First-year VC partner success is measured by influencing the partnership
Phin Barnes · Breaking News: Meet First Round Capital's Newest Partner, How To Approach Generational Transition as a Venture Firm & The Dangers of Attribution In Venture · Feb 4, 2020 · at 32:51
Phin Barnes, Partner at First Round Capital, explains how venture firms should evaluate a partner's performance during their first year before fund returns materialise.
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“It's a hard question, because of course, it's a long-term game, and given we form our partnerships with founders at the earliest stages, a new partner, you certainly won't be able to measure returns for some time. So for me, it's really about being able to move the room, and what I mean by that is thinking through, you know, how do you influence the thinking of the partnership, whether it's convincing the team on an investment you think we should make, or one we really shouldn't make, regardless of who the point partner is for the specific opportunity, or, you know, if it's an initial investment or a follow-on, how you move the room to make a higher quality decision is the critical metric. And at first round, it's not just investment decisions. It could be marketing strategy for the firm, like should we launch, you know, a 30 minute VC podcast, or maybe an experiment around better service for founders with some product that we want to deliver. But when you look at your first year, I think what you really want to see is your ability to influence and generate engagement from the rest of the partnership, and you want to see that go up over the course of the year.”
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