YouSaid · the spoken record

Max Gazor

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20
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2017-08-02
most recent
2017-08-02
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1
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  1. “The most recent public investment I made is a company called Airtable. That's right, that's how we live. Serial entrepreneur, just an amazing founder. And what we saw, I messed an Airtable when it was three people. And really, going back to the conviction and how we build conviction, I met Howie, I met the team and I just fell in love with him and immediately I knew that they're going to build a very, very big company. And if you spend time with Howie's, it sounds like you may. You just know what I'm talking about. He's got that fire and that conviction around the idea and building something big that we just love. But in particular, the investment thesis that we got excited about was this concept of the unbundling of Excel and we felt like Airtable could become the all-in-one collaboration platform that could kind of redefine how consumers think about productivity software. It's got the breadth of functionality, but also the depth, and it's a very powerful product that's delivered with a very clean and simple UI.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Well, we talked about AI for a second, and I think that in these fast moving waters, when you think you have a technological advantage, I think there is some advantage to kind of keeping quiet where you feel that there's a timing advantage where you don't want people to kind of take and run with a similar concept. There's definitely a scarcity advantage in markets and emerging markets. And we found that being the number one or the number two in an emerging market and achieving that scarcity is important. So to the extent that we don't want to inspire other smart people to kind of look in the same area, I think we try to keep these things quiet.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I have a bunch of companies in stealth that I'm not quite talking about yet because I do think that there's some advantage in keeping those a little quiet. The last public investment I need is...”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “It's all the above. It's not just the applications, but it's the infrastructure as well. So intelligent infrastructure, kind of auto configuration, self-healing networks, those are the types of things that I'm starting to see, as well as intelligent software that's not just traditional workflow or productivity software, but with some element of learning associated with it that's pulling in data either from the user or external sources to make the software a little bit more intelligent.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “It's an interesting time in AI. I think if you look at the next 30 to 40 years and where GDP growth will come from, I think a lot of it will come from technology and automation. And we're kind of at this point now where the substrate, the infrastructure substrate, is getting well developed by Amazon's and Google's and companies like that. So I think as you think about where opportunity will get created in tech in particular, AI makes a lot of sense. And we're spending a lot of time looking at it. I think that we are in a time with AI today where cloud was about 10 years ago and we're going to see a tsunami of innovation associated with companies and entrepreneurs thinking about ways to apply AI towards more traditional software products.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I've had a lot of proud moments. I think one of the one that stands out to me is I brought on someone into a company and kind of pursued an aggressive campaign to recruit this person into the company and really tried to sell this individual very hard. And a couple of years later, the company was acquired for a lot of money by Microsoft, actually. And she did very well. So one of the proudest moments was just meeting up with her for coffee and kind of hearing firsthand the impact that that had on her light, right? She was able to afford a home. She was able to put her kid in a private school. And a lot of that was due to my pursuit of her and her trust in me to kind of take the role with the company. And it doesn't often work out like that, but it was a very touching moment for me because I felt like I actually had a one-on-one impact on a person's life. You know, that's the kind of stuff that I love.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, I'm a fisherman and a fly fisherman, and so my favorite book is Old Man in the Sea, just because it reminds me of the sea and just kind of the struggle. I think it's a beautiful book.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And really invite them into the company in a way to add value that I rarely see entrepreneurs take advantage of. So I think that leveraging that independent board seat for someone of prominence who can add value to the company at later stages, a vehicle that not enough founders, I think, use to their advantage. Also, again, for companies that sell to other businesses, having an advisory board or some sort of customer advisory board is a powerful vehicle as well. So bringing in folks, flying them in or just getting them to convene is a way to build a very strong network of, for example, CIOs or very senior leaders in that particular segment that can become influencers for the product or the company. So thinking about how you leverage your position as a CEO to pull in other people of prominence in and around the company is something that I think is low-hanging fruit that most entrepreneurs don't take advantage of.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Well, you know, so speaking of boards, one of the things when a company decides to take on a board in the later stages of its life, I think one of the most overlooked tactics is often finding building a very powerful board, right? Because I think that a board can be a hugely valuable vehicle for a CEO, for an entrepreneur, to find folks to bring around the table to learn from, to find independent members, board members that are willing to invest their time and their resources and their network to help a company, et cetera. It doesn't make sense to build that up until the company's a little bit farther along. But I've seen companies leverage it to extreme success. And generally in the valley, you'll find independent board seat is a very rare thing, and it's a very prized thing. Very rarely will they want to turn it down or decide it's not a good thing for them. And so you can take that to someone that you admire, that you respect.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Intimacy for sure. I think that, again, it really finding the right investor is really a delicate subject because you really got to find someone that you can spend time with. And again, the investor looking at looking at entrepreneurs and CEOs, same thing. That intimacy is so important. It's really fundamental to capture it at an early stage. Because if you don't have that, it's hard to build on that and it's hard to get that back at a later time. So I think that while I don't think that it's necessarily important to have a formal meeting and a formal board presentation, I do think that intimacy can be acquired in other ways, whether it's just an occasional dinner, an occasional lunch just to make sure that you're connecting and always in sync with the founder.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “That's when a board can really start to add a lot more value. But in the very, very early days, we'd advise against it, especially at the seed stage, because it just doesn't feel like a useful way to spend time for CO.