’21 Venture Atlanta Day 1: Highlights
Venture Atlanta 2021 Day One is in the books, at least the formal agenda for the day.
Beyond connecting with great investors and innovative companies, the morning keynote panel included:
Tope Awotona, CEO of Calendly
Kabir Barday, Founder of OneTrust
Eric Boduch, Co-Founder of Pendo
Tim Sheehan, Co-Founder of Greenlight
They each had unique insights into scaling their businesses and bits of advice along the way. Here were my highlights.
Advisors and Board Members are very different.
As you scale your businesses, you will require a variety of advisors as you reach new milestones and growth stages. The advisor at the startup level will be quite different than the growth, scale, and exit advisor.
A board seat is permanent, it’s a long-term relationship, it’s one that you cannot just hand over to the first person who asks — it’s highly strategic for your long-term business outcome. Use caution and wisdom when delineating between each of these roles.
Raise Money for a Specific Use Case
Tope Awotona touched on his bootstrapped (cashing out his 401k) approach to building Calendly and what the trigger point was for raising outside funds. He did not want to raise money because ‘everyone else was doing it’, he identified a specific point where he could use outside capital to scale quickly.
Having that specific use for outside funds allowed for much more targeted conversations with investors and a quicker close process.
Product-Market Fit and Customer Acquisition
Once you have nailed your product-market fit and are able to efficiently acquire customers, the fundraising process becomes MUCH easier.
Nail it and scale it.
Tim Sheehan discussed the ‘flywheel’ of utilizing outside funds to accelerate customer acquisition. That flywheel only starts spinning once PMF and Customer Acquisition have been nailed. This allows you to utilize venture dollars with a high degree of efficacy.
Number One Bit of Advice to Founders:
The panelists were each asked what their top advice was to founders.
Tope: Have Fun and Celebrate the Milestones.
Eric: Work with Great People — Don’t Sacrifice on Hiring and Building Great Partnerships.
Kabir: The easiest thing to neglect is yourself. Value your Wellbeing. It’s ok to Prioritize Yourself.
Tim: Stay Focused, Keep an Open Mind, and Listen to what the Market Tells You.
More to come on Day 2!
Lastly, here are some social highlights from #VA2021:
