Building the perfect machine

If the goal is to do something exceptional, nothing is more important than building a great team. It is very rare that success is a truly individual discipline. Whether one is talking about world-class researchers, top-tier tennis players or sought-after start-up founders, stellar results are the outgrowth of carefully coordinated and chemically-balanced team efforts. I had the benefit of witnessing this first-hand during my Wall Street career and subsequently in my time as an angel and venture investor. The best leaders consistently attract and retain the best teams. But doing this requires a level of self-awareness and humility that is hard to find in nature. 

Team-building is hard because it is partly a function of filling in gaps, not only in bandwidth but also in ability and skills. And for super motivated, opinionated, stubborn, high-performing individuals, it isn’t always easy to say “I suck at this: I really need to get someone who is much better than me and from whom I can learn.” But the best find a way to do this. And this isn’t just about Mark and Sheryl or Larry, Sergey and Eric, but about every start-up, every large corporation, and every focused unit where there is a concrete mission and a need for diverse skills and perspectives to achieve the mission. Running a bake sale. A Little League. A product team. It doesn’t matter: the requirements are the same.

My experience in constructing the IA Ventures team is a microcosm of the team-building challenge. When I first conceived of the firm, I recognized that to fulfill my vision of being the go-to seed stage venture partner for all things data I needed several elements, many of which I did not possess:

• Deep technical and product knowledge, Ph.D-level depth plus years of practical experience, that could be used to both assess and advise companies on technical issues such as scaling, managing the release cycle and bridging the gap between technology and product. This is a skill set and range of experiences I definitely did not have.

• Operational start-up experience, as one who has started a company, built the infrastructure, models and controls, yet has the skill sets of a financial manager that can help advise seed stage companies on modeling, budgeting and tactical decision-making. My experiences touch these areas but don’t represent the ways in which I can personally be most valuable as an investor, adviser, mentor, strategist and partner.

• Higher-order financial modeling skills together with a voracious appetite and aptitude for understanding markets, analyzing the competitive landscape and constantly asking questions to keep our firm’s thinking rational and pure. This is an essential part of the connective tissue that keeps everything humming among the firm, the portfolio and the market.

To this end I went out and was able to lasso Brad and Ben, and subsequently Justin and now Jesse. They are all awesome but they are awesome not merely as individuals but because of the separate yet distinct roles they play on the team. Brad sits on a handful of Boards but has helped most if not all of IA Ventures portfolio companies as a sounding board on technical issues, tech recruiting, product roadmap and myriad other topics. Ben also has his complement of Board seats but has certainly helped the majority of IA Ventures’ companies with their budgeting, staffing and financing strategies. And Jesse is a gem of a resource that has literally helped several companies rebuild their financial models, perform very targeted research and stay on top of market developments. And I lead several investments while assisting all companies in our portfolio with financing strategy, business development, recruiting and ensuring that our portfolio company teams know each other and ways in which they might help each other. Rather than feel threatened that I have teammates and partners who are better than me at a bunch of stuff, I am so thankful that our team - the machine - is working well for the benefit of our company partners, our LPs and our firm. It was a very deliberate process and it has been the single most important thing I’ve done since starting IA Ventures. Without all elements of the team we wouldn’t be where we are today.

For the last 25 years I’ve been in pursuit of the perfect machine, that just-right group of people with whom to pursue a shared mission. Sounds a lot like the challenges of our founders, no? It is. Team first. Because with a great team, achieving even big, honking, seemingly insane and audacious goals are comfortably within reach.

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Play your game

I’ve written a lot about the importance of focus among start-up teams. This is a very closely held belief. Develop a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. If proven, move forward and add gas. If disproven stop, take stock, and determine whether or not to gin up a new hypothesis or go home.

The same is true for investors. All the noise around crowdfunding, party deals and all-angel rounds changing the face of the venture industry doesn’t resonate with me. What it does say is that there is more seed stage capital available from a broader array of sources that will give more chances to more people to start companies. All I have to say is: Bravo!

But to be clear, I don’t perceive this as a threat to early stage venture for many reasons. As a venture investor who is comfortable with the way I and my partners do business, I am confident that teams which see the value in working with us will choose to work with us regardless of the other options out there. Also, more interesting businesses seeded by others provides us with additional data concerning product/market fit, adoption and engagement that can go into our decision-making and relationship-building process. Nothing scary here.

Also, I’ve found that many seed stage start-ups actually want a heavier-weight, more engaged lead investor than a more diffuse group of awesome investors but where no single investor has a deep commitment to the company’s success. I completely acknowledge that lots of start-ups don’t feel they want or need this at the seed stage, and that’s totally ok. But those often aren’t the start-ups that we’re investing in. It’s just not our game.

But the bottom line is that for us it isn’t necessarily about leading or following, small investment or larger check. It is much more about team fit and excitement for the mission. Because when there is great chemistry and trust between ourselves and our founder partners, the relationship tends to work itself out in ways that benefit both parties. We might want to buy up in the company, and the team is psyched to get us more involved and more economically aligned with them. And when this happens it is an incredibly exciting and fulfilling thing.

But the key message is: know what you’re about, forget about what other people are doing and be comfortable in your own skin. Successful venture investing is a long time scale business, and the results of investment decisions will stay with you for years. So be confident. Be comfortable. And by all means do not simply follow the pack because it’s popular. Make no mistake, it’s hard to stay strong against the trend when others seem really successful and are getting all the kudos. But don’t fall prey to this dynamic. Just play your game.

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Some thoughts on JPM

With the web afire with criticism over JP Morgan’s recently announced (and unexpected) $2 billion trading loss, a few “life lessons” came to mind as to how Jamie Dimon - and his PR department - bungled this badly:

Know the facts before taking a stand. When news of a “London Whale” came to light a month ago, and this trader was linked to JP Morgan, Dimon issued a strenuous denial that his was a big deal. According to the Wall Street Journal, and I’d tend to agree with them, Dimon didn’t understand the true extent of his trader’s activities or the risks it posed to the firm. Fast-forward to today: he looks like a terrible leader, one who allowed a trader one of the biggest risk books on the planet without knowing how it was impacting the firm’s financial position. Why on earth would he make a statement about this trader’s activities without truly understanding their impact in depth? His typical bravado backfired in this case. He should have heard the rumblings, did a deep forensic dive into the facts, developed a view and then communicated to the media. He chose not to follow this approach and got absolutely skewered. And deservedly so. He failed Crisis Management 101. Perhaps he should have learned from J&J’s handling of the Tylenol scare. Lives may not be at risk here, but given how far out on a limb he had gone in denying any problem (and now knowledge of the problem) his PR morass is pretty hairy.

Avoid taking self-righteous positions. For all the skill and opportunism with which Dimon navigated JP Morgan through the financial crisis, he has long touted his emphasis on risk management and on prudent risk-taking. He specifically sought to paint his firm as distinctly different than those “cowboys” at Bear Stearns, Lehman and the other investment banks. Better diversification. Greater breadth. Better risk controls. These were the hallmarks of JP Morgan as a world-beater, largely immune to the troubles of its bulge bracket peers. Both the communication breakdown and lack of risk controls giving rise to this massive loss are completely at odds with his characterization of the firm. If you put yourself on the top of Mt. Olympus, you are always prone to a nasty fall if messaging and reality are found to be mis-aligned - as they are in this case.

Stop thinking that VaR has any linkage with reality. While Dimon himself may not have been aware of the magnitude of the Whale’s risk position, certainly his risk managers were. And if they were using VaR, they should be skewered as should Dimon. Have we learned nothing? I was musing about problems with VaR and Sharpe Ratio six years ago, and in between we’ve seen the 2008 crisis and myriad mini-crises in between, and the fact that VaR is still a bedrock of financial disclosure - and financial risk management - is chilling. But hey, we’re still in a world where there are huge arguments over the imposition of true mark-to-market accounting rules, enabling financial firms to present something less than a true picture of how assets and liabilities are valued on a liquidation basis. We should isolate long-term assets and liabilities - those that are truly match-funded on a duration adjusted basis. Then we should look at those short-term assets and liabilities and look at the costs for hedging out the residual risks, understanding the market’s assessment of the true mark-to-market exposure. Why this isn’t current best practice for disclosure is beyond me, but at the very least these tools should be employed within all financial firms, not only the JP Morgan’s of the world (though given their systemic importance they should be mandated by both regulators and the FASB). 

Acknowledge that the SEC will forever be playing catch-up. The metaphors that come to mind are Network Security Specialists vs. Black Hat Hackers. Or WADA (the world anti-doping authority) vs. Steroid Using Cheaters. It is a classic good guys vs. bad guys conflict (though I am operating on the assumption that the SEC are the “good guys” - I believe they are trying, just failing). They are out-manned. Out-paid. Out-incentivized. Out of luck. The fact that Mary Schapiro just uttered “I think it’s safe to say that all the regulators are focused on this” is akin to the fire department showing up after the house has burned down. The system is broken. The accounting rules are flawed. Risk analysis and disclosure is flawed. And the regulatory framework is broken as well. Losses of this nature should not come as a surprise. They have and will continue to occur in the absence of common sense disclosure and elimination of all the obfuscation that has been allowed to pervade balance sheets for generations. It’s just that the ante has risen given the magnitude of the risks being borne, the inter-connectedness of the major players in the financial system and the complexity of the tools being used to take risk. It’s not your father’s bond and risk arbitrage portfolios any more: it’s derivatives of all shapes, sizes and liquidity. Until rigorous mark-to-market rules are enacted that facilitate the transparency required to regulate properly, the SEC is fighting a losing battle. All good things stem from transparency. But a broken SEC is good for shareholder-funded speculators. The longer it stays broken, the longer they get to continue making asymmetric bets in their favor (heads I win - tails you lose).

While to many the JP Morgan trading revelations might have been shocking, they should’t have been. The system for deeply understanding financial institutions’ risk is flawed, both inside and outside the house. Until this fundamental weakness is addressed, it doesn’t really matter what the SEC does. Our banks have more than enough latitude to get themselves - and our financial system - in trouble.

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Board member vs. mentor dynamics

As a venture investor, I spend a ton of time trying to as helpful as I can be to my portfolio companies. Most of my regular contact is with the CEO and founder. I actively try to understand what they most need from me and to give it to them. Sometimes it is functional help: thinking through their financial model, hiring plans, financing strategy, etc. Other times it is help “closing the deal” with key accounts or recruits. But there are moments when what they really need is a confidant, someone whom they trust and who can give them truthful, unvarnished feedback and perspective in a safe environment. This is a role that I very much want to fill, but sometimes structural dynamics makes this hard if not impossible. The reason: as a Board member, I play an important role in reviewing and paying the CEO as well as potentially even relieving them of their duties. It is a relationship laden with potential landmines because of the issues such as fiduciary responsibility, money and power.

The role of the Board has been written about both extensively and well. Suffice it to say, a good Board is a very powerful tool for helping a CEO achieve a Company’s full potential. However, as noted above, members of the Board are not a proxy for a trusted advisers or independent mentors. They may act as advisers and mentors, but in a highly bounded manner because of their power to act on the CEOs words. External advisers and mentors have no such power and don’t have split loyalties, whereas the Board member has fiduciary duties to their own Limited Partners in addition to all stockholders of the Company. It is a delicate dance that by definition causes CEOs to avoid full disclosure and share the true depths of concerns weighing on their minds and in their hearts.

This is why it is critical for CEOs to cultivate a rich set of mentors and advisers to whom they can turn for hard questions and candid insights in a private manner. Building and running a company, especially a start-up, is incredibly difficult and stressful, and it is critical that the person bearing the brunt of expectations have a release valve. It’s just that this release valve sometimes can’t be a member of the Board.

As an investor and partner with management I believe deeply in the value of a strong Board of Directors. However, as an investor and partner with management I also feel passionately that CEOs have a portfolio of people outside the Company from whom they can get honest advice without worrying about disclosure. Both roles are essential to the building of a healthy Company (and the maintenance of a healthy and well-adjusted CEO!).  I have lots of experience playing both roles, and it is hard to say which one I like better. I think the potentially more interesting question is which role actually conveys the greatest influence - legitimate authority (as a Board member) or expert authority (as a mentor). It would make for an interesting debate.

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Entrepreneurship and optionality don’t mix

Laser focus vs. keeping options open. This is an eternal struggle faced by start-up founders and corporate CEOs alike. While focus brings both purpose and increased odds of meeting a particular goal, leaders are plagued by the fear of “What if the goal I’ve achieved is the wrong goal?  I’ll have hurt the company, my reputation, my ego and my career in one fell swoop.” This dynamic was outlined in a recent Harvard Business Review article discussing Apple’s success in the wake of Steve Jobs’ return:

But then my Apple lunch companion wondered aloud: “Why don’t more CEOs bring greater clarity to what their companies should not be doing?” It’s a significant question. 

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In some ways, it makes perfect sense. CEOs often want to keep their options open. If they put all of their energy behind a single idea and it goes wrong, they will feel the full brunt of the blame. Yet, by pursuing too many priorities, these CEOs may actually be risking future success even more.

My friend and co-investor Mark Suster raised a similar point in a post published today:

It’s tempting to take on new projects, new features, new geographies, new speaking opportunities, whatever. Each one incrementally sounds like a good idea, yet collectively they end up punishing undisciplined teams. I like to counsel that the best teams are often defined by what they choose not to do.

This is an area where we spend a tremendous amount of time with our companies. We are passionate about focus, especially at the earliest stages where distractions often mean not shipping software, and not shipping means not being close to customers and getting feedback, which essentially means flying blind. Once a start-up begins living in its head and not in the market working to make customers happy, the chances of actually achieving happy customers and product/market fit fall off a cliff. This frequently happens in nascent markets, where the possibilites to make customers happy seem endless and inexperienced but eager managements want to keep all options open until it is virtually certain what customers want. In real life, however, this is not the way it works. 

Success - and failure - is bred of having a hypothesis, aggressively testing that hypothesis, collecting feedback, seeing if the original hypothesis has been proven or disproven and going from there. If the hypothesis has been proven, fantastic. Live close to the customer, identify KPIs, use cohort analysis to inform tweaks to optimize the user experience and scale like crazy. If the hypothesis has not been proven, however, there are a few options:

1. Pack it in - you are far away from something real people care about and the learnings you’ve derived don’t spark a new and better hypothesis;
2. Refine the original hypothesis - while you haven’t demonstrated product/market fit and created happy users, you have learned enough such that the original hypothesis can be modified in light of user feedback and a new product can be developed an introduced. 

Either of these are perfectly reasonable outcomes, because they involve being in the market, testing with real users and applying the full resources of the company to the challenge of achieving product/market fit with a single product. It is hard to do this in a disciplined manner with even one product much less a diffuse set of products, ideas or hypotheses. In order to really test a hypothesis I believe founding teams need to “burn the boats” - go all-in on a particular hypothesis and see it through. While it might seem smart to keep options open by spreading resources across several initiatives, in reality this only lowers the likelihood of any one initiative actually succeeding. Making customers happy requires maniacal focus, focus that is impossible to achieve when preserving optionality is a primary goal.

Venture capitalists have inherent optionality by virtue of portfolio diversification. Great entrepreneurs have no such luxury. They are all-in on a particular idea or hypothesis. It succeeds or it fails, is proven or disproven. If failure is done well, it can either lead to success in the current venture or spark success in future ventures. Founders who fail well are generally viewed with respect by the angel and venture communities and have the chance to start over. This is where valuable “founder optionality” comes in. But intra-venture founder optionality? I don’t think so.

Founding is hard and scary yet also emancipating. If you’re going to do it, then do it. Don’t hedge. Go all-in and do it well. Because if you do, succeed or fail, you will have the kind of optionality that really matters - the chance to try again. 

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