During her time as a media executive, Hauser built a rich network of founders and VCs alike. She also discovered a pain point. There were so many women ready to launch new businesses, but very few women investors to not only fund those companies, but also to mentor and advise. With two young children, Hauser was looking for more flexibility in her career and began investing on the side. Realizing how much she loved it, it soon became a full-time pursuit.

“I want to see that a founder is adaptable, that they're open to different ideas, and that they have a curiosity mindset.” - @fran_hauser
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In the eight years since she began investing, Hauser has built a portfolio of 30 companies, 28 of which are led by female founders. For female founders struggling to land that first check, she emphasizes the importance of network building. While it is critical to have a great pitch deck, she explains that it’s getting the pitch in front of the right people that counts. This means developing an inner circle, and tapping them for who they know. Perhaps you don’t have direct relationships with VCs, but can you build an advisory board of people who can create those intros?  

There are a few common mistakes which Hauser sees founders are making. One is that they sometimes get too stuck in their vision for the product, and don’t process feedback well. “I want to see that a founder is adaptable, that they’re open to different ideas, and that they have a curiosity mindset.” It’s important that founders engage in active listening with investors. Being open to new ideas and capable of adapting is critical. “When you’re starting a new business, a big part of it is being able to adapt, and being able to adjust because stuff happens.”

“When you're starting a new business, a big part of it is being able to adapt, and being able to adjust because stuff happens.” - @fran_hauser
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Another mistake is focusing too much on the product and not talking enough about the other aspects. “At the end of the day, you’re investing in the founder, because the product might change. It’s really about whether this person has what it takes to launch a successful business . . . being really clear and confident about why you’re the right person to be tackling this opportunity is really important.” Too often, Hauser sees a dynamic founder present an entire pitch deck, and not really begin to introduce themselves until the final slide. Additionally, Hauser likes to see context to go along with the product. What is the pain point the product solves or what market trend is it responding to? Painting a broader picture around your company’s purpose can go a long way.

“At the end of the day, you're investing in the founder, because the product might change. It's really about whether this person has what it takes to launch a successful business.” - @fran_hauser
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What Hauser does like to see in a potential investment is market opportunity. Being able to clearly articulate the consumer value proposition is so important, as is knowing one’s own weaknesses. No founder is perfect at everything, so how do they fill in the gaps when it comes to their own shortcomings. If they are the visionary, is there someone on the team that is great with day-to-day operations? Another thing Hauser loves to see in future investments is traction. Knowing there is already a lead investor who has done their due diligence goes a long way in convincing her. But traction comes in many different forms. For a company that has not launched, 10 clients that have given verbal agreements is a big mitigation of risk, as is a few hundred people who have filled out surveys for a direct-to-consumer product.

Your goals as an entrepreneur are not always clear. They may be centered on making a profit, which means a lot of decisions need to be made on prioritization. But your goals as an entrepreneur should also be centered on building a brand that can deviate from a script, and consider alternatives. 

“Real estate is a relationship business and at a time when most of our relationships exist through screens, it is more important than ever to have a tool that can enhance those interactions.” - @foundersnetwork
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Julie Leonhardt, co-founder and CEO of Vuse, believes that her understanding of the real estate industry, combined with her listening to the pain points of the agents with whom she speaks on a daily basis, has allowed her to create the perfect tool for the agents’ toolkit. Vuse is a mobile platform that enables real estate professionals to create and share captivating, pro-quality videos on the go. Her former life as the COO of Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates, Inc. and the SVP of Affiliate Services and Head of Operations, EMERIA region, for Christie’s International Real Estate, and her partnership with award-winning filmmaker, Leanna Creel, creates the perfect team to build a product that the real estate market really needs right now.  

“Launching in March 2020 was definitely a risk,” Leonhardt explains. “However, once everyone realized that COVID was not going to be a minor blip on our year, my phone and email were blowing up with agents begging for Vuse. Vuse combines my real estate background with my co-founder, Leanna’s, amazing filmmaking acumen to create a product that is uniquely designed for agents. Real estate is a relationship business and at a time when most of our relationships exist through screens, it is more important than ever to have a tool that can enhance those interactions. ”

“Are you able to pivot where the industry is pushing you? That is so key to product nimbleness. You may not be able to find full market fit right away. Some companies may have to do a few degrees shift as the market changes so they…
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Vamshi Gunukula, COO of DirectShifts, didn’t have to search hard to find the opportunity in the global pandemic. His team found itself in the middle of the moment. DirectShifts is a tech-enabled staffing platform that matches clinicians with employers. As the need for qualified medical professionals grew, his team pivoted toward helping hospitals and clinicians source from a variety of locations. They also focused on sourcing more specialties.

“We diversified because we saw the market needed it,” Gunukula said. “We always create our product with a vision to serve certain aspects of the industry. But the industry will push you laterally. Are you able to pivot where the industry is pushing you? That is so key to product nimbleness. You may not be able to find full market fit right away. Some companies may have to do a few degrees shift as the market changes so they find their sweet spot.”

“This was an extension of my passion, but also very much trying to solve a problem. And as it turns out, it was a problem that basically every single traveler in the world has experienced or will experience some time in the future…
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Zephyr Seat is geared toward the air traveler who in this new normal seeks more private space, among other benefits. The Zephyr Seat would allow airlines to provide double-decker. lie-flat seating in a 2-4-2 configuration. CEO Jeffrey O’Neill, a frequent traveler and designer, came up with the idea after seeking a way to get some good sleep on a very long flight from at the economy price point.

“This was an extension of my passion, but also very much trying to solve a problem,” O’Neill shared with allplane.tv. “And as it turns out, it was a problem that basically every single traveler in the world has experienced or will experience some time in the future when they travel again.”

While O’Neill’s idea was born well before the pandemic in 2017, it arrives at the right time,  just travelers would appreciate isolation and social distancing. It’s poised to be a significant disrupter in the travel industry, should airlines adopt it. At this stage, the Zephyr Seat team is still hunting for the first taker. 

Hear more about how these founders are moving their products forward by joining our Product Panel on August 24. Sign up to join us in this FREE event and find out if you qualify for full membership and get insights on:

• How to pivot where the industry is pushing you with product nimbleness
• Why you should sell your meaning, not just your product
• How to extend passion to propose a solution
• Attract the attention of customers through experiences 
• It’s not about products, it’s about unmet needs

Join Founders Network to learn how to generate FOMO and close deals quickly, including:  

• Establishing Ground Rules
• Drafting a Composition
• Crafting Your Narrative
• Building an Initial Funnel
• Initiating Fundraising Mode
• Pitching and Closing

Raising money is one of the most important functions of a founder. But it’s often time-consuming — and doesn’t always yield results. 

