Expo Founders Podcast Series

Daphne and I were recently interviewed by John Ince for Pod Venture Zone and Podtech. Here are five separate podcasts for those interested:
User generated video product reviews
Social commerce
Business models in new media
Mixing marriage and business
Staffing a start-up

Add comment April 15th, 2007

Finding ‘the Guy’

I’d be remiss if I didn’t close out this section on angels and initial board members by talking about importance of finding “the guy”. I’m sure I’ll talk more about this later, but when I was a VC, the CEOs I worked with talked about what a lonely job it was because ultimately you’re responsible for payroll, for hiring and firing and for generating revenues. Remember, these were VC-backed companies, so you can only imagine how hard it is for an angel-backed company.

In our case, we lucked into a solution which was that we had a “guy” who was with us every step of the way. We didn’t know him before the initial round of funding, but he came in through one of the people networks that formed and he became the Board member representing the angels (always give your angels a board representative…see also “What You Owe Your Angel Investors”). He was a great board member. But much more than that, he owned our situation in his bones. Death was not an option and that internal fortitude on his part was critical in getting us over many rough spots early in the business. How do you find ‘the guy’? Great question. But I think you’ll know him when you seen him. If you’re not sure, ask him to read this post and see what he says. Maybe he’ll identify himself as the “anti-guy” (see below) and you can decide it’s better if he’s just a passive investor.

I think some people end up with the “anti-guy” (sees himself as adding value by being a tough on management & trying to make very rational decisions each step along), and that’s pretty much a terminal disease.

Add comment April 15th, 2007