Operators first

Most hard problems in a young company are operational. A hire that goes wrong. A price that does not hold. A model that costs more than the customer pays.

Operators have seen these before. We would rather sit with a team on the problem than review it afterwards from a distance.

It also changes what we ask. We ask how the first ten customers were found, how a bad hire was handled and what the team does on a slow week. These questions tell us more than a forecast does.

And it changes how we judge ourselves. If we cannot make a company more able to run itself, we have not helped.

We are also clear about limits. We do not claim a portfolio or a track record on this site. We describe the way we work, and we expect to be judged on how we behave when a company asks for help.

We help the companies we work with in four places. We do not run the company for the team, and we do not take credit for work that others did.

• Hiring. Defining roles, finding people and closing them.
• Go-to-market. Customers, pricing and the sales motion.
• Data and infrastructure. Reliable pipelines, evaluation and cost control.
• Later capital. Preparing for the next financing.

Our thinking on the early months of change is in the first 100 days after an AI rollout and measuring AI ROI.