There are ways to minimize the sunk cost and increase your chances of success in fundraising, and Mike Wilner wrote the book on it. Wilner, member of the startup business development team at Amazon’s AWS and co-author of Oversubscribed: A Founder’s Guide to Seed Fundraising, breaks down the rules of efficient fundraising in a Founders Network workshop. Sign up here.

“The truth is that people who have been around the block a couple of times can raise seed rounds in about a month. What does it actually look like under the hood when that happens?” - @mwil20
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“It’s important to me personally that founders have an understanding of what fundraising looks like at the highest level,” he says. “The truth is that people who have been around the block a couple of times can raise seed rounds in about a month, or even as quickly as two weeks. So what does it actually look like under the hood when that happens?”

When fundraising is run well, deals can happen quickly. And the key is to generate competition and a sense of FOMO among participating investors, says Wilner. Conceptualize your fundraising goal not in dollar terms, but in terms of allocating available spots in your round. 

“As soon as you go from ‘I’ve got to raise $2 million’ to ‘I’ve got one spot available for this type of VC, two spots available for that type of VC, or this type of angel investor’, all of a sudden you have scarcity,” he adds. 

Planning and Closing Round

A few simple steps can help guide the process along, from planning to — if all goes well — closing your round. Remember that time kills all deals, so set some ground rules first.

• For instance, fundraise in parallel, rather than as a sequence, and establish an optimal ratio for generating scarcity. Wilner recommends having three investors in final diligence for every one fundraising spot available.
• From there, draft up the composition of your round. Be sure the differences between venture capitalists, seed investors, and angels — what their goals and motivations are — before making contact.
• Then hone your narrative, prioritizing clarity, brevity, a compelling vision and the ability of your team to execute. And when the time comes to make your pitch, don’t be afraid to discuss the potential pitfalls your startup is facing — and what you need to minimize them. 

“Tell the investor what the biggest risks are, because if you don’t do that, investors are going to come to their own conclusions.” - @mwil20
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“Tell the investor what the biggest risks are, because if you don’t do that, investors are going to come to their own conclusions,” Wilner says. “That’s where a lot of first-time founders, my former self included, fail — they try to defend everything, and make everything bulletproof.”

When building out your funnel, work backwards from the ultimate goal of having three investors in final due diligence for every spot. For a typical $2 million round, it’s reasonable to target 20 investors total in your initial funnel — and naturally, get to know their individual interests, roles and areas of focus. Invest time in building relationships with potential prospects: Genuinely seeking advice, and reciprocating by showing the positive results of that advice, is one of the best ways to build warm relationships with a potential investor base.

“It’s really a reframing thing: Rather than an asking-for-money practice, reframe it as a recruiting exercise.” - @mwil20
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“It’s really a reframing thing: Rather than an asking-for-money practice, reframe it as a recruiting exercise,” Wilner adds. 

Once fully prepared to start the fundraising process, founders can begin stacking meetings and filling the funnel with prospects. Ideally, close one investor before diving full bore into fundraising mode — decks, financial models and equity in hand. 

Although no amount of careful engineering can guarantee fundraising success –after all, that depends on a great number of external factors — optimizing for efficiency in mind can help founders minimize self-doubt and save time. 

“It’s more about having more confidence about the fundraise process,” Wilner says. “You may be thinking about fundraising, and you can make it less of this nebulous thing that you’re dreading if you know precisely what goes into it.” 

There may be no magic formula for launching the next Google, Facebook or Apple. But according to Adam Cheyer, there are a few steps founders can take to size up ideas and help to drive them towards success.  

Cheyer has a track record to back it up: As co-founder of Siri, he helped to transform the iPhone experience after Siri was acquired by Apple in 2010. He was also on the founding team at Change.org, the largest petition site in the world, and later created Viv Labs, a personal assistant software acquired by Samsung. 

Lesson #1: Playing The Long Game

Commercial success doesn’t necessarily arise from a lightbulb moment. It often takes time to cultivate, in some cases years. 

“Siri seemed to many like such an overnight success,” Cheyer says. “But the reality behind that was that it took two years of commercial hard work to get there. Before that, there was a five year research phase, during which I led technology development for the largest AI project in U.S. history researching intelligent assistants. And before that, I worked on the problem for over a decade, in both research and commercial settings.  Basically, it was something like 17 years of work from the lightbulb moment to get to the point where Steve Jobs called.” 

Lesson #2: Timing It Right

“Not every successful startup idea will take 17 years to develop — but it might take longer than founders think,” Cheyer says. One question often asked is: How do you know when is the right time to try an idea as a startup?  

It’s an important question, because if you launch too early, the world might not be ready to fully appreciate your idea — but if you launch too late, you will miss the opportunity and not catch the rising tide at the right moment.  

Cheyer uses two tools to answer this question: trends and triggers. First, he studies technology topics that are emerging at the time, and develops views about where the world is going, and what has substance versus what’s just a fad.  Once he feels he has a perspective, Cheyer waits for a “trigger” moment that confirms his prediction and gives him unique insight into what is going to happen over the next few years.  

An example? In 2004, Cheyer predicted that an interface paradigm would emerge to enable access to all the world’s content and services in a new way. When the iPhone came to market, despite many pundits predicting failure, Cheyer felt this was exactly what he had been waiting for. Looking forward two years, he posited that every handset manufacturer and telecom would be desperate for a new technology to compete with the iPhone, and he felt that Siri could be just what they needed. So he and two co-founders started a company to build it.

Lesson #3: Doing Something Big

Step three is to evaluate the size of the opportunity before deciding to invest years in developing, pitching and scaling your startup idea. A good number to keep in mind: 250. 

“It’s going to take the same amount of time to do something small as something large. So make sure you’re aiming for a market size of at least 250 million users — big companies like eBay, YouTube and Instagram are user-based. You can aim for $250 million in revenue, or you can have a differentiated technology with an application and a business model,” he adds. Why target the 250 threshold? There’s a better risk-reward profile once you get to that point, Cheyer says, with more promising prospects if your startup were to eventually get acquired. 

Lesson #4: Following the Data 

Keep your eye on the data.

“If you're not instrumenting everything you do, you're not doing it right. And if you have an advisory board, if they're not demanding to see metrics at every single board meeting, they're not doing their job.” - @acheyer
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“If you’re not instrumenting everything you do, you’re not doing it right. And if you have an advisory board, if they’re not demanding to see metrics at every single board meeting, they’re not doing their job,” he says.  

That was evident in the growth of Change.org, which wasn’t originally conceived as the world’s largest hub for petitions. As they tried many new functions on the site, the founding team followed the data of their users’ behavior to evolve what eventually became an influential platform with hundreds of millions of users. 

After Change.org launched, the site’s user counts increased initially at a relatively modest rate. That changed once the team observed high engagement with the petition feature, which was then a minor feature. Change.org was reorganized to make petitions more central, at which point the site’s users accelerated dramatically. 

“Letting the data lead you where you want to go is really important,” Cheyer says.

“Letting the data lead you where you want to go is really important.” - @acheyer
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Lesson #5: Visualizing Success

Finally, a more personal tip for entrepreneurs: Always remember to concretely visualize what success looks like — embrace it, and the ultimate outcome may wind up surprising you. 

“When we were just starting out at Siri, I walked into an Apple store and summoned up every bit of gumption I had, and thought: Someday Siri is going to be right up there on an Apple Store wall, alongside the Google, Skype and Pandora icons they were displaying,” he recalls.  It seemed outrageously ambitious to posit that his little team would create something as important as these giants of technology.

Fast forward, and on the day Siri launched, he returned to an Apple store and — to his surprise — Siri was not merely displayed as one icon among many. Next to the front door of the Apple Store, there was a sign saying “Introducing Siri”, and there was a plasma display showing Siri use cases running on a loop. This juxtaposition of the earlier image of success that Cheyer had visualized years earlier, against the even better reality presented this day, created a striking moment.

“Life often finds a way to surpass your biggest dream with a reality you couldn’t even imagine. That moment makes all the hard work completely worthwhile and satisfying.” - @acheyer
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“I just got chills,” he says. “Don’t just dream abstractly, but concretely visualize what success would look like. When you do this, life often finds a way to surpass your biggest dream with a reality you couldn’t even imagine.  And that moment makes all the hard work completely worthwhile and satisfying.” 

Register at Founders Network for Adam’s full insights on: 

• Playing the Long Game
• Timing It Right 
• Doing Something Big
• Following the Data
• Visualizing Success

• Reducing Cash Burn
• Reviewing Contracts
• Modeling Revenue
• Venture Outlook
• Non-traditional Funding

Startup founders should keep a close eye on their balance sheet even in the best of times. In a worldwide crisis, however, trimming expenses and extending your runway could be a matter of survival. 

David Ehrenberg, founder of financial services firm Early Growth, says that founders should be taking a hard look at these three things to ensure they can weather whatever storms may result from COVID-19:

1. their burn rates
2. revenue forecasts
3. and sources of funding 

Ehrenberg, a member of Founders Network since 2013, founded Early Growth in 2008, and it’s since grown into the largest financial services firm in the U.S. catering specifically to early stage startups. 

“You need to create a company and an organization that is lean enough that it can survive the next two or three years.” - @EarlyGrowthFS
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“That means taking a good look at your staffing and who’s essential, taking a look at your spending and what’s discretionary and what’s non-discretionary. It’s also about taking a look at different initiatives you have going on to see if they make sense or not.”

Aim for two to three years of runway

We may not know how long the current economic downturn may last. But startups should aim for two to three years of runway, Ehrenberg says. And there are many other ways to potentially improve your financial outlook, from reviewing contracts to exploring new sources of funding. Founders should leave no stone unturned.

“I think the biggest mistake a company can make right now is to not be acutely aware of the situation that we're in, and adjusting and planning for it appropriately.” - @EarlyGrowthFS
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“I think the biggest mistake a company can make right now is to not be acutely aware of the situation that we’re in, and adjusting and planning for it appropriately,” he says. 

Review terms and relationships

Lenders or vendors may be willing to renegotiate contracts, Ehrenberg adds.  “Founders should closely review those terms of those relationships and take advantage of opportunities to adjust or delay certain expenses.” 

“Take a look at contracts, and see what you can renegotiate and what you can get out. Take a look at any bank loans or debt that you have and renegotiate it,” he says. 

Map out your revenue

Now is also a good time, as ever, to map out what your revenue will look like in the coming quarters — and what funding you’ll need to push through stormy economic waters. There are a variety of funding sources available, from government loans and lines of credit to venture funding.  Banks and other venture debt providers are also likely to remain active throughout the crisis, according to Ehrenberg.  

Startup founders need to look at all of the available options and weigh the pros and cons.  Founders should also be aware that the available sources of financing can depend in part on their own business outlook. Venture funding is likely to get more competitive in the current environment, Ehrenberg adds. 

“One of the things that’s so hard about this situation is that we don’t have definitive data on anything, when it comes to the medical numbers or the economic numbers,” he says. “We don’t have a lot of data yet, but by the estimates that we’ve seen, there will be a decrease in venture funding of between 30% to 50%. But there’s still going to be funding going on.”

Some startups may thrive in the current environment. You don’t have to look far for examples of tech companies seeing significant growth as people work and spend time at home. Others more tied to economic cycles, or particular industries hard hit by COVID-19, will see a much greater downturn. Options for extending your runway can look different depending on what category you fall into, Ehrenberg says. Revenue-based investments may be a good option for startups with a healthy top line. But the bar may be a bit higher to get new rounds of investment flowing. 

“People are not going to just be funding based on a pitch deck. They're going to want to see real traction, they're going to want to see revenue, and they're going to want to see customer engagement and proof points.” -…
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Explore a range of options

“People are not going to just be funding based on a pitch deck. They’re going to want to see real traction, they’re going to want to see revenue, and they’re going to want to see customer engagement and proof points,” he says. “People have this idea that venture capitalists are huge risk takers. They’re not at all. They’re incredibly conservative.”

Whatever the path to weathering COVID-19, startup founders should explore a range of options and, of course, remain closely engaged with their board and existing investors to figure out the beat path forward. Founders should be aware that they may have to raise at a lower valuation, too. 

“This is a good time to think about your business model. You can always restart initiatives, but this is a time to be really conservative and make your dollars last as long as possible.” - @EarlyGrowthFS
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“It is a good time to think about your business model,” Ehrenberg adds. “You can always restart initiatives, right? But this is a time to be really, really conservative and make your dollars last as long as possible.”

