David Pakman
Partner at Venrock
Discussion
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
Hi, I’m David Pakman, a VC at Venrock, investing in early stage internet companies. I used to be the CEO of eMusic and before that, co-founded MyPlay (sold to Bertelsmann) and Apple’s Music Group. I'm happy to answer your questions about disruptive innovation, investing in early stage startups, and growing companies successfully -- ask me anything!
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Arpit Gupta
@arpitgupta · Product Manager
@pakman What kind of information/detail you most often missing from the pitch decks or pitches?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@arpitgupta Hmm, that's a good question. Most entrepreneurs get the basics: market, product, team, competition, projections, capital needs. Very few offer their take on "what could go wrong?" It's a helpful way to think about the challenges you are up against and shows the team is self-aware. At the stage where we invest, Series A mostly, tons of stuff can and will go wrong. So thinking about those things and how you work around them is very useful and honest. Also, it helps to frame the conversation around the real hard things you are hoping to overcome.
Jacqueline von Tesmar
@jacqvon · Community, Product Hunt ✌️😻
What's the biggest thing you changed your mind about in the last year?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@jacqvon I'm having a hard time with this question, and that bothers me, because I love having my mind changed! I would say I used to believe self-driving cars were 7-15 years out and now I believe they are essentially here and will appear meaningfully over the next 3 years. By that I mean that they will appear in stages of ADAS technology and culminate in full automation. It's a progression not a step function.
Arpit Gupta
@arpitgupta · Product Manager
@pakman What are some of the software tools/apps you use every day?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@arpitgupta Twitter, Nuzzel, Spotify, Slack, GApps, Medium, YouNow, SnapChat, Instagram, Amino, Pitchbook
Jack Smith
@_jacksmith · Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Adviser
Hi David. Were you involved in the fundraising process of pitching LPs for Venrock's latest fund? If so, how was that experience compared to your expectations?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@_jacksmith Hi, thanks for the the question. Yes, I have been involved in our last two fund raises. It is a great and important experience for a VC -- singing for your supper. You quickly learn what your expectations are!
Kingsong Chen
@kingsongchen · Founder at Lace, Marketplace for GovTech
@pakman What are some boring/old industries where you see the potential for disruptive innovation?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@kingsongchen Plenty! I am spending a lot of time looking at legacy physical products industries likely to be pressured by software innovations like autos, CPG, home products, building materials.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
@pakman thanks for joining us today. During your career to date, what is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Flip side - what's the worst?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@ems_hodge Best is "be comfortable being uncomfortable". It has become a defining focus of mine. Worst is just the general notion that you need to be a jerk to people to get your way in life.
Justin F Harris
@justinfharris · Co-Founder, Beehive
@pakman
Thanks for doing this AMA & really enjoyed your post on the "Currency of the Media Business", it was insightful and data driven.
A few quick questions:
Do you think a startup taking the opposite approach of Klout by working with brands first vs consumers has an opportunity to innovate in space?
What stage do you like companies to connect with you and introduce themselves?
Any best practices for teams to optimize everyones skill sets as they grow?
Thanks!
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@justinfharris Thanks for being here! In some ways, Klout achieved success in that it created a standard for measuring influence on the web (no longer used, however.) In other ways, it was not successful because it never created a scaleable business. So I would think different approaches to this problem are warranted. Starting with brands may be able to work, but without consumer benefit, it is hard to see it working.
I love meeting entrepreneurs well before their Series A round.
Always hire people smarter than you.
Ali Afridi
@alikafridi · VC @ Lightbank
@pakman Hi David. If you were graduating from college now, what role would you want for your first job?
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@alikafridi Kinda similar to my first job out of college...I was a product manager at Apple and I would encourage people interested in tech to absolutely try to gain experience on the product side of things at an important and successful company who hires great people. It is hard to really understand tech markets without having a strong product bias and an understanding of what technology is capable of doing and where it is going. You are also more likely to be in demand to other companies if your last job was at a company experiencing high growth and deemed to be successful!
Vikas Malhotra
@vikasmalhotra08 · Grad Student, Prod Innovator
@pakman Hello, Thank you for answering questions here. I wanted to ask you about product management. How important is the role of a product manager in a startup vs big firms like FB, Google. Also, from a VC's perspective, what's your take on startup's bringing in experienced PM's vs zero experienced product managers (New Grads).
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@vikasmalhotra08 Current Silicon Valley best practice is to create small teams of 3-5 people to own individual features of a product. Usually that is a product manager, 2 engineers and a designer, or some variation of that. The goal is for this small team to run hundreds of experiments to reach full optimization. In most cases, the PM acts as a leader of that team, but I have seen those teams be led by an engineer and designer too. Great PMs help these teams understand the requirements of the market and the minimum product attributes that must be present for the product to succeed. So, I believe strongly in the PM model and encourage our companies to build execution teams this way.
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David Pakman
@pakman · Partner, Venrock
@vikasmalhotra08 I was a PM at Apple with very little experience at first. But Apple has very strong programs to train PMs to become good. So, I don't believe all PMs must have lots of experience. However, at a startup, training resources are often scarce, so finding PMs with some experience is helpful and encouraged.