More than a year.. at Together (Part 1)
A lot can happen in a year. And a lot did. It was a total 180 degree shift for me when I moved to Together. Now that I have completed a whole year, I feel like time has played its tricks on me. This year has been that of many eye-opening learnings. I had been watching the VC space from afar for years, but when I joined Together, I got an insider view of how VCs think, what makes them put their force behind certain companies. And more importantly, what is the meaning of the work that we do? The number of visionary founders who have used adversity as an opportunity has changed the way I look at and imagine the world.
It’s not just about capital. It is about putting your strength behind the ecosystem you wish to nurture. A small example of that would be how you will hear every VC worth their salt talk about them being founder-first. But what does that mean, and what does that entail? To give you a hint, it’s more than funding companies. I am writing this because I want to take you through my journey, to talk about things that I learnt, and how they changed me.
The world of entrepreneurship and venture capital has intrigued me since 2011. I wanted to be part of it, but the right opportunity just hadn’t presented itself.
In January 2021, things changed. I met Shubham. He was detail-oriented, and wanted to understand my dreams and ambitions. “We hire like we partner. We prioritise passion, motivation, and willingness to learn,” Shubham told me in our first meeting. I don’t know how many were interviewed before me. Watercooler gossip says it was more than a handful. But Shubham remembered everything in our second meeting. It soon started to feel like I was meeting a friend rather than a colleague. Before I came to Together, I had spent the past five years working at Abbott. When I met Shubham, he saw my desire. He wanted me to be part of the Together team. And there I was, Together’s first hire.
Working at Together has been a journey. But before I talk about what I learnt in my first year as a VC, I want to talk about Together. I’ve seen posts on Twitter and LinkedIn about how people join a firm and it feels like coming home to a family. They write about how they live and work together. Together is a little more than that. It is unlike any other firm. Together is a place where you grow. Learning is given the first priority. No, it isn’t a finishing school. It is something different. You’re expected to answer difficult questions and always look to collaborate. But this is still very abstract. There are a few core principles that we follow. There is no written document where it is scribed. But it is discussed in meetings. It’s time some of them surfaced.
A. Founder first
Look, every VC firm worth its salt is founder-first. Everyone wants to keep founders at the heart of what they do. But I learnt what it really means in my interactions with Girish and Manav. The duo has built large SaaS companies and has gone through the journey of fundraising. They were sure of the problem statement they wanted to solve. This drives them to understand the founders that we speak to on a more personal level. They can empathise.
We make sure we do a few things right when speaking to any founder.
- We do our homework so we have deeper conversations with founders so each chat adds value. We know the founder would rather be with their team trying to build their product.
- We share clear actionable feedback. We don’t mince words. We’re straight and to the point. Founders so far have been receptive.
- We ask for feedback too. Most of our processes are new and we are setting things up ourselves. After all, we are a startup ourselves!
But beyond this, we think of being founder-first on an ecosystem level as well. Being founder-first with companies in our portfolio is easier. Doing it beyond is hard. When we realised that, we decided to go beyond just capital. There were times when we met founders. Even though their idea was amazing, it just didn’t fit our thesis. So, we started introducing them to people in our network. This would help them find customers, hires, and even other investors. But we have met over 700 founders so far. And making personal connections for 700 people is next to impossible. We wanted to solve this problem. And we decided community is the best way to do it. We decided to hold events. This is how “Brainstorm Together” and “Sourcecode” happened.
📝 Brainstorm Together is an initiative to help founders who are at the “Gmail stage”. For those who haven’t come across this, a Gmail stage is that point in a founder’s journey where tactical help is needed to grow further from the idea or the MVP stage. At this event, we get people together and founders help each other through their experience and expertise. It has helped many companies get off the ground.
🔗 Sourcecode is our effort to push the devtools ecosystem. This is slightly more straightforward. We reach into our network and find speakers who have built and scaled large devtools companies across the world. We get them on a call and they speak to a small cohort of people and help them identify white spaces and brainstorm on key trends in the global devtools space.
B. Full transparency
I have seen a lot of managers having a tight grip on the day-to-day functioning of their employees. But at Together, it is different. All of us are entrusted to lead initiatives and we seek help where needed. Even during the launch of the fund, Shubham spent time with the investment team members to make sure we learn everything that he knows. He opened up his networks for us to learn from. What Together aspires to do for founders, I saw Shubham and Avinash doing for the team. None of us had a background in investing and today I am proud to see how each one of us has evolved.
I remember an IC being my first meeting at Together. I was the first person whose opinion was asked. This is the speed at which we were onboarding at Together. Here, everyone knows what the other person is working on. Of course, there is healthy competition but our greater mission comes first. How do we help each other out and bank on each other’s expertise? It is a truly collaborative environment and I believe we have only been able to get this far because we have been together.
C. Freedom of thought
At Together, everyone comes from a different background. In the initial few days itself, we are given the freedom to try out different initiatives. I have rarely seen anyone say no to any initiative we want to take up. Take this for instance. I had never written a blog about anything, leave alone the technical subjects such as devtools or open source. But I have been able to do it because I can see the road ahead clearly. I get to witness the world from the shoulders of giants — my Together team members. I remember being hesitant before writing my first blog, but I was encouraged. This is why it is important to find the right mentors in your journey. I am glad to have found those at Together.
D. Doing the hard things
Within a month of joining Together, I was meeting founders, leading end-to-end deal evaluations, and networking with senior leadership in the industry. At Together, you’ll often hear this saying, muscles are built when you put weight on them. That is exactly what we went through during the early days. It does come with accountability and the bar at Together is very high. At times I was out of my comfort zone, be it leading the networking efforts or initiating Together’s newsletter. But I did these things. It’s a culture that gets the best out of all of us at Together.
This is, however, just one part of my journey. I will soon be publishing another post on what life has been as a VC and how we evaluate companies. But today, this is something I wrote to talk about my life at Together. I may never be able to describe in full detail the texture of Together’s culture. It is one of those things that can only be experienced. But I have tried. And that’s the deal with Together. You always try.
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