Plenty of executives hail the importance of a strong culture, but it takes firsthand experience building a startup from scratch to understand how culture permeates everything from hiring to decision-making.

Oisin Hanrahan saw this up close in co-founding and scaling Handy, a marketplace for home cleaners, repairmen, and other household services. Within a few short years, Handy raised $110 million and gained widespread recognition as a consumer brand. In using Handy, customers can hire household services at the click of a button, and professionals have a new place to connect with clients.

Hanrahan, along with co-founder and then-roommate Umang Dua, began working on Handy while being a student at Harvard Business School. But the idea wasn’t an immediate hit among investors. They needed to work on development and networking opportunities. When they set out to raise money in 2012, the notion of a marketplace for household services was met with a good deal of skepticism.

“When we first raised capital, the number one pushback we got was: I don’t think people are going to go online and book services at the touch of a button and trust someone going to their home,” Hanrahan recalls.

Those doubts were ultimately proven unfounded. Determined that Handy would be a success, Hanrahan dropped out of Harvard Business School to dedicate himself full-time to building the platform. He wasn’t a first-time entrepreneur — he started his first company, Clearwater Group, a real estate development firm at 19 — and he saw a major shift in consumer behavior underway.

Handy was part of a wave of online marketplaces: Uber, Airbnb, and others were also gaining steam during that time. That wound up remaking the way consumers hire services, whether it’s booking a car or a plumber. @oisinhanrahan

Handy was acquired by IAC-owned ANGI Homeservices, a $4 billion company, in October 2018. Hanrahan recently assumed the role of Chief Product Officer at ANGI, where he’s tasked with transforming the company’s 12 brands, which do $1.1 billion in annual revenue.

The startup journey

“If you do this right, you’ll take a journey that should take 15 or 20 years. If you’re running a venture-backed company and a trusted network, you’re going to compress that whole journey down to 5, 6, 7, maybe 8 years”, Hanrahan says. “And if you do all the unexpected things that would normally happen over 10 or 15 years, it’ll happen in 5 or 7 years.”

So you’ve got to almost expect the unexpected and be okay with it, because it’s normal if you’re operating at a really fast pace.

“You’ve got to almost expect the unexpected and be okay with it, because it’s normal if you’re operating at a really fast pace.” @oisinhanrahan 

If it’s typical to operate at lightning speed as a startup founder, then it’s critical to establish a culture that can meet those demands early on. It’s common for startups to encounter difficulties in hiring for the C-suite, even having handy a C suite network, however. Some level of trial and error is inevitable, and Handy was no different.

“When we first went out looking to bring on more seasoned executives onto the leadership team, it was a challenge for us; we weren’t quite sure what the fit profile was and weren’t quite sure what we were looking for,” Hanrahan says.

Which criteria to use when hiring executive roles?

According to thought leaders, like Oisin, you need to establish a consistent set of criteria that applies across the whole organization, whether you’re hiring at the executive level or for other roles.

In Handy’s case, Hanrahan and the suite leaders sought out people who are smart and hardworking: they are no-brainers for any company seeking to hire, but who were also open to compromise and collaborative thinking in determining the best path forward.

“We’re looking for people who are incredibly analytical, who work smart, who work hard, and we’re looking for people who want to win, and who appreciate that what we’re doing helps customers and helps professionals,” he said. “Lastly, which is particularly important on the leadership team: We’re looking for people who are not super wedded to their own idea as being the best idea.”

“Building any company can take years, but startup founders must balance long-term goals with shorter-term thinking that complements the pace at which the startup operates,” Hanrahan adds.

“I think one of the mistakes that early founders make is falling into the trap of: Oh my goodness, what do I need two years, three years, five years out?” he says.

A better approach, particularly for executive-level hires, tasked with executing the startup’s vision. It is determining at the outset what the person “needs to do in the first 90 days and in the first 12 months to be incredibly successful in their role,” according to Hanrahan.

If a hire isn’t successful in the first three months to a year, it’s unlikely that they will succeed over a span of years, Hanrahan added.

By nature, fast-growing startups can’t tolerate candidates who will flounder for a year or more before finding their way. And founders must consider what’s a reasonable time frame for a hire to “scale” into the role. That may vary a bit, depending on what stage a startup is in, but successful startup founders will hire with the awareness that it’s a totally different cadence than a larger, more established organization.

“Say you hire someone who’s been with their organization for 10, 15, or 20 years, and they’re a seasoned executive at a Fortune 500 company. The timeline to be successful in an organization like that is much longer than the timeline to be successful in a Seed Stage or a Series A startup,” business leader Hanrahan points out. “It’s an important cultural gap that you need to reconcile before you go down the path of hiring somebody.”

Some advice from Hanrahan to founders

Asked what he would tell his earlier self racing to build and scale Handy, Oisin Hanrahan pointed out that it’s important as a founder to trust your instincts. On top of that, work tirelessly to test the hypotheses and beliefs that sparked the idea in the first place.

“You’ve got to figure out what you believe to be true, and spend all of your time dedicated to proving or disproving it,” he says. “Ours was that idea of people would book home services online— just write it down and spend as much time as possible trying to prove, or disprove, that concept.”

Q: The overwhelming advice from founders and VC’s alike is that founders should never ask for money “too soon”. What is “too soon” in your mind, and do you agree with this sentiment?

Nina: You can quite literally never be too early. Funding exists as early as an idea (or lack thereof) and all the way up to just before an IPO. Realize that the primary focus of any VC is to return money to their investors. If your business shows strong signs of doing that, at any stage, they should fund you.

There’s obviously a caveat— know your audience. If you’re pre-seed and you pitch someone that exclusively funds Series A rounds, you’re likely too early for them. On the flip side, you can also pitch a party that’s too early for you.

If your business is an obviously good investment, you can often stretch the limits of a VC’s investment thesis. If you try this and get a few no’s, consider sticking to VCs who squarely invest where you’re at. If you get even more no’s, reconsider your approach or venture capital as a funding source as a whole.

It’s really about finding the right investor, and understanding where you are with whatever it is you’ve built. Understanding your true stage and the relationship you have with who you’re pitching is imperative to a successful fundraising process.

Understanding your true stage and the relationship you have with who you’re pitching is imperative to a successful fundraising process. @ninarstepanov

Q: So if it’s really about finding the right investor, do you have any suggestions beyond the obvious for how founders should go about that?

