Congratulations are in order to two friends who’ve recently lived through one of the sweetest moments in the life of an entrepreneur - a successful exit.
I first met Howard less than a year ago for dinner in Toronto. The conversation circled around the power of a decentralized community, social media, and… stocks. Howard had a nice post on the dinner that he ended with: “I plan to capitalize on Networking 2.0 with ideas discussed tonight with young Fraser.”
A month or so later, on a humid summer night, I got a call from Howard. Pacing around my apartment I listened to a frenzied Howard walk me through a vision for an internet video show covering stocks from a pop-culture perspective and leveraging all of the tools available for building community. I remember saying to Howard that he was either brilliant. Or insane.
Well, 9 months after Wallstrip launched on October 16th 2006, Howard was shown to be brilliant when CBS purchased Wallstrip.
VC Ratings has a nice post articulating the value that I believe CBS saw in the site/show/knowledge. I especially agree with:
1) How to get the show on every video service quickly and easily.
6) How to make a web site that communicates what the show is quickly and easily.
7) How to do advertising in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the viewer.
I do think one significant point was left out of the list: the ability to produce an engaging internet show on the cheap.
What a moment for the entire Wallstrip team! Congratulations everyone. Howard, I did a search of my emails - I’ve sent a “congratulations” email to you 6 times in the past 9 months… which raises the question: what are you going to do next?
Another friend, Eric Olson, has recently lived through the experience of Google acquiring Feedburner, the company he works for. It’s a deal that just makes so much sense that it was bound to happen. While Eric’s fantasy baseball team may not be performing like he’d like, I’m sure he’ll cope 
The only sour part of this deal was the timing… the closing kept Eric from meeting up at the Sox game last Friday when I was in Chicago.
Congratulations guys, enjoy the moment and the lasting memory. Now, Eric - when are you up for a jays game? And, Howard - when do we launch VCStrip?
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