While I continue to be concerned about daily events and signals, the majority of my conversations are now focused on the “new norm.” It may get worse in the near term, but none of us believe that this will be forever. There eventually will be a new norm, and its…

Posted on February 6, 2020 I previously discussed how The Cap-Ex : Op-Ex Conundrum is the foundational issue that keeps the building industry from innovating. The planet is still on fire, and the real estate industry (broadly) is the biggest single contributor to the carbon footprint. …

Posted on February 5, 2020 What is a lunch and learn? I’m sure the term is used in other industries, but for the building industry specifically it is when a building product representative — or any vendor, for that matter — comes to an AEC (Architect-Engineer-Contractor) company and buys lunch…

Teaching Venture Capital to LPs Posted on February 11, 2020 When I was first exposed to it in the mid ’90s, venture capital was a different business. Back then, the mystique surrounding a venture capitalist was minimal. VCs were mostly successful tech entrepreneurs who decided they wanted to do something a little different. They weren’t…

ESG, OPM, and Startups Posted on February 7, 2020 In many industries, the use of OPM (other people’s money) to fund growth is the norm. As a venture capital firm, that’s obviously our job. We deploy our limited partners’ capital into startups via a fund in order to deliver a return. While we have…

Go-to-market as a built-environment startup: How do you eat a woolly mammoth? Posted on February 13, 2020 Desmond Tutu once said, “there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.” Not sure who is eating elephants, but I get the point. When you face an enormous task, it’s helpful to take just a little bit at a…

Conferences, Pitch Competitions, and Twitter Posted on February 14, 2020 I must admit that I can be a little “old school.” To build a great, fast-growing company, your activities should be focused on acquiring customers, talent, and investors. I have tried to be open to understanding the “why?” of the activities in the startup ecosystem…

Pastry Chefs and Pilot Projects Posted on February 18, 2020 At Shadow Ventures, many of our Limited Partners (LPs) are investors in other venture funds that compete with us. The feedback on our competition is that they don’t provide much strategic value in helping their LPs screen and deploy new technologies within their companies. But…

Project Based Innovation: Project Data Manager Posted on February 19, 2020 “The Project is the Enterprise” — I have been saying this for almost two decades. If you’ve read my previous articles, I speak to the facts around innovation in the built environment especially with regard to its structural differences. I had a professor once tell…