Nina: The process is relatively straight forward. If you are going to pitch an Institutional VC, they are generally forthcoming with who they typically invest in. At the most bare minimum, go to their website and understand their investment thesis, aka industry, stage, previous investments, etc. If you can’t find that immediately, you can dig into their Crunchbase, Angelist, and even their blog content to see what they’re using their most recently raised fund to invest in. VC’s love talking about their thesis. The least you can do is educate yourself on it and use it as ammo to get the meeting.

I suggest using GlassDollar, which will show you even more granular data into check sizes, industry investments, and how much of their capital has been deployed. You can also simply reach out— whether it’s to a founder they’ve invested in or directly to the fund. Ask them how much ownership they are looking for, what stages they invest in, and what types of companies they invest in (especially if it’s a new fund).

When it comes to Angels and Non-Institutional VC’s, it’s trickier. Angels are investing their own money. I joke around with my founders that Angel money is hard to come by because they’re basically deciding between investing in your startup or buying a boat. Is your company better than the wind in their hair as they zip around on their favorite lake?

So research the person, look them up on Angellist or Crunchbase, check out Google Alerts to see what kind of investments they make. If that doesn’t work, just reach out to them. Ask them the typical size of investment they make and what they’re looking for right now. More importantly, ask them upfront if what you are building is interesting to them, and if they have invested in similar products in the past.

When pitching an Angel Investor, don’t be afraid to ask them upfront if what you’re building is interesting to them, and if they have invested in similar products in the past. @ninarstepanov

Q: What is the current thinking of weighting in terms of MRR/ARR versus traction for other KPIs in a SaaS based early stage startup?

Nina: Money in the bank is a great indicator of traction, but not always the best or only one. But, it also depends on the type of money. There’s subscription revenue versus transactional revenue. At Acceleprise, we’ll often see SaaS startups muddle those, and that’s not a good idea. If a startup has a lot of transactional revenue, that’s okay, but it doesn’t show that your business is seeing product-market-fit as a subscription service. A large amount of subscription revenue is often a very positive sign, because it shows they were able to get someone to commit to their product, not just try it out. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it helps to understand why you shouldn’t mix the metrics and why VCs will often dig in on that number to make sure it’s legitimately recurring.

While revenue is very important, it isn’t the end all be all. Many startups get funded without revenue. There are other indicators of traction like LOIs, SOWs, and referrals or unsolicited promotion/press of a company.

So I would reframe this— traction is the most important thing, but it can be shown in many different ways. Money in the bank is just one of them.

Traction is the most important thing, but it can be shown in many different ways. Money in the bank is just one of them. @ninarstepanov

Q: It seems like with fundraising, you can’t get it when you need it and you don’t need it when you can (because you already have traction). Since most startups fall into the “need it but can’t get it” category, have you ever funded startups that did not have extraordinary traction?

Nina: We’re at such an early stage that most of the companies we see don’t have customer traction. We invest in companies that have anything from nothing except their product, all the way up to making money and getting subscriptions in, and have large LOI’s and 6-figure deals in the pipeline.

I’d say we’re pretty open to any pre-seed SaaS startups with a very solid team. We back founders over businesses in most instances because frankly, it’s a lot easier to pivot a business than it is to pivot a person. There have been situations at Acceleprise where we haven’t loved the business, but have absolutely loved the founder. We’re willing to work with that founder to pivot and build something great because that’s what we do. We’re in the business of building businesses, not improving people.

Needing money when you can’t get it is such a true statement. It’s a function of there being this crazy availability of capital but difficulty in getting it. I believe the issue arises when founders focus all their energy on institutional VC’s— that’s a mistake. There are so many other ways to get money for your startup. From inventory financing to Angels to simply building a business that creates its own money and letting the VCs drool from the sidelines, waiting to jump into the next round or never raise at all.

Another issue is that too many people go all in way too early. Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you have to quit your job, hire a team and start a company. Take a moment to consider that you can keep working your 9-to-5 and work on your company from 5-to-9. Then, once it’s at a place that’s either self-sustaining or attractive enough for investors, you can pull the trigger on the 9-to-5. Stop following the hype. Build a real business.

We back founders over businesses in most instances because frankly, it’s a lot easier to pivot a business than it is to pivot a person. @ninarstepanov

Right now in the United States, there are between 1.6-1.8 million open jobs for software developers. People desperately need tech talent. And the best tech talent is extremely hard to vet, and then retain.

While finding technical talent is hard for everyone; finding good local technical talent is nearly impossible for early stage startups, most of which can simply offer equity, a small salary, and of course, the ability to build something great.

Today, 53% of software engineers rank remote work as their top priority in their job search. This, in addition to startups increasingly closing their physical offices and growing remote trends in general, is causing a shift in the nature of work.

Enter Christina Sass, Co-founder of Andela, who to-date has raised over $80M from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Spark Capital, and others to help companies build distributed engineering teams with Africa’s most talented software developers. Andela’s secret to placing and helping companies retain remote tech talent? Building an empathetic digital culture.

Today, 53% of software engineers rank remote work as their top priority in their job search. This, in addition to startups increasingly closing their physical offices and growing remote trends in general, is causing a shift in the nature of work. @sasschristina

Remote First = A Larger Pool of Diverse, Talented Developers

There is a logical fallacy that exists in current tech startups, and that fallacy is that you can have it all— “I can have a very diverse team, all local, all senior. I can easily find and vet all of that senior talent and they will move where I want them to.” That simply doesn’t exist. It’s impossible to work in the same ways we always have and attract the best diverse talent. However, with a distributed team, you can tap into all kinds of unbelievable, diverse talent.

We already know developers are in short supply (5 open jobs for every 1 developer in the US) and that they prefer to work in a distributed manner. And in the past 20 years, the number of employees doing remote work has risen from 9% to 30%, to 60% of engineers working distributed.

Keeping your team local means limiting your talent pool and your customer pool. The fastest way to ensure that only one slice of the population uses your app, is to have only one segment of the population build it. If you want your tech to appeal to a global audience, you have to have a diverse team contributing to those ideas.

An abundance of studies show that diverse teams build better, more innovative products and that they build them more efficiently.

The truth is the U.S. has almost a 0% unemployment rate for software developers, but the rest of the world has 20 million software developers. To get the best developers, you have to tap into those 20 million. Founders who commit to doing distributed well are going to see that pay off in the long run as they gain access to all the talent in that pool of 20 Million.