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “It's a great question. I think that my general rule is that companies don't need boards at the very early stage, with the exception of just creating a regular communication cadence. So long as what I don't want is my CEOs to spend a lot of time preparing a lot of materials and wasting a lot of effort that they could be spending on product or with customers to get a board deck ready. I think that that is not an efficient use of time. What I do think is an efficient use of time is having a regular communication cadence so that the investor and the entrepreneur are in sync and that there's a very strong synergy associated with finding ways to add value at different points of time. So I think the time when you want to formalize a board, like an actual meeting where you're reviewing slide decks and kind of going through going through a cadences somewhere around the series A, when you have an investor that's just put in a bunch of money, when there's some repeatability and some mechanics that are starting to form around taking a product to market.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, it's a good question. In my opinion, this is one of the things that is not talked about enough, and very few CEOs that I've seen personally in my own venture career have actually come to ask for help. And it's something that you don't see until it's often too late, right? I mean, there's very few cases I can even think of where a CEO would come to the board in advance and say, I'm out of my element here and I need help. And, you know, these are the things I need help with.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Absolutely. I think that over time, we hope and we believe that our portfolio and the track record will speak for itself. But certainly as you point out, there's a lot of capital options and many firms that are newer that are coming up that give entrepreneurs an opportunity to raise from a number of firms. And so I think the way we look at that is that we have to compete on market terms, number one. But there's also a decades of history and experience that we can kind of bring to bear to help some of these companies that differentiates us and kind of puts us in a different category.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yeah, I think the most important thing that we've learned is the respect for the entrepreneur. You know, I'd say that if I had to categorize the culture of CRV, it's a very humble firm with kind of a modest view and low ego. I think the entrepreneur number one is first and foremost. And if you look at some of the things that we've learned, so for example, we have a no-phone policy where we find ourselves internally, and thankfully we've never had to use it. But if you find a CRV partner breaking out his phone during the meeting, there's a very, very hefty fine for that. We try to be on time. We try to do basic things that don't take a lot of effort, but really show a lot of respect and admiration for entrepreneurs. That's first and foremost. It's a very collaborative firm. So I think that one of the other unique things that we've learned is that venture works best in small teams and when partners can collaborate with each other. So the economic model here is also aligned so that we can work well with each other and help each other out on projects, which is somewhat unique in venture.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “The first and most important thing when we feel like we're there is to raise capital because you don't want to really step on the gas until you have more capital and make sure that you can support that. But I think the leading indicators, I think to your question of what we look for, you know, if it's a software company, more traditional MRR-based company, we look for month-on-month growth. We look at logos, we look at an ability to kind of land into key accounts and with the opportunity to potentially expand. If it's more infrastructure or technology oriented, we look for key hires. I think that very strong engineering teams is a good leading indicator that people are speaking with their feet. Those are all the types of leading indicators that we look for when we see those. We'll take the company out to market to raise capital and hopefully get positive validation from the market. And that's when we double down, right? That's when we then decide to really step on it.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Not at all. I think they're very consistent. Let me explain why CRV itself kind of has this view of the world and that most of us are immigrants and we've kind of all lived frugally at some point in our lives. But really, I think at the earliest stages, we look for those types of founders and teams that can get to product market fit efficiently, right? And in a resourceful manner. It doesn't make sense to overspend or overhire until you get to that point. I think that there are certain cases and exceptions where that makes sense where there are land grab markets where you really want to hire the best as possible. But for the most part, most traditional businesses, I think it makes sense to be as resourceful as possible until you get to that point where you pour gasoline on the fire.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, it's an astute observation because I think you're actually right. The climate for startups, especially at the early stage, has gotten a lot more competitive. I think the bar has gone up, as you pointed out on Series A's, the check sizes have gone up. Seed rounds have increased in size. So I do think that's the case. And the way you address it is, number one, by either raising more money, or two, by watching your burn. And again, going back to the qualities that I look for in founders, it's the resiliency, it's the resourcefulness. So I prefer companies and founders that manage to keep burn low, to be resourceful, to kind of live a frugal and efficient lifestyle versus those that raise lots and lots of money in the seed round and kind of live a little bit richer.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Generally speaking, we allocate reserves at a very early stage for companies, and having been in the business for a long time, CRV kind of looks at this as a long-term game. So we try not to play around too much with reserves, and we try to give founders a shot to kind of prove things out. So for the most part, the way we look at it at the early stage, when we first cut the check is we set aside a reserve for what we think would be appropriate, and we try to stick with it. We try to make sure that we're supporting the companies through the ups and downs. And those are difficult conversations, but at the end of the day, I think that we err on the side that of trying to be patient and trying to be understanding and getting companies to the point where they can kind of see in sort of step function evaluation increase.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Well, I'd say both of those are certainly true. I'd say integrity is also one of the most important things. I mean, it's black and white to me, right? Like I look for high integrity founders that take care of their team, that really empathize and are compassionate with their co-founders. And it kind of leads to the number one most important thing that I look for is an ability to recruit. You know, it all flows in the same. So I think that what you've described and what Sean described of having a chip on your shoulder and having being higher integrity and also being able to recruit, those are all qualities of great founders.”

    2017-08-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: When Should CEOs Ask Their VC For Help, When Do Companies Really Need A Board & What The Series A Expansion Means For Startups with Max Gazor, General Partner @ CRV · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source