Alex MacCaw
Founder & CEO, Reflect. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderengineerexecutiveauthor
Alex MacCaw is the founder and CEO of Reflect and a general partner at Earl Grey Capital. He previously co-founded Clearbit, serving as its CEO.
1shows
1appearances
19statements
1resolved
0supported
1contradicted
0%fully supported
17said about them ↓ Everything Alex MacCaw said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
MacCaw: Founders Should Put Personal Trainers and Therapists on the Company Card
“As soon as you raise that first round, or you get to profitability, then put a personal trainer on the company card, put an exec coach on the company card, put a therapist on the company card. These are absolutely legitimate expenses, and you should be spendin…”
MacCaw: Venture Capitalists Are Just Salespeople Selling Financial Products
“So the first thing to realize that VCs are professional salespeople. That's all they are. They're salespeople that sell financial instruments.”
MacCaw: Profitability Is the Only True Leverage Founders Have With VCs
“If you can't walk away, you have no leverage. So get profitable. It's the only way you can walk away.”
MacCaw: Clearbit Expects Minimal Operational Help From Its VC Investors
“I tell our VCs that I actually don't want much help from them. If I want a recruiter, I'll pay for a recruiter, and there'll be a better recruiter than that VC because they're full-time.”
MacCaw: Clearbit Will Add Operators, Not Investors, to Its Board
“So we will set up a board, and I'm planning on doing it next year, but we're going to add more operators to it rather than have any investors on it.”
MacCaw: Startups Should Delay Establishing a Formal Board Until Series B
“Definitely not for the seed. I would just raise the seed on all safes. For the A, try not to add to the board, and then maybe the B. Often you just don't have a choice. A lot of investors will require being on the board. There's kind of a luxury having the cho…”
MacCaw: Interviews Fail; References Are the Only Reliable Evaluation Method
“But I do believe that frankly, interviews just don't cut it. You know, the only real way we found of evaluating candidates is through references and back channels.”
MacCaw: Founders Should Ignore VC Brand Prestige and Prioritize Clean Terms
“The second piece of advice I have for negotiating with VCs is to stop caring about external validation. So stop caring about the glamour, about the big name VC, None of it matters in my opinion. You're simply trying to sell a piece of your company for the clea…”
MacCaw: Clearbit Received Zero Recruiting Candidates From Its VC Investors
“Honestly, we had no candidates through our existing investors or through other investors”
MacCaw Founded Clearbit as a Vehicle for Personal Self-Actualization
“I actually started this company as a tool to self actualize.”
MacCaw: Operations and Management Determine Post-PMF Startup Success
“Operations and management are the unglamorous side of company building, sure, but after product-market They are the difference between success and failure.”
MacCaw: Hiring the Right People Upfront Is 80% of Management
“I think what is less understood is that 80% of the work of management is actually done up front by hiring the right people.”
MacCaw: Mandatory Employee Sourcing Sessions Are the Best Way to Scale Hiring
“So the secret is sourcing sessions. Sit down with your engineers or whoever is relevant for the role and then use tools. There's tools like teamable, or you can just go through the LinkedIn and use LinkedIn recruiter. You literally just got to sit them down be…”
MacCaw: Clearbit Keeps the Exact Same OKRs for the Entire Year
“What we do is the leadership team gets together and we'll figure out the company OKRs at the start of the year, and we actually have the same OKRs the whole year. And that includes the revenue number, but it also includes a number of other things that we're wo…”
MacCaw: Clearbit Maintains Default Transparency Except for Compensation and Performance
“To be clear, we are transparent in all areas by default, aside from compensation and performance.”
MacCaw: Minute-by-Minute Fundraising Updates Distract Startup Teams
“So you should be transparent, but giving people the minute by minute play by play updates to the funding round is just going to distract them.”
MacCaw: Clearbit Perks Include Full-Time Chefs and Therapy for All Employees
“We actually have two full-time chefs, because people just pick the default. If there's shitty food in front of them, they'll pick it. We offer gym stipends. We offer therapy for everyone. We offer the best health insurance. We have on track vacation. You can w…”
Executive Coach Matt Mochary Coached Clearbit for Free in Its Early Days
“Matt Mashari helped us in the early days, and he didn't charge us a thing.”
The other half of the tape: Alex MacCaw's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 17 times in 7 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Josh Buckley 8Harry Stebbings 8Matt Mochary 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 17
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
2019 14 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Why The Best Entrepreneurs Are Cockroaches, What Everyone Underestimates About Customer Acquisition & What You Don't But Need To Know About Payback Periods with Josh Buckley, Founder & Chairman @ Mino Games
- 20VC: Ash Fontana on The 5 Core Characteristics That Make Data Valuable, What VCs Can Learn From Italian Craftsmen and Howard Marks & The Importance of Vertical Integration In Scaling Today
- 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
- 20VC: Mercury Founder Immad Akhund on Why Angel Investing Makes Founders Better Operators, The Right Way For Founders To Discuss and Present Competition To Investors & How To Think About Your Initial Wedge Into The Market and How It Expands Over Time
- 20VC: Matrix's Ilya Sukhar on How The Seed Ecosystem Could Be Optimised, Why The Bar For The Break-Out Series A Has Risen & The Art of Effective Referencing
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Alex's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Reflect | 1 | 19 | 0% 0/1 | full record on 20VC → |