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Hadley Harris

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2016-02-03
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2016-02-03
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  1. “The last one that we did that is announced as a company here in New York called Photo with three H's. It's a social platform where you share moving pictures, kind of like a GIF, but you really have to see it. It's kind of unique. We love the team. It was three founders who had been working together and knew each other for a long time. Great kind of technical design focused team and they had great numbers, especially for a company raising a seed. They had self-funded for a while. I just can't share the numbers, but it's the kind of numbers that very close to probably being able to raise an A and we're very fortunate to be able to work with them.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Great question. I mean, underhyped for us, I think is mobile enterprise. I think you're going to see a lot of amazing companies come out and grow in the next five, ten years, both for desk and non-desk workers. I think there's going to be a sales force Oracle type company breakout that's mobile first. And I'm really looking forward to that. Overhyped, I mean, I'm a big fan and work, do a lot of work with social, but the problem is that everyone, social is very easy and everyone has an idea about a new social platform. So there just tends to be too many of them.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I use nozzle a lot to kind of curate all the stuff that people are reposting from Twitter and we work a lot with TechCrunch and I think they're great and I try to read TechCrunch every day.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Probably Don Valentine. I mean, I think he's kind of the godfather. And I especially like VCs. And this has to do with kind of my own path for sure, who not only were great investors, also were great entrepreneurs and also founded their funds. So for folks like him and Mark Andreessen, you know, top of my list because they've really, they're running their VCs like entrepreneurs.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yeah, I mean, I use Gmail with relate IQ kind of on top of it for all of our deal tracking and things like that. And I use Gmail kind of also as my to-do list. So I'm kind of constantly combing that list and getting rid of things. So that's kind of the way I generally operate.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I'd say freak economics. I'm not a huge reader of kind of books versus blogs and articles, but the one book I think I ever read kind of in one sitting. And I just found it fascinating.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “18 to 24, I think, is the right number. I think the two things that are going to help this in the future, and we really try, is one is the rise of precede. I know that London has a very good angel investing ecosystem here in the States. We also have a lot of preceded funds that they themselves are becoming pretty institutionalized. So generally when we look at companies they've raised already a half a million dollars and that's given them traction. We're participating or we're leading rounds of around a million and a half, two million dollars that can get them to where they need to do to raise the A. So I think it's about kind of raising the right amount of money and being honest with yourself and giving yourself that buffer so that if you do need to tweak the model or things are slower or you don't get the product to market as quick as you wanted, you can still be successful without having to raise the second seed. Now companies have certainly there's a bunch of companies that raise.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Yeah, for sure. I mean, we've seen a lot on both coasts here. We generally don't participate kind of as a new investor in those when we have companies that need to do that. We try and be a supportive as possible. I think one thing we've been trying to do for the last couple years is set ourselves up for success so that we won't have to do that. And I guess the two parts there is raising enough money in the seed that we have kind of 18 to 24 months to do what we need to do to get to the A. The biggest mistake I see is companies not raising a large enough seed and you look at it's like, well, there's really no room for anything to go wrong and anyone who's spent time with startups, that's not going to happen.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Actually, do pretty well on those. The aim is to invest in companies that will become self-sustaining long-term companies and hopefully great companies that IPO or can sustain themselves just based on their business. But the reality is a lot won't get there. And if they can have an exit that is successful for us, the founders and the employees, that's great too.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, I mean, I think every round is tough to a one degree or another. You could argue that probably the biggest drop-off happens between the seed and the A rather than the A and the B. And I think that's just because there is so much seed money and there are so many seed funds compared to A funds where you really that's kind of there's if you look at the funnel there's there's a lot of companies that just can't fit to that next stage. It's normal though. I think that just the way that things work and if you look at the relative valuations that people invest there that funds invest at seed versus A versus B versus C, if there wasn't a drop off then the market would have to correct itself. So I think it's normal and not every company can raise the follow-on rounds. Luckily for those that don't, we've been fortunate to have a lot of those companies acquired.