Howard Lindzon, Wallstrip co-founder, is hosting all his buddies at a conference in Scottsdale in February on a Friday. Howard has a fund, Knightsbridge Capital, that invests in startups, builds them and sells them. His partners are all here to meet and greet the companies. Many of them are Canadian.
You get the picture: doing well by doing good. We can play golf, help entrepreneurs, and have fun.
Knightsbridge just closed its fund and has already sold one of its investments: MyTrade. This fund is invested in some fun companies, and it looks like they will have some more good exits.
There are seven companies presenting here: Limos.com, BlogTalk Radio, GreenScreen Interactive, vSocial, TubeMogul, and LifeLock.
But first we hear from Brian Jennings. Jennings is now talking about excellence, which is what Knightsbridge is focused on for its new fund. Jennings says business is a way of measuring excellence, as is sports. He talks about how to think about excellence when things are bad. He launches into sports metaphors, telling about Jake Plummer wanting to take the 49ers to the Rose Bowl. Plummer was a leader. He’s talking about how wet and windy it is in the Bay Area compared to Arizona, and how scared he was when he first got there and couldn’t snap a spiral. Steve Mariucci taught him how to have fun, and how to focus, and also how to be perfect all at the same time.
(The hardest thing about his job is gripping the football. He talks a lot about this, but I don’t know enough about football to report it accurately. Suffice it to say, he takes it all very seriously. )
Jennings is smart and articulate, giving the lie to cliches about football players. He warms up the room nicely.
