The Ledger
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Investing just to 'have a play' in hot sectors is bad advice
“So whether that's cryptocurrency, or Google Glass, or whatever the hot category is of that year, of that couple of years, I think it's not good advice to quote-unquote have a play in X category. Because if you are able to pick the best, that may be the company…”
VCs must maintain price discipline in categories with bounded upside
“That said, I think there are other companies that the category or the nature of the competitive set, you have to have some amount of price discipline in order to achieve true good returns. And I think those are in categories that you, there's just simply not a…”
Non-Bay Area markets offer better deal signal-to-noise ratios
“If you actually spend your time in Salt Lake, in Austin, in Dallas, in Seattle, other markets, and then of course, internationally, whether it's Finland or Australia or other markets, there actually is less noise in those areas relative to the amount of intere…”
Most Silicon Valley startups make the mistake of scaling too quickly
“In general, I think most companies, especially in a capital rich VC environment in Silicon Valley, most of companies are largely make the mistake of stepping on the gas too quickly. And I think wasting precious capital or founder dilution, depending which way …”
Restricting VC investments to driveable Silicon Valley startups is outdated
“I think it's pretty obvious now, whether it's companies like Spotify or Supercell or Atlassian or other companies of that form, that that is now an outdated view.”
Silicon Valley has evolved from a geographic location into a mindset
“And so I think it's a true renaissance that's been happening of Silicon Valley going from being a physical place to being, in some cases, an entrepreneurial mindset that's not physically based here.”
VCs should spend 90% of their time pursuing high-bar distant deals
“Trying to have that high bar, that high standard is where you should spend 90% of your time, even if that company you identify as a long ways away from where you work or where you live.”
Startups need three to six months of repeatability before scaling growth
“Generally, I would say, you know, on median, it's a couple of quarters, three to six months of repeatability, and more important than just the time dimension is whether you can see the, you know, the atomic level of the unit economics working.”
Openwave could have built Skype or Twitter by diversifying beyond telecom carriers
“If we had taken the time to think carefully about who our customer base should be, you know, we could have built technologies like Skype, like Twitter as opposed to just continuing to build technology, selling to Orange or Singular or Nextel or AT&T, the custo…”
VCs excel at market strategy, not day-to-day operational tactics
“You, as a venture capitalist, get to see the entire industry and all of the companies that surround your portfolio companies. You're probably better, or should be better, at understanding competitive dynamics and how the shape of the market is developing overa…”
Diverse board syndicates with differing viewpoints drive long-term startup success
“Having a diverse syndicate that has different points of view to the board, even if you don't a hundred percent always agree with the other members of that board, can actually make a dramatic difference in helping the company be successful long-term.”
Accel sourced Qualtrics early by building relationships in Salt Lake City
“Qualtrics, is a good example of that. Hiding in Salt Lake, you didn't think that there was going to be a multi-billion dollar company in the area of market research surveys, but we were lucky enough to find that company relatively early on and spend the time b…”
Accel offered a high-end valuation term sheet to win the Atlassian deal
“So, a company like Atlassian, I think we were not on the low end of how we put in our term sheet in terms of the valuation that we ascribed to Atlassian at the time.”
Accel invested in Qualtrics, Rovio, and Atlassian via its growth fund
“The Qualtrics, the Rovios, the Alassians are all bets out of the growth fund, as it turns out.”
Accel reserves at least 1:1 follow-on capital for Series A investments
“When you do an early stage investment, On average, we at least reserve an equal amount of capital. So if you put in an eight million dollar series A, one might reserve eight, 10, eleven million dollars, you know, for follow-on rounds to support the company as …”