If you want your tech to appeal to a global audience, you have to have a diverse team contributing to those ideas. @sasschristina

How to Build a Remote First Culture

Screen Your Remote Developers for High Social and Emotional Intelligence

We developed several hypotheses around what makes a great remote employee, and then tested the employees on their empathy and problem solving abilities. We tracked that over years and when our developers were placed, we looked at the feedback our partners gave us, and quickly realized that people with high social-emotional intelligence were succeeding more at remote work. Now, we screen all our people in search of very high social and emotional intelligence.

This is contrary to what most people think of as a good developer. We politely disagree. I think a good developer will watch your facial expressions and ask “what did you not like about that feature?”

So, when hiring a remote developer, look for social and emotional intelligence— it will create a better product which is better suited for your ideal customer and a better work environment for your tech team.

When hiring a remote developer, look for social and emotional intelligence— it will create a better product which is better suited for your ideal customer. @sasschristina

Build A Culture of Trust

A culture built on trust is vital to any work environment, but especially for remote work, when nuance can be lost in translation. There are a lot of easy and authentic ways to create trust whether in person or distributed.

It comes down to connecting on a human level and feeling like you have the trust to call out when something seems off. We talk to our developers about building that trust with our partners in these 4 ways:

Communicate over video whenever possible

At Andela, we host our All Hands via Zoom— even if we are in the same office. Video provides a human element to a meeting, while holding the attendee accountable— you can see if someone is doing other work, or checking their phone, because the screen is positioned on their face. When our developers are orienting to a new team, we ask “when is your first meeting with that team? Who will be on a call? Can it be a video call? When you have that call, can you turn off other notifications? Make sure you not backlit. Have you practiced what you’re going to say?”

Make time for informal conversation

When you have the opportunity, to take a moment to tell each other about what you were doing today, or to find shared interests. Send them an article about something they like. If they aren’t feeling well take the chance to ask if there’s anything you can do to help. Make the extra effort whether you are in the same setting or not. This goes for both employer and employee.

Know the difference between a good developer and a great developer

In every new partner engagement, we are building a reputation up with them at Andela. The reason a company brings us on board is because they believe we can deliver great technologists. The large majority of the effort is on being ultra prepared and delivering on what’s expected. What differentiates a good developer from a great one is the extra care on their social and emotional intelligence. Say someone meets a deadline— you are satisfied. However, that is not the same thing as the developer saying “hey I’m halfway through this and I really want to make sure we’re aligned. Can you give me some critical feedback, what parts of this can be improved?” that’s the difference between a good and a great developer.

Foster open and honest communication

Being able to take and give critical feedback and not take it personally is also key to successful remote work. That’s why we harp so much on soft skills. For example, we have general rules of thumb— when an email chain hits 4-5 back and forths, we encourage our developers to get on the phone. In remote work, people can’t get up and walk across the office. The virtual version of that is getting on a call. Be authentic, because the tone of slack and email can be misconstrued. Make sure they are delighted by that exchange. And wherever possible, connect as humans. The first 2-3 minutes of every call should be personal conversation. That’s where the magic happens.

A culture built on trust is vital to any work environment, but especially for remote work, when nuance can be lost in translation. @sasschristina

1. Why there is nothing that shapes a product better than going out and discussing it with your clients.
2. The two mistakes founders make when fundraising.
3. How being an entrepreneur is a balancing act between utter optimism and brutal honesty.

Q: Let’s start at the beginning with your MVP. Can you share any anecdotes about how that process went for you?

John: For Princeton Review, it was a course of 15 students I taught in New York. For 2U, it was v1 of our social LMS and a good marketing campaign. At least two of the four Noodle Companies probably spent too much time and money getting to market, a victim of my earlier successes.

At the Princeton Review and 2U we spent very little time building the perfect product or service pre-launch. As I got more confident in my understanding of the market, I was willing to spend more money building what I wanted to build, versus a leaner approach. Turns out I was wrong.

Q: You’ve never had a true co-founder. Do you have any advice for solo-founders about navigating the startup journey without a co-founder?

John: I like having clear authority to make decisions. But I have always managed to hook up with incredible people, and I’ve always given them generous option packages.

It is NOT a good idea to be the one senior person in a company of newbies. As a solo-founder, surround yourself with smart people. There’s nothing wrong with overpaying someone with more experience than the average person has in that position. There’s nothing wrong with having a team that’s too experienced. People often make the opposite mistake— they take in a bunch of kids who are straight from school–smart, but clueless–and assume someone will know what they’re doing.

It is NOT a good idea to be the one senior person in a company of newbies. @johnkatzman @Noodle_Partners 
@2Uinc @ThePrincetonRev

Q: You’ve generally been the sales lead at your companies. Do you have any advice for founders about building our their sales team and strategy?

John: There is nothing that helps you shape a product better than going out and discussing it with your clients. If you have a prototype and you speak to enough potential clients, you’re going to get incredible feedback. If you’re just asking them freeform what they’d like to see, you’re going to get crap feedback. And you have to be careful, because generally the people who will take your meeting are your friends, and your friends like you.

In addition, the CEO needs to be out there selling aggressively because:

• If you’re not out there, you’ll better understand the clients and what they need from your product. Hearing that stuff secondhand from your sales guys just doesn’t work. The way to bathe yourself in the emotion and intellectual needs of your product is to get the hell out of your office.
• Sales guys really appreciate a CEO who is out there with them. And when they need access to a more senior person on the other side, they’re able to bring their CEO in.  

If you have a prototype and you speak to enough potential clients, you’re going to get incredible feedback  @johnkatzman @Noodle_Partners @2Uinc @ThePrincetonRev

Q: You have scaled 3 companies to a total of $3.5B value. Can you walk us through your financing process?

John: I bootstrapped Princeton Review. This was 30+ years ago when there wasn’t a VC community of note, especially in education; at some point, I raised PE and then took it public. For 2U (which I started in the middle of the 2008 crash), I hired a banker to help with Series A, and ended up raising $100mm before the company went public. For the Noodle Companies, I brought in a good CFO.

Q: What mistakes do you see Founders make when raising funds?

