Mike Raab
- Mike Raab is a writer and investor at Sinai Ventures in San Francisco.
- Founded in 2017, Sinai Ventures has invested in companies such as Ro, Brud, Carta, Dosist, Front App, and Grow Mobility.
- The firm sends an annual short survey to its portfolio company founders asking for direct feedback and polling entrepreneurs on the startup and fundraising ecosystem.
- The survey revealed insights from founders about why they picked their investors, how VCs can be helpful to them, and the books they’d recommend to other founders.
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After my first year as an investor at Sinai Ventures, I was curious about how our portfolio founders thought of us as investors, as well as how we could best improve as partners to help our companies succeed.
In order to answer these questions, I devised this simple survey using Typeform, which we subsequently sent to each and every founder of Sinai portfolio companies.
The goals were threefold: to gather actionable feedback on how we could be better partners and investors; to poll founders on market conditions and how they think about fundraising, investors, incubators, and more; and to have the survey itself be quick and easy to complete.
In total, 36 founders completed the survey in January 2019. Participating portfolio companies included Dosist, Haute Hijab, Kapwing, Dutchie, Drivetime Media, Blink Identity, Heartbeat, Universe, Glamcam, Seattle Food Tech, Tomorrow Ideas, Swiftmile, Skydrop, Doorport, Esusu, EEVO, Lightout, Naked Labs, Honeylove, MANTL, Openland, Tingles, CSPA, Skopenow, Candid Co., Playbook, Squarefoot, GovInvest, Harness Wealth, BrandCommerce, High Definition Vehicle Insurance (HDVI), NewCraft, Necto, Sketchbox, Screening Room, and OK Credit.
Some of the results were surprising and illuminating, while the feedback from founders empowered us to focus on helping them where they need it most — and hopefully exceed their expectations by the next time we issue this annual survey.
Let’s get to the results, which we’ve abridged slightly for reader clarity.
The first question dives right in and asks how our entrepreneurs rate us on a scale of 1-10.
Mike Raab
This gave us a quantifiable rating, which we used to calculate our Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS allows us to track our performance and founder rating over time, so we can be sure to hold ourselves accountable.
We also wanted to know how founders thought their investors (including us) could be most helpful to them and their companies.
Mike Raab
In addition to offering eight high-level categories, it was important to include an open-ended "Other" option, in case founders had a request outside of these domains.
Unsurprisingly, founders rely on their investors first and foremost to help when a subsequent fundraising process is underway.
Mike Raab
Fundraising help may include giving feedback on a pitch deck, pitch practice, and most importantly making introductions to other investors. Customer introductions, PR, and recruiting help are also highly valued.
The "other" responses primarily specified other types of introductions and networking help that founders desired. Interestingly, no one wanted their investors’ help on their product!
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider –