VC Corner Q&A: Grace Isford of Canvas Ventures

Grace started working with the Canvas Investment team in 2016. Prior to Canvas, Grace worked in growth equity at Stripes Group, early as a product manager at Handshake, a digital recruitment platform for college students, and at the Stanford Management Company, helping manage over $24B in assets.

She pursued a Bachelors of Science and Masters of Science in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford where she was actively involved with Stanford Women in Business and the Mayfield Fellowship Program.

At Canvas, Grace focuses on early stage investments across enterprise, marketplace and consumer and is especially excited about businesses with a defensible moat or earned insight about their users.

— What is Canvas Venture’s mission?

Canvas Ventures invests in ambitious early stage founders solving extraordinary problems for ordinary people. We typically enter as a lead check at the Series A and B stage and are active board members and partners to the entrepreneurs we invest in.

— What is one thing you are excited about right now?

Video and voice as interfaces. Since COVID, digital transformation across the business and home has accelerated and video and voice are increasingly providing lifelike and contactless ways to collaborate and communicate — from Zoom to Clubhouse! I’m excited for the next generation of companies that are creatively solving problems with video and voice.

— Who is one founder you think we should watch?

Ben Eachus, CEO and co-founder of Flowspace, a modern warehouse software and fulfillment network. While you may have heard of a few other e-commerce fulfillment platforms like Deliverr, Stord or Shipbob, Flowspace is different in that it is the only platform building tools and software to benefit warehouse operators while simultaneously delivering fast fulfillment for major e-commerce brands. Ben grew up in the warehousing space, previously driving strategic projects across supply chain and fulfillment at the Honest Company and understands how warehouse operators, the backbone of our fulfillment infrastructure, can be overlooked. He’s also aggressively grown the business over the past year while thoughtfully building a great culture and team. Keep an eye on him!

— What are the 3 top qualities of every great leader?

1. Ambitious — Great leaders have the ability to dream big and communicate that grand vision to others to recruit others to join them. Even when faced with setbacks, great leaders have unshakable ambition that keeps them and their teammates aligned on their “big hairy goal” or ambitious vision.

2. Humble — People often forget about this one — the best leaders are able to check their ego, and constantly think of ways they can improve. They accept that they don’t know everything and are willing to lean on their team and learn from them. They have a growth mindset and make sure to acknowledge and thank those that help them along the way.

3. Competitive — I believe that the best leaders are fiercely competitive. Great leaders can deftly analyze and outsmart their competitors, clearly understand market or company dynamics and ultimately use the current environment to their company’s advantage to help them reach their goals.

— What strikes you most about founders you invest in?

Looking back on the founders I’m most excited about investing in — a common characteristic is that they are extremely passionate about the problem they are solving for their users. They are not only able to articulate the value proposition, but also deeply resonate with the pain point their product is solving either because they were or are a target user of the product or have a unique insight about their user base. They have an unparalleled amount of empathy with their users and are able to spread that empathy to others.

— What is one question you ask yourself before investing in a company?

How big can this get? Before every investment, I create a model based on my assumptions of what needs to happen for the business to surpass $100M in revenue, and have an eye to what will need to happen to surpass $500M in revenue. While many things can change, I need to develop conviction in the massive potential in the business and the founder’s ability to fulfill that potential.

— What is one thing every founder should ask themselves before walking into a meeting with a potential investor?

How can this investor help me? Do your research on the investor before you meet them, know their portfolio, especially those companies which are in the same vertical or industry as you, and think about 1–2 questions for the investor that would be helpful to you. Ask these questions in your first meeting or afterward — it’s also a great way to test how helpful the investor really is prior to investment and their knowledge of the space.

— What do you think should be in a CEO’s top 3 company priorities?

While there are so many priorities for a CEO at any given time, at a foundational level all CEOs need to be able to answer questions about who they are, who their customers are, and why their customers love their product. There must be alignment across the entire organization about these three priorities (e.g. the Head of Sales or VP of Marketing should have the same answers as the CEO).

1. Vision: What is my north star/overarching vision?

2. Customer: Who is my ideal customer and what are their characteristics?

3. Value Proposition: What is my company value proposition for customers? Why do they use us?

— Favorite business book, blog or podcast?

So many of them! I recently read When by Daniel Pink — it’s a great book to think about how to productively spend time in all aspects of your life from work to social. It’s helped me structure seemingly endless quarantine days and draining Zoom calls.

— What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?

Running! I ran the Boston Marathon in 2019 and am itching to race again. Running has always been a great way to clear my head and has been a frequent pastime during shelter-in-place over these past few months.

— Who is one leader you admire?

While perhaps I’ve just been watching too much of The Last Dance documentary, Michael Jordan is a leader I admire. To me, he embodies all of the qualities of the great leader with a fierce competitive spirit and unshakable ambition and aspirations for himself and his team. While he didn’t always show it, over the course of his career he gained greater humility to motivate and work with his team to take home six championships. All leaders should aim to be the best at what they do and work hard to achieve their goals, like Michael did.

— What is one interesting thing most people won’t know about you?

I grew up for part of my childhood in Tokyo, Japan. It was an amazing experience that opened my eyes up to the bigger world and forced me to adapt to a different way of life, including getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

— What is one piece of advice you’d give every founder?

Nail your story — why you started the company, why now is a good time to build the company, and why you are the right person to make your company vision a reality. Those founders with strong narratives are typically better at communicating their company vision and product to employees, companies and investors, which helps their company rapidly scale.

Ready to make a pitch? Startups looking for an opportunity to pitch Canvas Ventures can apply here!