The Ledger
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Max Gazor notes corporate acquirers heavily prioritize co-located startup teams
“Geography is important, making sure that folks are kind of in the same room to the extent possible and, you know, working well and collaboratively. Those are the types of important things that buyers look for, and it's really not emphasized enough, I would say…”
Max Gazor prefers frugal founders over those raising lavish seed rounds
“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.”
Max Gazor advises seed-stage startups to avoid formal boards and decks
“In the very, very early days, we advise against it, especially at the seed stage, because it just doesn't feel like a useful way to spend time for a CEO.”
Max Gazor predicts 2017 AI will mirror 2007 cloud computing boom
“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.”
CRV's early Airtable investment thesis was the unbundling of Microsoft Excel
“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.”
Max Gazor notes VC apprentice model time constraints limit firm hiring
“In general, I think because they are small teams and it's an apprentice model and you spend and invest a lot of time in people, you really want to make sure that the people that you bring on are strong fits internally. And I think that that's The key barrier i…”
Max Gazor considers recruiting capability the most important founder trait
“And it kind of leads to the number one most important thing that I look for is an ability to recruit.”
CRV sets follow-on reserves at initial check stage to support founders
“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 …”
CRV heavily fines partners who use phones during founder pitch meetings
“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.”
Max Gazor advises startups to formalize board governance around Series A
“I think that the time when you want to formalize a board, like an actual meeting where you're reviewing slide decks and kind of going through a cadence is somewhere around the series A.”
Max Gazor notes independent board seats are rarely turned down
“Generally in the Valley, you'll find independent board seat is a very rare thing, and it's a very prized thing. So you know, if you offer it to someone, very rarely will they want to turn it down or decide it's not a good thing for them.”
Max Gazor invested in Airtable when the company had three employees
“I invested in Airtable when it was three people and really going back to the conviction and how we build conviction. Yeah, I met Howie, I met the team and I just fell in love with them and immediately and knew that they're going to build a very, very big compa…”