Likes & Launch

A New Cycle

Fri, 06 May 2016 08:52:29 -0400

Menstruation is fertile for innovation. A cycle as old as time is finally getting more attention from the next wave of entrepreneurs.

The Global Tampon Market was projected at $2.58B in 2015. It doesn’t take personal experience to recognize the large market, but the rise of a diverse set of entrepreneurs innovating in this area is a win for women everywhere.

There are a number of entrepreneurs reimagining products in women’s health from fertility to fitness, mental health to healthcare. Here are a few of the breakout companies bringing new ideas to an ancient problem:

The Flex Company - Positioned as a product to use while having sex on your period, this product is a tampon alternative. You’ll rarely find a woman who loves existing period but, with few alternatives, it’s exciting to see new innovation. Newly launched, sign up for their first pre-order now. CEO Lauren is on a mission to create a healthier, eco and empowering product.

THINX - Unhappy with tampons? Thinx offers underwear so you can skip them all together. Thinx offers a range of underwear in styles for women on their periods. Side note: In a society where we don’t “talk about periods” cheers to Thinx for placing ads in the NYC Subways, a public place to share a period product. CEO Miki is a pioneer in bringing periods into public conversation.

Clue - Period tracking for menstruation is one of the oldest forms of cycle management. Clue takes it a step further by providing tracking for a bigger picture of your health, from energy levels to predicting pms symptoms. The app can be used for promoting or preventing fertility, monitoring your cycle, and tracking your holistic physical and mental health. CEO Ida is a visionary for women’s health.

I love to see entrepreneurs solving problems they’re uniquely positioned to solve in industries underserved by innovation. Nearly a third of the population will have a regular reminder of this problem. I’m excited to see continued innovation.

Habits are Easy*

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 10:59:21 -0400

Want to build a habit? Commit to doing the work. Want to get better at something? Show up everyday. This came up at dinner last night with a group of fellow Women in VC.

That principle of building habits is not a secret. And most habits are not physically demanding, like flossing everyday or drinking water, but it’s so easy to avoid them, forget them or just ignore them. Building habits is more about changing your mental approach to them than anything else, and it’s harder than it looks. To show up everyday to something.

Building a habit gets easier when you have a clear end goal. Training everyday is more important when you’ve already committed to complete a marathon. The bigger goal matters, but it doesn’t always have a firm date.

Jerry Seinfeld wrote jokes everyday, not in anticipation of one show, but to improve his whole career. It’s not that he had great jokes everyday to write down, it was the volume of jokes that helped him pick the bad jokes.

Ira Glass’s advice from “What nobody tells beginners.”

I’m not running a marathon or looking for a career in stand up comedy, but I am focused on being more articulate with my ideas.

After a friend’s recommendation of The Artist’s Way, I decided to create a habit of morning pages to pursue that goal. The practice of writing every morning (okay sometimes in the afternoon) has built my habit for writing. I started in journals but then in July 2015 moved to the web using 750words.com at the recommendation of Rick Webb. I’ve now written 123,000+words even with a number of missed days. Most of it is just chatter, half baked ideas, and reflection, but by showing up everyday, I sometimes hit on something that I want to get more feedback on or share with others. That’s why I continue to publish on this blog, to give myself a place to share ideas. Thanks for reading!

My daily writing stats from 750words.com.

Writing is not publishing, but as Fred and Albert taught me at USV, writing is a great way to get feedback on your ideas and create a space for conversation around it. Shifting my publishing mentality from “I need to provide good ideas” to “I want to get feedback on my ideas” furthered my interest in publishing here more. I look forward to hearing more feedback.

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Serve Your VC Network

Wed, 10 Feb 2016 12:11:06 -0500

This is part three of the VC Community Series. Check here for Part 1: Rise of VC Community & 2: Building Community.

Quick background, I’m the General Manager at Union Square Ventures. I run our 6+ year old community, the USV Network. The VC Community function has increased in popularity and complexity. VC Network structures are a core part of many similar organizations like Accelerators, Incubators and Professional Organizations. This series is focused on sharing best practices for starting, building, and growing a community in these organizations.

The key to any great product is building something customers want. VC Networks are no different. Design your product to serve your customers. We’ll look at the factors that enable you to make the best design decisions for your network.

Understanding who you are and how you define your community is the first step (refer back to Part 2 if you haven’t defined the characteristics of your org yet). Now that you understand your capabilities, time to understand your audience.

Describe your customers

At USV, we have 60+ technology startups spread across North America and Europe. They are in a number of industries and range in maturity from companies less than a year old to companies that have been in business for over 10 years. All of the companies fit into our investment thesis, but even that can range from doctors sharing serious medical cases to helping developers easily send SMS messages. The companies are varied but many of their challenges are the same: building a team, leveraging network effects, finding customers, and building products.

What are the characteristics of your potential network? How many organizations are you including in your community? Where are they geographically located? What do they have in common? How long have these companies been in business? What is their organizational maturity—or the size of their teams? Are they open to collaboration? Are they tech savvy? Let’s start with a few easy ones:

Where is your community located?

If you have a physical space with all of your members in one place, easy, you have a gravitational pull in that spot. If your members are spread out, you need to think more strategically about how to connect them.

Same place: Defined by central meeting place or office.
Different places, same city: Connect people in person nearby.
Different places, different cities: Occasional in person or digital.
Different places, some overlapping cities: Can build local and global.

How tech savvy is your community?

There are fantastic tools in the market to manage communications, contacts, and organizational discussions. However, tools are worthless if no one is willing to use them.

How willing or able is your community to adopt new technology?
Do digital or paper resources work better?
Is your community more prone to want information from email, website, or phone call? This is a great place to ask if you don’t know.
Do you have the skills or access to the talent to build tech to support this community? If tools are required, do you have the capability to manage them?

What is your budget to manage the community?

Sometimes it’s hard to know how much money you’ll want to budget for your community outreach and network building. Having a rough estimate around the size of your budget will be a good constraint to understand how you serve your customers.

None, time to get creative!
Budget for tools only
Flexible/Fixed
Paid by members/pay to play

Who is your audience within the community?

Even if you’ve defined your organization, you have to make the design decision about the participants you plan to serve. You can modify this over time but defining the initial scope will help focus resources.

VC: Investments: any employee, executives only, or founders only?
Seed: Investments: any employee, executives only, or founders only?
Accelerator: Participants: any employee, founders only, mentors included?
Professional: Just members or potential members too?

Not all of these design decisions may have clear answers at this stage. Just as we teach entrepreneurs, it’s key to “get out of the building” and talk to customers. Setup a few conversations with your new customers and get to know what they’re looking for. In my experience, entrepreneurs and operators will ask for help with lots of challenges in those conversations. Be patient, define your customers before you commit to what you’re going to provide.

Not all communities are created equal

Given the growing number of VC Community roles, Accelerators and Incubators, there is a lot of existing advice about how to serve your community. Understanding the differences between your network and the next one will allow you to make smarter decisions for your unique community.

After 50+ conversations with Network or Community building peers, here are the common benefits and challenges of serving these different types of networks:

Serving an Institutional VC Community:

Benefits:

Long term, more flexibility to experiment
Range of experience in network
Big teams, lots of division of work
Low turnover of companies
External reputation of companies adds to credibility of the network
Relationship building
Companies adopt market trends together (ie: mobile)
If on investment team, can see behind the scenes, know co’s #s

Challenges:

Not one and done, long term relationships
Network only expands with investments
Rate of change is slow
Fatigue of services over time
Varied needs
Not network peers for everyone since different businesses
Potentially competitive companies within one community

Serving an Incubator/Seed Stage Community:

Benefits:

All of the companies are the same size
Smaller teams, get to know everyone quickly
Similar challenges and required connections (business 101)
Large # of companies quickly (?) or slowly (?)
Relationship building is done in cohorts
See behind the scenes, know co’s #s

Challenges:

May not have market leaders and company reputations may be unknown
Small # of people with open time, not many employees at each company
Less proven, companies can build or bust
Potentially competitive companies within one community
Clingers after they outgrow the stage but still want resources

Serving an Accelerator Community:

Benefits:

Very clear timeline and goals
Cohort is all in sync
You can supplement expertise with mentors or outside resources (all groups can)
Batch favors/resources at once.
See behind the scenes, know co’s #s
Smaller number of people
Pre-planned Weekly/Daily interaction
Shorter time to “Alumni” who could help
Time to anticipate and prepare in cycles

Challenges:

Not a lot of time
Short relationship
Expertise and experience may vary
All companies need the same resources at the same time: $, talent
Experiments may be static in each cycle.
Potentially competitive companies within one community

Serving a Professional Group’s Community:

Benefits:

Members speak the same language
Same field and challenges
Self-selected group
Relationship building over time
Invested in groups’ success
Clear success metrics outlined in bylaws or group charter
Tight control over membership (you can remove bad actors)
Can help members recruit members

Challenges:

Building trust, since it’s opt-in or pay-to-play
Varied experience of members
Expectations are varied or need to be managed
Desire to deliver value immediately
Competing for time
Only as open as members
Different access to resources for companies or organizations

The key to success is finding what works for you. In the next part of the series we will look at how to get started, stories from the experts, and how to measure success.

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Building Your VC Community

Fri, 05 Feb 2016 10:01:46 -0500

This is part two of the VC Community Series. Check here for Part I.

Quick background, I’m the General Manager at Union Square Ventures, where I run our 6+ year community, the USV Network. The VC Community function has increased in popularity, and is also a core part of many other organizations like Accelerators, Incubators and Professional Organizations. This series is focused on sharing best practices for starting, building and growing a community in these organizations.

Building the right community for your organization

The landscape of VC communities is varied, especially when you include accelerators, incubators and other groups that have similar dynamics of peer professionals learning together. Deciding the scope of how to serve your community is a key product decision.

Specifically, what is the goal of your organization? What is your relationship with portfolio companies? And what is the timeline of those services? These are pieces of your community product that should be decided early on.

To help get you started, here are a few examples of the different relationship expectations, timelines and goals for different types of organizations. You can use this framework, whether you’re a VC, accelerator, incubator, or a professional network.

Institutional VCs

Goal: Help each company grow and evolve until a successful exit.
Relationship: Involved from investment to exit (IPO, acquisition, shut down)
Timeline: 2-10+ years
Example organizations: USV, Spark Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, etc.

Note: For Institutional VC firms, whether you invest early stage or in later stages, a company would join the core community right after the investment and stay through the exit of the company.

Incubator, Seed VC or Angel

Goal: Help the company get to the next level of investment or profitability.
Relationship: Involved from investment to next investment (or shut down)
Timeline: 1-3+ years
Example organizations: 500 Startups, Angellist Syndicates, Betaworks

Notes: An Incubator, Seed VC or Angel investor may structure their involvement or investment with a company so that they pull back once the company makes it to the next investment stage.

Accelerators

Goal: Help companies build quickly and successfully present at Demo Day.
Relationship: Acceptance into the accelerator to a month after Demo Day
Timeline: 3-6 months
Example organizations: Techstars & YC

Notes: An accelerator is designed to provide a high concentration of support in a short period of time. They will likely focus all community efforts in a few months with a small buffer after demo day.

Professional Network Groups

Goal: Help individuals grow and network over time.
Relationship: Ongoing with membership.
Timeline: 1-10+ years
Example organizations: Elevate Network, YPO & EO.

Notes: For professional network groups, the purpose is to learn and grow in your career. Typically members join a group and stay until they change careers or decide to leave the group. There is less of a firm “conclusion” date.

You may agree with these constraints for your organization, or decide to change the relationship to be shorter or longer to fit with your firm’s expertise. My advice would be to start small before committing to too many things.

How will you define the scope of your network?

How long are your members “in network” or “part of the community”? This helps to figure out who you are serving and for how long.

Look closely at the start and end dates of the formal relationship commitment you’re making. In venture capital, the companies you invest in are part of a larger ecosystem of entrepreneurs, and beyond that, a part of the larger industry. Where do you draw the line in where your community starts and ends?

At USV, we speak with a lot of companies before we invest in them, I wasn’t sure if those companies should they be part of the community or not. Equally, we have companies that exit, are we going to continue to serve them as part of our community after they leave? These questions can be answered on a case-by-case but I found that prioritizing the core of my community, I knew how to better spend my time.

There is no right or wrong way to serve the community, the choice is unique to each firm. Here’s how a few examples of how different communities have defined the boundaries of their networks.

What defines your community?

Members only

At USV, we focus 95% of our resources on companies already part of the portfolio. We do continue to include ‘alumni’ companies in our community events, but we are more passive than active. We don’t focus the USV Network on including pre-investment companies. We engage with those companies as a firm, but we do not include them in the scope of the USV Network.

Potential and existing members

Founders Fund runs an annual event called F50. They invite portfolio companies and other curated guests from their community. Not everyone has to be a potential investment, but they actively engage and work with their pipeline in addition to their members.

Members and alumni

YC offers a platform to allow continued networking for their accelerator alumni. Their program is a few months long, but access to the network is on-going. They connect with potential companies through HackerNews but the majority of their community efforts are for those connected into YC.

Lifecycle

FFVC ensures they are connecting with entrepreneurs at every step of the lifecycle. They plan social events that include members of the general tech community, high potential investments, their investments and past investments. They engage a wide group of people to add benefit to their founders and the firm.

Each organization will be different, so figure out where you are interested in focusing your efforts. There is value in all of these approaches, the only differences is how you allocate time and resources to support the breath and depth of how you define your community.

Organization Outline Recap:

You should now have a better understanding of your operating constraints. Create your community outline that answers these questions:

- The thesis and culture of your organization.

- The next steps your community members are trying to reach.

- The timeline you are defining to engage your community.

- The boundaries of community members you’re focusing your support.

Now that you’ve defined the characteristics of your organization, we’ll use these in the next blog post to define and address the needs of your customers: the organizations you’re serving.

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Rise of VC Community

Thu, 04 Feb 2016 14:15:50 -0500

This is part one of the VC Community Series.

Since 2010 year, there has been an increased focus on how VCs can deliver more value to portfolio companies. Whether a firm is interested in developing more value-add to compete for deals against other firms or if it’s to provide resources to help ensure better outcomes of the existing portfolio, it doesn’t matter. There is a growing focus on expanding value.

One of the fastest growing signs of this is the rise of the VC Community role.

Traditionally, VC firms were comprised of investment roles and administrative roles only. Their responsibility was to find great businesses, write checks and, depending on the firm, join the board to help those companies grow to a successful exit. Partners and investors were expected to provide their expertise and advice to portfolio companies, but those services were limited by Partner time. Entrepreneurs were encouraged to tap into external networks to find peers, seek professional expertise, and to hire talent. Venture Capital firms were experts in writing checks and were evaluated on their ability to get deals done and provide strategic advice.

