Areas to collaborate between VCs and Founders: Knowledge sharing and networking

As the context keeps changing rapidly, founders need to understand what is happening in the startup ecosystem and broader markets. Even though every company is unique, some principles remain the same and can be applied across sectors and models, from which any founder can learn. Different levers are needed at various scales to unlock value for each company. This is where networking and knowledge sharing really matter.?

We believe in quality over quantity. Hence, we may be doing limited things, but whatever we do, we try our best to offer the highest quality so that this can be relevant and beneficial for founders. Here are multiple ways in which we try to contribute to the success of our portfolio companies:

1. Roundtables: We conduct founder sessions and invite founders, prospecting company founders, and SMEs to discuss varied topics. It’s a great platform to connect and learn from each other’s experiences. Founders share their learnings on certain areas, such as marketing, distribution, strategy, etc., with other founders in the portfolio; e.g., one of our portfolio companies shared valuable insights on performance marketing, which were highly appreciated by all the participating founders. These valuable insights can help them overcome similar problems and challenges.
2. Benchmarking: “Are we doing this well enough?” is something most founders ask themselves. Helping founders benchmark key metrics against other companies can help in directional push, as they can identify potential areas for improvement. This is important, especially in functions like performance marketing (CAC, CPMs, and CTRs), operations, and supply chain.
3. Community: Founders can spend a lot of time identifying the right solutions and still may end up with suboptimal choices. This is where the power of community kicks in, as nothing beats human intelligence. We can guide companies toward the right solutions by leveraging our experience and helping them with the right tools, partners, vendors, etc. that have worked with other companies.
4. Operating playbook: Our team works with each portfolio company in a highly collaborative manner with the primary objective of creating value. We can also help in getting experts and advisors, some of whom can be investors themselves, who can also be part of the board of companies and advise them on key decisions along the way.
5. Strategic partnerships: VC funds generally have acquaintances or partnerships with Meta, 3PL partners, payment gateways, AWS, and performance marketing specialists. Founders can leverage these partnerships to gain quick access to these platforms and get guidance if facing challenges.
6. Hiring: We can help founders connect with talent who have previously been part of growth journeys and strongly believe that building the right team around the founder can be most useful. We conduct a future founders event annually where our founders can scout the best talent and have 1-on-1 discussions with them.
7. Fundraising: Early-stage funds have partners in venture debt, bankers, late-stage funds, etc.; and can provide necessary introductions for the next round of fund infusion. They can also help founders be better prepared for fund-raising discussions.
8. Monitoring: We monitor key performance metrics across our portfolio companies on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. This can help advise founders on best practices and fix short-term issues that can have longer-term impacts. For one of our portfolio companies, we advised them to start tracking NPS and benchmarking it to help them design initiatives to overcome the low repeat rate.

Founders should leverage the knowledge base and network of their VC investors to gain insights and guidance on some of the challenges they are facing. Through active collaboration, this can create a win-win strategy for both the founders and their investors.