Quotes from Brad Feld

I'm always fascinated by the dedicated monitors in a hospital. Non-standard cables, funny button shapes, odd LED colors, and lots of extra controls.

My initial desire to blog came from something that's always been my approach to investing - I'm a nerd, and I love to play with the technology, and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level.

So many companies talk about increasing the number of prospects at the top of the funnel, but they spend remarkably little time making sure actions are taken - on a daily basis - to make sure these prospects convert into paid users.

I'm a huge believer in the importance of vacations for leaders, entrepreneurs, and everyone else. I work extremely hard - usually 70+ hours a week.

In 2016, you no longer have to be in Silicon Valley to launch a successful startup. Colorado is home to many.

There are two great fictional TV series about technology and the computer industry that each have now had three seasons. The one everyone knows about is 'Silicon Valley.' The lesser-known one is 'Halt and Catch Fire.'

Silicon Valley has been developing as a startup community for over 60-70 years. This notion that you can create something in two or five years is foolish.

When we raised the first Foundry Group fund in 2007, we took over 100 first meetings. We told our story several hundred times. As part of it was a slide called 'Strategy.' I still repeat the elements of that slide regularly, a decade later, as our core strategy has not changed.

By 2002, I realized that what was classically called a rollup strategy was not generally effective, at least not for me.

In my world, historical revenue is the least interesting thing to consider in an acquisition strategy. The goal is to acquire technology that is on your product roadmap or people that fit culturally within your organization and help you execute on your roadmap faster.

In my world, historical revenue is the least interesting thing to consider in an acquisition strategy.

Stress on fast growing companies comes from a lot of different places. The one that is often the largest, and creates the most second-order issues, is the composition of the leadership team. More specifically, it's specific people on the leadership who don't have the scale experience their role requires at a particular moment in time.

This is something I've struggled with a lot: how to relate to the fear in a constructive way. It's not that you eliminate the fear. We have all the fears. That's natural; that's human beings. But how do you deal with the fears, how do you engage with your fears in a way that's productive?

Part of the power of having startup communities is it continues to challenge the status quo. So for many of these cities that were once very important and powerful that today are struggling, startup communities are a way for them to rejuvenate themselves.

If I have a golden touch, I'd also say that I have the opposite of whatever a golden touch is, because I've had a lot of things fail. I think part of the experience of being successful is that you have to have a lot of stuff not work.

My optimism holds that the good guys eventually come out on top.

I'm an optimistic person, and I tend to bury my cynicism in what I read and the movies I watch. My optimism holds that the good guys eventually come out on top.

I can now check Oregon off the 'marathon in every state list.'

When the entrepreneur is obsessed with the product and the company has organized all of its activities around that, it's very powerful.

While the line between stress, deep anxiety, and depression often blurs, most entrepreneurs struggle with broad mental health issues at various points in their lives.

I regularly see leaders change what they say because they get bored of saying the same thing over and over again. It's not that they vary a few words or change examples, but they change the message.

Kauffman Fellows is not necessarily for people just entering the venture industry but for experienced VCs looking to accelerate their growth. The program is centered around established innovation leaders - if you are looking to grow and become a better investor, you should think about doing this program.

I'm a venture capitalist. I like to say my job is to help and support entrepreneurs. I can play a leadership role, but my organization can't be the leader.

While I'm a venture capitalist who invests in early-stage tech companies, I often feel like a professional emailer and conference call maker.