In 2010, USV planned to expand their team to better connect their existing portfolio companies. They created the first General Manager role at USV,

“It will be the job of the GM of the USV Network to build on our early work to create a useful and sustainable connection between the portfolio companies. Think of it as a community manager for the USV portfolio. The community is small, and private, but populated by people and companies who are having a big impact on the web.“

In June 2010, they hired Gary Chou, the first General Manager of the Union Square Ventures Network. A mouthful of a title, but it was one of the first internal early-stage VC roles that was focused on building community among portfolio companies.

Five years later, there are now 30+ VCs with a dedicated team member focused on community. Out of the top 50 ranked early stage VC firms, the majority have one or more people focused on community efforts. A number of angel groups, accelerators and incubators are increasing their focus on connecting their portfolio companies to each other.

USV Network Evolution

Today, I run the USV Network at Union Square Ventures. I’ve been growing our community for over three years and my predecessor, Gary Chou built the role from the ground-up for three years prior to that.

Since building a community in VC is an emerging field, there is a lot of conversation about why this is important, who should create one, and how to get started. I’m often asked for advice on how we’ve built the USV Network, our community of portfolio companies.

Questions aren’t limited to VCs, I’ve also been approached by accelerators, incubators, professional organizations, and non-profits, looking to build a community among their members or portfolios. The goal of the role is to support a group of individual companies at scale, through education, connections and resources.

So whether you’re trying to figure out if you should build this role in your organization, where to get started or if you want to take community organization to the next level, this blog series will walk through the process of building from scratch.

Creating a VC Community thoughtfully

There is a definite benefit for companies and VCs alike who create this type of service and that it is increasingly becoming a point of competitive differentiation. The risk is that if the community is not created with intent, it can be detrimental to the firm (too much overhead) and to the company (overwhelmed or too dependent).

The rapid growth of the VC Community role across firms is a strong signal of the importance, but comes with a few warnings. Quality support is important but too many communities can be a risk to the portfolio companies, the VC’s reputation, and the perspective of LPs.

If you’re going to create a new community, here are some guidelines to make sure you’re setup for success:

Should you start a community for your portfolio?

If you’re thinking about expanding your community role or building one from scratch, consider what your VC firm offers, understand what the culture is, figure out how that applies to your role.

The best place to start is to look at the unique characteristics of your firm in order to figure how to leverage those to create unique value add.

What should you evaluate first?

Before anything else, state the thesis of your organization. Your company culture matters. What is your investment thesis? What do you believe to be true? Use those to apply them to your own network.

At USV, we believe in networks.

Thesis 6/8/11:

Thesis 12/14/2015:

We’ve applied our thesis, the belief in networks to empower bottom-up, emergent behavior, to the way we serve our network, hence the name USV Network.

What is the goal of your organization?

Every VC, accelerator, and incubator is different. To best serve the community, it’s important to understand both the scope of your services and the characteristics of the companies you serve.

First, define the scope of your services. If you are an accelerator, you may only work with companies for a short time. If you’re a VC, you may remain with a company for several years. Defining the relationship expectations of your organization to the community is the first set of constraints.

For USV, we work with our companies when we make an investment all the way through to an exit. Whether that exit is an IPO, an acquisition or a shut-down, we continue to work with those companies. We anticipate we’ll work with a company around 10 years, in a few cases, even longer.

Looking at our portfolio, here are some things we kept in mind when we were getting started:

We can be long term with our thinking. We spend years with each company so we don’t have to deliver all of the value in a short period of time, we can deliver value through long term relationships.
If we include all employees, we have a large number of network members. We have a number of individuals we can tap into, it’s not just limited to a small number of small teams.
Experiments can be tested multiple times with the same groups of people, instead of starting with a fresh group each time. Iteration and feedback are easier when community members can see and weigh in on changes over time.
We can build lasting relationships between companies.
We have a range of companies which means there is a lot of ground to cover. We have investments from 2004 onward across various locations, industries and business models. There is not a one-size-fits-all model to support.
We wanted to keep the community manager role to a single person to ensure we were building something lightweight and sustainable. Networks benefit from low centralized overhead, unlike top-down advisory services.

Solve problems in your community

Take a look at your community. Do you have things in common with ours or do you have the opposite scenario?

Take some time to spell out the unique components of your organization. Understanding what works for you will be the key to getting started successfully.

In the next post in this series, I’ll provide next steps and examples of how VCs, accelerators, incubators and beyond are serving their communities.

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Reap the benefits

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 06:14:21 -0500

It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur.

Hungry and foolish? You’ve got advantages like never before.

Relationships used to be hard to establish, build over time and were location advantaged. The people you went to school with or the people you worked with were a huge part of your network. That was great for Harvard and a networked company like McKinsey, but you no longer need to join those ranks to gain access to the exact same people.

Now, it’s easier to connect to ANYBODY IN THE WORLD. I found out I was one degree away from one of the Powerball winners in TN, we’re all so close, even when we’re far. The internet connected the globe, and the social web has brought each individual online. It’s more noisy but for most developed nations, we’ve all joined the web and we aren’t leaving.

Fortunately, entrepreneurs noticed the increased noise from so many people now being present in social networks. They’ve created tools that have given us all greater capacity for relationships than ever before. According to Dunbar, the human brain maxes out at 250 human relationships. Tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Gmail Contacts allow storage over 1000 and give us just enough information over time to feel connected to thousands of people we’ve met. How many people do you feel are part of your family, personal and professional network? Most likely more than Dunbar imagined.

Financial Capital used to operate under old rules. Only a few people had excessive capital and only a few beyond that could get access to it. Money was granted under strict rules from a small group of people, banks awarded loans and lines of credit but usually only with substantial assets or strict rules based on federal credit scores.

Now it is possible to raise money from a number of sources for very niche reasons. If you want people to fund you based on your future earnings, check out GoFundMe or Upstart. If you are looking for personal loans with smaller fees than what Mastercard or Visa offers you, you can seek loans through Lending Club or Prosper. If you’re interested in small business loans or capital to fund your business, you can check out Funding Circle, CircleUp, Angellist or Gust. If you have a working business and just need capital before you’ll get paid, there is C2FO for that too. If you have a product or idea, you can crowdfund from friends or strangers via Kickstarter. Interested in raising money for a real estate project instead, yes you can find funding for that too. Personal loans, small business loans, projects or property, you can raise money through many platforms today, no bank or credit score required.

Financial capital is still not free, but there are lots of financial tools to find the funding that helps get your future off the ground.

Education is in abundance. Anything you want to learn, anything at all, you can do so today with an internet connection. Rewire your home or learn Chinese, learn to make a film or how to build a website. Education used to be limited, restricted to those who could show up, and very expensive. Today, everything is available to learn online for free.

If you find something that is not currently being taught online for free, you my friend have found a business opportunity! For the most part, it’s all free. Most new education companies charge for content even though it could be found elsewhere at no cost, the difference is that they are selling the better learning experience. A more curated path to education is nice, but isn’t necessary so if you want to learn it, get to it.

Customers are everywhere. There are more people participating online than ever before, that means more than yesterday, the year before or a decade before. Google made a big business on a much smaller number of customers. The good news for google, more people online means more fragmentation. People are finding new places to spend their time. So there are more of them to find but the efforts to find them aren’t as easy.

Mobile to the web, there are participants online and they are ready to engage. As an entrepreneur, you don’t have to worry about the size of your audience, instead you have to look at the cost to acquire their attention. Attention grows with new people online, but don’t think every other online competitor doesn’t see it. The companies that figure out how to provide value to customers that are easy to find will have an advantage.

