I thought insipiration came in the shower.

Quoted: Entrepreneurial inspiration sometimes hits in strange ways and at strange times. For Karim Varela, it occurred while he was sitting in a San Francisco area jail on a DUI charge. From that painful episode, Varela came up with the idea for i-Booze, an online delivery service that transports beer, wine, cigarettes and other sinful necessities to shoppers in 60 minutes or less.

Quoted: I think that's an important part of the economics of the web that are left out of most discussions of Internet business models. Yes, we are turning analog dollars into digital pennies in many cases. But we are also doing the same thing on the cost side, maybe even more so. And I think that "operating leverage" is going to create a lot of value.

The Balsamiq Mockups guy has made $100K in 5 months. I Faved about Balsamiq a little while back: http://faves.com/users/mohit/dot/127498885101

Quoted: That was a cute story, but now it's been just 5 months and today Peldi reports that he's just cleared $100,000 in sales of the four variations of his product. Talk about a simple tool coming along at just the write time! It's cool software, too.

Some very interesting data and perspectives on the VC model.

Quoted: The slides from his presentation are embedded below, but really all you need to look at is the one above. It shows that the money going into VC funds is now more than the money coming out of VC funds. That line was crossed last June and there is no going back anytime soon.

Interesting discussion on restricted stock vs. options and IRS 409a.

Quoted: I think restricted stock is a no-brainer for founders and early employees when the value of the stock is almost nothing. I also think its a no-brainer for public companies with marketable stock. The place where I am not yet convinced about restricted stock is privately held companies where the stock has real value but it is not yet liquid.

Latest blog post.

Quoted: If you are a Product Manager and/or a startup founder, you undoubtedly have solid instincts about your target market. But, if you are like myself, you have probably experienced times where it is unclear exactly what to do next. To that end, I have found the following resources helpful over the years:

ReFaving @kennykamada. The articles look pretty good. Definitely adding this blog to my RSS reader.

Quoted: The site combines John Cook's reporting on venture capital, entrepreneurs and startups with Todd Bishop's coverage of Microsoft and other large technology companies, plus regular contributions from PSBJ senior technology writer Eric Engleman. But the most important part of the site will be you -- the community of people involved and interested in technology in the Seattle region.

A little verbose, but I generally agree. Effective product management involves a healthy dose of imagination.

Quoted: If your team is struggling with customer feedback, you may find this mantra helpful. Seek out a synthesis that incorporates both the feedback you are hearing plus your own vision. Any path that leaves out one aspect or the other is probably wrong.