David Skok
General Partner, Matrix Partners
Discussion
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
Hello - I’m David Skok, General Partner at Matrix Partners, and author of forEntrepreneurs.com. I’m a serial entrepreneur and have advised many companies in my role as a VC at Matrix. I’m looking forward to your questions, and would love especially to answer any you have on growth and building a business, cloud computing, SaaS, recruiting and hiring, and sales and marketing. Best, David.
upvotesharetweet・
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
Which apps are on your home screen?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@tomstocklein Waze, Spotify, Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat (for our Chinese partnership), Pcalc (a great RPN calculator), SoundHound, DJI Go (for my drone hobby), Instagram, SnapSeed, OneNote (one of Microsoft's few really great apps that I use intensely for note taking and to do lists)
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
What was getting a computer science degree in the 1970s like in terms of
1) course work & lectures
2) most common job aspirations and opportunities you and your fellow students had at the time
3) your long-term vision at the time for how you would be using your degree in the decades ahead?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@tomstocklein This is really going to date me, but when I studied Comp Sci, it was the very first year you could take that course in the UK, and there were only two universities offering the course. As a result, we spent a lot of time on less valuable stuff like electronics. But my favorite part of the course was my project which was to build a controller for a bank of elevators to optimize wait times. And of course I had to build a visual simulator to show the queues at each state change, etc. In those days the language was Pascal. Outside of my course, I was always busy thinking about how to write games.
My fellow students and I had no thoughts of startups, but were most interested in creating cool software. We all wanted to be part of the set of people that was going to change the world by writing software. We saw an amazing array of problems around us that we were convinced could be solved by computers.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
What are some growth tactics early stage startup founders can implement without a large budget?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@ems_hodge Hi Emilly if you are in the B2B space, and need to get results quickly, there are two tactics that yield results pretty quickly. The first is to try paid search ads. The second is to create an event where you bring together the experts in your particular product area, and get them to debate where the market is going. Use this event as a hook to talk to prospects and invite them to the event to start to build a relationship with them.
I also often tell B2B startups to do outbound cold calling, the way that a Sales Development Rep would do it. You're probably surprised with this answer given that I am all about Inbound Marketing, and this is very much outbound. The reason why I don't put Inbound content marketing first, is because it typically takes time to ramp up, and as an early stage startup, you need results fast. Using the event I described above gives you a great reason to call them where you are offering them value, as opposed to selling (which they hate). You might have seen somewhere that I like to treat customers like a bank account: you have to deposit money before you can expect to be able to draw it out.
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
If you could pick only one company to invest in this year, which company would you choose?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@tomstocklein That's a hard question to ask me, as we usually invest so early that it's hard to know for sure that companies are clear winners at that stage. But if I were to give you one example of one of my investments that is most exciting where I'd love to invest more money that would be Namely.
Jordan Gonen
@jrdngonen
Hi David! Thanks for joining.
I am a student that really loves working in VC.
What would you do to accelerate growth in to the Venture Capital Industry?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@jordan_gonen Hi Jordan, I would recommend joining a startup and learning the business side of the house. It's really hard to get straight into VC without having demonstrated some knowledge and passion for startups. Also do some Angel investing, even if it is very small amounts to learn the business, and figure out what really matters when making investments. Being a VC involves four things: Sourcing (hustle to find new deals), Judgment to know which deals to do, Ability to win the deals, and ability to be a great board member and drive better outcomes for your investments
Jake Crump
@jakecrump · Community Team with Product Hunt
What are the essential traits you look for when hiring?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@jakecrump For each job, I typically start by writing the job description, then I write the person description. For the person description there are often a bunch of things that are specific to that job. But there are a few common items that I love to see, and I think that's what you are asking me to discuss. Perhaps top of my list is I'm looking for people that are Smart. Then people that are driven. I 'm looking for people that have shown a track record of results in their past careers, and made smart choices when they face critical decisions like when they change jobs. I like humility and self-awareness, and the desire to keep learning. Passion is another great attribute. And if they have a great way of interacting with other humans, that will take them a very long way. Communications and selling skills are powerful for many jobs.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
What is the craziest thing you have seen in a pitch?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@bentossell Hi Ben, I have been racking my brain trying to remember some of these. I know I have seen some really crazy things, but have been having a hard time remembering them right at this moment. My apologies!
James Meincke
@jamesmeincke · Marketing @ CloserIQ
Hi David! What do you look for in the sales and marketing teams of a prospective investment?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@jamesmeincke I am looking for evidence that they understand funnel math. Funnel math starts with the desired end point, which might be we need to close 100 customers in this particular quarter. It then uses known, or guessed at conversion rates to figure out how many demos (or whatever other stage preceeds orders) to get to that number of closed deals. Then works backwards to qualified leads, and then earlier in the funnel. I am looking to see that they have clearly thought through how many sales reps are required, what their productivity is, including the ramp time, to support that number. Then what marketing activities are needed to provide that lead flow. When I see that, I usually know the company is in good hands. The great thing about funnels is that they are about optimizing only two major variables: flow (i.e what number of leads at each stage) and Conversion rates. And two minor variables: cost of processing a lead, and time to get a lead all the way through the funnel.
COSTAS ANDRIOPOULOS
@candriopoulos · https://medium.com/strictly-curious
Dear David, thank you for joining. How do you identify emerging trends and interesting founders who want to capitalise on them?
M
David Skok
@bostonvc · General Partner, Matrix Partners
@candriopoulos A key learning that I had to go through when I first joined was that we don't back ideas, we only back teams that have ideas. So it's no good coming up with your own idea, as that will lead you to try to find a team that has the same idea, and usually when I did that, it didn't work. So we leave the idea creation to the entrepreneurs, and just try to find the entrepreneurs and have them want to meet us and tell us about their ideas.
I think the best way to do that is to try to figure out the broad areas where major disruption is taking place. For example, when SaaS came into being, it was clear to me that this was the first time that SMBs were going to be able to really adopt computing, and so I focused on SMB SaaS products. Another broad area of focus for me right now is making it easier to develop and deploy applications. We know that "software is eating the world" but it is still way too hard to develop modern applications, particularly as you have to support the iPhone, Android, and Web for most apps, and that means learning a ton of languages and technologies. Often times, we'll get lucky and be early to hear about a new emerging area from an entrepreneur, and then start mining that area from there.
Once I have the broad sector, then I start out trying to meet all of the interesting companies and people in that area, develop some expertise and knowledge that can be useful when I talk to other founders. Perhaps attend meetups and conferences to learn more about the area, and to network as broadly as possible.
And more recently I have found that my blog has helped me to meet many new founders, and they are a great source of ideas.
COSTAS ANDRIOPOULOS
@candriopoulos · https://medium.com/strictly-curious
@bostonvc Dear David, thank you so much for your wonderful insights. I really appreciate it.