Experienced talent grown from the new incumbents. Apple, Google, and Facebook are the new tech incumbents. Players like Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM and Cisco still have a big place in the market but they are overshadowed by the new big three. The move to mobile has shaken out for now with Apple and Google in the lead with rights over most mobile phones in the developed world. Those platforms are stable and a great place to build a career if you’re an engineer.

Five years ago you couldn’t find an iOS developer with more than 5 years experience. Those platforms have evolved but aged nicely to allow great talent to become experts. The first iOS developers at Facebook have already vested and are in the market, and may be ready for their third new role now. Small and big companies can attract experienced talent. Stabilization in those platforms over time means that everyone wins in having a big pool to pull from.

No longer are engineers learning on your dime, they likely come from somewhere that could afford that type of risk. They now have experience and an interest in working for you, even if that means cut wages and longer hours. You’re in a good spot to continue to invest in great engineering talent, it may even get less expensive as the talent pool grows.

It’s a good time to be an entrepreneur. It’s a great time to the part of the tech ecosystem. Build the relationships that will earn you the new role that you want. You have access to all of the education that you need. Seek out experienced mentors and pursue the path that leads you to the customers you want to serve. A mature ecosystem will continue to evolve, but there is more room for you to be there to shape it.

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2016 Conferences Calendar

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 19:07:07 -0500

In 2015 the USV Network hosted 50+ meetup events and social gatherings. Since our portfolio is distributed across 20 cities in 6 countries, we often try to center NYC or SF centric events around other larger conferences, so anyone outside of those cities could pair their trip with another event.

As we plan 2016, we’ve crowdsourced the top conferences and events that our portfolio is planning to attend. Check out the calendar if you’re looking for great events, want to plan your own event without conflicting with others, or if you’re just planning trips to SF and want to avoid Oracle or Salesforce conferences hotel-pricing.

One last note, our portfolio shares interests beyond just traditional “tech”, so you’ll see a mix of things from maker events to money conferences, music to film. This list is not comprehensive so if there is anything not included here, please add it in the comments or ping me on twitter, @br_ttany.

JANUARY

6-9: [Las Vegas] CES

17-19: [Munich] DLD

21-31: [Park City] Sundance Film Festival

FEBRUARY

22-25: [Barcelona] Mobile World Congress

MARCH

1-6: [Valencia] Internet Freedom Festival

11-15: [Austin] SXSW

30: [SF] RightsCon Silicon Valley

APRIL

12: [NY] Dev:Network CTO Talks

14: [NY] WE Festival

26-28: [New Orleans] Collision Conference

MAY

3-4: [NY] DLD NYC

9-11: [NY] TechCrunch Disrupt

20-22: [SF] Makerfaire SF

24-26: [SF] Twilio’s Signal Conference

TBD (28th?): [SF] Google I/O

JUNE

TBD (6-8th?) [SF] WWDC

21-22: [Madrid] Money Conference

28-29: [NY] MongoDB World

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

12-14: [SF] TechCrunch Disrupt

18-22: [SF] Oracle Open World* (aka, don’t book a trip to SF)

OCTOBER

4-7: [SF] Dreamforce* (avoid downtown SF)

NOVEMBER

1-2: [NY] Makerfaire NY

7-10: [Lisbon] Web Summit

30 - 1: [Helsinki] Slush Conference

DECEMBER

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Are your goals big enough?

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 10:29:29 -0500

This time of year I’m usually making resolutions just like everyone else. A wonderful holiday break traveling to see family and friends kept me present moment to moment, a complete treat. However, it kept me away from being too reflective, and left me with a head cold to kick off the New Year. A good reminder, that the ebb and flow of life means that expecting to meet all expectations all the time, even your own, is not always your choice.

It’s worth remembering, expecting to always operate at 100% capacity is not possible. Maybe a day or two a quarter, but not everyday. Instead, systematic small steps is how you get to 100% over time. So you can operate at 75% of your capacity but complete 100% of your goal.

Goals can be big and scary, you might as well because they will likely take as much effort and energy. It will probably also push you to think more about leverage of your time. If a goal is smaller, say accomplishing 10 blog posts, then you may feel more pressure and time constraint to do those things with little strategy on how to do it. It’s brute force and it will take, let’s say, 25 hours, 2.5 hours per post.

Instead, if you said you’re going to spend 25 hours writing 25 blog posts, what would it push you to consider? That constraint could push you to think about shorter posts, breaking a broad topic into smaller pieces, or even co-authoring posts so that you cut down on your personal time of editing and add more connections.

Bigger goals can help push us to better outcomes, even if we fail to reach them.

Say you spend 25 hours and write 20 posts instead of 10, isn’t that still better than 10 for 25 hours? You doubled your goal by being more strategic with your time.

Output over a given amount of time is not the only measure of success but it is often one of the most expensive trades we make. If you get better at spending time wisely, you earn more time.

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Community: Scale to Serve your Startup - Slush Conference,...

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 07:06:34 -0500

Community: Scale to Serve your Startup - Slush Conference, Helsinki, Finland: November 2015

In November I attended Slush Conference in Helsinki, Finland. It’s the leading tech conference in Europe and probably the coolest venue I’ve ever seen.

I shared some of the lessons I’ve learned by running the Union Square Ventures Network, including how companies in our portfolio have leveraged community to scale their product, attract new customers and hire great talent.

I met many incredible founders from all over Europe at the event and I hope to attend in the future as it was a fantastic event. Extra points for the moat they build around this main stage.

Thank you to Slush.org, the 1,500 volunteers who made the event possible, and the Finnish community for teaching me more about tech in the Nordics.

Small props to this dress too, it’s my favorite one to wear when I take the stage.

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How to Stop Talking About Diversity and Actually Do Something...

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 07:15:27 -0500

How to Stop Talking About Diversity and Actually Do Something About It - TechfestNW, August 2015

In August, I was invited to TechfestNW in Portland to share thoughts on how startups, communities and event cities can not only talk about Diversity, but take action daily to improve it. This is a video of that talk and the fireside chat that followed.

In this talk I provide two small pieces of action that everyone, not just those considered underrepresented, can take to increase diversity in their companies.

The talk is around 15 minutes followed by a Q&A by the talented Mara Zepeda, CEO of Switchboard, artist and visionary.

Thank you to TechFestNW, Mara and the Portland community for being incredibly receptive and open to make changes to support an inclusive environment.

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Time to connect: WEFestival 2016

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:39:50 -0500

WEFestival describes itself as “An event for women entrepreneurs” but it should say THE EVENT for Women Entrepreneurs.

I attended the event two years ago and assumed it would be similar to most conferences: listen in a big room, hear from only the top 1% of leaders without a lot of actionable steps, lots of business cards with little connection. NOT THIS CONFERENCE.

The speakers were fantastic, all coming from different areas of entrepreneurship, not just tech or small business or finance, a true cross section. It’s a great way to gain insights from other industries to apply to your own. It helps you stop to think outside of your own domain and learn something new.

WE Festival builds out time to connect and to learn about the other people in the room. The attendees were just as impressive as the people on stage and the organizers recognized that. Opening time to networking and opening all sessions to questions were key decisions to facilitate those conversations.

The best part, even two years after the event I’m still connected to many of the women I met at WE Festival. They’ve reached out to offer advice and ask questions; It’s a bond I’ve rarely found after most conferences. Of the twenty close connections I made that day, I’ve seen women grow their businesses 10x, pivot business models, land big contracts, or raise capital. I’ve also seen them change careers, get promotions and take on more mentorship roles in the community. The caliber of attendees is unmatched and their ongoing success only improves the WE community over time.

Congrats to Joanne, Susan and the WE Festival team on continuing a great event.

If you are a women entrepreneur or know someone who is, apply to the 2016 WE Festival in NYC. There are 400 spots so spread the word to the women you know who could benefit from an event dedicated to: finding inspiration, revisiting their company vision, learning from the many leaders who’ve done it before, and making lasting connections.

I hope to see you there!

Catalyst for Community

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 12:07:29 -0500

Chicago is not New York Tech.

I moved there in 2011 after we took funding from Lightbank. I was leaving behind friends, a great apartment and a bustling tech community in NYC. It was tough at first but most of my time was quickly consumed with building our business. My day consisted mostly of waking up, going to work, eating three meals there, working out and heading home. Not much of a social life to say the least.

I did go to a few Meetups and events to meet others in the Chicago tech community and to think about something other than gtrot. I met a few core friends in tech, much like the circle I knew in NYC, and we tried our best to get together more than once a month. It was working, but it still felt like the community was missing a space to share all of the amazing things being built in Chicago.

I remember telling a few people that the NY Tech Meetup in NYC was a great way to showcase companies and meet up regularly with friends in the community. I couldn’t find it in Chicago but I kept encouraging others, those with more free time, to consider starting such a meet up in Chicago.

I asked, I encouraged, and I waited.

Nothing. No one was interested in starting a Meetup, they didn’t see how it was different. I wasn’t able to convince them.

Still wanting a community to be part of, with meetups every month, I decided to start it myself. It was something I wanted to exist so I decided to try it out.

A few emails and a few favors from people I knew in the community, we hosted our first event at NAVTEQ in Chicago. Just like NYTECH Meetup, we charged $10 to ensure attendance. We hoped for 50 people, we had 120 show up. Event one was profitable. There were company demos, pizza and beer and plenty to time to network at the end.

Here were two photos from the first event:

Startup Stella demoing FeeFighters.

Seth sharing lessons learned from his media company, Technori.

I was excited to see so many people connecting and to be able to be a part of the community I was seeking.

People started to ask about the next one. Could they demo? Would there be a bigger space? When could they get tickets?

I was willing to get the Meetup off the ground, but I was weary of adding more work to an already full plate. I wanted it to exist, but I didn’t necessarily want to run it.

A second event was scheduled, but before the next one, I had offers to combine forces or find a new home for the growing community. My proof of concept was a success and others took notice.

I got an offer from Technori, and happily sold the *profitable* business. It was a win for the community, to have professionals taking over and a win for me , because now I could be part of the community I wanted, without working on the logistics.

Chicago Tech Meetup went on to become a key part of Technori. They took it from a group of a few hundred to 21,000+. Their events quickly started selling out spaces with room for 400+. It went from a small idea to a huge anchor in Chicago. I’m so excited that it’s thrived so well and grown far beyond what we ever expected.

Tonight marks Technori’s 50th Meetup. If you live in Chicago or know someone who does, I’d encourage you to share this invitation. It’s going to be a great event, including a keynote from Kickstarter’s own Charles Adler.

I’m a firm believer in the power of connecting people to solve problems. Whether in person or online, I’ve always found that you can strengthen a community or a city by giving people places to connect. I’m thrilled to see that Technori is doing that in Chicago, and now expanding to other great entrepreneurial cities.

Congratulations to Technori! Cheers to the next 50!

Training Next Gen Tech

Wed, 08 Jul 2015 10:25:48 -0400

Bethany & Jon welcome a full house to the Beyond Coding Classroom.

Last night I sat in on one of the Beyond Coding’s classes hosted at Stack Exchange. An innovative new program to help bridge the knowledge gap between learning to program and finding a job as a programmer. The best part of the event was getting to witness the evolution from idea to execution.

A few months ago I learned about the program from Bethany, Marketing Manger of Stack Overflow Careers at Stack Exchange. Bethany was thinking about how to put action against many issues she cared about. She’s been an active voice at Stack and in the USV Portfolio on creating diverse and inclusive work environments. She’s professionally and personally passionate about helping people find a rewarding career in programming. On top of that, she’s a proud New Yorker who recognized that investing in the ecosystem early is the best way to support the future of a Tech community here in NYC.

Bethany had a vision and she’s made it happen. She’s been hard at work with countless others to get this program off the ground for this summer.

Today, Beyond Coding sets out to equip emerging computer programmers in New York City with professional skills needed to help them succeed in their first job working with code. The program launched June 11th, as a direct response to the City’s Tech Talent Pipeline efforts to grow NYC’s local tech ecosystem. Beyond Coding is free to participants due to the support of a joint partnership among six companies in New York City’s startup ecosystem: Crest CC, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Trello, and Stack Overflow. Full disclosure, you’ll recognize 4 out of the 6 are part of the USV Portfolio.

As you see in the photo above, there was no shortage of interest. The program received so many applications that they needed to split the attendees into two cohorts. The curriculum is the same for each class but the split was mostly decided by their current education path. The program last night was filled with college students and recent graduates, most between the ages of 20 to 25. The second cohort is composed of students switching careers, who hover between the ages of 30 to 45. Students in both cohorts represent all neighborhoods, ethnicities, genders and beyond. Everyone is there to do the work, learn from others and collaborate.

The courses focus on learning the necessary skills to land a job in the next 6-18 months. Everything from learning about data and it’s importance in any tech job, to building a github and Linkedin profile to be visible in the talent market. Some of these steps may seem like a no-brainer to those already in the industry, but when you’re an outsider with few peers working in the industry, it’s all new. This environment of interactive learning, collaboration, turning in homework assignments on time, and providing feedback to peers is a learning experience too. Each component adds to making these talented developers workforce ready.

Last night’s course focused on learning how to learn. A lot of software engineering jobs aren’t just looking at the skills you have, they are looking for your ability to acquire new skills. Jon did a great job helping students discover their own motivations, learning styles and passions through an engaging lecture that included group participation, sharing with peers, videos and stories of his career in tech. The three hour course had everyone participating and collaborating in a way that few classrooms do.

Individuals working on their own assessments before they share with their peers.

Participants recording their stories, motivations and learning styles.

I was impressed with the course, but even more so by the students. I took part in a peer discussion with two engineers entering their senior year of a computer science degree. A young woman and man who both realized the way they got interested in computer programming was through video game cheats and making edits to their Xanga blogs. They didn’t know it was programming, it was just looking up how to write commands to make the site or game do what they wanted. They both grew up with computers as far back as they could remember. That sentiment surprised me as I reflected on my own experiences. I had learned how to hack to get my video games to work but my family didn’t have a family PC until at least 3rd grade. What a difference a decade makes in access. It will be great to see the impact these early start engineers has on the future of the web, the problems solved by software, and the potential for fun.

I’d bet on everyone in that room. If you’re a startup hiring for great entry level engineering talent, you can too. Sign up to participate in the hiring fair at the end of the summer on their website.

To learn more about the program, check out the Beyond Coding website: https://www.beyondcoding.io/

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Marriage Equality, it’s about time. Source: Josh Greenman on...

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 10:17:38 -0400

Marriage Equality, it’s about time.

Source: Josh Greenman on Twitter: “This is a piece of writing. http://t.co/tlDKhd03HF”

What is fair pay?