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Are ones that kind of in their everyday life as an employee or as a consumer notice something they want to fix and then instead of maybe they can't find a solution so they say hey I can create the great great solution this and I can change the world so we really try and find folks that that are thinking that way”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, that's a great question. I think it depends on the situation because different founders can be very different and still be great founders. I think it's all about spending a lot of time with those founders talking through the business, getting to know them, getting to understand their motivations, getting to know the other important people in the team, whether they be co-founders or kind of early employees. It's really about getting an understanding for what makes them tick. The great founders we find have a passion for what they're doing that's beyond just monetary. They want to solve a problem and change the world in some way. So we really try and kind of get into that. Probably the type of team we like least kind of in this area is teams that kind of stumble upon a problem or they just trying to find a problem to fix the best team.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Those are perfectly aligned. Sometimes they're a little farther apart, and we don't always agree, and sometimes we won't invest in a company and maybe there's an investor that believes it's worth a little bit more than they do that. I would say 19 out of 20, we're able to agree on a valuation. And it's more about wanting to work together and coming to something that we're comfortable with rather than kind of a pure negotiation. I think the best entrepreneurs know that valuation is not the most important thing. It's about pulling together.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, it is. It is. A lot of the companies when we invest, almost very few of them have revenue. Some of the B2B companies do, almost none of the consumer companies do. We generally invest post-launch, so there is some metrics, but it can be extremely early. And sometimes we do invest pre-launch if the based on the team and the market they're going after. Unfortunately, there's just not a lot of data and the idea of kind of doing it from using some sort of formula is just not an option. I think it's you kind of get it from the market, what other kind of companies have similar attributes are raising at companies that we've invested in the past. And then to a certain degree, there is a little bit of a negotiation in there as well where we have our own opinion what it's worth. Maybe the entrepreneurs have one.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I think that entrepreneurs, as well as the investors, need to have some flexibility to make sure that everyone's aligned.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, no, I think it's one of the hardest things to do. We've been fortunate that we haven't had one yet, so I can't kind of speak to this in terms of experience. I'm sure it will happen. It's just bound to happen based on the way things work. But I think that everyone being the employees, the founders, and the investors have to work together. And there's going to have to be some flexibility to make sure that everyone's fully vested and not vested from an equity point of view, but within the company kind of morale-wise, to your point. I think having founders and employees that are properly motivated and focused on the future and are all in is probably the most important thing. No great company has been created from people that weren't 100% focused and really kind of living and breathing the company.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, I think I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I generally think that the company itself and what they're doing and their potential is certainly the most important thing. That said, if you consistently overpay, it will be very hard to have good returns for our investors. So I think we want to work with the entrepreneurs to come up with valuations that make sense for them that fairly value their company, but also set them up for success in the future. I think there's a lot of companies now, especially at the later stages that are going to have a lot of issues in the next year because they raised rounds at too high a valuation. The market has corrected, and now they need to raise rounds down rounds or flat rounds. And that's going to really hurt the entrepreneurs in terms of liquidation. It's going to hurt the investors. And it's also going to hurt the employees that have all those stock options. So I think you need to”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I like those guys a lot. We have a lot of co investments with them, so I think they're great investors. I don't agree with the idea of not following on in your good companies. I think we tend to be as supportive as we can. I think our companies generally want us to follow on so that we can, one, stay involved, but show a commitment to the new investors. So when our companies raise a strong follow-on round from a new investor, we generally follow on. And that's, I can't say it's a rule because each situation is different, but we do our best to be as supportive as possible. Which is fair enough. But if you always follow when they raise a new round from a new investor, you also get around any signaling issues.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, no, it absolutely is. I think we work with different companies in different ways depending on the company's needs. One of the things that we always are very involved with is follow-on funding. Our model is to take our pro rata in the follow-on rounds, but we would never lead a series A or B or something like that given our size and our focus. But we forged really strong relationships with all of the A, B, and beyond investors. If you think about it, we're almost like this will be an American analogy, but the minor leagues for them. So we're funding companies and they can keep an eye on they know that we know what we're doing and we can surface the companies who would be a great fit for them. You know, if there's a partner at a fund who's very focused on enterprise mobility, for example, we know that we have a company that's a great enterprise mobile company to bring it to them as opposed to partners or other funds.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Well, you know, a lot of the companies that we've backed are still relatively young. Airbnb is a situation where we sold the company to them early on. And then so I think we got, we were very fortunate that they've become the company that they have. I can't take any credit for their dominance in their market. We have a bunch of companies that we backed when we started 2010, 2011 that are getting to be sizable companies in their markets. But it takes a long time to create a Google type company. In the grand scheme of things, a lot of our companies are still small. They're certainly private. They're kind of at the stage where they're starting to raise Series C is kind of the furthest along. We have a handful of those types of companies. But I think if things go well, I would love to see them get to the point where they will be IPOing. But it's a long way from the Series C to an IPO.