October 26, 2017

We announced yesterday that we are looking for a general counsel for Foundry Group. While Jason has proclaimed himself a recovering lawyer for some time now, in reality, he’s been doing the high-level legal work for us since we started Foundry Group. He also runs our fund operations and is a full-time venture capitalist, so it is time to get him some help.

When our prior fund hired Jason as our general counsel, I wasn’t even part of the decision. Back then, people would just show up and occupy various offices. I wasn’t sure that we needed an in-house lawyer, but over the years I realized the importance of this role. In fact, I’ve had several outstanding lawyers, including Len Fassler and Jerry Poch, as mentors, so I occasionally play the role of Jason’s “junior associate” on legal issues that we (and the companies we invest in) face.

One thing I will say about our business – it’s never boring. (Okay, maybe some of the board meetings are, but I’ll leave that one for another day). I think this role will be an incredibly interesting experience for someone who wants to practice in a multitude of areas both for us as a firm but also in helping out our portfolio companies. Jason has been doing this job longer than anyone I know, so getting to work alongside him will be a great learning experience.

If you are interested, email a cover page and resume to Jason Mendelson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

I look forward to working with one of you.

Also published on Medium.

A few weeks ago I was in Atlanta for Techstars Atlanta Demo Day and the Venture Atlanta Conference. I had a great time and it’s fun to see the vibrancy of the Atlanta startup community. My brother Daniel came with me and we had dinner with our cousin Kenny, who lives in Atlanta, so we got some nice, quiet, emotionally intimate family time.

My favorite keynote at Venture Atlanta was from Scott Dorsey. While our paths have intersected for more than a decade and I knew him from a distance, I’ve gotten to know Scott pretty well over the past year. I put him in the awesome category.

If you don’t know Scott, he was the co-founder and CEO of ExactTarget (2000) – one of the original SaaS companies. ExactTarget went public in 2012 and was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2013 for $2.5 billion and became the core of the current Salesforce Marketing Cloud. He was on the Salesforce.com leadership team until he left to start High Alpha in 2015.

If you are doing something SaaS related and you don’t know or follow what Scott says, you should.

At Venture Atlanta, part of his keynote was a riff on the Attributes of Great SaaS Leaders. While the web is peppered with SaaS metrics and the state of SaaS, there’s a dearth of CEO-centric qualitative information. While Scott’s attributes could be for any leader, they are particularly relevant to SaaS CEOs given the dynamic of how high-growth SaaS companies – and great leadership teams – need to work to scale.

His five attributes, which he went deeper on individually in the keynote, reflect his personality and leadership style.

1. Start with the end in mind
2. Are always learning
3. Value team and culture above everything
4. Are both optimistic and never satisfied
5. Give back!

For those of you that are Simon Sinek fans, starting with the end in mind is analogous to starting with your Why. Are always learning is the essence of being a leader in a super high growth rapidly changing world which most SaaS companies operate in. Valuing team and culture above everything is easy to say, but extremely hard to do, especially when your VCs are pressuring you to perform at a certain financial level for rational, or irrational, reasons. Are both optimistic and never satisfied is interestingly similar to Andy Grove’s “only the paranoid survive” while at the same time having a completely different tone.

If you know me, it won’t surprise you that I almost jumped out of my seat at the event and did a happy dance when Scott started talking about Give back! I know I need to train him to say “Give First”, but it’s the same concept. Scott was a leader here, with the creation of the ExactTarget Foundation (now Nextech) in 2011. Nextech works to elevate technical, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills of K-12 students, inspiring and enabling young people from all backgrounds to pursue careers in technology, so he’s been ahead of the curve on the importance of computer science and technical skills in K-12, something which is a big part of addressing many of the social and educational gaps in our country.

Indianapolis’ startup community, like Atlanta’s, is thriving. There’s no question in my mind that Scott’s leadership has contributed to this in a meaningful way.

All of this comes back to the idea that as a leader you should play a very long game. Scott does this brilliantly and it’s been hugely educational and inspiring to me to get to know him.

Also published on Medium.

October 24, 2017

My partner Lindel just put a post up on the Foundry Group website about our investment in K9 Ventures. We are proud to be an LP in Manu Kumar’s third fund.

I’ve been friends with Manu since 2009 and an investor (personally) in his first two funds. I vividly remember the first time we met – we were both sitting on the floor in the back corner at the fbFund Demo Day at the Facebook office in downtown Palo Alto. A number of interesting companies were presented.

I adore Manu. I love his style, his energy, and his intellect. We’ve had many conversations over the years where he’s reached out to me with a specific question about something and it’s clear that I’m one of several people he was calling to collect data on something that would inform his decision. It’s a classic engineer / rational problem-solving approach that appeals to me. While Manu went to CMU, his style is similar to many of my MIT friends.

Not surprisingly, Manu still had our first email exchange. I love the minor “grapewine” typo in the first sentence.

From: Manu Kumar <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:58 PM
Subject: TechStars Demo Day in Mountain View, CA
To: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Brad,

Your posting below was forwarded to me over the grapewine. I’m actively investing in startups in the Bay Area and have been aware of some of the companies that have emerged from TechStars. Would love to attend and hear the pitches at your Demo Day in Mountain View.

You can see my full background on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/sneaker. It looks like we know several other folks in common too… look forward to meeting you.

Best regards,

-Manu

While we must not have met there, I’m glad we were both in the back of the room the following summer. Our next meeting was lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto called Mandarin Gourmet. It was during that meal that Manu told me about the fund he was raising. I made a commitment to invest at the end of lunch and we’ve been working together ever since.

Also published on Medium.