John: I’ve certainly seen a whole lot of pitches, and invested in several dozen edtech startups, so I’ve been on both sides of the deck. Generally, I see two problems:

First is that a lot of CEOs are locked into a solution, as opposed to finding a problem and solving it. Right now, all over EdTech, there are people trying to plug in blockchain, and I’m sure somebody will come up with a really good solution to an important problem by using blockchain, but what I’ve seen is a lot of dumbass solutions to non problems from people who don’t understand either blockchain or education.

Another mistake founders make while pitching is overestimating TAM: there’s always a slide about TAM, and that slide is almost always bullshit. A thoughtful, honest, conservative estimate of TAM is something that grabs my attention.

There are some best practices in fundraising, and they’re generally around the process:

1. Picking investors: You carefully pick a target list, let’s say 30 VCs who are early in their fund, when they’re employing capital against startups. Each likes your industry, and is not invested in competitive companies.
2. Get on the road: Once you’ve found those 30 targets, you track them down with an exec summary, and set aside a month to visit them. If you use your time efficiently, you can do this and still run your company, but that month includes a lot of first presentations.
3. Iterate on your pitch: The tough part of the pitch is the Q&A. Everytime you hit a question you can’t answer well in two sentences, you add it to your list and work on a quick, tight answer for when it comes up again. And good questions may take some real thinking, so take your time and really think about the VC’s concern: maybe it’s a communication problem, or maybe you have an actual vulnerability.
4. Compare offers: As your pursue the process with the interested VCs, steer them towards a simple NVCA term sheet and a certain date; you want the offers to be similar in structure and to come in together so you can compare them.

Your well constructed process signals you’re disciplined, strategic, and collaborative; all good.

One more note: inexperienced founders look for the highest valuation, and often they end up with deals that have weird preferences in them. More experienced entrepreneurs want a contract that’s simple and that won’t make the next round impossible; they don’t care about someone making them feel good with a big number. Further, the VC with the highest valuation may be the dumb VC, and now you’ve got an idiot on your Board. Simply going with the best valuation is a rookie error.

Simply going with the best valuation is a rookie error.  
@johnkatzman @Noodle_Partners @2Uinc @ThePrincetonRev

Q: What is one thing you wish you knew at the beginning of your journey as a founder that you know now?

John: I knew that the key was hiring great people and letting them do their jobs. And I’ve always known that tech enabled me to lever those people. But I’ve learned to marry a metrics -driven approach with a culture that’s welcoming and informal.

There’s a discipline to thinking through which things you measure, and forcing yourself to look at those measurements. The metrics that make sense right now might not make sense in six months; good metrics can turn into vanity metrics as you and your team focus on them. So getting in the room and having a conversation about the metrics is so important. Further, the critical goals change as you progress. We were focused on the number of schools we were working with, and now it’s more about the platform and the projected enrollment. It’s like slalom–you focus everyone on one problem that needs solving, and as you get close to solving it, you start to move onto the next problem. That doesn’t mean a previous metric won’t come back and bite you in the ass, of course. Every so often, you have to look over your shoulder to make sure a problem doesn’t get unsolved.

That said, it’s important that the company is a place people want to be. Your people understand and buy into the mission— because that’s what’s going to keep them going at 2 in the morning.  And even if you’re out selling, you need to come back and lead the conversations that need to happen over caffeine, and the ones that are better had over alcohol. Creating a culture where people can have both conversations is every bit as important as the strategy or metrics.

Because who wants to work somewhere that they don’t like anybody, and where you don’t care about the problem you’re solving? One of the reasons to start a company is to be create a culture that’s enthusiastic, open-minded, fun, and interesting. Because startups are hard and they generally pay less. People are driven by mission. Everybody works harder when they give a shit about why they’re doing it.

Marry a metrics -driven approach with a culture
that’s welcoming and informal. 
@johnkatzman @Noodle_Partners @2Uinc @ThePrincetonRev

What’s next for you? What risks do you see moving forward?

John: I believe each of the four Noodle companies could achieve significant scale and value, and remake a dysfunctional education market. At this point, it’s about relentless execution.

In terms of risk, it was a mistake to start four companies more or less at the same time. It took me awhile to find the people around me for each company that could execute, but I feel great about our folks, and we’re down to a couple positions that we still need to fill.

The people are so important because an idea does not carry a company, execution carries a company. Good processes don’t just happen. I look at my first years building Noodle as a cautionary tale for what happens when you get unfocused. It took too long to cut where we needed to cut and focus where we needed to focus.

A few folks have noted that being an entrepreneur is balancing brutal honesty with utter optimism. You have to believe you’re going to win, but you have to be aware of the problems— it’s easy to look away from unpleasant facts and stay optimistic, and it’s easy to look at what’s wrong and get depressed, but you can’t do either. Everybody else has warts too, everybody farts, every one of your competitors has a CEO that’s tearing his or her hair out too. If your business is perfect I’d like to hear all about it.

Every one of your competitors has a CEO that’s pulling their hair out too. If your business is perfect I’d like to hear all about it.  @johnkatzman @Noodle_Partners @2Uinc @ThePrincetonRev

• How his father inspired his journey as an entrepreneur
• Why hiring from your network is vital in the early days
• The benefits of being a solo founder in 2018
• And how a laser sharp focus on one aspect of his startup helped him raise

Q: Every founder has a reason for beginning their company, and no two are the same. What inspired you to start Aaptiv?

Ethan: Well, my Dad started a company in ’94, took it public, and then sold it. Since then, he’s started several more companies. I knew for a while that I wanted to do the same. I started my career in investment banking at Lehman Brothers, working on M&A and IPO’s. I then went to  Wharton for my MBA. After graduating, I spent some time at a hedge fund, then worked at McKinsey for three years before starting Aaptiv. The idea that entire time was to have a deep understanding of how companies work. By studying both the qualitative and quantitative side of business over the course of my career, I was able to apply that knowledge to Aaptiv from the start.

I started the company from a selfish need. I put on 30-40 pounds in grad school, so I tried to hire a trainer. At the time, I was on the road a lot. As many people know, trying to hire a trainer on the road is extremely difficult. Even where I live, NYC, there were logistical challenges with getting access to training. I could go to boutique studio classes, but you have to book them ahead of time, classes sell out, you’re penalized for not showing up, etc. etc. As a result of the cost and lack of access, the perception is that training is only for professional athletes or celebrities. That couldn’t be further from the truth. When asked why they don’t exercise, the most common answer given by people is “I don’t know what to do.” So having a trainer can have a binary impact on the quality of a person’s life.

