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Ted Blosser

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24
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2017-01-27
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2017-01-27
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  1. “Yeah, so we didn't talk too much about WordRAM, but just at a really high level, I think in the next five years, if you look at how Google tried to organize the world's information, mostly from a consumer perspective, I think our goal is to organize all the knowledge within enterprises. And so we have different ways we want to actually achieve that goal. And our first way to start that is really with helping people train and develop within organizations. And so I think in the next five years, if we could get to a point to where we're actually starting to execute on that mission, that'd be a really good spot for us to be in.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, so most of my important resolutions were around health. I actually had a totally random near-death experience in 2016 over a weekend. And so I think that just showed me how easily your health can go. And so I think in 2017, definitely making sure that stay healthy, stay fit amongst all the other things that you're doing day to day.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I would say Paul Graham's essays, although he doesn't write as much now, I think he's only written about three or four this year, those were definitely my favorite to read. Almost read every single word.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yeah, so I don't think it's just because I got two echoes for Christmas, but I would say I would love to be Jeff Bezos and run Amazon. I remember listening to Jeff Bezos recently at a recode conference, and it shocked me. He said he still skips into work every day and is just so happy to be leading Amazon. And it was just shocking how someone who's running one of the largest corporations in the world with all that stress just loves coming into work every day. So I would love to be at that helm for a day and see how stressful that is and what keeps them so happy there.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yeah, so I would say look at diversity from literally the moment you get started as a company. We actively look to bring on female founder to our team really because we wanted that diverse set of opinions. And so I think it's been immense success for us to have that diversity of opinions. And so we're always going to be looking to make sure we have a diverse group here at work ramp moving forward.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Would say my favorite book is The Last Lecture by Randy Posh. He was a Carnegie Mellon professor who was dying of pancreatic cancer and gave his quote-unquote last lecture to his students and also left as a memoir to his kids. Love that book because it keeps you well grounded in terms of really how fragile life is. And amongst all these other things that we're doing from a business perspective, at the end of the day, life is really fragile and you need to just focus on what's really important to you at the end of the day.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Oh, perfect. You'll love having him. He's never really pushed us hard on our short-term revenue goals. He's always talking about making sure we're well positioned for the long term, both from a product perspective, from a team perspective. And he never pressures you to take any shortcuts. He's totally okay with you taking one step backwards and two or three steps forwards. So it's great to have them have that mindset. But then from a short-term perspective, they also prep us really well to get to that next round. People like Chad Myers on the team, he'll do a really good job in terms of your investor hygiene, making sure that you're doing all the right steps during your seed phase and make sure you have a really solid Series A. And so that's just a great example of investor who could straddle both short and long-term goals for you extremely well.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “That's a great question, Harry. I would say when you look at, especially seed investors, I think by definition, all seed investors should be long-term investors. And they will all probably say that, especially because they're going to be the first money in. But what we realized during that process is that some definitely were not long-term focus. You can tell that even with small things like how they do due diligence, you see the ones that are focused extremely on just the small metrics early on like LTV or customer acquisition costs. They're not really looking at the long game. And so you really want to just make sure you avoid the investors that aren't actually long-term focus. And then when you find a really good investor, I'll give you a good example like a SUSE Ventures. They're extremely good both from a long-term perspective and short-term perspective. Long-term perspective, a good story there is one of their partners, Leo, who I believe you know.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I would say a healthy balance of the two. I think if you look at really wanting to innovate on the markets, you don't really pay attention too much to your competition. And that's kind of back to that product market fit question where you really want to make bets that none of your competitors are even thinking about. And so I think if you can make sure you keep an eye on growth markets and not worry too much about the competition when looking at those bets, that's extremely helpful. But then from an execution standpoint, you want to notice how you actually can actually beat out the competition in some of your day-to-day hand-to-hand combat and you want to keep track of them then. But I think from a macro standpoint, you really want to kind of paint your own vision and go down your own path with respect to your competitors.