Category Archives: Silicon Valley

Economic Principles Return circa 2001

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Economic Principles Return circa 2001 Originally printed in one of the boom time internet magazines, one of my co workers from the period saw one of my recent articles and dug this one up and send to me.  I wonder … Continue reading →

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It’s called Fishing Not Catching

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

It is called fishing and not catching, and it is the dirty secret of Silicon Valley. Unless your startup hits a grand slam, or you are its founder, CEO or a key engineer, your post-exit payday isn’t more than a … Continue reading →

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The Deal is Done. MerchantCirlce is now part of Reply!Media.

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

The Deal is Done. MerchantCirlce is now part of Reply!Media in a $60MM deal. If you missed this morning’s announcement, I’m happy to share the news that we are now officially part of Reply! Media.The last few weeks have been … Continue reading →

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Same Page from Go

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Co-founder Wayne Yamamoto joined us in our reminiscing. He tweeted this image from our first pitch presentation. From the very beginning MerchantCircle has been on the same page as Reply!. We had no idea then, we’d end up as a … Continue reading →

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MerchantCircle Acquired by Reply!

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Yesterday’s news was a major milestone and we are so thankful to everyone who reached out. Anyone who knows a MerchantCircle team member can attest to how totally dedicated this group of colleagues has been to our users, our products … Continue reading →

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Tapulous and Disney

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Ben T. Smith, IV

I was fortunate enough to do two great deal with incredible entreprenuers over the last couple of years. Tapulous was the first of these and was just sold to Disney in a great transaction for everyone involved.   In one of … Continue reading →

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Great Advice from Steve Blank..

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Ben T. Smith, IV

I will not be adding another non failure from Stanford GSB today.  All my very successful friends from GSB are now asking so I think I have a blog a day for about 60 days. Instead I wanted to call … Continue reading →

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Behind the Cloud, The Salesforce Story

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Behind the Cloud, The Salesforce Story I received the new book by Marc Benioff in the mail on Friday. I had preordered it after seeing Marc post pieces of it on facebook.  Once again Marc establishes himself as a great … Continue reading →

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Good Deals that Don’t Work

Posted on May 7, 2006 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Good deals that don’t work… About 6 years ago, I did a great deal. I went in with Seqouia.  I then did a follow on round in the same company with Redpoint and USVP.  The management team stuck together, the … Continue reading →

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Trovix

Posted on May 1, 2006 by Ben T. Smith, IV

One of my favorite deals is doing some really interesting things on search related to jobs.  I did trovix.com about a year ago with USVP who I created Spoke with.  Great deep technology.

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