Startupland by Mikkel Svane & Carlye Adler

Author:Mikkel Svane & Carlye Adler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118980866
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2014-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Learning What Makes a Great VC

We were having fun together, although of course we also argued a lot. But we always ended the evening by going to one of the little bars in the neighborhood. And the neighborhood really grew on us, even though we sometimes had to fight our way through eight feet of snow to get anywhere.

In that same period, January 2009, a lot of milestone events and fun things happened. Twitter posted a blog post about its switch to Zendesk, and that gave us some good attention. We signed a very interesting customer that later became our first customer with more than a thousand seats on Zendesk. And we also turned down one of our first big enterprise opportunities, as its product requirements would have sent us down a path we were not willing to take.

But the due diligence phase with CRV was less fun. Moving the company was an intellectual-property and tax challenge. Additionally, it was incredibly costly to get the details of the deal closed. We each had a law firm in the United States and a law firm in Denmark, so four law firms were involved—and the language and cultural barriers didn't make things easier. There were accountants and auditors. The bills piled high and ate up a solid chunk of the investment. I wasn't the most experienced negotiator, and I had no clue about the amount of legal work associated with doing business in the United States. I probably had a very Danish “we'll figure it out” attitude and was unprepared for how much work and documentation must go into properly assessing liabilities and everything else. It's a very intrusive experience, having lawyers dissect what at that point is less of a business and more of a love child. It puts you in an oddly defensive position, fearing that the mess they uncover may jeopardize the deal.

I often lost my patience during this period. It took me many years to fully appreciate and embrace the work of lawyers in the United States. Today, I couldn't live without it. I've learned to love and live with lawyers.

It was sheer willpower that drove the Series A deal and our relocation to America to completion. What if we didn't get visas? We were taking a big risk, but the VCs were taking a giant leap of faith.

I credit Devdutt, for his belief in us and for his ability to remain a stable force when everything around us was often crumbling. I learned just how deep his loyalty ran when one day, while waiting to meet with the partners, I could hear through the air ducts a conversation they were having about our deal. Devdutt fought hard on our behalf. And his courage and conviction led everyone through.

This knowledge gave me even greater confidence in Devdutt, and it also taught me a lot about what makes a great VC. Particularly in the past, some VCs have had a reputation for routinely replacing founders with “professional” CEOs with more big company experience.

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