given.

Which compliment below carries more weight?

Your best friend with no software development experience states, ‘John is a Rock Star software developer’.

- or -

Steve Jobs states, ‘John is a Rock Star software developer’.

I think you get my point.

Entrepreneurs – Know what kind of investor you are looking for and know what your definition of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ is.

Investors – Know what you bring to the table from a knowledge, skill and experience standpoint for companies you want to invest in and know how ‘active’ or ‘passive’ you want to be.

The founder of a start-up was getting weekly calls from one of his smaller investors.  Week after week this continued for three months.  Finally, the founder stated, ‘I thought you said you were a passive investor and didn’t want to be involved in the business’.  The investor responded, ‘I am passive and I don’t want to be involved but I want to know how my investment is doing’.

Perhaps a little extra communication upfront about expectations and roles would have been helpful after all.

Andy Smith and Stephen Blankenship have done a great job growing the business from concept to nearly 500,000 customers. Great job! While eonBusiness is an investor in DailyBurn, I’ve also been a customer since the beginning. To see how the product and service has evolved has been nothing short of amazing. The web interface is so easy to use and the iPhone app really clinched the deal for me as a regular user.

While there is a part of me that is sad to see DailyBurn leave the eonBusiness portfolio of current investments, I am very excited to see what Andy, Stephen and the rest of the DailyBurn crew will do with the resources and insight of the IAC group.

We wish them much continued success!

• Socialthing (2007, acquired by AOL)
• MadKast (2007, acquired by ShareThis)
• DailyBurn (2008)
• Vanilla Forums (2009)
• Retel Technologies (2009)

As a TechStars sponsor, early stage investor and mentor, eonBusiness has had the pleasure to see the evolution of TechStars over the years. I still remember having lunch with David Cohen in the spring of 2007 and listening to his vision for TechStars. I must say it has exceeded many people’s expectations – including mine.

That leads me to the TechStars Class of 2010.  ”Look out!” is all I can say. I had the privilege to meet the companies at the ‘Meet the Mentors’ night on Tuesday and then to hear their pitches yesterday afternoon. Taking nothing away from previous Techstar classes, the 2010 class is really something.

They are further along in their business plans than any class to date. Numerous companies already have raised money and have real revenue. These are not just ideas or concepts but in most cases companies with real software already in production or close to being live.

I tip my hat to David Cohen and the entire TechStars team in Boulder (Nicole and Andrew too!). Keep up the good work. This will probably be the hardest class to decide who to invest in, but that’s a good problem to have!