Two Dom, Two to Go

So, we're nine days into the new year and I've already sent out two bottles of Dom. 

The first bottle was sent to Scott Weiss.  I first met Scott in December of 2000 -- and quickly became convinced that he and Scott Banister had a compelling vision for an industrial-strength email appliance.  I invested in their company (which was called Godspeed Networks at the time) in January of 2001.  (That was before I had founded First Round Capital, so my investment was made personally through Midas Capital).  Godpseed Networks ultimately changed it's name to IronPort -- and six years later, I was thrilled to see that they were acquired by Cisco last week.  Congratulations to Scott & Scott and the entire IronPort team.  Their laserlike focus on messaging security helped define an industry. 

The second bottle is being sent to Scott Rafer.  I got to know Scott when he was CEO of Feedster - another company I invested in (through Midas Capital).  After Scott left Feedster, he and I held several conversations about key themes/areas of interest - and I remember discussing a concept for a persistent social network.  A few weeks later Scott called me back and told me he found a company (via LinkedIn - another Midas Capital investment) that did exactly what we were talking about.  It was a company called MyBlogLog.  I have to admit it -- I didn't see it.  They looked like yet another website statistics tracking company to me.  Scott asked me to invest (at a ridiculously low valuation) and I passed.  It wasn't until the Web 2.0 Conference (where I watched Rafer sell the company to Yahoo in my room) that I realized that I goofed -- but by then it was too late.  So here I am eight months later - adding another company to my "Woulda Coulda Shoulda" list and congratulating Scott, Eric and the MyBlogLog team on their acquisition by Yahoo.  It's a wonderful story - and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving team.  If I can't be “Da Investor”, at least I got to be “Da Konnector”.