Back to Accel to Find the Future

I am excited to announce that I am re-joining Accel as an Executive in Residence.

I feel fortunate to have had the chance to work with Sameer Gandhi and the Accel team since 2010 in not just one, but in three different capacities -- as an Entrepreneur in Residence, as the founder and CEO of Endorse, and last as an executive at portfolio company Dropbox. I love building and scaling technology companies and there is no better time and place than Accel to do so.

I first met Sameer and the team during the fundraising process for my first company, Cake Financial (acquired by E*Trade) in 2009.  While the team ultimately passed on investing, we developed a strong relationship and continued to share ideas.  After selling Cake, I created the TechCrunch Teardown, a series of in-depth analyses of fast-growing companies (Etsy, Groupon, brand advertising, consumer business models) many of which were part of the Accel family. I was thrilled when I was later invited to join as an Entrepreneur in Residence in 2010.

I had developed the thesis that the Facebook brand ecosystem would eventually connect to offline consumption in stores. While Accel’s early Facebook bet is well documented, Sameer and the team worked tirelessly to connect Facebook and startups who were trying to augment the value of the network. It was a natural fit to build Endorse, an early mobile offers platform, with Sameer, who shared our vision for connecting Facebook, consumer brands, and the people that buy their products. Endorse was acquired by Dropbox in 2013, when the company was just 300 people.

After Dropbox acquired Endorse, I had the chance to work closely with Drew, Arash and Sujay, and later, Dennis, to help Dropbox for Business to scale across the world. I built the blueprint for company's international expansion into APAC and EMEA. I also managed the Dropbox for Business enterprise sales team and, ultimately, launched and led Dropbox for Business verticals initiatives for education and media. During this  hyper-growth period the company scaled to  2,000 Dropboxers world-wide.

So what does an Executive in Residence do? This is a unique role that differs from my previous “Entrepreneur in Residence” role. Rather than start a company from scratch, the Executive in Residence purview gives me the privileged opportunity to help as many entrepreneurs as I can to build their companies and to help them solve difficult problems. Since I am not a VC, I can serve as an unbiased, but interested 3rd party to provide objective guidance in an open manner.

I will be working closely with Accel’s existing portfolio companies in the consumer and enterprise spaces while looking for new investment opportunities for the firm where I can serve in a senior leadership role.

Breakaway companies like GoFundMe, Slack, InVision, Grovo, Invoice2Go, and Segment are establishing themselves at a faster speed than ever before as business models are emerging earlier in a company life-cycle. These are the types of companies I love to help.

I am especially interested in helping consumer and enterprise companies with the following characteristics:

• Visionary founding team with huge, global opportunity: Big markets that are being re-constructed due to technological disruption and a team that wants to, and has the core talent to win;
• Industry-defining product and user experience: With so many legacy systems, outdated workflows, and traditional inefficient processes, every industry and function can be rethought with the best design and product -- and it’s difficult for the competition to replicate and to play catch-up;
• Network effects and data as a competitive advantage: Great experiences create insights into the product and the users that find value in the product; startups that leverage their proprietary network and data for unique insights are at a competitive advantage;
• Self-serve model: While I am a big believer in the power of direct and channel sales and business development, a proven self-serve model provides three distinct advantages: attractive early economics, a customer funnel to learn and to manage, and powerful product insights to improve the experience;
• International demand: Industry-defining experiences know no geographic bounds anymore and strong international demand is something that can be, and should be, a priority;
• Unique culture and vision: Teams that want to win big, can attract and retain the best people for their particular vision, and have a unique reason for being in business.

I’d love to meet you and see how I can help you build your business. Please send me an email [email protected] if you would like to connect.