Lesson 2: Understand What Doing Marketing in a Fund Really Means
On Wednesday, April 22nd, the baby vc team had the pleasure to host its second “meet & greet” session. The concept: to welcome a VC, an entrepreneur or someone evolving in the tech ecosystem every week during lunch time for 1 hour live to discuss all the questions you may have about VC, fundraising, latest technological trends and much more.
You were over 150 to listen to Louisa Mesnard, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Elaia, a leading European venture capital fund focusing mostly on the tech & deep tech space.
Hereunder are a few key points to remember from this session, but first let’s get to know Louisa Mesnard and Elaia better.
Louisa Mesnard, who ?
After a first experience as entrepreneur and then working for a year alongside major companies to help them develop their in-house entrepreneurship programs, Louisa joined Elaia in 2018 as Head of Marketing & Communication and she is now CMO. Always on the lookout for sparks in the eyes of her interlocutors, Louisa devotes her time to communication and marketing in the Elaia fund by working on the fund’s marketing & communication aspects as well as helping the entrepreneurs in Elaia’s portfolio on all related marketing issues and much more.
Elaia, what ?
In Greek, Elaia means olive tree, a tree that grows slowly but surely and lasts a long, long time. You get the idea. Created in 2002, Elaia is today a leading European venture capital firm backing tech and deep tech entrepreneurs. With 420 million euros under management, Elaia has already invested in 100+ start-ups and counts among them some great successes such as Criteo, Mirakl, Shift Technologies…This highly diversified portfolio is the logical result of a team of 30 very different people, from scientists to engineers, entrepreneurs and financial profiles as well as their privileged relationships to research laboratories. From early to late stages, Elaia is always looking for new European tech and deep tech B2B start-ups.
>> If you are one of them, here is Louisa’s advice: don’t send cold mail, but rather come to an event or an office hour to talk to the team. The team will always find time for you.
Disclaimer: If we can easily assume that this article can cross-reference the other funds’ strategies, please keep in mind this is not an exact science.
Takeaway #1: Marketing, a word for a plurality of meanings
Marketing in a fund has nothing to do with acquisition strategies or using Google Ads all day, Louisa said immediately. According to her, being CMO in a fund is a three-word job that encompasses three dimensions: marketing, communication and presence in the ecosystem.
At Elaia, the marketing strategy is linked to a strong concept that Louisa implemented: what she calls “venture caring”. The idea is simple: to take care of their entrepreneurs by using all the resources at their disposal. This ranges from helping them meet precise marketing needs, sharing best practices, but also stimulating this sharing through the different start-ups in portfolio to build the “Elaia family”. To do so, an example of a specific and successful action consists in organizing C-levels dinners. Every month, Louisa brings together 20 CEO, CPO, CMO… from early stages to Series C. Classifying these small groups of people by function rather than start-ups’ stage makes more sense: doing the same job but at different level of maturity is an incredible source of knowledge for each one of them, the more experienced ones having gone through the same topics that younger ones should be dealing with. These dinners have laid the foundations for a virtuous circle that Louisa aims at:
Making every entrepreneur an ambassador for the fund, because nothing has more impact that having great ambassadors from within to preach the good word.
Managing the communication of a fund means dealing with content, press relations (PR), newsletters, social media, branding… For example, a CMO is therefore available to help with appropriate introductions to journalists when founders have to make an announcement such as a fundraising. Building strong relationships with journalists over time is therefore one part not to neglect for a CMO. But on a more internal level, communication also means taking care of Elaia’s brand. To adapt the fund to the current ecosystem, branding or rebranding should not be put aside, as the way a fund presents itself on the internet through its logo, website and graphic charter is often the first thing people see of you. This also means internal communication: making sure everyone at Elaia shares the same message!
Then, last but not least, there is the need to ensure a constant presence in the VC and broader tech ecosystem. To communicate widely about a fund’s ambitions, but also to find the best entrepreneurs, you have to be at the forefront of every trend, internally and externally. Elaia is said to participate in around 200 events a year, including large technology events such as the Deep Tech Week as well as small conferences focusing on particular subjects like AI. But being attuned to the ecosystem also means managing your own office hours to meet entrepreneurs. This is fundamental as it allows entrepreneurs to pitch their project to Elaia’s team in an unformal way. To entrepreneurs, one point to highlight here is that it is never too early to make contact. On the contrary, it will allow to start a relationship with the fund and be able to come back every six months to show your progress. And as VC bets on people (see last article), proving your motivation and consistency over the months is the best thing you could do.
Takeway #2 : There to help, not replace
Putting on the cape of a CMO means being there to help the portfolio companies. At Elaia, they regularly ask their portfolio startups about their needs and try to answer them as well as possible.
Setting boundaries at the outset is always the best way to start a collaboration. When it comes to portfolio support, Elaia clarifies its role from the very beginning of their investor-startup relationship. Onboarding sessions for newcomers to the portfolio are usually the time to explain what startups should (and shouldn’t) expect from the Elaia team. If a start-up comes to Louisa with specific hiring needs, here is what will happen. Based on its day-to-day network exchanges, Louisa will “pre-qualify” profiles within the ecosystem who might be looking for a new opportunity. If their skills and experiences correspond to what the start-up is looking for, Louisa will share the talent with the portfolio companies.
In other words, the CMO of a fund cannot be considered as a temporary CMO for start-ups.