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I would say YC Tachu really three big things I would say. I would say the first is having the office hours and in those office hours you learn so much about how to actually run a business. So and so during the program you basically get to set up office hours with any of the successful partners or part-time partners and you really get pick their brains on all assets of the business and so I learned a ton during that time anything from how to hire how to build the product to how to actually land customers. So that was extremely beneficial for us when we went through the program. I would say two is really having that pure network during YC was extremely helpful in terms of actually building up the level of competition that you have to actually drive you to that next level. If you look at baseball teams for example the teams that are usually the best are the ones that have multiple aces on their starting lineup from a pitching standpoint. It's almost like that in YC where you”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, you do. I'll bring up a good story actually about Aaron Levy. I remember, and I'll bring this back to my own personal experience, I remember every time we close a monster quarter and didn't think we could go any higher, that literally that same morning at 1 a.m. right after the quarter end, he would send out an email to the entire”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “These companies, you would say, have great product market fit, but they're always looking for that next area to grow into. And so I think for us, I think we look at product market fit as that, hey, we're growing revenue pretty well. We're growing our customer acquisition at a steady pace, but we're always looking for that next level of growth that can increase our growth slope even higher. And so, yeah, I think to answer that, always look for other areas you can grow into, and that just breeds a culture of experimentation and making bets to help your company.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I think product market fits this vague term that almost everybody uses in a different context, but I'll give a good story. I remember when we were leaving YC, Paul Buchheit sat the entire batch down, so all 100 companies or so, and he told us on our last day, he said, look, none of you guys are at product market fit. And we were looking around the room and we had some very successful companies there. And I don't think he was saying that to be mean spirited. But what he's really saying was that, look, don't be satisfied with wherever you're at. always look for that next area of growth. And so I want to answer that question, Harriet, as saying, I think there's always varying degrees of product market fit. And you need always look at more areas you can grow into. If you look at like an Amazon, for example, they're never happy with where they're at. That's why they put huge investments in Alexa over these holidays or you look at Airbnb where they're rolling out their new flight booking service or Uber who's investing heavily into Uber Eats.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, this was actually a highly debated on our team, too. We actually went for the 18th to 24 month route, and we knew that if we could grow revenues at a pretty decent rate that we would be fine with that runway. And so we weren't sure. So I would say we were aiming more for the 24 month on a conservative headcount level. And so, and we actually did cap it. I think we actually raised about 1.8 million and we didn't want to raise much more past that. I mean, we had the opportunity to, but we ended up turning down money towards the end, really because we thought that was enough to put some good constraints around the business to drive good behaviors and make sure that we really had good product market fit before we start pouring in a lot of money into different channels.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yeah, so I think there's two things. I think we were lucky in the sense that we had demand on our end to get into the round, so we were able to be a little more selective. And so I think if you're in that position, then definitely take that approach of how you want to put the pieces into play. I have spoken with other founders who aren't as lucky to have as much demand on their end. And I think in those scenarios, you just want to make sure you execute, get money into your round, and get the ball rolling. And then where you can start getting some leverage in terms of bringing on investors that you want to bring on. But I think there's different approaches depending on where you're at. And so really look at what your ultimate objectives are. So our ultimate objective was to get the right investors and then two, get enough money to get us into the next round. And so I think you really lay out your objectives and then go tackle them from there.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, I can actually go through where literally every single Western what we thought they brought to the table. I'll give a great example. We were able to bring on, lucky enough to bring on Slack as an investor, and they're really that next generation of enterprise software. We want to make sure we have them as close partners and we're part of their ecosystem. Another great example is when we brought on SUSE, they've been very, very good in terms of helping us with our long-term strategy, but also in terms of the hygiene from an institutional VC perspective. And then you look at some CEO coaches as well, and that's where we brought on angels like Elon Gill and Adrian On, both CEOs and their own right, they can help us from a coaching perspective and even Charlie Songhurst, who actually understood enterprise extremely well from his time at Microsoft. And so the list goes on, but every person we brought on, we said, look, where does this investor fit in? And how can we leverage them to help us be successful in the future?”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Just bringing up initialize again a good example there is that we went to them because not because they were hardcore enterprise seed investors, but really because they understood consumer markets extremely well and we wanted to apply those same growth strategies to the enterprise market, especially with Alexis' experience with Reddit and Gary's experience with Posteris and their time at YC. We thought that that was going to be huge value add to us in terms of taking our company to the next level from an enterprise perspective.