Startup to Scale: Advice from Leading Silicon Valley Executives

This week in Dublin leading executives from major tech and venture companies in Silicon Valley came to Dublin to share advice on how to scale startups, secure funding to accelerate growth, and offer insights into what they look for when acquiring companies. Here are some of the insights shared.

• Overarching scaling advice was encapsulated by Simon Leesley, VP Strategy, Stitch Fix, he advised to have a big bold vision, a clear roadmap, invest in time to hire the right people, have diversity in your team, and an advisory board that fills the gap you have as a leader.
• Key to growth is having a big addressable market, really understanding your target customers, and start with product that is easy to implement but can quickly be extended through the product roadmap, explained Cathy Halligan, Independent Board Member.
• If you are seeking funding, Lev Mass, Managing Partner, Cruz Capital wants to see 1 million MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and a presence in the country where you are seeking investment. Four key questions he asks are:

Who are your customers?

Are your current customers recognizable in the U.S.?

What does your founding team look like?

What is the main reason for market entry?

• The business development team finds the acquisitions at Microsoft. Tamara Steffens, General Manager, Business Development, Microsoft explained how they anaylze everything on a build vs. buy basis. She feels they do better with companies with 500 million and 50 people or under, but with the acquisitions of LinkedIn and GitHub, they are getting better at merging cultures, mostly because of their CEO Satya Nadella.

“When we are looking for partners, we look for technology that addresses specific needs that we don’t have in-house, or technology in emerging spaces”, Tamara Steffens, General Manager, Microsoft

• When creating a channel program know it’s a long-term investment, advised Sharrifah Lorenz, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Asana. They did a lot of research upfront. Lorenz recommends you start by figuring out and leveraging what your partners are uniquely able to do, that you can’t to extend sales and service. Also, don’t forgot to think about what value you can provide in value to the channel partner.

"Don’t just look at partnerships as just channel revenue, partners can help to differentiate your product and allow you to be relevant to solve customer needs in other sub sectors too", Niall Wall, SVP Business Development and Partnerships, Box

• Niall Wall at Box incentives on sellers’ matter, make sure you don’t sweat who gets paid what, if you are ever in doubt, pay them twice. Profitability is not as important as path to revenue, a prime example is Uber. You don’t want your independent sales rep to take a deal away from your channel partner. Also, be programmatic, have one contract, one channel program, etc. Lorenz, agreed that the right compensation will pay dividends in the long-term.
• Creating an inclusive culture was a common theme, Cathy Halligan advised to have an executive that is accountable for vision, values, and culture. If you hire poorly, you will constrain your growth.

“Always be growing people, but don’t always be hiring”, Cathy Halligan, Independent Board Member

• To ensure the success of an overseas office, Simon Leesley from Stitch Fix advised that its very easy to make mistakes, he recommends bringing people who have a lot of creditability with senior leadership.
• Rahul Vijay, Tech Deal Maker at Uber talked about the value of having an advisory board, and advocated to be willing to share equity. He also stressed the importance of being where you want to sell.
• Lev Mass, reminded people that for venture pitching, you must explain your unique selling proposition in 30 seconds, have a deck of eight slides, and know your addressable market size. Ask for a warm introduction so the VC pays attention to the ask.

Special thanks to all these executives who travelled to Dublin with the goal of supporting Enterprise Ireland's efforts to scale Irish startups globally. If you would like to be invited to future Enterprise Ireland invite only events, please don't hesitate to reach out.