New Beginnings
“I want to work with great entrepreneurs every single day.”
That was my response to anyone who asked why I decided to pursue venture capital. I want to work with some of the sharpest minds in the industry. I want to partner with teams that are leveraging the power of mobile to solve big problems in big markets and challenge the status quo. I’m hoping to share my experiences working at startups, building companies and my own learnings gained by working with talented people throughout my career.
“But why venture capital? Why not start another company?”
Maybe someday, but for the foreseeable future I want to stay laser focused on helping others build great companies. The number of new technology startups entering the market is staggering; many of these are being led by first-time entrepreneurs. While starting a company has never been easier, building a business is hard! Entrepreneurs need to push the envelope and increase their level of sophistication to compete effectively. Everyone is trying to improve their business’ trajectory by developing the playbook for customer growth, retention and monetization, but there is relatively little practical know-how available. Given the high levels of competition and scale, I believe building mobile consumer products is the best place to develop that playbook and it happens to be what I’ve been doing for the last decade. I hope to be able to add value through my experiences and help develop pragmatic strategies and tactics for our portfolio companies.
Matt and I have known and worked with each for the last 12 years, and I’m both humbled and honoured to be partnering with him and the rest of the team. I’m excited to be working with the existing portfolio of incredible companies and founders as well as discovering new ones to add to the family. Philosophically, Golden Venture Partners is a principled, founder’s first fund that cares deeply about the teams it invests in. I’ve observed from afar that the team is continually evolving and learning, which is the most rewarding part of working with entrepreneurs. I look forward to being able to do that on an even greater scale in 2015 and beyond.
