A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

I have never watched a reality show, other than Extreme Home Makeover (fi that qualifies).

I’m not a glitterati watcher, never watched Paris Hilton, haven’t seen and don’t know or care why Snooki is famous and have no idea why anyone would want to keep up with the Kardashians (whoever they are).

I never heard of Francisco Dao, either, but I totally agree with his recent (contorversial) comments regarding the number of valueless startups.

I wonder whether members of the technology community have lost the ambition to build lasting companies that contribute to productivity instead of another “flavor of the month” social media application.

Dao hits more of my hot buttons regarding the general shallowness of many entrepreneurs, especially in places like Silicon Valley.

Instead of recognizing the entrepreneurs who have quietly risked it all to build something lasting, we get caught up in social media popularity contests and Twitter “influencers.” We too often ignore the men and women who have built companies that provide livelihoods for their employees while we fawn over self-help gurus offering four-hour short cuts. And although we act the part of intellectuals and world changers, most of us are so reliant on social proof that the first question we ask when considering a conference or event is, “Who else is going?”

‘Who else is going’ has been the key social-climbing question since humans first stood erect, so that isn’t new, but the idiotic social scoring systems, most of which are quantity-based as opposed to quality and easily manipulated, have taken shallow to a whole new level.

Going to conferences, hanging out with entrepreneurs or telling people that you’re a “start-up guy” does not put you in the category of those who put all their chips on the table to turn an idea into a reality.

A few weeks ago I offered encouragement to entrepreneurs who are truly out changing the world as opposed to those with yet another social, addictive, mindless/brainless time-waster or app to sell stuff to consumers.

In 1983 Steve Jobs landed John Sculley with his legendary closing question, “Do want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?”

Many of today’s startups are the equivalent of yesterday’s sugar water.

So I ask, are you making sugar water or changing the world?

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Wow! Some VCs are moving from arguing over whose is bigger to poking fun at themselves.

Who’d have thunk it?

Image credit: YouTube

Investor to entrepreneur: I won’t fund you because

1. You are over 25
2. You are under 30
3. You are a woman with children or who might get pregnant
4. You haven’t done it before
5. I don’t know you
6. I don’t know the person who introduced us
7. Your startup isn’t a [flavor du jour] (e.g., internet or mobile business in 2011]

Do these sound ridiculous to you? They shouldn’t, all of them have happened and several to people I know personally.

It’s hard when you are looking for funding to remember that the people who seem to hold your future in their hands don’t have a pipeline to the future or supernatural powers that that lets them identify which idea is gold and which isn’t; who will succeed and who won’t.

But they don’t.

What they do have is their judgment, based on past experience and colored by their personal opinions, prejudices and peculiarities.

In other words, investors, whether VCs, angels or corporate, are just people with access to lots of money as opposed to having super-natural powers—although you may have trouble convincing some of them or that.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/5037968080/

Many people in Washington and around the country look to venture capitalists to jumpstart companies that will generate jobs, both directly and indirectly. Once again KG Charles-Harris, EMANIO CEO and founder of M3, attended Stanford Summit, a three day gathering of those who move in the world of startups, and provides his impressions of their ability to perform.

Last week I again attended the AlwaysOn 2010 Summit at Stanford, held at Stanford University in California.  It was a beautiful setting with people from all parts of the technology ecosystem—from very large companies such as Hewlett Packard to small 2 person startups, banks, venture capitalists, angel investors and consultants.

One of the most interesting takeaways from the conference was the very different views that people had on how the venture capital industry was developing in the present environment.  On the one hand, there were strong assertions that the VC industry was in good health and that there was a lot of money looking for investment.  Most of the VCs I encountered asserted that they were very much interested in early stage investments and that they provided a unique service to founders and early stage management.

However, this was in stark contrast to the intense frustration many startups were expressing when describing their hunt for capital.  They felt that VCs were far from interested in early stage investments and were mostly focused on follow-on investments in portfolio companies or syndicated deals.  Some (probably about 70% of the people with whom I spoke), who had received investments felt that the VCs were often a distraction on the Board and either were micromanaging or otherwise not helpful.  Yet these founders and executives have little choice but to continue to seek venture money to fund their growth.

Could these developments be due to the fact that many of those running the largest firms are no longer the seasoned operating managers that brought forth the storied companies of old, like Apple, Cisco, Fairchild Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, etc.?  Many have the impression that the generation of VCs that joined when the names on the door wanted to kick back are simply bankers; portfolio managers unable to take risk or understand a vision.

The industry has always been prone to “herd mentality,” where a lot of VC firms invest in similar startups; as was blatantly obvious during the dot com debacle.

A preference for financial manipulation and unwillingness to take risks combined with a lack of operating experience and little vision could signal a death knell for the kind of leaps that created high tech in the first place.

The upside is found in younger VCs and angels; men and women who founded or worked in startups and are putting their money where their mouth is to help create the next wave.

The question is there enough of them or will it be a case of too little too late?