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, I mean, I think New York amazingly has come a long way without a real pure anchor. There are certainly companies that were acquired, that were sizable. You don't have a Facebook type company that has IPO'd and is really a self-sustaining company that will last a long time. I believe that there will be those in New York. But it's come a long way without it. I think if there are those types of companies, those Facebook, Google, Apple type companies.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “San Francisco, about a quarter were in New York and about a quarter were elsewhere. I mean, we're generally geographically agnostic. So I'm a big believer that New York will continue to grow into a very interesting place to start companies. There's a ton of talent. It's a place where people want to live. There's a lot of other industries that I think the technology can feed off of and change in a lot of different ways. But I think we're still quite pretty far from it being the size of the valley just in terms of having those large companies that can kick off people that can start the new companies. I think it'll continue to grow for sure.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Yeah, it's interesting. I go back and forth a lot between San Francisco and New York. And then when we first started, I was kind of doing something. So I was spending a lot of time in Boston, probably the three largest U.S. tech centers. Maybe you throw LA into the mix there now. But yeah, it's interesting. New York has definitely grown a lot. It had always been not well respected in the venture scene. Traditionally, certainly San Francisco and the Valley number one, I think Boston had kind of been the second biggest hub and there were places like Seattle. And New York was always seen as something that was had certainly big industries for sure finance and media, fashion, real estate, all these other areas, but tech had never really taken off. I think it's gotten to the point where it's clearly the second biggest market if you look at kind of money invested. It's still quite a bit smaller. If you look at kind of our investments last year, about half were in sale.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I know. But luckily, the one thing that we all knew turned out to be a good area and something that's become kind of predominant.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “At that time, there were other things that were quote unquote hot, like cleantech, for example, and we were very fortunate not to go into that area. What a shame.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Yeah, I think it was two main reasons. The first is that we were just at a belief that that was the next evolution of computing back in 2009, 2010. Interestingly, a lot of the VCs that we had worked with as entrepreneurs who are very well respected VCs and continue to be very well respected. And nothing against them, but a lot of them told us that it was too niche that we needed to be broader. I don't think anyone's really saying that now if you look at kind of the percentage of funds that go into something that we would consider to be mobile first. And then I guess probably more importantly it was what we knew. So we had all been involved with starting and growing mobile companies, I think about 12 between the four of us. So, you know, I think you really need to invest and work with what you know. And if you want to be helpful to your entrepreneurs as an investor, you need to have a lot of domain knowledge.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of engineering as a discipline. I think it teaches a lot of problem solving. So just at a high level, even for folks that aren't necessarily utilizing that technical background, I think it's a great background to have just for thinking about young students that are considering different paths. More specifically with me, I think having an engineering background and kind of having built products before I think gives me a better understanding of the types of things our entrepreneurs are building. Now, of course, so many things have changed in terms of the tools and the languages that I would be completely useless if I actually had to build something now. But having the background, I think at least lets me kind of understand, even if at a high level some of the things they're going through as they're building their products.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “And started putting together what became ENIAC Ventures, our VC fund, we started investing in 2010 and are now on our third fund, which is entirely focused on seed stage and then even more specifically on mobile first companies, companies that leverage the proliferation of connected devices.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Yeah, sure. I mean, I've always been really interested in technology, even as a kid, I loved science and math, studied engineering as a university student, and then have really been in technology my entire life. I worked as an engineer for a while, spent some time at some larger companies like Microsoft and Samsung, and then a couple of venture-backed businesses, one called Flingo and one called Thumb, where I was one of the first employees and an executive at both places running marketing and BD and a bunch of stuff and product. Amazing experience got to work with great people, both companies were fortunate to be acquired. So I got to kind of live through that whole life cycle. And then back in 2009, started talking to three of my really good friends from university. We were all engineering students at Penn back in the late 90s, and they were all entrepreneurs as well.”

    2016-02-03 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Evolution Of Mobile & The Importance Of Follow On Funding with Hadley Harris @ Eniac Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source