Sameer Gandhi, partner at Accel, discusses how venture capitalists evaluate software companies with significant services revenue.
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“If the percentage of that rises too much in the company, it really tells me that there are product issues at the root of what's happening there.”
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More from Sameer Gandhi
Disclosure
Accel told CrowdStrike founder George Kurtz to shop their term sheet
“Why don't you take my offer, my term sheet, you have it in your back pocket. So when you have these other conversations, Go in knowing that your deal done already, and if someone comes along and offers you something much better, or you think they're additive t…”
Sameer GandhiSep 2, 2021▶ 24:5620VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To
Disclosure
Gandhi: Accel's pre-mortem downside for CrowdStrike was an incident response business
“I think the number one thing on this was like, man, we just whiffed on the cloud native concept, and nobody's willing to do it, you know, like, that was one where, if you got that wrong, you know, and I think you see in my memo, it's like, well, if we totally …”
Sameer GandhiSep 2, 2021▶ 31:4120VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To
Insight
Gandhi: Good market timing temporarily hides startup execution and product deficits
“Market timing, if you get it right, it covers up a lot of other deficits in a business, right? If your team is incomplete, your product isn't quite there. If your execution is not stellar, you can cover all that stuff up. If you just hit the market at the righ…”
Sameer GandhiSep 2, 2021▶ 8:0720VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To
Insight
Gandhi: Go-to-market investments require market timing within a two-year window
“I think we really look at it and say like, it's gotta be, you know, within plus or minus a year or two. That's the right way to look at it. If you're later than that, you're too late. And I think if you're earlier than that, it's just a different kind of inves…”
Sameer GandhiSep 2, 2021▶ 10:0520VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To
Disclosure
CrowdStrike used incident response services to bridge slow early cloud adoption
“We could be pushing cloud and having a slower adoption cycle around the Falcon platform, which is really the endpoint product platform. And the way that was mitigated for us is that the company was doing really high-end incident response services, and so there…”
Sameer GandhiSep 2, 2021▶ 11:0020VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To
AssertionSupported
Gandhi: Accel invested in CrowdStrike at a $150M post-money valuation
“So I never looked at it as a three to five X. I looked at it as we're investing in a company, you know, in the first round when we did it was a 150 posts or something like that.”
Sameer GandhiSep 2, 2021▶ 13:2520VC: The Crowdstrike Memo: Accel's Sameer Gandhi on Leading Multiple Internal Rounds for Crowdstrike, Telling George Kurtz to Go Shop His Term Sheet, How To Think Through Market Sizing & The Importance of Speed of Execution and Knowing When To Go Slow To
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