Hazard Lights

If I were a Founder

Inspired by a tweet stream of consciousness by Danielle Morrill, the Founder of Mattermark, on what she would do if she was a VC, a jotted down a few notes on what I would do if I was a founder.  These first went out as tweets on @chazard, but here is the full list in one place:

• I would aggressively seek out one, but no more than one, co-founder to complement my deficiencies #ifIwereafounder
• My early hires would be people right on the fine line between crazy good and crazy crazy #ifiwereafounder
• I would meet with or speak with more than 100 potential customers in my first 30 days #ifiwereafounder
• We would design a product experience to surprise and delight customers in unexpected ways #ifiwereafounder cc:@wayne @jeffseibert
• I would be scared shitless almost every day, but would translate this into being action-oriented around things in our control #ifiwereafounder
• I would have one person to share my deepest fears and worries with #ifiwereafounder 
• We would focus on driving adoption before driving revenue #ifiwereafounder
• I would avoid strategies that rely on other companies or organizations for our success, at least for the first couple of years #ifiwereafounder
• Our company colors would be a little unusual #ifiwereafounder
• I would have Friday afternoon happy hours and use them to celebrate successes #ifiwereafounder
• We would have regular internal hackathons to spur creativity #ifiwereafounder
• A recruiter would be one of my first hires after raising a Series A #ifiwereafounder
• I would track 3 key metrics daily and 5 on a weekly basis #ifiwereafounder
• I would have a vision for world domination, but very achievable first steps #ifiwereafounder
• I would be wildly optimistic, but not delusional #ifiwereafounder
• I would take extra time to simplify and shorten key messages #ifiwereafounder
• I would be able to give my own demos #ifiwereafounder
• Our company name would not have capital letters in any place other than the first letter #ifiwereafounder 
• Creating shareholder value would be a by product of building something great, not a primary goal #ifiwereafounder
• I would seek advice when outside my depth and not feel like I need to know everything #ifiwereafounder
• If my board pushed back on critical decisions, I would tell them they are at risk of "breaking the bronco" #ifiwereafounder cc:@bijan
• Bad news would travel as fast as good news and it would be accompanied by a plan to fix, or at least a plan to get to a plan #ifiwereafounder
• If I disagree with my Board's advice, I would drive the differences to ground rather than pocket vetoing their suggestions #ifiwereafounder
• i would never let any one person in the company become irreplaceable #ifiwereafounder
• i would force my board to provide me feedback on my performance and seek out advice on how my role should change as the company grows #ifiwereafounder
• If a room of smart people don't understand my business, i would consider revising the message instead of assuming they just don't get it #ifiwereafounder
• I would understand my competitors deeply, but not obsessively.  I would obsess about customers.  #ifiwereafounder
• i would read Reed Hasting's piece on culture and leadership, but not much else in this category #ifiwereafounder

Based on Retweets, Favorites and offline feedback, the comments that resonated most with people were being scared shitless; seeking advice; obsessing about customers, not competitors; having a few key metrics to track; and dominating the world, one step at a time.

I also added a few more to the list, and have included these below:

• The person I share all my fears with would ideally be my co-founder #ifiwereafounder
• I would start my company in an area with big macro trends in my favor.  Always easier to sail with the wind at your back #ifiwereafounder
• I would recognize that no amount of marketing $ spend from our start-up is going to make our market develop significantly more quickly than it wants #ifiwereafounder 
• My board would have no more than 5 members #ifiwereafounder
• We would have weekly staff meetings, but they would be short #ifiwereafounder
• If I was based outside of CA, i would open an office there as quickly as possible with as senior a person to run it as possible #ifiwereafounder 
• My California office would be the only exception to my rule of having everyone in a single location #ifiwereafounder
• The response to the first inbound M&A offer would always be NO #ifiwereafounder
• I would compensate my team more than fairly and accept all resignations from anyone who threatens to quit because they are not paid enough #ifiwereafounder
• All my financial projections would be conservative, but I would never say that as no one would believe me #ifiwereafounder
• I would recognize that the first equity I sell is the most expensive equity and I would plan accordingly #ifiwereafounder

• I would stay up late trying to close the deal and wake up early to figure out how to deliver #ifiwereafounder

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  I would infuse design excellence into everything we do, but struggle to find excellent design talent like everyone else #ifiwereafounder

