Values & Approach
Committed, Trusting Partnerships.
We believe that success at building world class companies is best achieved by truly partnering with entrepreneurs. Partnerships are based on trust, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to working together to do whatever it takes to make a business successful.
Chemistry is a critical element in building business and in making sound investment decisions. We invest for the long term, and as a result focus on ensuring that our team can work effectively with the entrepreneurial teams with whom we partner. A VC-entrepreneur partnership is a marriage. No matter how great the technology, and how compelling the business model, it is all but impossible to work around a dysfunctional investor-entrepreneur relationship. We view trust and respect between investor and entrepreneur as an essential ingredient to success.
We think we’ve learned something through our careers about what it takes to build successful businesses. And we like to bring that experience and perspective to the table in working with our entrepreneurs. But we also know that at the end of the day, it is the managers we back who will ultimately make the difference. We make ourselves available, open our networks and resources for the benefit of our companies, and are constantly thinking about what we can do that goes beyond the checks we write. As a result, our CEOs call on us frequently for counsel, connections, and, very often, real work. At the same time, however, we know how important it is to let entrepreneurial managers build their companies in their own molds – few things are more counter-productive than the overbearing, micromanaging VC.
Entrepreneurs who work with us should know that they are partnering with someone who will wake up every morning thinking about how they can help their business succeed. We’ll constantly be networking for business partnerships, sourcing talent for senior management positions, and thinking about new ideas for products, business models, and the like. We’ll be an extended set of eyes and ears in the marketplace, and we’ll bring fresh, creative, outside thinking to your organization. And as entrepreneurs ourselves, we’ll work every bit as hard as you do.
