3 Lessons from Anuj Varma, Investor at BAM Ventures

Recently, Anuj Varma, an investor at BAM Ventures, sat down (virtually of course) with Sean Goldfaden, CEO of CoEfficient Labs, for the Demo Day Podcast. In the episode, Anuj offers a variety of advice around communication for founders, especially in the COVID environment.

Anuj has 10+ years of experience as a startup consultant, investor, and advisor. He also serves as a Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partners, working with early-stage companies across the consumer landscape.

Prior to BAM, he worked as an investor at RLH Equity, a Los Angeles based private equity firm, and in the technology investment banking division of Jefferies & Company in Silicon Valley, where he focused on mergers, acquisitions, and capital raising transactions for consumer technology companies globally. He began his career as a management consultant in the technology, media and telecom group at Deloitte Consulting in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

Below I’ll share a few of my takeaways from our interview with Anuj.

Focusing on Communication

Anuj stressed the importance of communication repeatedly in our interview. One thing to be aware of in this COVID-19 oriented environment is focusing on things that can help you communicate info in a clear way.

For Anuj, he noticed a big change in his own behavior since quarantine. Now, he is spending a lot more time writing as it’s become harder to get people in the same room and there are more distractions with virtual meetings. Anuj has found that documenting things, and being a little more disciplined around the communication habit, is really helpful in the current situation we’re living in.

The Way a Founder Communicates

Anuj always looks for how a founder is able to communicate their story. He wants to see how impactful it really is.

The ability of founders to be able to tell their story is so important for how the company will be perceived and how they build out the company itself.

Another key point Anuj mentioned included the ability of founders, through their story, to be able to chart a path to a large scale opportunity, with the chance of becoming a category killer.

Finally, in evaluating a founder’s communication, Anuj wants to see the practical pillars and milestones they have in place as well as how they think about that journey.

Advocating for Your Vision

As a founder, you’re advocating for your vision, your story, your team, and your product. Being able to communicate all of those is a very valuable skill set as a founder.

In many cases, people underestimate the power of communication as a founder, and Anuj gave a great example to illustrate this point.

Anuj mentioned how oftentimes two companies will have the equivalent level of product capabilities, similar technical skills, but be separated by one key element — storytelling.

The ability to communicate your vision better than the competition can mean you’re the company that gets funding, even if another company has similar abilities. This happens repeatedly in the world of venture capital, which makes the ability to communicate effectively that much more valuable.

Want to Learn More?

You can watch Anuj Varma’s full video interview on our Demo Day website, or listen to his full episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Tune in next week as I share more learnings from Demo Day. Sending love from the entire CoEfficient Labs Team!

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