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, that's a great question. Usually the feedback you get from typical VCs is that even mentors is that you should always choose your VC as almost how you would choose your spouse because you're basically going to be married to them for your lifetime as a company. But I had a different mentor who actually said, look, Ted, you should actually approach this differently. Don't just look at it as a spouse you would look for, but really look at it as a team you're building and think about the skill set that each VC brings to the table. A good analogy is if you were, let's say women's World Cup team, you wouldn't have 11 Hope Solos running around the field. You would need Ford, you would need defender, you would need a midfielder. And so you need all these different pieces in place actually to win the game, which is really the name of the game here from a startup perspective. And so when we looked at our investors, everyone that we chose had a specific purpose in helping us get to that next level. And so even”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “They've been very, very good in helping us build our brand. They brought on Kim Mai Cutler onto their team from TechCrunch, and she's been extremely helpful in actually coaching us through how to build a great enterprise brand.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yeah, so it's funny. A lot of people, especially in Starup World, think that if you have the best product your company will win. And I think in the enterprise realm, that's not always true. I think the companies that actually have both a good product, but even more important, the best brand will win. If you look at Salesforce.com, they don't have the best product in the world, but they have the best brand. If you look at NetSuite, if you look at success factors, if you look at Concur, no one's ever said, hey, those are the best products on the market, best of breed. But what they all have is a well-trusted brand for the market. And so I think for us, we look at that as being a critical part of both your moat against competitors, but also in order to actually get gain customers trust that you actually use your products. And so we focus a lot on that, especially with our VCs as well. I know Gary Tann and Lexis O'Hanian from our investors atit.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Of flack for how much money they had spent, especially when they're going public, how much they were spending on customer acquisition. But they knew that in order to execute in that market, they had to spend heavily. They had to be the number one brand in the enterprise market. And it was so important to make sure that they capitalized on that brand and executed from a go-to-market perspective. So one of the biggest strengths of Box that not a lot of people know about is how good their sales team was. They have had sales leaders there for four to five years because that's the engine that really keeps that business going. And I think that has also shown us how important it is to not just build a great brand, but also to execute extremely well on that brand.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Yeah, that's a great question. I would probably frame it in two ways, right? Or two big lessons I learned. I would say first in observing Aaron, I was able to see a leader actually almost will an entire market into place. He basically came into an old, stodgy market of enterprise content management and basically will it into being a hot, sexy space that a lot of people paid attention to. He was even able to almost take a class of decision makers, which was the CIOs at the time and make them really sety buyers. And so that was really interesting to see how he did that, both from a marketing and branding perspective. leads into the second point too of kind of what I learned from my experience there is that not just from willing that market to place what box did a really really good job of kind of understated is execution and when you think about box it gets a lot”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Goals one was I was able to go learn from the best from the likes of Aaron Levy and Dylan Smith and understand how to build a hyper growth business. And then two, while I was there towards the end of my tenure there, I found a big problem. That's kind of what led us to work rampant, a big problem around how people were developing and training their employees, especially in enterprises. There's really a lack of tools on the market. A lot of companies were starting to vest a lot more heavily into their people. And we thought the convergence of those two things allowed us to go start work ramp. And so towards my end of my tenure at Box, after I learned a ton in sales and marketing and product management, jumped ship and also joined up with one of my former engineers at Box to start workramp. And that's basically what we've been doing ever since and working with some great companies like PayPal, Intercom, PagerDuty, and others and helping them train and develop their talent to really be the best talent that they can beat.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, so I'll probably start in my mid 20s, I actually founded my first startup and it was a huge failure. Pretty much took everything that was hot at the time, whether it be mobile, social, and local, and try to combine it all into one startup in it failed pretty, pretty miserably. The thing I learned from that was really twofold. One was that if I want to go start a company again, I would definitely go learn from the best before I went and started that company. understood how to actually build a company from scratch. And then two is actually go work on something that had true meaning and impact. They didn't want to really work on what we called first world problems, a really big pain point that we could actually go solve. And so I think from that experience, I actually packed my bags, moved up to Silicon Valley, and was lucky enough to basically find Box. And Box took me under their wing for about five years. I was able to accomplish both of those.”

    2017-01-27 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source