VC Puts Himself Where His Mouth Used To Be
Jeff Yasuda is the Chief Executive Officer of Fuzz , a digital record label and new media company with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In early 2005, after a career in investment banking and venture capital, Jeff decided to put everything aside to travel throughout Southeast Asia and South America with his wife Celeste, for about 6 months. During his travels, he realized that "life is too short not to pursue your passions" and returned with some wild ideas about a company that combined his love for music and knowledge of technology and building businesses.
As Jeff explains:
"When traveling overseas, it's amazing what happens when we get away from cell phones and emails and take some time to truly think about our lives. I realized that we are all on this earth for only a short period of time and that it is absolutely important to pursue our dreams. I started playing in bands when I was 13, and when I started working on Wall Street I didn't even touch my guitar. Now that I'm in the music biz, things are just a bit different. At Fuzz, we are using technology to cut costs, maximize results, and pass financial savings on to the artists. It's crazy to think that checking out bands is now part of my job!"
Check out Fuzz - a community for fans to discover, share, review and buy new independent music.
Or as Jeff explains it:
"For music fans, Fuzz is a place to discover new tunes & interact with other music lovers. For artists, we've built a great platform to promote and sell their music as well as tools to communicate with their fan base - think Facebook meets Saleforce for the music industry.
So join Fuzz and become part of the revolution... You'll be one of the first to join a community of artists and music fans that are working hard to save this crazy music industry. "
Follow your dreams!! And passion counts...and this is very obviously Jeff's passion.
Gillian Parrillo
The Sacrament Executive
Comments
Thanks so much for the blog on Fuzz. It is truly amazing how much I didn't know about the travails of actually being a part of a start-up when I was a VC. Sitting on the board of directors providing guidance from a 50,000 foot vantage point is very differnt than rolling up your sleeves on a day-to-day basis. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy working with a portfolio of companies and jumping in when I could be helpful. However, being part of a start-up is an absolute blast - particularly when one of my core passions (music) is the primary focus of the company...
We just brought our product "live" last week and the guys have been working crazy hours to get ready for our first public showing. It really is a lot of fun to see the vision in an actual product - it's only about 5% of the vision, but we think it's a decent start. The wild thing is that the real work has just begun... but, we hope we are providing a useful product that will help artists take control of their careers and broaden their reach.... more to come soon!
J
Posted by: Jeff Yasuda | March 19, 2007 6:28 PM