Drift: The team building a movement, not just a product.

First thing you see on CRV website, item #1 of our manifesto, is: “We invest in people before ideas. We know the types of people we are looking for…. authentic founders who are the best at what they do. Having a big idea matters, but being the person who can make it a reality matters even more.”

This pretty much sums up our decision to give David Cancel and Elias Torres $10M on a hand shake, literally, as soon as they left HubSpot (a company they helped build to over $4bn in market value), before they had any concrete idea what they wanted to do next.

We just knew that the pair were relentless in their pursuit of solving big problems with products that continue to amaze. We didn’t care what was the exact problem and we certainly were not smart enough to identify the solution (VCs never are…).

Like DC says, “don’t fall in love with your idea… fall in love with your customers.”

And indeed Drift first idea was a decent one, but after quickly building an MVP and launching it, the founders didn’t hear the strong sucking sound they were hoping to hear from the market, so they killed it.

And so the next one. And the next.

Very few founders have the courage, sense of purpose, intellectual honesty, and mental toughness to kill ideas they were committed to (and raised capital for…) as DC and Elias do.

It took 4 different product attempts, about 2 years, and several team changes, for Drift to become the over-night success that it is.

Today on the heels of 10x revenue increase Drift is announcing an additional investment of $60M for growth. This kind of growth would not have happened without solving a real big and meaningful problem (customers don’t convert on your website) with an amazing product; and that perfect product/market fit would not have occurred without the relentless pursuit of a couple of really strong founders.

Cannot wait to see what the next few years bring for Drift, its customers, and the team. Good luck my friends!

— Izhar Armony