Founder & Venture Lessons

8/3/2019 Founder & Venture Lessons

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CONFIDENTIAL

Startup & Venture Lessons

Jay Jamison

Venture Partners, BlueRun Ventures

[email protected] | @jay_jamison | jayjamison.com
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Agenda

Introduction

Top 10 Lessons

Q&A


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Introduction

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Employee Founder

Investor


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About BlueRun Ventures

Over $1.0B under management

Investing out of Fund IV ($240M)

Focus: Mobile & consumer internet

Seed & Series A

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Stuff that surprised me

Having nearly 10 years at MSFT didnt matter at all.

Having an MBA from Wharton mattered even less.

Both were seen as basically negatives.

But, several of the skills from both really helped.

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Top 10 Startup Lessons

1. Todays Golden Age For Founders & Its Double-Edge Sword.

2. Whats #1: Markets, Team, or Product?

3. Picking Co-Founders & How to Split the Baby.

4. The Whatever Works Principle

5. Getting used to No, and Being a Meat Eater

6. Hire Slow, Fire Fast

7. Distribution is Really Hard & Really Important

8. If You Stop Loving It, Make a Change.

9. Values and Value Add

10. Pitching & Fund-Raising

11. My go-to resources

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Lesson 1:Its a Golden Age for Entrepreneurs.

Cheaper than ever to start a company.

Better resources

Incubators: Y-Combinator, 500Startups,

Resources: Startup Digest, Lean Startup, TC, VB

Technology is easier to learn, access, &c.

Codecademy

RoR

AWS


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And Investors Understand This.

I see lots of great companies that are:

Capital efficient

High velocity in coding and releasing

Product in market with traction

Clear customer insight on what works

Battle-tested founding teams

Clear, concrete ask on what $$$ they need


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Implication

While were in a Golden Age forEntrepreneurs, it is raising the bar

for most very early stage

companies

You need to prove more on very

little money, because so many otherstart-ups are already doing so.


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Lesson 2:Whats #1: Markets, Team, or Product?

Which is most important?

A.MarketB.Product

C.Team


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Which is most important?

A.MarketB.Product

C.Team


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Analysis

75 pitches / quarter

0-2 get to term sheet

Score each

Multiple regression

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Product

Traction

Team

Market


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Worlds largest store

Redefine social

Organize & access information

Reinvent money

????Your Company

How I think about MarketsChoose Any 4 Companies, Stack Rank Vision


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Worlds largest store

Redefine social

Organize & access information

Reinvent money

Teach English to children everywhere

How I think about MarketsChoose Any 4 Companies, Stack Rank Vision


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Lesson 3:Picking Co-Founders & Equity Split

What a tech founder needs in a business co-founder

Someone who sells what you build

Someone who can do all the important stuff thats not coding

Leadership and vision

Potentially you can raise money, while you code.

What a business co-founder needs in a tech co-founder

Someone who writes code and gets technical stuff done, and who ideally understandshow to hire and expand the technical team over time.

Technical chops, CS/EE degree Nice to have: a track record building stuff

Very nice to have: Ideas on how to hire devs

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Finding a Technical Co-Founder

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More important than fund-raising

Requires almost the same skills

Pitching and salesmanship

Capacity to speak enough geek

Resourcefulness


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Default founder split: equal

50%50%

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33%

33%

33%


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Lesson 4:The Whatever Works Principle

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Lean Startup

Scrum

StealthCo

Never stealth!

Customer Development

If youre not embarrassed with yourfirst launch, youre waiting too long.

Reid Hoffman

Minimum Viable Product

Revenue from Day 1

Building for Scale

OffshoreEverything Inhouse

HTML5

Native Apps

You never get a second chance tomake a first impression. Anon.


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Whatever Works

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Lean Startup

Scrum

StealthCo

Never stealth!

Customer Development

If youre not embarrassed with your

first launch, youre waiting too long. Reid Hoffman

Minimum Viable Product

Revenue from Day 1

Building for Scale

OffshoreEverything Inhouse

HTML5

Native Apps

You never get a second chance to

make a first impression. Anon.

My Advice & Learning:

Absorb all this stuff

Listen to people you trust

Use what works for you

The key is work fast & economically


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Lesson 5:Get Used to No

As Founder: Heard No a lot, especially fund-raising

At least 150 times

From 5 different countries

As an Investor: I say No a lot, especially to fund-raisers

Probably 1%

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Whats weird about this

These numbers are probably about average

Generally No coming from smart, polite person

(Not always the case, so be careful)

Under 10% of founders really follow-up and stay after it

Lesson: build a plan to deal with No

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Be A Meat-Eater

Speed

Swagger & optimism

Persistence

Follow-through

Showcase progress

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Lesson 6:Hire Slow, Fire Fast

Hire Slow

Wait for real pain

Everyone interviews

Share feedback

Do reference checks

Dinner w/ SO

Fire Fast

When perf lags, speak up

Set clear expectations

Set a crisp timeline

Fire

Ensure lawyer is in loop

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Lesson 7:Distribution, distribution, distribution

This is by far the weakest part ofyour business at this point

And, it is also one of the most

important


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Love It or Leave It

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Lesson 9Values & Value-Add

Values are key from day 1

Set them & talk about them constantly.

No right way to do this, but doing it is important

Value-Add is also a key from day 1

If someone stops pulling their weight, deal with it

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Logistics : Pre-Meeting

Arrive 15 minutes early every time

Have back-ups (2nd PC, Dongles, USBs)

Treat everyone you meet politely

Setup & preflight ppt & demo before meeting starts

Bring ideally 2-3 people

Remember: You are SELLING


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Logistics: During Meeting

Give everyone who attends a role

Script which person handles which slide(s)

Assign a scribe, every time


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Logistics: Q&A During Meeting

Often badly managed, and very important

Answer questions directly

Script answers on the obvious questions

How much are you raising? How long does this last?

What beachhead markets do you think are most promising?

What holes exist in your team?

Why wont Google, Facebook, Twitter, or someone else eat your

lunch? What makes you the right team to do this?


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Logistics: Post Meeting

Scribe: Write down all new QA for FAQ

Follow-up in email that day w/ thanks, etc.

Do what you need to handle rejection

Keep positive & keep in touch


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Go To Resources

TechCrunch, VentureBeat, TechMeme, etc.

JoelonSoftware

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

Startup digest

Netflix on Culture

Compstudy.com

Igor International Naming Guide

Paul Grahams blog.

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http://www.joelonsoftware.com/http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/http://startupdigest.com/http://www.slideshare.net/sonnly/culture9090801103430phpapp02-1914140http://compstudy.com/http://www.igorinternational.com/process/igor-naming-guide.pdfhttp://paulgraham.com/http://paulgraham.com/http://www.igorinternational.com/process/igor-naming-guide.pdfhttp://compstudy.com/http://www.slideshare.net/sonnly/culture9090801103430phpapp02-1914140http://startupdigest.com/http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/http://www.joelonsoftware.com/


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Thanks!

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Founder & Venture Lessons

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