Introducing Lightspeed Office Hours
This August and September we experimented with an idea that we had been mulling for a while — Office Hours for founders of early-stage startups. We had an overwhelming positive experience trying this out and we’re excited to announce that we’re making this a regular event — we will be hosting monthly Office Hours.
Most of us at Lightspeed have been former founders and operators and we wanted to open our doors to early stage entrepreneurs to be available for whatever they deem most useful. This one-on-one session with our team members could be a sounding board that everyone needs once in a while, an outlet for seemingly stupid questions or a brainstorming session with people deeply familiar with the startup ecosystem.
To test this out we held office hours at our offices in Delhi and Bangalore. We were a bit unsure of how the discussions would go but we were encouraged by the tremendous response from entrepreneurs. Our concerns ended up being unfounded — we met an exciting set of founders and had high energy discussions. Founders pleasantly surprised us with their openness and the thought they’d put in to ask relevant and frank questions. Moreover, we got encouraging feedback from participating founders!
Read some of our FAQs below to figure out whether Office Hours would be right for you.
What is it?
A 30 min 1–1 session with a member of the Lightspeed India investment team.
Who is it for?
Entrepreneurs who are building technology companies that have not yet raised a Series A funding round. We feel this time is most relevant and useful for businesses that are relatively early and do not have the structure and review process that scale and institutional funding would bring in.
What exactly is the time for?
This is a time for founders to brainstorm the issues that they’ve been debating in their head with someone who brings in an external perspective. We would like to make clear that is not a fundraising pitch (or a prerequisite for one). This is a discussion for the benefit of the entrepreneur, and will run on the entrepreneur’s agenda. Expect to hear us ask “how can we help” at the beginning of the conversation. This session of course won’t directly solve your problems but we hope it can spark thoughts and ideas that are helpful.
What kind of questions should I ask?
We recommend you spend some time outlining questions or discussion points that you have in mind. This is part of the application form as well and helps us better understand your thought process and best assess whether Office Hours makes sense for you.
While questions vary significantly across discussions, some of the questions that founders found useful to discuss were
- When should I raise?
- How should I milestone the company?
- How do I get the first senior hire to work with me?
- How to build a product org?
- What is product market fit in this business?
- Which market should I focus on?
- Should I prioritize growth or monetization?
- Is my customer acquisition strategy scalable?
Why is this useful for founders?
We strongly feel that this should be a rewarding exercise for most founders for a variety of reasons. While we will likely not have the sector expertise and depth that you would as a founder, our exposure to a large number of companies across stages and across sectors hopefully gives us a unique perspective on the hurdles that companies often face and how to think about surmounting those.
Why are we doing this?
Startups excite us — early stage startups more so! Nothing gets our adrenaline pumping more than an entrepreneur with a vision to change the world and this is an opportunity to be a tiny part of their entrepreneurial journey.
If you have any questions feel free to get in touch with me (ishaan@lsip.com) or Sunil (sunil@lsip.com)
*A short note on location
Initially we’ll be hosting these sessions at our offices in Delhi and Bangalore. Such open discussions are definitely more suited for in person meetings, so we’ll be limiting the initial sessions to Delhi and Bangalore companies. However, if you’re from another city and interested please do apply. Depending on interest, we will plan to hold Office Hours in other cities or experiment with video conferencing as well.