Image credit: AlwaysOn

When possible I prevail on someone I know to attend the major AlwaysOn conferences, usually it’s KG Charles-Harris, but more recently it’s been Chris Blackman.

Last week Chris attended this year’s AlwaysOn Venture Capital Summit at Sand Hill Road in the heart of VCland and got a glimpse into the future investment strategies of that storied world.

From Chris Blackman

A culture of innovation? Customer driven? Family oriented? Work hard play hard? Top down or bottom up?

Do companies still embrace and boast about these corporate attitudes anymore?

Judging from what I heard at the AlwaysOn Venture Capital Summit they have taken a back seat to burnishing a reputation of being a green in many companies—but not all.

Amiel Kornel, senior managing director of the Emerging Technology Group at venture firm Spencer Trask still cares about those values and behaviors.

In particular, he looks for “companies that will define new market categories of business while emphasizing a top down approach to a balanced lifestyle.”

Innocentive is Kornel’s poster child for such values.

It also created the business category known as crowd sourcing.

For example, last week, the US government announced an online challenge with the aim of discovering a process for how the Internet can help with rapid problem solving.  How was it won? A group of MIT students used incentive-based collaboration techniques to encourage individuals to share the winning information.

Innocentive is fast becoming the nexus of such competitions. They have the ability to bring together thousands of minds to solve intellectual challenges quickly.

Mr. Kornel reminds us why company culture is important: “Key individuals must be fun to spend time with because at the end of the day, this relationship is like a marriage.”

And to be productive it needs to be a good marriage.

For more from the Summit check out the buzz.

Image credit: AlwaysOn

I lived more than 25 years in and around Silicon Valley. There have been many books written about the area, people and happenings (one of my all time favorites is The Nudist On The Nightshift), with many focused on those who start companies—the famous and infamous Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

Contrary to much of what you may read in the media none of it is dead; not the VCs, who are raising new funds, or the angels, who invest their own money, and certainly not the entrepreneurs.

Nor are the folks who write about them; some write from the halls of academia, some from the heights of punditship and a few who have actually been there/done that.

One such is Sramana Mitra, a tech entrepreneur who founded three companies, consults with Silicon Valley VCs, writes a column for Forbes and has a MS in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction is the second book in her Entrepreneur’s Journeys series and it’s a great read.

As opposed to a series of lessons to be taught, the book is a series of interviews with entrepreneurs highlighting their fascinating histories, the different paths they took and the difficulties they overcame.

It’s about the need for solid management skill—a book about implementers with vision as opposed to visionaries who depend on others to make it happen.

What you learn from them is up to you, but whether you plan to start a business or not you would have to work very hard not to benefit from their experiences.

The book’s focus is on companies that started and progressed without venture investment. Mitra does an excellent job of pointing out that even without IPOs, M&A and VCs throwing money like beads at Mardi Gras starting a company in your garage with a few friends is not only a solid approach—but a better one.

“If the next Google is to emerge and bring with it thousands of new jobs, it must first start over some kitchen table where not only hope but opportunity is readily available. Where entrepreneurs not only start businesses at a higher rate, but also survive and thrive at a higher rate.”

She points that many businesses fail for lack of funding, but if you don’t look for funding that roadblock ceases to exist.

“Through much discussion, writing, and brainstorming on each topic, I arrived at one core thesis: Not just entrepreneurship, but bootstrapped entrepreneurship is the true weapon of mass reconstruction.”

Having lived through the dot com bubble I know that this is true. Too much available investment makes trust fund babies of companies that need to grow up hungry, tough and scrappy.

Image credit: Sramana Mitra

Image credit: woodsy CC license

Working with entrepreneurs on writing business plans to finding affordable office space and everything in-between is big business. And, as with most services, they vary in value and effectiveness.

But venture firm Highland Capital Partners (Boston and Silicon Valley) is doing something different. Instead of charging the promising entrepreneurs they pay them.

“The program was designed as a sort of summer camp for entrepreneurs. Open to undergrad and graduate students, it offered aspiring entrepreneurs a $7,500 stipend, free office space, and access to Highland’s staff and outside contacts.”

The greatest value to the entrepreneurs isn’t the cost or the pay, but Highland’s knowledge and network.

Last year, “Michael Sullivan was trying to figure out how to add some mojo to his startup. As a graduate student in applied mathematics at Harvard, Sullivan had co-founded Affine Systems in 2006 with classmate Bobby Impollonia. Working out of their homes, the two computer whizzes had whipped up a software program to let media companies know if their copyrighted videos show up on the Internet.”

Anyone who follows the news knows that copyright on the Net is beyond hot.

So what did Sullivan and his partner get out of their ten weeks?

Highland’s partners helped Affine craft a business strategy, land their first test customers, and hire two senior executives. Ultimately, last winter, Highland put venture money into Affine, one of two companies in the program to get funding.

Highland isn’t the only program, Lightspeed Venture Partners (Silicon Valley) also runs a camp as do several other VCs. As with conventional startups, not all attendees’ ideas fly, but that’s OK, the connection is made and the next idea could be the next big thing.