• I would drive an '07 Toyota Prius but lust after a '14 Tesla #ifiwereafounder #truestatementevenasaVC

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  Our office would have a branded corn hole game #ifiwereafounder
• I would not wait for a prospective investor to follow up with me. Otherwise would worry they think I am not a closer #ifiwereafounder
• After seed round, I would communicate with investors monthly on metrics, accomplishments, forward plans & how they can help #ifiwereafounder

• If I was building a SaaS business, I would know my Magic Number better than my phone number #ifiwereafounder cc: @joshjames

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  As a smallish private company, I would not count on M&A to fill in product gaps.  Too many variables outside of my control #ifiwereafounder
• I would publish a rolling 6 month product road map for my customers #ifiwereafounder

• Annually, I would do a facilitated offsite entirely focused on our management team's ability to communicate and work together #ifiwereafounder

•  

  I would have at least one quant jock on my team #ifiwereafounder
• I would hire people who have a proven ability to communicate well in writing #ifiwereafounder
• i would not let my urgency to fill open positions on our team lead me to lower the bar on quality #ifiwereafounder
• If I unexpectedly got my ass kicked on an issue in a Board meeting, I would digest for 24 hours and come back to them with a response and plan #ifiwereafounder
• I may fail, but I would never quit #ifiwereafounder

Let me know what I missed!

SXSW 2014 Takeaways

My ears have stopped ringing, my voice is still hoarse and my thoughts are with the victims of last night's drunk driving tragedy at the Mohawk, so I wanted to share some quick takeaways coming out of several days at SXSW in Austin with 30,000 fellow tech and start-up junkies.  I left encourage by the energy, the diversity of ideas and the abundance creativity.

• Diversity is increasing and this is good.  The diversity of the attendees on all dimensions  - gender, race, cultural - is increasing.  This is needed in the tech industry and will lead to greater creativity and a broader perspective on opportunities.  There is a still a ways to go, but when I compare to tech conferences from 5 - 10+ years ago, we are moving in a encouraging direction.

• The world really is increasingly flat.  Not a new observation, but I was really struck by how the start-up and innovation culture has infiltrated all corners of the globe.  As one simple example, I judged the enterprise track of the SXSW Accelerator program and of the 8 companies that presented, we had a Finnish company, an Irish company, a San Francisco based company started by a Frenchman, a Boston based company that recently relocated from Slovenia and another Boston-based company with an Australian founder.  This global phenomena only increases the pool of talent and again the diversity of ideas.

• APIs will dominate and change how applications are built.  Every company I met with was either producing APIs through which others will interface with their applications or consuming APIs to more rapidly solve the problems they are attacking.  For the application builders, this means far more resources are going to building and solving problems and far less resources to basic plumbing and infrastructure. For the API producers, this means larger market opportunities and easier ways to on-board and serve customers.

• Bitcoin as a platform is here to stay.  Having survived a rocky few months, I am incredibly encouraged by the opportunities offered up by the Bitcoin platform and how it can be leveraged to solve a range of security and payments issues.  More people are seeing it in this light as compared to some of the early days when it was the realm of illicit activities, libertarians and gold-bugs and this move to the mainstream will spur further adoption.

• Privacy is not a mainstream consumer issue.  The press loves the topic, but in my conversations I did not find privacy to be a top of mind consumer issue.  It should be, so in this I agree with Edward Snowden's recommendation that application and service providers need to do a better job of embedding security and privacy into their solutions.

• The Best VCs care deeply about founders, the problems they are solving and how best to support them.  The worst are focused only on finding the next hot deal.  Who is which becomes clear in a two minute conversation, especially if they have had a drink or two.

• Everyone is starting a seed fund.  Ok, not quite everyone, but I met dozens of people who had started a seed fund in the last 12 months.  A few were super-talented and supremely well connected and should be wildly successful, but most struck me as a little naive and only attracted to the bright lights and perceived glamour of finding the next WhatsApp or Uber.  This will not end well for most.

• Youth dominates.  We can wring our hands that a new social app is not curing cancer, but the influx of young talent into the innovation world is awesome and I would far prefer to see the best and brightest building things than banking things or consulting on things.  Today's 20 something founder building and a somewhat frivolous app will be tomorrow's founder solving important problems as once you get the start-up bug, it is tough to shake.

if you were there, let me know what I missed!