The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:41:11 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:41:11] S1: How does that impact how you build a venture firm today then? [00:41:15] S0: Well, look. First, I'll explain the genesis of the line, and then I'll talk about why I think it's so important even in firm building as much as it was. It came from when I was leading and serving at SendGrid, and I have just always believed, like, building businesses, the hardest thing to do is to align masses of humans, so many people to work in a coordinated and orchestrated way towards a singular goal. That is really effing hard to do, man. And every every CEO listening is like, yep. They hear that. They know that. That is the hard bit. And I have found it was a strategic competitive advantage if your team, if your humans actually liked each other, if they actually cared about each other, and they thought of each other as teammates and not colleagues. And the reason, Harry, is that teammates work harder for each other. They're not working for themselves. They're working for their teammates, and they're working for their team. And you never wanna effing let down your teammates. [00:42:08] S1: I get you. I obviously agree. You can't disagree. But then how do I then put that into practice to turn coworkers and colleagues into teammates? What can be done?
00:42:08 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:42:08] S1: I get you. I obviously agree. You can't disagree. But then how do I then put that into practice to turn coworkers and colleagues into teammates? What can be done? [00:42:19] S0: I'm gonna start with the most important basics. You have to be aligned on culture and values. Like, how we do our work has to be super clear, and everybody aligns up to it. There's no changing of the standard. You can't have the asshole that's a great performer that doesn't abide by the rules if you say... Or whatever it is. Whatever your culture and values are, they... You you have to get everybody working in the same way. You gotta protect that. And everybody has to be empowered on the team to be like, nope. I'm gonna call that out if you are deviating from our culture and values. [00:42:47] S1: So culture matters. I think a good value is something that could be argued for or against. [00:42:52] S0: Disagree. The value isolated from the organization, sure. Anybody could agree or disagree. But you have to have a set of them that you're like, this is our way. You know, this was the SendGrid way of doing things. We had our four h's, happy, hungry, humble, and honest. Four h's. Happy, hungry, humble, honest. And those were our four, and everything we did had to reinforce those four. If you deviate, so if it was great [00:43:14] S1: forteger You can't that you shouldn't be happy, you shouldn't be hungry. We want unhappy, unambitious liars. No. Well, no.
00:43:26 · Sameer Dholakia
[00:43:26] S0: I'll push back. I'll push back. Give me... Here's the example. I always said that... And I loved SendGrid, our culture. I thought it was amazing. I think our teammates, if you could go track down any gritter out there and say, hey, did you enjoy working at SendGrid? Was it a special team? And know to my bone that a 100 out of a 100 of them will say, it was. And the reason for that, though, is, like, take the humble h. It would have been seventh hell as a place to work for a certain group of humans. Right? Like, humble h was we, not I. It was about... You know, we would ask people in interviews, Harry, tell me about a professional accomplishment of which you are most proud, and then we would sit back and do a pronoun count. How often does Harry say we? How often does Harry say I? I want the people that say we. Now that was just... That was our value. That was SendGrid's value. That doesn't mean it's the right value. To your point, you could argue either side of that. I don't care. But for our company, our team, the way we work together is this way. And if you're not that way, that's fine. It's a big labor market. Go find another place to work. That's great. No harm. No foul. But, man, like, it matters that the people you bring in want to work together in a certain way. And that's how you build a team and not colleagues and coworkers. And by the way, so that's number one. But number two, I I I think I get to number two. Number two, which is also equally important to get teammates and not just colleagues, is you go spend time together not doing work. I know this sounds so crazy. Like, when I was leading SendGrid, we flew the entire company every January down to Mexico for an annual kickoff. The whole effing company, not like a sales team, you know, president's club. I mean, the whole company, we'd and lock them in a room for a day, and we would get lined up on here's the vision, here's the mission, this is why we're doing what we're doing, here are the goals for the year, blah blah blah. Like, we... They would have the whole second day was go find somebody from another office and go kayaking together, Go mountain biking together. Go sit by the pool and have a drink together. I don't care what you do, just do it together. And the reason this matters, Harry, is that for all the CEOs listening out there, they will understand when I say this.
00:45:19 · Sameer Dholakia
Shit goes wrong when you're building businesses. It's hard. And when you have a group of colleagues and coworkers, you know what you know what they do first when shit goes wrong? They either go like this, and for those listening, I'm pointing my fingers as if you're pointing at each other. Right? They they... It's blame placing. Sales isn't responding to the leads fast enough. Marketing isn't generating enough pipe for me. When things aren't going well, you... They point fingers or worse, they just head for the doors because they're just like, well, I'll go to the next company because I'm just a colleague. This is just a job. But a teammate, teammates and friends in hard moments when you're building a business, and believe me, there are many, that that group of people in a team are gonna come together. Well, they don't start pointing fingers. They come together, and they go across and be like, Harry, dude, I spent time with you mountain biking or kayaking or sitting by the pool having a beverage. You're a good dude. We gotta figure this out for our team. That's how you solve problems in... When times are hard. And I'm just telling you, man, teammates and friends will beat colleagues and coworkers every day and twice on Sunday.
00:46:18 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:46:18] S1: No. I totally get that. I completely agree with that headline. I think I'm very trained and strongly believed in the values being differentiated and arguable. So, like, we believe that hard work, but hardest of work leads to better results. I don't buy the rest days. I don't buy rest days in the gym. You train a different body part. You do cardio, not weights. Phelps won because he did... No. But a lot of people don't agree with that. I'm chastised for it in Europe. I'm the spawn of Satan. So... But... Personally, we should... Like, seriously, dude. Like, I... It's not popular. Like, I will get booed on stage by labor conferences. [00:46:55] S0: No kidding. Well, listen. I'll tell you this, man. I couldn't agree with you more. I think, you know, I'm the son of two immigrants. Work ethic is everything. That hungry h. Like, my line was always, I wanna work with people who are gonna run through effing walls to be successful, who will not relent. Like, we like, we quote the Eminem song, like, success is my only mother effing option. Failure is not. Like, that is... I want people like that. [00:47:20] S1: Number number two for us, feelings are expensive in investment committees. Samir, if me and you are in an investment committee, I wanna say you're an idiot for thinking that we should pay that price for x company. And why is that? I don't wanna have to tread around it. Like, Samir, thank you for bringing this. I appreciate the time you spent with the entrepreneur, but I think we should consider... I'm sorry. We're both big enough.
00:47:20 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:47:20] S1: Number number two for us, feelings are expensive in investment committees. Samir, if me and you are in an investment committee, I wanna say you're an idiot for thinking that we should pay that price for x company. And why is that? I don't wanna have to tread around it. Like, Samir, thank you for bringing this. I appreciate the time you spent with the entrepreneur, but I think we should consider... I'm sorry. We're both big enough. [00:47:40] S0: So... Yeah. Sure. I mean, you know... And again, that... So that... Like, that can be great for your team and culture and people that are gonna opt into that are gonna be awesome together, and they're gonna appreciate the directness. I would say, you know, the intellectual honesty in the IC is actually what matters most. [00:47:56] S1: But then my point is actually it's great that you can debate because I'm not right. It's just our way. But what I don't understand is the values like Zoom, which is like, I think happiness. Right? No no one's advocating for unhappiness.