However, the CMO has a permanent line to the CMO’s start-up to discuss any issues. To be well prepared when a start-up knocks on her door, Louisa has set up a questionnaire to determine the short and long-term needs of each start-up. This allows her to have a clear view of the overall needs of all start-ups, as many of them are common, and to respond faster. Regarding campaigns, as it is usual to use specific marketing tools, the CMO will be able to recommend external marketing tools, agencies or freelancers to do the work. Caution here: as network is key everywhere, Elaia will only recommend agencies that have already worked for other portfolio start-ups.
Takeaway #3 : The best KPI is often the echo you hear in the ecosystem
If a fund is used to look for the start-up’s KPIs while studying more in depth a start-up, a fund must also regularly measure its own KPIs.
Among them, the most distinctive one is perhaps the NPS aka Net Promoter Score. On a yearly basis, the fund will send a satisfaction questionnaire to the start-up team so that the founders can score the fund anonymously, with questions rated on a scale of 1 to 10. The total score will allow the fund to see whether it meets the start-ups’ expectations.
Another effective way to find out if you are good at your job is through referrals. Do your portfolio start-ups recommend your fund to others? When it seeks to invest in a new company, the fund always carries out a due diligence of the start-up (i.e financial, legal, team, etc). But the start-up is also invited to do the same: Elaia always tells potential new entrants that they can call any of their portfolio startups for a reference call.
But finally, the best proof of success is the word of these entrepreneurs-ambassadors mentioned above. If you do an excellent job at bringing value to entrepreneurs, he will feel much more committed. Entrepreneurs will help each other because they truly feel like they are part of a bigger family and the benefits will be easily demonstrated by all members of the community. This is the crucial marketing element according to Louisa.
The VC world is very small and reputation is paramount. The echo you hear in the ecosystem is often the best way to determine if you’re doing it right.
Takeaway #4 : Teammates more than competitors, indoors and outdoors
Looking at the VC ecosystem from the outside, it is often thought that different VCs funds are racing against each other. If this is partly true as winning a deal can be tough, funds can sometimes play like real teammates.
According to Louisa, many CMOs took their position about two years ago. As portfolio support is much more developed in the UK and Germany, not to mention of course the US, foreign VCs are a great source of inspiration for this job under construction. On this point, each French fund is obviously trying to differentiate itself. While some will initially see themselves as a PR agency, others will try to do much more.
One of the main differences between funds can also be correlated to the fund size. Indeed, the size and number of start-ups in portfolio will play an active role on the capacity to be truly “hands on” for each collaborator. But talking about that, is there internal competition in a fund? And especially between a CMO and a VC? Louisa is affirmative on this point: there is none, but their work is above all complementary as it allows a better follow-up of the start-up.
While investors always sit on the boards of directors to be in tune with everything that is happening in the company, Louisa is here to mutualize between startups.
For example, with the Covid-19 crisis, Louisa launched a daily-updated playbook to help all of the portfolio companies whereas the investors had a hands-on approach with the startups they follow. Nobody steps on other people’s toes — and the start-ups wins.
If internal competition has to be reduced, the same applies to external competition between funds. Indeed, it is important to note that the 15 or so CMOs of French funds regularly exchange information in order to pool data and new tools rather than creating everything on their own. As all start-ups generally go through the same stages of life, the challenge is to size up a few of them on subjects such as hiring, branding,… At the end of the day, the more important thing is to provide the best possible service. More friends than enemies then.
Takeway #5: Covid not sorry — how does marketing responds in times of crisis?
Does the covid have an impact on marketing campaigns ? Very much so. Does it have an impact on the role of a CMO? Phenomenally.
It’s simple : in fact, almost all pre-covid campaigns have been suspended. But in these uncertain times, not being able to promote one’s product is an additional burden for all entrepreneurs. On the contrary, launching marketing campaigns today can also be very badly perceived. How overcome this situation then? Like everyone else, Louisa had to move from real to virtual events. Three times a week during the lockdown, she provided peer-to-peer support by organizing webinars by function. She gathered together HR managers, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, marketing teams, … to share best practices and collect their challenges.
To bring it all together, Elaia was one of the first funds to publish a playbook (as mentioned earlier) with a lot of practical advice, including government support to start-ups, how to set up partial unemployment, or even how to keep children occupied during this period. Although it was initially at the sole destination for Elaia’s start-ups, Elaia quickly made it public so that as many people as possible could benefit from it.
>> You can find the playbook here
Coming back to marketing, two major trends are starting to emerge: a huge increase in webinars and an emphasis on any type of evergreen content, written or video. However, if webinars are doing perfectly fine today, will they do so tomorrow ? The answer is uncertain, as one can imagine two distinct feelings when covid will hopefully be far behind us: a certain urge to do business as before and, on the contrary, the need to continue to protect oneself as much as possible. Louisa’s advice is overcommunication with your clients and teams.
Ask your customers about your product to better understand them: keeping your churn rate as low as possible is a priority.
Now is the time to get to know your customers better. And this advice can be extrapolated to those who would like to start their own business : there is no better time to contact people, they are at home! No one is chasing after time like people used to do and people are often taking a step back on daily tasks — you’ll get lots of answers. Otherwise, you will also get a useful overview of the people you have contacted.
And here we go. An hour live is much more than just a few tips but I hope you get the most out of it.
If you feel like it you can find the replay here: https://stormaudio.app.link/wUtlfwYkT5
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