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 11:40:12 -0400

I’ve been thinking about information on salaries ever since Gary, Christina, and Leland’s SVA Class on Entrepreneurial Design. On that Saturday, I met with Rachel, a designer and student who was building a project around the Wage Gap. She wanted to help empower employees, especially designers, to get fairly compensated.

The current wage gap has two sides to it, the companies providing the compensation and the individuals asking for the compensation. Some companies have a compensation range and then rely on employee negotiations to set salaries. Other companies, which now includes Reddit, decide on the compensation and do not take negotiation from the employee into consideration.

Given these two scenarios, the wage gap still exists because employees aren’t negotiating to their potential salary or companies are not determining pay fairly.

As an individual, it’s hard to know where you net out. Should you try to negotiate for more money? What is the fair market value of your time? If you are returning to the workforce from school or home, what should your salary expectation be? There are a lot of questions but not a ton of great resources to get clear answers on the topic.

Thankfully, Rachel has taken this on as her mission for Let’s Talk About Pay. She’s created a resource dedicated to opening up the compensation questions in order to create more transparency and confidence for those entering the workforce. If this is a topic you care about, I’d encourage you to participate:

I admire Rachel’s work and look forward to seeing the discussion continue. Fair wage is important and should be a conversation with more transparency.

Something to share?

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Calling all NYC Engineers: Teach Computer Science to NYC...

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 06:03:39 -0400

Calling all NYC Engineers: Teach Computer Science to NYC Students

A problem that many technology companies face is a high demand for engineering talent but a low supply. One of the key ways to solve this over time is by teaching more students computer science. In addition to retraining the existing workforce, the supply of engineers also relies on a getting K-12 students started today.

One of the top organizations working towards this mission is TEALS (Technology Education And Literacy in Schools).

It’s a grassroots program that recruits, trains, mentors, and places high tech professionals from across the country who are passionate about computer science education into high school classes as volunteer teachers in a team teaching model where the school district is unable to meet their students’ computer science (CS) needs on its own. More info here.

I was introduced to TEALS through Fred’s work with their organization. We were also fortunate to have Nathaniel share more information at our last USV Engineering Leadership Summit. Which, of course, included break out sessions on talent pipelines and building a diverse team, two things TEALS is all about.

Volunteer, even with a full time job:
TEALS is now knee-deep in our volunteer recruiting cycle. They are looking to find ~60 engineers who want to teach CS and help a school launch their CS program. The time commitment will fit with your work schedule, including a few hours a week before the office even opens. Full time engineers are encouraged to apply.

Interested folks can also visit www.tealsk12.org/volunteers
You can also attend an information session for prospective volunteers on Monday, April 27^th (info here: teals-nyc15-msft.eventbrite.com/)

Other ways to help the cause:

Share this message with engineers at your company, and through other personal networks (Tumblr, FB, Twitter, Meetups, etc)

This is a great organization and a great thing for all communities involved.

(Photo via Volunteer with TEALS | TEALS)

Valuation Equation

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 06:18:27 -0400

A great developer I know started building an app and now has more traction than he expected. He’s trying to figure out how to sustain the development by expanding his team. Cash strapped to pay salaries, he’s considering raising money to continue expansion of the app.

We’ve been going back and forth on how to navigate terms for an early stage fundraise so I thought I’d share some of those ideas here.

Equation to calculate valuation:
1) How much of the business are you willing to give up? Typically 10-20% in a seed round, but can be less if you need less money.
2) How much money do you need to get you through the next 12-18 months? or to prove the next big milestone so you can fundraise for your next round. You may be able to get profitable off of one fundraise, but if not, think ahead for how much money you need to buy you the time you need to prove progress.
3) Valuation is this equation : Valuation = money you need /% you’re willing to give up.
If it’s $75k / 12% = $625,000 valuation, $700,000 post money

If it’s 100k / 10% = $1M valuation, 1.1M post money.

Determining if it’s a fair valuation:

1) Valuations are usually based on the future value of the company after you take this money. So the company may not be worth $700,000 today but with $75k of capital, you’ll be able to get it to that value.

2) How do you determine the value if you don’t have revenue to base the ‘worth’ off of? This is the tricky part. Danny Crichton provides a deep analysis in his “Complete Quantitative Guide To Judging Your Startup” (thanks to Stash for sharing) but even with lots of data, it’s still up to the investor. Serial investors or institutions should have a rough benchmark of traction, potential and growth that they can make an offer on valuation.

Don’t forget the big picture
From my VC & entrepreneurship experience, early stage valuations are more of an art than a science. A few things to remember when doing the fundraising dance:

- You can always raise less money. For example, if you only need $50k to get to your next milestone, take the $50k in January and use that money to build the business. By August you may have great traction, revenue or engagement metrics that place a higher valuation on the company. You may decide to raise $250 - $1M at that point.

If you raised more money earlier, you may have sold equity at a higher cost than you needed to. In this example, if the valuation on your company was $500k in January, if you raised $50k you’d be selling 10% of equity. If you tried to raise $250k in January, you’d be selling 50% of your equity, not a good idea.

- You might not need venture capital now. There are ways to bootstrap, find alternative sources of capital and further prove your idea today. Mark Suster does a great job covering this point here. Many alternatives cost zero equity.

- Think about your future rounds. Fundraising isn’t just about the capital you raise today, it’s potentially a piece of a longer path. The valuation, capital and time that you negotiate for now will impact your next fundraise. If your valuation is too high now, it’ll be more difficult to negotiate a higher valuation down the road. If your burn is too high for the amount you raise, you may not have enough time to grow the business. The early investors you work with may not be willing or able to invest in future rounds. This will impact your strategy for your next raise.

- Keep your cap table clean. If you have a messy foundation, it gets harder with each round to clean it up. Make sure equity is properly allocated, accounted for and setup with vesting schedules to keep team members and advisors properly engaged. Equity may seem cheap early on, but it feels much more expensive once you start selling it to investors. I’ve made this mistake in the past and it’s an expensive one to learn.

- Valuation is set by the person writing the check. You may want a certain price, but it’s only possible if the market is willing to pay it. This is a negotiation, so figure out what the market wants. There are tradeoffs between “easy money” and “smart money” so don’t forget to evaluate what you’re getting in return from the investors.

For answers to many frequently asked questions, Mark Suster has shared a Raising Venture Capital guide here.

Something to share?

I want to hear from you! If you or your team have something to add or challenge, please share in the comments below or on Twitter.

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How to create a company culture that embraces diversity

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 06:10:30 -0400

This post is the third in our “Lessons from the USV Diversity Summit” series. In December, USV hosted our first Diversity Summit. Below are some of the most helpful insights we gathered about how to take action.

If you’re just joining the conversation, you can find previous posts Part I: “Lessons from the diversity summit” here and Part II: “How to start talking to your team about diversity” here.

Take inventory

If you want your company to embrace diversity, the first step is transforming your corporate culture. Your first step is assessing what the current culture is like.

What exactly does culture mean? People sometimes use the word “culture” to refer to company perks like game rooms, free lunches, or vacation days. And while those benefits certainly have an effect on teams, they aren’t themselves culture. Culture is about how your team communicates.

At its core, your company’s culture requires three things: its mission, its vision, and its values. What problem does your company solve? How does it solve it? And upon what values do you base the decisions you make?

The mission, vision, and values are unique to each company, and each will no doubt be rewritten, revised, and revisited many times over the lifetime of the business, all the while shaping and influencing the culture of the company.

