BRV Guadalajara Portfolio Summit
“Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes isn’t as much about the walk or the shoes; it’s to be able to think like they think, feel what they feel, and understand why they are who and where they are. Every step is about empathy.” — Toni Sorenson
Each year, BRV brings together our founders for a few days of shared insights and experiences. Together we have explored new cities, tried new foods, met new people and, most importantly, built trust and community across an array of companies and cultures. We recently brought all of our CEOs and CTOs down to Guadalajara, Mexico for our annual offsite. Allison shares more about why Guadalajara in her post but I wanted to share my insights on community and trust from our event.
Our primary goal for our off-sites is to build community. I am always struck by what a lonely journey founders often face. While I know our founders would not have chosen any other path, it is the furthest from easy. Founders need community more than anyone else and more than ever. While each of our companies have their unique business metrics, goals, and struggles, our founders found commonality in a few things: the desire to be inspiring and effective leaders, the fear of disappointing their team and their investors, and the relentless pressure to move fast and grow. Our offsite was not meant to provide answers or silver bullets to any of these issues. We just wanted our founders to know that they were not alone.
BRV invests in the early stages of a company — the seed and Series A are still fragile times in a company’s development. With our funding, founders are expected to develop the beginnings of viable businesses and not just cool products that a few people enjoy using. Our founders discussed a wide range of topics from scaling culture to building sales teams to technical tools. The ping pong of discussion topics was dizzying but that is what a founder thinks about — everything, all the time, nonstop. I loved seeing faces light up and people say “Yes! I understand…I went through that too. Here’s what we tried, what are you doing?” It was incredibly energizing to watch our portfolio step up to help each other and plan to continue conversations in the future.
In our investment model, we spend a significant amount of time with our founders. Our relationship with our founders extends beyond the board meeting because companies are led by people and people have people issues. We build trust through being open, accessible, and value-aligned. Every time we bring our portfolio together, I am amazed by how quickly our founders trust each other with their biggest hopes and fears. Their trust in us transfers to each other and I couldn’t be more proud of the ethos our team has instilled in every company.
Thank you to our founders for giving us the weekend, trusting us to be a part of your team, and being a part of our trusted community. We are already looking forward to next year!
