Brandon L. Drew

Past behavior is a better predictor of future behavior than what someone says they will do in the future.

5 — Team. A lot of investors will emphasize the importance of identifying and backing “the best” teams. That approach may have some merit, but the entrepreneur and investor relationship is demanding and can last many years, sometimes into the decades. I make sure that I have chemistry with the team and can see myself working collaboratively for many years before I choose to invest in a company. Wh…

4 — Traction. Venture is very much about first and second derivatives, not absolutes. As an investor, growth trumps everything, so it is critical to identify the metric of value creation and then measure traction. Questions I ask include: Is the company growing? How fast? Is that growth accelerating? For example, my colleague Andy Vitus invested in JFrog, which is in a market I have less expertise in, but the company’s traction was so compelling that it was easy for me to support his investment thesis.