So to make sure that your corporate culture is welcoming toward diversity, you need to revisit your mission, vision, and values to assess how you’re communicating them to the people you employ, serve, and represent.

Beware of inadvertently sending messages that conflict with your values

Start by conducting an “external culture audit” to get a picture of how your company presents itself to the outside world. Imagine you’re a consultant and you’ve been asked to evaluate the company’s corporate culture from an outsider’s point of view. First, visit your company’s website and consider what messages are being sent by your landing page, job postings, careers page, and social media accounts.

What words does your company use to describe itself?
What visuals are provided—photos, logos, or graphics?
If there are photos, how would you describe the people shown? The environment?
Imagine you’re a world-class candidate for an engineer/sales/marketing/HR job landing on your company’s website. What would you find appealing and what would be off-putting?
Consider how different types of people would respond to the messaging on your site. What if you don’t drink? What if you’re a parent? What if you only want to work with the best talent? Are there things on the site that would make you feel uncomfortable or unsure about whether this is the place for you? If so, ask yourself this question: Is your company intentionally trying to filter out certain kinds of candidates, or is it accidental?

Now, the most important step: Are there conflicts or inconsistencies between your company’s stated mission and the way it comes across online? Does your company’s Twitter feed accurately reflect the mission, vision, and values of the company, or is it filled with off-color jokes? Does your company’s digital presence successfully reflect the values you want to celebrate?

A lot of well-intentioned companies inadvertently deter the most diverse candidates not because they don’t care about diversity, but because they fail to control the subtle messages being sent by their public-facing materials. Last year, for example, I did an external culture audit for one of our portfolio companies. I found a lot of conflicts between how the company viewed itself and how it was presenting itself to the outside world. Conflicts will inevitably creep in, so be vigilant and make sure to get feedback to ensure the company’s voice aligns with its values.

Values-Messaging Conflict: The Case of RunKeeper

In a comment on a previous diversity posts, Emil pointed out that RunKeeper, a company that makes an awesome fitness app, may be sending mixed messages to its users. RunKeeper is not a USV portfolio company, but I’m a big fan of their product and I’ve heard only good things about their team. Let’s take a look at their website, one page at a time, and consider where there may be an unintended conflict in their messaging.

As you can see above, RunKeeper clearly states its core values, addressing the issue of inclusiveness directly.

(link: UX Job Description)

I love these candid job descriptions. It’s easy to get a sense of the fun, lighthearted tone of the company. There are some inconsistencies, however. The job post doesn’t list the core values, but there are some hints about what it takes to fit in. So the question is this: If you’re not into The X-Files and arguing about beer, can you still work there? Would you think twice about applying? What if you’re not into TV, but you’re a fantastic UX Designer? Would you still apply?

There’s no doubt that teams within companies have their own idiosyncratic ways of getting along with each other, and I have no doubt that the above description really does capture the kinds of personalities that make up the UX team at RunKeeper. And it makes sense that they’d look for someone with a similar personality who’d fit in easily.

But the problem with a job listing that describes what the people on the team are like—and subtly demands that anyone applying fit that same mold—is that it creates a bias against people from different backgrounds, excluding people who don’t fit the profile of the existing team. The message is, “This is what our team is like, and we want to hire someone just like us.” But if you want to increase diversity, that’s not the message you want to be sending. What you should be saying is, “We’re an inclusive environment looking for top talent, and we want to welcome you to our team no matter what your background is.”

How to align your messaging with your values

The good news is that there are straightforward ways to communicate your company culture by speaking about the things you value, not just the things you do.

Take Simulmedia, an advertising technology company. Simulmedia has been thoughtful about making sure the job descriptions on its website include the company’s mission, vision, values, and culture. The same language is used consistently on every job description. (Yes, they’re hiring).

The thoughtfulness of the language in these descriptions subtly reinforces the idea that Simulmedia values hard work and play, but it’s through multiple mediums and the emphasis is on team or individual perks: “While we work ‘startup hard’ we also believe in letting loose via Happy Hours, team activities, and an unlimited vacation policy.”

So write a list of the values you want to convey in your own company’s job listings. Check out how other companies communicate their culture.

Another great example is SoundCloud. They recently published a new jobs page. They discussed the project at the Diversity Summit and I think they successfully delivered a more inclusive and very SoundCloud experience. The took the extra step to use their platform to talk about the company culture by share audio recordings from employees.

The internal culture audit

After the external culture audit comes the internal culture audit, which can be more challenging. Running a business means communicating all day long, which often means that speed gets prioritized over thoughtfulness.

To conduct the internal audit, keep your company’s mission, vision, and values in mind as you consider these questions:

How is good news communicated at your company?
How is bad news communicated?
How is feedback given or collected?
What happens if an employee violates a core value when they’re in a meeting with colleagues? With a customer?
How do you describe your company culture to friends?
How do you describe your company to people you’re trying to recruit?

Do your answers align with your mission, vision, and values, or do they conflict?

Ask your colleagues the same questions. Are their answers the same as yours or different? Where are there conflicts, are they coming from a subset of employees who are dissatisfied? Are they the same or different? Explore the disconnect and see if the company culture is evenly distributed.

Right fit your mission, vision, and values

The purpose of the internal and external culture audits is to understand what the company truly is and believes. The audits will signal whether the company is acting in alignment with it’s values.

If you want to make your company more diverse, you need to say so explicitly in your official statement of values. The only way things will change is if you’re new values are actually recognized. If not, it’s time to revise the way business is done.

Most mission, vision, and values come from senior leadership, so it’s important to include top managers in your list of findings and recommendations. Keep the team small for the first version, opening up the process to feedback from the wider team in time.

Your company’s mission shouldn’t change very often, but its description can fluctuate, especially given how fast companies today grow and change. During my time at USV, I’ve always been able to get a read on the health of an organization by asking various employees to explain what the company does. If their answers vary widely—like if one employee says, “We’re a Facebook app that books flights” while another says, “We improve travel with social recommendations”—there’s a disconnect. It’s a signal that communication of the mission is getting muddy.

Inclusion is a practice, not a statement

Values may need closer inspection too. Is the behavior of your employees consistent with your company’s core values? Almost every company has a stated value that captures the importance of diversity. The problem with diversity is not with the values companies have, but with the execution. Inclusion is a practice, not a statement.

Although not in the USV portfolio, BufferApp came up as a great example of a company living its values. Buffer values “defaulting to transparency,” which they embody by publishing a full transparency report that includes real-time revenues, salaries, and equity. The value they place on transparency is demonstrated with visible behavior.

Our summit attendees celebrated Buffer, but most were not in a hurry to implement this kind of transparency at their own companies. Values are important, but can overlap at the edges. The best way to navigate values that seem at odds is to provide more context or multiple values. AMEE balances the trade-offs between transparency and privacy, values that can seem at odds, in their principles and values: “We have 5 main values that guide our decisions: Open, Honest, Transparent, Simple, and Respectful of Individual Privacy.”

Companies need to live the mission, vision, and values they set forth. If they don’t, they should change either the values or the corporate culture so they align. Diversity initiatives need to be part of the company’s values. Revising the company’s values statement is only useful if the company lives in accordance with them.

Putting values into practice

Once the vision is laid out, it’s time to put it into practice. Small changes add up to make a difference. Companies in our portfolio have had success printing posters with the company’s values and hanging them in every conference room. The posters get referenced during difficult discussions, helping ground the conversation in what the company values and not just what one individual believes.

