FountainBlue

To serve the entrepreneurial needs of our members worldwide, FountainBlue is producing monthly lecture and roundtable events on hot topics for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and beyond. Launched in August 2008, our typical online webinar format is to have a one-hour lecture on a timely topic, followed interactive roundtable discussions. These events are typically held on the fourth Mondays of the month, from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. PST, with interactive conversations directly following the event.

Lean times for venture-capital-backed IPOs, by Tom Abate, 7/1/08, available at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/30/BUKK11HKT5.DTL:

For the first time in 30 years, Wall Street went through a three-month period during which not a single firm backed by venture capitalists went public, prompting cries of a crisis by the association whose members' risky bets built Silicon Valley.

"Venture-backed companies that successfully enter the public markets represent a critical job-creation engine for the United States economy, and that engine has completely shut down," said Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, which issued the report based on financial data collected by Thomson Reuters.

To some extent, the findings represent a blip - one bad quarter from April through June when only 14 companies of any kind went public, none of them VC-backed. While the goose egg is a 30-year anomaly, the data also show that capital markets virtually shut down in first quarter of 2003, when only five firms of any ancestry went public - one of them being a VC-funded startup. And the IPO market did revive.

Nevertheless, the 15-page report shows clear signs that getting rich on Wall Street, long the dream that has lured both inventors and investors to Silicon Valley, is getting harder.

To use one comparison, nearly 1,400 venture-backed firms went public from 1991 through 1997. But from 2001 through 2007, fewer than 400 made the cut.

Why should that matter? The report cites a 2007 study by the Boston economic consulting firm Global Insight as saying "companies that were once venture-backed but are now public account for 10.3 million jobs and 18 percent" of the nation's gross domestic product.

"Public offerings create visible, long-term economic growth," National Venture Capital Association Chairman Dixon Doll said in a statement.

When the association asked 660 of its venture capital members to explain the IPO drought last quarter, they said the most important causes were the skittishness of investors caused by the subprime mortgage crisis and related economic worries.

But behind this one-quarter IPO strikeout is a larger issue central to the culture of innovation in Silicon Valley - does it matter that nowadays it is more common for startups to get acquired by larger firms, instead of reaching for the brass ring on Wall Street?

Jon Fisher, a software industry entrepreneur who sold his last, no-name startup to Oracle Corp., said there is indeed less glory in selling a startup whose technology ends up being subsumed into a larger company - but business has to follow the money.

"The opportunities to build the next Genentech or Google are going away," said Fisher, a lecturer at University of San Francisco, who believes the future of innovation in Silicon Valley is already revealed in the several-year trend away from IPOs and toward mergers.

"Once the stratospheric returns of the stock market start to go away, the entrepreneur has to shift gears and sculpt a startup from the beginning with a particular acquirer's needs in mind," said Fisher, who calls this concept strategic entrepreneurship.

In other words, Silicon Valley hotshots should quit swinging for the fences and instead send a sharp line drive to the opposite field - or just bunt.

The association's data and statements suggest venture capitalists - normally hardheaded realists who still occasionally get infatuated with technologies - see this same drift. They just don't like it.

Heesen, the association president, said part of the formula for reviving venture-backed IPOs is persuading the Big Four accounting firms to lighten up in how they make little companies satisfy the Sarbanes-Oxley financial reporting rules enacted after the accounting scandals of Enron and other companies.

For Immediate Release:

Entrepreneur to Colleagues, Forget IPO and Go for Acquisition:

Announces New Book and Speaking Tour

New York, NY  August 13, 2008  SelectBooks announces the release of a new book, Strategic Entrepreneurism: Shattering the Start-Up Entrepreneurial Myths, by entrepreneur, educator, and author Jon Fisher. In this how-to book for aspiring entrepreneurs, Fisher reveals the secret to his own entrepreneurial success in Silicon Valley. His story will change what readers think they know about how to effectively build and lead a start-up company.

Fishers unconventional 15-year software career, described in detail in Strategic Entrepreneurism (SelectBooks, $21.95), includes selling a start-up company to Oracle. The book, which centers on the idea of designing a company specifically to be acquired by a larger one (rather than to become the next big IPO), offers a guide for ambitious entrepreneurs to help them complete their own successful acquisitions.

While every entrepreneur may dream of creating the next Google, the reality is that most start-ups fail precisely because theyre trying to become the next big name success, says Fisher, who, in addition to being a entrepreneur and seasoned motivational speaker, is also a lecturer at University of San Franciscos School of Business and the recipient of Ernst & Youngs coveted Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Fishers Strategic Entrepreneurism tells readers step-by-step how todesign their companies towards the path of least resistance, maximumpayoff, and the lowest amount of risk. The book also explains how to avoid the common pitfalls of startinga company, such as growing too fast; focusing on the wrong product; and accepting toomuch funding from outside investors.

Jon Fishers talent for building businesses is endorsed by industry leaders including Ray Lane, managing partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and former president, Oracle Corporation, who states "Jon is a gifted entrepreneur.

Stanford University professor Gerald Fisher and veteran writer Wallace Wang are co-authors of this book which will be available at bookstores in September of 2008.

Some highlights from Jon Fishers book tour are listed below:

Oct 24

MIT/Stanford VLAB Emerging Business lecture

Sept 30, 2008

On-campus lecture at GeorgetownUniversity

Sept 25, 2008

On-campus lecture at BrownUniversity

Sept 23, 2008

On-campus lecture at ColumbiaUniversity

Sept 22, 2008

On-campus lecture at VassarCollege

Sept 16, 2008

Book signing at Book Passage

51 Tamal Vista Blvd. Corte Madera, CA

Open to public, 7pm Pacific

Sept 16

CBS RADIO (KYCY) 3pm

Aug 25

FountainBlue Online Webinar on Strategic Entrepreneurism sponsored by Microsoft 5:30  7:00 p.m. PST, details:

 * $20 for the Lecture, $30 for the Lecture plus one to four follow-up sessions at times to be confirmed

 * Pre-register at http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=163018by noon on August 22. Registration following that time will be a $10 additional fee.

Below is a list of topics, speakers and descriptions for our 2008 FountainBlue Online! series.

Audio and Video Support for the Conference:

· If you need to install Microsoft Office Live Meeting, please install it and test it prior to the meeting. Check your system to make sure it is ready to use and follow the installation instructions.

· If you would like to be automatically called for this conference, you must provide your preferred phone number when you sign up, you must agree to share your contact information, and you must have a US or Canadian phone number. Otherwise, we will not automatically call you, but will provide you with a dial-in number so that you can easily join us.