Foundry’s Brad Feld #Connect17 Interview (2/8)
It’s not as simple as just serving who invests in the fund
David Smooke: So today you talked a lot about customer centric. I wanted to start with who’s your customer?
Brad Feld: For Venture Capitalists, there’s a long standing debate about who your customer is. Because, we have on one side an investor of ours who gives us money.
David Smooke: Yup.
Brad Feld: Theoretically, they’re a customer. On the other side, you have the founder who we give money to. So theoretically, they’re a customer. The frame of reference of how you interact with them should be relatively consistent. But then, there’s another dynamic, which is, there’s a whole bunch of people that are, you’re not an investor in, and that you have some kind of relationship with. Whether their co-investors, or strategic partners, or people who are interested in what you’re doing, or prospective investees and entrepreneurs you want to get to know, and need. Or just people in your network. I tend to think of it similar to what I described when I was talking today. I’m less interested in the ridged definition. I think of it as just a bunch of different entities. And my engagement with each of the entities, whether it’s an LP or a portfolio company, a Founder, a CEO, a co-investor. Any of those entities I try to treat as a customer, in terms of my dynamic with them.
David Smooke: Pretty long winded. So what are you serving everybody now?
Brad Feld: No it’s from my frame of reference, I try to stay in the head space of: I have one to one relationships with lots of different people. I need to make sure those one to one relationships are really one to one.
David Smooke: Yeah. Coming to an event like this for-
Brad Feld: You don’t like long winded answers? They’re the best kind.
David Smooke: No, I do like them-
Brad Feld: You have to edit them, you have to work on it.
David Smooke: Yeah. I’m thinking about the framing, and what it is.
Brad Feld: Or you can just decide not to, you know, ‘fuck it this is too hard.’ I’m not gonna bother with this one.
Read The Rest of Foundry’s Brad Feld #Connect17 Interview
- Writer / Publisher Relations on Medium
- Who’s a Venture Capitalist’s Customer?
- The Venture Capitalist’s Writing Process
- The Venture Capitalist at His Investment’s First Conference
- How Brad Feld Realized He Was a Venture Capitalist
- What Venture Capitalists Can Bring to Product Development
- The Nearly 30 Year Quest To Solve The Business Address Book Problem
- How Venture Capitalists Market Their Stories