A company’s mission, vision, and values should also be posted on its website, included when onboarding new employees, shared at the beginning of town hall meetings, and compared against employee 360s performance reviews. Consistency is best complemented with feedback loops. Whether it’s surveys or informal asks, find ways to get feedback from customers, clients, and candidates on how you’re performing against your values. Values are a tool to help set a standard across the organization of what’s expected, celebrated, and prioritized. They have the biggest impact when they are part of the everyday communication of the company.

Distributed diversity initiatives

Once you’ve made sure your mission, vision and values are in alignment, it’s time to start implementing diversity initiatives. In our summit, the most often-mentioned way to start is to create three small working groups to tackle different issues and set a budget.

The working groups should focus on increasing diversity in three areas: internal, external, and recruiting. The most common reaction is to push all implementation to HR. Don’t do this. Do not make diversity only an HR issue.

Return Path, an email deliverability company, found success breaking diversity initiatives into three internal working groups: Retention, Recruitment, and Communication. They saw even more progress when people from cross-functional teams participated.

Tumblr took a similar approach. Instead of making diversity an initiative siloed within HR, they have cross-functional working groups. There are members of the HR team, but the team is not limited to it.

The same construct works for larger companies too. Morgan Stanley, for instance, has one diversity and inclusion council, but three sub-committees:

Recruiting/pipeline
Internal employees
External relationships

These sub-groups work best when they have a clear mission, support from senior leadership, and a dedicated budget to get things done. The council as a whole has a budget allocated to it, and the funds are split among the three sub-committees. Having a straightforward structure makes it easier for employees to pick up a project and run with it based on which sub-group they support.

Many startups are wary of setting a budget for diversity sub-committees. I asked Lisa Lee, Pandora’s Diversity Manager, how she suggests how highly cash-conscious startups should allocate funds. She advocates having a budget, “It’s important to do diversity work. You don’t need a massive budget. There are so many ways it can still be done. ” So whether it’s the cost of a team lunch or a team offsite, remember that making a financial commitment to get things done is a way to invest in change. Look for ways to put that money to work. We’ll cover those in the last two posts in this series.

Consistency and iteration

Diversity is never done. Adding it into the company culture requires time and constant evolution. But the earlier you start, the easier it will be to grow with your company.

Whether you’re an early-stage startup or a larger company, take inventory of your culture, build diversity into your values, organize teams to implement initiatives, and hold people accountable.

In our next post, we’ll explore more ideas on how to integrate diversity into your recruiting and onboarding processes.

Something to share?

We want to hear from you! If you or your team have something to add, please share in the comments below or on Twitter.

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Finding a VC job

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 10:52:10 -0400

As one who can relate to falling into VC industry this post rings true. But think ‘network’ is impt enough to deserve own mention!‘Tis the season to hear from a number of ambitious undergraduate and grad students about job opportunities. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about finding a VC job, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here.

Here’s my story about getting into VC which wasn’t a straight line or an intentional job search. I’ve found that the story of ‘falling into VC’ is quite common so depending on the role you’re searching for, analyst, associate or a platform/community role, you may have different odds of finding a clear job posting.

Here are my thoughts on landing a job in VC:

1) Roles don’t come up frequently in VC. The best way to find out about them is to talk to many VC firms. At USV, we aren’t looking to add to our team unless someone leaves. (The analyst roles at USV are on 2 year rotations so those won’t open until summer of next year.)

2) Get technical. Having technical experience helps in the role and on analysis of other technology businesses. Whether you use Codecademy or an in person class, having this skill set is becoming a requirement for many VC jobs. I’d recommend building a small web app in Ruby or Python. You should be able to pick this up learning part time over 3 months. Even if you never write any code in your VC job, understanding the fundamentals of CS and development are a big plus.

3) Have a public opinion. Having a presence on the web is a great way to show your enthusiasm for tech and share your opinions. VCs anticipate getting it wrong at least 30% of the time, so don’t worry that you’ll get it right, just get your ideas out. Twitter is a great place to jump into conversations with other VCs. USV.com is an open place to share ideas too.

Blogs on Tumblr or Medium are a great way to pressure test your ideas. When you do interview for a role in VC, you’ll be able to point back to your thoughts over a long period of time, which is difficult to communicate in a 60 minute interview. Showing how you think will also be part of the application, that helps the firm understand whether you see the world the same way.

4) Jobs outside of VC that are like VC. There are more accelerators and incubators in every market world-wide. Roles at these organizations have a similar approach: find the best companies, work to help them grow and scale, apply a thesis to making investments (time, money or both) and build relationships with the tech ecosystem. It can be a great place to start or stay depending on which aspect of VC you’re most excited about.

5) Know the unique value that you bring to the table. I’m biased towards operators because I was an operator. There are people who get into VC who never work at a startup. Operational experience is not a requirement. When the question about what you bring to the table in terms of evaluating new companies or helping them grow, it helps if you have a skill set that can be put to work.

Expertise in an industry can be helpful, like working in medical research and then going to a fund that invests in that industry. If you’ve spent time in a particular area in your free time, like Joel at USV who’s become a thought leader in bitcoin after many hours hacking on, researching, and talking with the industry leaders. If you have operational experience in a growing field it would be valuable too, like Jonathan at USV who worked as a Product Manager at a mobile company, he understands many challenges on mobile that help guide our thesis there and support our mobile companies.

6) Network. The people you meet will have a big impact on what you bring to the table. From entrepreneurs to exchanges in the comments on blogs. Interacting with people is a huge part of the job so get out there or get online. Thanks to Justin Hall for the reminder.

Caveat on this advice, it’s based on my experience at USV. Other firms may have a different perspective, and even those may change as the industry continues to evolve. Don’t forget, with AngelList and Gust, accredited investors can setup their own syndicates even easier than ever before. If you can’t find the job, you may be able to make one.

Something to share?

I want to hear from you! I’d curious to hear your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter if you’ve heard other advice.

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Leadership Coaches

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 06:15:15 -0400

We advise all of our portfolio CEOs to hire a management coach. Working to improve leadership skills is vital for management and shouldn’t stop at the CEO. Jerry Colonna, Fred’s Partner from Flatiron Ventures, is a highly regarded leadership coach who works with a number of the top CEOs in tech. Most, if not all, publicly traded company CEOs have a coach, even Jeff Bezos as mentioned in The Everything Store.

Every executive, no matter how much experience, will always have room for improvement. Especially when they’re leading a fast growing venture-backed startup, where the obstacles are constantly changing.

It can be lonely at the top of the company. Even if you have a great executive team and board, there are still concerns you may not feel comfortable sharing with those members of your team. As Fred and Mark discussed, board members can serve as a coach but the relationship is loaded because they have other chips in the game. Having a neutral third party to discuss decisions, challenges, and personal development areas is essential. Whether it is on a weekly or monthly basis, hiring a coach is a business expense that will empower a CEO to make the leadership decisions that drive the company forward.

The stress of entrepreneurship doesn’t stop at your doorstep. Professional challenges can seep into your personal life. To do your best work, you have to take care of yourself. Finding the time to care for your emotional and physical well being is essential. Running, yoga, biking, walking, spending time with family – whatever the outlet may be, being disciplined to care for your own well being is critical. Even at the fastest growing company, if you’re not taking the time to recharge, you won’t be leading a company well for long.

Although few may talk about their coaches, I think it’s an advantageous choice for any CEO.

If you’re looking to find a coach or have someone to recommend, drop a note in the comments.

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