Venture Adventure

Startup-U SFO: How First Time CEOs gain credibility in the investment community and beyond

I haven’t been to any events in the past 6 months or so, and thought, based on the topic, this one might be interesting.  It had two panelists, Ken Schroeder, a general manager to CEO type, and Stuart Coulson, a technologist to entrepreneur type (bios are on the SVASE event page).  The discussion was moderated by SVASE’s Lili Balfour.

Pre-panel networking was typical for a Startup-U event – mostly first-timers.  And mostly web 2.0 space.  There was only one other non-web company/person, and I never really got what they did.

Both Ken’s and Stuart’s advice boiled down to fairly conventional wisdom and common sense.  But it was worthwhile to hear it from people who have been there and done that.

• There’s no quick answer
• VCs will do their due diligence, and will find any skeletons in your closet
• You need your own business plan, even if it’s not the one you share with the VCs
• Honestly filling in your business plan will help you to find your gaps in credibility
• CEOs need to be generalists, not specialists
• CEO needs to find and focus on the key critical area at any given moment in time
• Practice before going to that critical meeting/pitch/sales call, etc.
• Decide in advance how to answer the awkward questions
• Startups are selling two things – their product (to their customers) and their stock (to the VCs)
• CEO must be high energy, high passion all the time – you are the engine that pumps up the company
• VC milestones are their “next point of safety”
• Domain knowledge is critical
• etc.

Ken is also a CEO coach.  Unfortunately for me, he coaches mostly established, 2nd round CEOs.  I did ask for a referral to a first-time CEO coach, but didn’t do a good job in selling myself, so I’m pretty sure that will go nowhere.

All in all, it was worth the time.