Are we there yet?

It's been a busy week. We hit several key milestones on Manatee, and the team is feeling good. In the spirit of fueling progress, Mona brought in donuts and I took everyone to Fresh Choice.

Our marketing veep (Gregg) keeps asking about the new release, as if he could understand something so important and complicated. The day he understands what we do around here is the day we've taken our next round and opened a frozen yogurt franchise. The guy keeps asking "why?" He should take a night course in metaphysics and leave the work of shipping the future of voice-activated social networking to us.

BridgeThrust told Chip that they were VERY interested in our deal, but that they couldn't make a decision yet because one of the partners is having surgery this week (something called microdermabrasion- sounds pretty serious). Chip thinks it's in the bag.

Post Mortem

The BridgeThrust meeting was interesting. To summarize:

Partner guy: Why doesn't Google do this?

Marvin: Because we are smarter.

Chip: Because they haven't thought of it and when they do, we'll have cornered the market on voice-activated social networking.

Partner guy: I still don't understand why, if this is such a good idea, Google or MSFT wouldn't do it. I've heard they're working on something like this

Me: I have friends at MSFT. I don't think they're moving in this direction...

Chip [cutting me off] YET. And, we think our strategy of capturing verticals will allow us to amass users and remain under the radar. Those guys aren't thinking bout toy dog owners and disabled ham radio operators. This is our advantage.

Partner guy: [flips through deck to the end] How conservative are these financials? These seem a bit aggressive.

Chip: You should see the conversions and referrals we're seeing with the dog people. It's unreal. And these financials don't include the Eastern Block where we KNOW this is going to be big.

Partner guy: [Checks Blackberry, shifts, emits small burp]

Analyst guy: Can you share some of that data with us?

Chip: Absolutely. I'll get it to you today.

Partner guy: Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. Really

At the Starbucks afterword Chip was pretty psyched, but Marvin and I are a little less sure. Chip says that Vcs don't give you their business cards if they're not serious. We'll see. I'm having someone scrub the toy dog owner referral numbers this afternoon.

Sand Hill

We're in the lobby at BridgeThrust. Chip is making last minute changes to the deck. Marvin, our CTO, is looking at the artwork, staring at what looks like a Magritte. His remark about having some great Nagel prints in his dorm at MIT didn't seem to go over too well with the receptionist. Wish us luck.

Stoked

I'm already done with the Manatee deck. The slide of our Cloud Reference API (CRAPI) is going to blow them away. I was describing this to my buddy who works at MSFT and he says that he hasn't seen anything like it and that VERY few people would grasp its relevance. I think he's being straight up- I'm stoked.

Time for some Call of Duty with the wife and kids. Tomorrow's a big day.

Sunday

Chip just called. We've got an investor presentation tomorrow and I need to update the slides on Manatee. He thinks our next gen platform is getting traction with the VCs.

Chip: They like Manatee

Me: What do they like?

Chip: They understand that this is the future of voice-activated social networking. Their main guy, Lars, he gets it. I think BridgeThrust is on board.

Me: What time's the meeting?

Chip: I'm waiting to hear back. They're trying to bring as many people into our presentation as possible.

Me: That's great, how quickly can they move?
[put phone on mute. Wrap up spare in Wii bowling, hit fridge for beer]

Chip: blah blah blah....so when can I get your slides?

Me: You'll have them tonight by 10.

You can say a lot things about Chip Brinkster, our CEO, but if what he says is true, that disinterest and disdain are simply the poker face of investors who don't want to appear too emotionally attached, we're onto something big here.