Key Learnings from #VC Industry Leaders | VC University 5-Year Anniversary Gala
Panel discussion (moderated by Bobby Franklin, National Venture Capital Association)
Kate Mitchell (Scale Venture Partners)
- Pay attention to where we spend our time. Many GPs spend most of their time with port cos that are their "wounded child" or "limping forward" because they're struggling and need more help. But in reality, you should spend more time with your winners and call it a failure early.
- Regarding making the difficult decision of deeming a port co as a failure, outside of the panel, Kate shared that "a failure can be a good failure." While you never know for sure, performance metrics and benchmarking provide clues. For having the hard conversation with the founder, empathy is a key element. Too often, investors either invest at a next round or don't and rarely provide the tough feedback in between, but if people can have honest, transparent and open conversations early on, that gives everyone more time and flexibility to make decisions and could even help recouping more from the loses.
Sergio Monsalve (Roble Ventures)
- Board construction is a essential topic that deserves a lot more attention than what people typically give it. Having a balanced board that brings in diversity and representation of different groups help a company avoid the danger of group thinking.
- Deals don't come to you. A strong belief held by the firm is that everyone needs to be physically near founders, talking to them and helping them.
Ryan Nece (Next Legacy Partners)
- On the topic of how to break into VC, Ryan shared how he faced numerous rejections as a minority GP and took a lot of personal sacrifices, such as being away from his family a lot, the first few years that he started out.
- Ryan has seen a number of huge wins during his venture career. But of course, there are also moments of failure. One (painful) example he shared was getting overly excited about a company, but only to see it file for bankruptcy within a year, because they were cooking up the books. That failure serves as a learning experience on doing thorough due diligence.
Fireside Chat (moderated by Caroline Winnett, Berkeley SkyDeck)
Byron Deeter (Bessemer Venture Partners)
- The VC industry has evolved a lot during the past few decades and there are a lot more paths to break into venture compared to when he first started out. Byron mentioned his own experience of getting turned down by 49 out of the 50 firms he asked to join, but you only need 1 "yes."
- Vintage matters a lot. The market is going through a hard time, but Byron is excited to see what vintage 2025 and beyond will perform.
- On the topic of what resonates with and attracts founders, the revelation the team has had is that founders don't necessarily want what you think they want. Some founders are the happiest when you give them space to work on their own thing and just be themselves.