I looked at the market, and despite the plethora of digital options available, I was wondering why none of them solved my problem of lack of access to the trainer. I’m a runner, and I quickly realized the reason was that all digital solutions focused on video. As a runner, you’re not going to run down the street while staring at your iPhone or iPad. As a result, I realized that audio was going to be our differentiator, because it was the best delivery mechanism for cardio content. With Aaptiv, my vision was to create a purely audio, personal training experience at an affordable price that anyone can access.

The idea that entire time was to have a deep understanding of how companies work @ethanagarwal @aaptiv 

Q: Let’s start at the beginning with your MVP. Can you share any anecdotes about how that process went for you?

Ethan: If your product is not finding market fit it just means that you’re not done working on it yet. An MVP is defined as what it takes to just get it out there, the second threshold is that it’s starting to work. For example at Aaptiv, we started with live classes and realized people wanted on demand courses, so we made our content accessible at all times. We also realized people need guidance, so we started building training programs. It’s only when we made those changes that we started to see things pick-up.

In terms of who I hired to build the MVP, I made the mistake of working with an offshore team— that ended up being terrible idea. So I worked the hell out of my network and found two talented developers out of NYC, where I’m based. They weren’t cheap but they were talented. Then, I guided them through exactly what I needed them to build. I’ve realized developers need clear guidance, so I educated myself on how to communicate with developers.. Once I had that down, I worked with them on what I needed them to build. And the question was always “how can I get this out faster”.

If your product is not finding market fit it just means that you’re not done working on it yet. @ethanagarwal @aaptiv 

Q: As a solo founder yourself, do you have any advice for solo founders about navigating the journey without a co-founder?

Ethan: Do whatever it is you need to do to get the product out as fast as possible. If that means finding a co-founder, that’s great.  What I wouldn’t do is spend time looking for a co-founder just for the sake of it and waste that time on not building product. Especially in 2018, when there are more resources available than ever— free guides online, peer groups, incubators, etc. This means that a lot of what founders used to rely on other people for, they can now do themselves.

It’s not always going to be easy as a solo founder. When I was raising the first round, the question was always “where’s your co-founder”. But once the product was out there no one was asking that question anymore, because the product and growth spoke for itself.

Don’t spent time looking for a co-founder and waste that time on not building product. @ethanagarwal @aaptiv 

Q: How did you get your first customers? At what point did that shift from a manual process to a more scalable process?

Ethan: In a nutshell, my first 100 customers came organically, then the next 1,000 came in through paid acquisition. Your first customers are always just friends and family so I begged everyone in my close circle to try it. I’m also pretty shameless so I would just go up to people at the gym and ask them to try it. That was how I got my first subscribers. Then when you have a product that’s good, your friends and family naturally tell people about it.

I actually started advertising pretty early to tell people about what I was building. I felt that the market may incorrectly assume that what I had built already existed and if I didn’t have a chance to explain my mission, people wouldn’t understand what it was.

I spent two years learning how advertising works. It’s basic— you start with a hundred dollars a day then work your way up. But once I saw the value of it, the very first person I hired was a growth manager who ran paid acquisition. As much as I knew, I understood there were people who knew a lot more than me. I hired a guy in San Francisco who was working at Zoosk, and moved him to NYCs. The company grew two and a half times in the first 4 months because he was running paid acquisition.

As much as I know, I understood there are people who know a lot more than me. @ethanagarwal @aaptiv 

Q: How did you find your lead investor?

Ethan: It was not easy. I had been pitching for a long time. But I was pitching to see what investors value. Because this was my first company, I needed to decide if i wanted to raise at all. I spent a year or so meeting with every investor you can think of to understand how the market would look at my company. Eventually, we launched the product and started growing. The growth was quite significant, so all the problems investors had with us before sort of drifted away because the growth was undeniable. In September of 2015 we did $5k in revenue, and by March we did $74k. From June to July of that year, we grew by 130%. When you see growth like that folks start coming to the table.

My experience with fundraising made me realize that investors look for at least one of 3 things. And founders need to find out which of those 3 they have, and how they can shine in that one area:

1. A rock solid team (usually defined as a history in successfully launching and exiting startups.)
2. Amazing technology that no one’s ever seen before.
3. Incredible revenue numbers.

When we went out to raise, we didn’t have the first 2 yet, so we focused on revenue growth. We found our one area to shine in, and honed in on that and made it work.

When it came to raising funds, we found our one area to shine in, honed in on that and made it work. @ethanagarwal @aaptiv 

Q: What is one thing you wish you knew at the beginning of your journey as a founder that you know now?

Ethan: The most important thing to know is how all consuming it is. People say it’s hard work starting a company. It’s not just hard work – that’s the easy part – it’s the emotional part that’s hard. A lot of people in various jobs will put in a lot of hours, but it’s different when its your company. As a founder, you have to dedicate every ounce of your being to it. That means missing out on important things in life. It means giving up a lot of sleep, not because you’re working, but because your mind is racing with stress and worry and ideas about your startup. It means a level of devotion and commitment that you’ve never had before. I knew that drive and devotion were integral to getting me to this point.

I meet a lot of founders who have an idea, and claim to be dedicated, then talk about going on a ski trip that weekend or a week long wedding they plan on traveling to later that year. And I sit there and think, “that company’s never going to work”  It’s such a competitive landscape. Without a singular devotion to the cause, you’re not going to get there. And I do want to point out, it’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. But if you want to be a successful founder and attract the right talent and investors, you have to say “nothing else in my life matters as much as this thing.” And unfortunately not every founder will get to that point, or realize how significant of a a commitment it is from the onset.

The most important thing to know about starting a company is how all consuming it is. @ethanagarwal @aaptiv 

Q: What’s next for you? What are the risks that you see moving forward?

Ethan: We built out the team pretty considerably last year by adding 62 people. All of that growth is designed to build the product. So we have a number of important milestones in 2018 to increase engagement and retention related to that. We also have some really exciting partnerships coming in Q2, but I can’t announce those yet. We recently became profitable, so we never have to raise another dime if we don’t want to. At the moment, we have about 150,000-160,000 subscribers. But our market is huge and we’re just getting started.

Growing at the rate we have in the last year, internal culture is definitely a concern. At Aaptiv, our strategy is that culture is typically handled by the managers, as opposed to one CEO— that just wouldn’t scale. I spend time working closely with the managers, and make it clear that part of their responsibility is to maintain the culture for everyone that reports to them.

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