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February 17, 2006

New Venture Firm: Qiming Venture Partners

We just announced a new fund in China. It is called Qiming. It is a partnership with Ignition and some terrific, seasoned China investors: Duane Kuang, Gary Rieshel and Ed Zhou. We could not be more excited, both by the long term opportunities in China, but also by the opportunity to work with such an exceptional team.

Read about it here. And check out some of the recent press including the WSJ.

One thing of note is the name. Those of you who look at this blog, know that we are a bit obsessed with naming. Well, we spent a bunch of time on this. One of the classic branding problems is taking your name into another language. Great bad examples abound, e.g. Microsoft translating as "soft and squishy." In this case, finding the spirit of a brand and figuring out how to make it logical and relevant to the Chinese market was key. So rather than directly translating "Ignition" into characters that would mean "tiny spark" or "fire starter" we decided to go with Qi Ming which implies enlightenment and inspiration to begin something. Not the same as our name in the U.S. but all the better, this fund is meant to be integrated with us in the U.S. but also it's own thing for a unique market. Anyway, it was a fun exercise.

Posted by johnza at 5:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 16, 2006

Can you tell me what your job is in 3 seconds? Read this before you write your resume!

"If you can't describe your job in one sentence, you are either a nuclear physicist or your job shouldn't exist."

Recently read a great article in the FT by Lucy Kellaway, entitled "Waffle and waste of money are hallmarks of the non-job" where she goes after some of the incredibly awful job descriptions you can find in the job columns. Here are some examples and her wit in vivisecting them:

• "Liveability Theme Manager" at Oldham council, in the north of England... The council is searching for a "motivational leader with determination and stamina to successfully deliver our key strategic outcomes". The ideal candidate must have "a good understanding of neighbourhood solutions", and will earn up to £38,010 a year. (She sees this as an affront to the English language - is Livablity a word? split infinities, half a dozen cliche's wrapped in hyperbole)
• The British Transport Police: "Due to internal growth we have a rare opportunity for a Positive Action Support Coordinator to join our Leadership and Diversity Team" (the internal growth makes her think of tumors)
• The Westminster Drug and Alcohol Action team looking for an "Information and Performance manager" "Joining our busy and vibrant team, you will facilitate and manage reporting systems that ensure DAAT partnership and DIP teams are fully briefed on all relevant data" (she is confident only that the team is not vibrant and that the Westminster drug problem is not about to get any better)
• An HR head whose duties include "implementing and embedding HR policy and process, ensureing delivery of a value added service" (she sees only three word that do not set off alarms - "and", "of" and "a")
• She also highlights several typcial problems: verbs like develop and implement, warning words like effective, systems, strategies, best practice, deliver, meaningful, sustainable.

Read this before you write your resume. And also how about reading it before you put up the "about" copy on your website. Go through any corporate website or browse any VC's porfolio and you will ikely see a lot of maximizing and leveraging and providing premier solutions to non descript customers with problems so vague that only a psychiatrist could help them. Keeping it simple and straight forward it key to pitching not just for you but for your company, product or offering. Remember your ABCs and XYZs.

(PS: take a look at Jobster - an Ignition portfolio company - for their job listing. Personally I have to say my favorite is Microsoft MSN's "Be the Butterfly")

Posted by johnza at 11:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

If Nothing Else, Ads Can Be Entertaining

Despite all our commentary about how questionable the impact of big ad dollars might be, I have to admit commercials can still be a a heck of a lot of fun to watch. We loved the Big Ad.

We recently met with Flixpo, "The Internet's largest collection of free iPod and PSP downloads." They are doing interesting stuff. Worth checking out.

One thing to note is the clips they have lots of ads. Some are hilarious, others are downright obscene (but of course you will check them out anyway - esp. the IKEA one - who said sex doesn't sell)

(Of course, note, we also recently met with some folks from AOL - and let me tell you their SuperBowl ad site was just as important as the SuperBowl game itself - and that's not just because I'm a bitter Seahawks fan).

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