My first day in Boston - after a long travel (4.5 hrs on the bus + 2 hrs waiting + 3 hrs on the plane to Chicago + 31 mins for changing the plane + 2.5 hrs on the plane to Boston = TIRED) I had only 1 meeting scheduled today... But as the afternoon got closer, I almost thought of call in sick and reschedule - it was really hot out there (again in mid 90s) plus my stomach didn't feel well (swine flu?)... But finally, I got up, walked to the North Station, took a train (first time in the U.S.) to Concord for one of the first meetings I was really not prepared for - all I remembered was that I was meeting with Firehouse Capital and that they had something in common with Yandex (the largest Russian Internet company with similar market share in the Russian market like Seznam in the Czech, but with over 25 million unique visitors monthly, $ 300m in revenues, 1800 employees and about $ 100m in profit)...
Luckily, the meeting was very informal and turned out to be one of the friendliest and most relaxed meetings so far... I met with the President of Firehouse Capital, John Boynton who turned out to be a very relaxed angel investor (or normal private investor, I forgot to ask...) and serial entrepreneur, with a long-lasting relationship with Russia and also a lot of business experience with the Czech Republic (well, it didn't quite work out for him in Pilsen then, but let's just say he remembers the $ 6m he could have made there)...
John was also the first one to question the "old truth" of VCs that a failed entrepreneur is better than a first-timer (see for example here)... It will certainly be an interesting discussion with professor Josh Lerner from Harvard who I am meeting next week...
Not only was this meeting fun, but also there are 3 concrete outcomes to be followed: (1) we will try to discuss potential cooperation between Yandex and Geewa, (2) John will connect me with Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global Management (who I wanted to meet for quite some time now), and (3) I will take a look at John's project which failed to raise capital and advise on what next... Oh, and one more: I will probably buy an iClub - product of one of John's companies - how awesome..
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